Mail & Guardian
5 July 2008
Nguema has accepted the resignation of the country's government, calling it "one of the worst ever," national television reported Saturday.
Prime Minister Ricardo Mangue Obnama Nfubea, who was the president's personal lawyer and in power since August 2006, submitted his government's resignation on Friday saying it "was not able to achieve the wishes of his excellency, the president of the republic, to make our country a developed and prosperous one".
Obiang has ruled the West African nation with an iron fist since a 1979 coup which ousted his uncle from power and has often been accused by rights groups of violating human rights.
In a television broadcast, Obiang called the outgoing government "one of the worst ever formed", accusing it of corruption, irregularities and mismanagement, and declaring "we must change the entire government".
He also claimed that some in government had tried to destabilise the country, alluding to allegations that one minister was involved in the 2004 coup attempt with British mercenary Simon Mann, who was tried last month in Malabo and is awaiting the court's verdict.
The president's Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE) and his allies control 99 of the 100 seats in Parliament.
Equatorial Guinea currently ranks as sub-Saharan Africa's third crude oil producer and has had double digit economic growth for several years.
But the population enjoys little of the wealth generated.
Most live in dire poverty and the country ranks 127th out of 177 countries in the UN Development Programme's human development index rankings, despite a per capita gross domestic product of $7 874 dollars, making it the 73rd richest country in the world.
05 July, 2008
Indian Leader Rescues Nuclear Deal With U.S.
Washington Post
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
July 5, 2008; A11
After months of political uncertainty, the Indian government appeared Friday to have saved a beleaguered civil nuclear-energy agreement with the United States. After a flurry of political meetings with allies and adversaries in the past week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gained the support of a regional political party that will not only back the deal but prevent his government from falling.
On Friday, Shakeel Ahmed, spokesman for the ruling Congress party, thanked its newfound ally, the socialist Samajwadi Party, "for supporting the nuclear deal in the national interest." Singh is to meet President Bush in Japan next week during a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
The deal had been attacked by Singh's coalition allies, a group of four communist parties, on grounds it would give the United States too much influence over India's nuclear programs and violate national sovereignty. They threatened to withdraw their support from Singh's government. Now Singh appears to have averted the risk of an early election this year amid inflation that hit 11.6 percent this week, a 13-year high.
The contentious deal seeks to end 30 years of nuclear isolation, give India access to nuclear fuel and technology, and address India's severe power shortage.
"We have been opposing the nuclear deal before, because we did not have any new details," said Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi Party, which has a strong base among lower-caste and Muslim Indians. "But now these new details have come."
Prime Minister Singh's office issued a statement this week trying to allay concerns about the deal. "The civil nuclear cooperation agreement did not and would not affect the autonomy of decision-making in regard to foreign affairs," the statement said. "There is nothing in the agreement which places an embargo on India's right to carry out a nuclear test if it thinks this is necessary in India's supreme national interest."
Political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan called Singh's single-minded campaign to promote the accord in the past year a "tectonic shift in Indo-U.S. relations."
"The deal is Manmohan Singh's quest for a legacy," he said. "It is not just about nuclear power but about how India will engage with the U.S. in the new century and shape the new world order."
Singh now faces talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group. The U.S. Congress will then vote on the deal.
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
July 5, 2008; A11
After months of political uncertainty, the Indian government appeared Friday to have saved a beleaguered civil nuclear-energy agreement with the United States. After a flurry of political meetings with allies and adversaries in the past week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gained the support of a regional political party that will not only back the deal but prevent his government from falling.
On Friday, Shakeel Ahmed, spokesman for the ruling Congress party, thanked its newfound ally, the socialist Samajwadi Party, "for supporting the nuclear deal in the national interest." Singh is to meet President Bush in Japan next week during a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
The deal had been attacked by Singh's coalition allies, a group of four communist parties, on grounds it would give the United States too much influence over India's nuclear programs and violate national sovereignty. They threatened to withdraw their support from Singh's government. Now Singh appears to have averted the risk of an early election this year amid inflation that hit 11.6 percent this week, a 13-year high.
The contentious deal seeks to end 30 years of nuclear isolation, give India access to nuclear fuel and technology, and address India's severe power shortage.
"We have been opposing the nuclear deal before, because we did not have any new details," said Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi Party, which has a strong base among lower-caste and Muslim Indians. "But now these new details have come."
Prime Minister Singh's office issued a statement this week trying to allay concerns about the deal. "The civil nuclear cooperation agreement did not and would not affect the autonomy of decision-making in regard to foreign affairs," the statement said. "There is nothing in the agreement which places an embargo on India's right to carry out a nuclear test if it thinks this is necessary in India's supreme national interest."
Political analyst Mahesh Rangarajan called Singh's single-minded campaign to promote the accord in the past year a "tectonic shift in Indo-U.S. relations."
"The deal is Manmohan Singh's quest for a legacy," he said. "It is not just about nuclear power but about how India will engage with the U.S. in the new century and shape the new world order."
Singh now faces talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group. The U.S. Congress will then vote on the deal.
Panama says no to U.S. military base.
Reuters
4 July 2008
Panama has ruled out hosting a U.S. military base to replace one in Ecuador which is being reclaimed by the Quito Government, a senior Panamanian official said Friday.
Panama -- along with Peru and Colombia -- had been tipped as a possible site to replace the Manta air base in western Ecuador, a key geostrategic military asset.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a close ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, has vowed to "cut off his arm" before allowing Washington to retain the base when its current lease runs out in 2009.
The U.S. military has said it would like to find another site to retain counter-narcotics capabilities.
Panama's Justice Minister Daniel Delgado said his country's often turbulent history with the United States made the establishment of new bases impossible.
"There will be neither bases nor installations (in Panama)," Delgado told Reuters.
Although Panama has close ties with the United States, the Central American country has enjoyed full sovereignty only since Washington handed over control of the U.S.-built Panama Canal and its surrounding land and military bases at the end of 1999.
Panama's strategic location and the U.S. military infrastructure left after the canal handover means it would be an attractive replacement for Manta, military analysts say.
U.S. officials estimate that 80 percent of the cocaine that reaches the United States from South America passes through Panama's Atlantic and Pacific waters.
(Reporting by Andrew Beatty; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
4 July 2008
Panama has ruled out hosting a U.S. military base to replace one in Ecuador which is being reclaimed by the Quito Government, a senior Panamanian official said Friday.
Panama -- along with Peru and Colombia -- had been tipped as a possible site to replace the Manta air base in western Ecuador, a key geostrategic military asset.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a close ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, has vowed to "cut off his arm" before allowing Washington to retain the base when its current lease runs out in 2009.
The U.S. military has said it would like to find another site to retain counter-narcotics capabilities.
Panama's Justice Minister Daniel Delgado said his country's often turbulent history with the United States made the establishment of new bases impossible.
"There will be neither bases nor installations (in Panama)," Delgado told Reuters.
Although Panama has close ties with the United States, the Central American country has enjoyed full sovereignty only since Washington handed over control of the U.S.-built Panama Canal and its surrounding land and military bases at the end of 1999.
Panama's strategic location and the U.S. military infrastructure left after the canal handover means it would be an attractive replacement for Manta, military analysts say.
U.S. officials estimate that 80 percent of the cocaine that reaches the United States from South America passes through Panama's Atlantic and Pacific waters.
(Reporting by Andrew Beatty; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
West condemns Mugabe, ignores other African despots.
By MICHELLE FAUL
Associated Press
July 04, 2008
Nigeria. Rwanda. Uganda. Ethiopia. Gabon. Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe has plenty of competitors for the title of "least democratic in Africa."
But while he has been singled out for condemnation by the West, leaders of other autocratic states in Africa have largely been able to avoid sanctions and isolation. Many have friends in Western capitals. Or play a strategic role in the war against terrorist groups. Or sit on oil.
With corrupt and authoritarian governments close to the norm on the continent, it is not surprising that African leaders ignored Western demands that they censure Zimbabwe's president at a summit this week and some welcomed him with hugs.
As Mugabe himself has asked: How many African leaders can point a clean finger at him? How many held a better election than his one-man runoff that followed a campaign of violence against his foes that induced the opposition leader to quit the race?
While some African leaders have condemned Mugabe, many admire him for thumbing his nose at the West and pointing out its perceived hypocrisies, like the Bush administration appealing for human rights in Zimbabwe while facing harsh criticism over the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.
"We Africans should learn a lesson from this," Gambian President Yahya Jammeh said in praising Mugabe's election to a sixth term.
"They (the West) think they can dictate to us and this is not acceptable. Africans should stand for Zimbabwe. After all, what did the West do for Africa?" said Jammeh, a former army colonel who seized power in a 1994 coup.
Just a decade ago, much of Africa was gripped by hope as a wave of democracy swept the continent.
It began with the extraordinary sight of protesters in the West African state of Benin taking hammers to a statue of Lenin. Within three years, 26 countries had held multiparty presidential elections on a continent known for one-man rule.
When elections in South Africa ended white minority rule in 1994, there was not one single-party state left in sub-Saharan Africa. Western nations tied aid to free elections and severed ties with dictators they had supported in the name of the Cold War fight against communism.
But the optimism, backed by theories that opening socialist economies to the free market would help pull Africa out of poverty, has evaporated and the democracy movement has stalled.
Today, only 21 states, including Botswana and South Africa, hold relatively free elections. Many of the remaining 31 are ruled by despots, including many offering the illusion of democracy with elections like those Mugabe held.
Rights activists put much of the blame on the West.
"It seems Washington and European governments will accept even the most dubious election so long as the 'victor' is a strategic or commercial ally," Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a recent report.
Among countries Roth singled out as sham democracies are oil-rich Chad and Nigeria; Uganda, whose President Yoweri Museveni's friendship with President Bush has shielded him from criticism; and Ethiopia, a major U.S. ally against Islamic militants.
Other oil producers that have managed to avoid international condemnation include Angola, which hasn't held a presidential election since 1992, and Gabon, where President Omar Bongo seized power in a 1967 coup and now reigns as Africa's longest-serving leader.
"Countries that have made a point of overtly aligning themselves with U.S. narratives and policies regarding terrorism appear to have benefited not only from financial and military support but seem successfully to have diverted attention away from their internal poor governance and human rights abuse," said Akwe Amosu, senior analyst at the Open Society Institute in Washington.
Much of the West's focus on Zimbabwe is tied up in the sadness of seeing one of Africa's great success stories fall apart so completely.
When Mugabe led Zimbabwe to independence in 1980, the country already had developed industries and an agricultural base that made it nearly self-sufficient because of years of U.N. sanctions imposed against a white supremacist regime.
Mugabe abandoned his guerrilla movement's policies of "scientific socialism" that called for nationalizing industries and land and instead encouraged a fairly free economy that grew and allowed him to make major investments in education and health care.
Zimbabwe blossomed and became a showcase for the continent, held up as an example to then white-ruled South Africa of an economic and multiracial success created by a black man. But the world's high hopes were short-lived.
In 2000, Mugabe sent out his loyalists to begin violently seizing white farmers' land out of revenge for their refusal to support a referendum to consolidate his power. That led to the collapse of a thriving commercial farming sector that exported food to Zimbabwe's neighbors.
The economic meltdown has left a third of Zimbabweans hungry and caused inflation to run at a mind-boggling 4 million percent. Out of a population of 12 million, some 5 million Zimbabweans are thought to have fled to other countries.
Yet while Mugabe has presided over this catastrophe, he still casts a spell over many Africans. Thousands of supporters thronged the airport at Zimbabwe's capital Friday to greet Mugabe when he returned from attending the African Union summit early in the week.
Zimbabwe is "the single greatest challenge ... in southern Africa, not only because of its terrible humanitarian consequences but also because of the dangerous political precedent it sets," said U.N. deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro, Tanzania's former foreign minister.
___
Associated Press writer Abdoulie John in Banjul, Gambia, contributed to this report.
Associated Press
July 04, 2008
Nigeria. Rwanda. Uganda. Ethiopia. Gabon. Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe has plenty of competitors for the title of "least democratic in Africa."
But while he has been singled out for condemnation by the West, leaders of other autocratic states in Africa have largely been able to avoid sanctions and isolation. Many have friends in Western capitals. Or play a strategic role in the war against terrorist groups. Or sit on oil.
With corrupt and authoritarian governments close to the norm on the continent, it is not surprising that African leaders ignored Western demands that they censure Zimbabwe's president at a summit this week and some welcomed him with hugs.
As Mugabe himself has asked: How many African leaders can point a clean finger at him? How many held a better election than his one-man runoff that followed a campaign of violence against his foes that induced the opposition leader to quit the race?
While some African leaders have condemned Mugabe, many admire him for thumbing his nose at the West and pointing out its perceived hypocrisies, like the Bush administration appealing for human rights in Zimbabwe while facing harsh criticism over the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.
"We Africans should learn a lesson from this," Gambian President Yahya Jammeh said in praising Mugabe's election to a sixth term.
"They (the West) think they can dictate to us and this is not acceptable. Africans should stand for Zimbabwe. After all, what did the West do for Africa?" said Jammeh, a former army colonel who seized power in a 1994 coup.
Just a decade ago, much of Africa was gripped by hope as a wave of democracy swept the continent.
It began with the extraordinary sight of protesters in the West African state of Benin taking hammers to a statue of Lenin. Within three years, 26 countries had held multiparty presidential elections on a continent known for one-man rule.
When elections in South Africa ended white minority rule in 1994, there was not one single-party state left in sub-Saharan Africa. Western nations tied aid to free elections and severed ties with dictators they had supported in the name of the Cold War fight against communism.
But the optimism, backed by theories that opening socialist economies to the free market would help pull Africa out of poverty, has evaporated and the democracy movement has stalled.
Today, only 21 states, including Botswana and South Africa, hold relatively free elections. Many of the remaining 31 are ruled by despots, including many offering the illusion of democracy with elections like those Mugabe held.
Rights activists put much of the blame on the West.
"It seems Washington and European governments will accept even the most dubious election so long as the 'victor' is a strategic or commercial ally," Kenneth Roth, executive director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a recent report.
Among countries Roth singled out as sham democracies are oil-rich Chad and Nigeria; Uganda, whose President Yoweri Museveni's friendship with President Bush has shielded him from criticism; and Ethiopia, a major U.S. ally against Islamic militants.
Other oil producers that have managed to avoid international condemnation include Angola, which hasn't held a presidential election since 1992, and Gabon, where President Omar Bongo seized power in a 1967 coup and now reigns as Africa's longest-serving leader.
"Countries that have made a point of overtly aligning themselves with U.S. narratives and policies regarding terrorism appear to have benefited not only from financial and military support but seem successfully to have diverted attention away from their internal poor governance and human rights abuse," said Akwe Amosu, senior analyst at the Open Society Institute in Washington.
Much of the West's focus on Zimbabwe is tied up in the sadness of seeing one of Africa's great success stories fall apart so completely.
When Mugabe led Zimbabwe to independence in 1980, the country already had developed industries and an agricultural base that made it nearly self-sufficient because of years of U.N. sanctions imposed against a white supremacist regime.
Mugabe abandoned his guerrilla movement's policies of "scientific socialism" that called for nationalizing industries and land and instead encouraged a fairly free economy that grew and allowed him to make major investments in education and health care.
Zimbabwe blossomed and became a showcase for the continent, held up as an example to then white-ruled South Africa of an economic and multiracial success created by a black man. But the world's high hopes were short-lived.
In 2000, Mugabe sent out his loyalists to begin violently seizing white farmers' land out of revenge for their refusal to support a referendum to consolidate his power. That led to the collapse of a thriving commercial farming sector that exported food to Zimbabwe's neighbors.
The economic meltdown has left a third of Zimbabweans hungry and caused inflation to run at a mind-boggling 4 million percent. Out of a population of 12 million, some 5 million Zimbabweans are thought to have fled to other countries.
Yet while Mugabe has presided over this catastrophe, he still casts a spell over many Africans. Thousands of supporters thronged the airport at Zimbabwe's capital Friday to greet Mugabe when he returned from attending the African Union summit early in the week.
Zimbabwe is "the single greatest challenge ... in southern Africa, not only because of its terrible humanitarian consequences but also because of the dangerous political precedent it sets," said U.N. deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro, Tanzania's former foreign minister.
___
Associated Press writer Abdoulie John in Banjul, Gambia, contributed to this report.
Iraqi Kurds Out-Lobby Iraqi Arabs In Washington.
TPM
By Andrew Tilghman - July 4, 2008, 2:22PM
This week, we learned that the White House knew about last year's deal between Texas-based Hunt Oil and the Kurdish Regional Government.
Apparently the threat it posed to the fragile negotiations in Baghdad didn't concern the president as much as he suggested in public.
The Kurds have made a lot of friends in Washington during the past few years -- especially among Republicans.
It's a relationship that's bolstered by aggressive lobbying by the Kurds. The Kurdish Regional Government has 11 active contracts with U.S. lawyers and lobbyists, according to the State Department's database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The Kurds have been shelling out far more money on K Street than any other group or government in Iraq.
A key ally for the Kurds is the firm Barbour Griffith Rogers, the lobbying shop founded by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, formerly head of the Republican National Committee. BGR receives $700,000 a year from the Kurdish Regional Government. Their agreement says the firm will "arrange meetings" with U.S. media and government officials.
The firm has a separate agreement with the Kurdistan Democratic Party for a $262,500 annual fee, according to the FARA database.
The Kurdish Regional Government also has a deal with the Republican-linked firm Russo, March and Rogers for running a "media campaign" and a "public relations campaign."
The Washington Post last year also noted the Kurds efforts to reach out to evangelical Christians.
"In the past year, the Kurds have spent more than $3 million to retain lobbyists and set up a diplomatic office in Washington. They are cultivating grass-roots advocates among supporters of President Bush's war policy and evangelicals who believe that many key figures in the Bible lived in Kurdistan. And they are seeking to build an emotional bond with ordinary Americans, like those forged by Israel and Taiwan, by running commercials on national cable news channels to assert that even as Iraq teeters toward a full-blown civil war, one corner of the country, at least, has fulfilled the Bush administration's ambition of a peaceful, democratic, pro-Western beachhead in the Middle East."
By Andrew Tilghman - July 4, 2008, 2:22PM
This week, we learned that the White House knew about last year's deal between Texas-based Hunt Oil and the Kurdish Regional Government.
Apparently the threat it posed to the fragile negotiations in Baghdad didn't concern the president as much as he suggested in public.
The Kurds have made a lot of friends in Washington during the past few years -- especially among Republicans.
It's a relationship that's bolstered by aggressive lobbying by the Kurds. The Kurdish Regional Government has 11 active contracts with U.S. lawyers and lobbyists, according to the State Department's database maintained under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The Kurds have been shelling out far more money on K Street than any other group or government in Iraq.
A key ally for the Kurds is the firm Barbour Griffith Rogers, the lobbying shop founded by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, formerly head of the Republican National Committee. BGR receives $700,000 a year from the Kurdish Regional Government. Their agreement says the firm will "arrange meetings" with U.S. media and government officials.
The firm has a separate agreement with the Kurdistan Democratic Party for a $262,500 annual fee, according to the FARA database.
The Kurdish Regional Government also has a deal with the Republican-linked firm Russo, March and Rogers for running a "media campaign" and a "public relations campaign."
The Washington Post last year also noted the Kurds efforts to reach out to evangelical Christians.
"In the past year, the Kurds have spent more than $3 million to retain lobbyists and set up a diplomatic office in Washington. They are cultivating grass-roots advocates among supporters of President Bush's war policy and evangelicals who believe that many key figures in the Bible lived in Kurdistan. And they are seeking to build an emotional bond with ordinary Americans, like those forged by Israel and Taiwan, by running commercials on national cable news channels to assert that even as Iraq teeters toward a full-blown civil war, one corner of the country, at least, has fulfilled the Bush administration's ambition of a peaceful, democratic, pro-Western beachhead in the Middle East."
04 July, 2008
US officials condoned Hunt-Kurd oil deal-documents.
Reuters
4 July 2008
U.S. officials condoned Hunt Oil Co efforts to obtain an exploration deal with Iraq's Kurdish regional government, contrary to public statements discouraging it, according to documents cited by a congressional committee.
When the agreement was announced in September, it was criticized as undermining efforts to strengthen Iraq central government, which still had no national oil revenue-sharing law.
Bush administration officials expressed public concern and denied any knowledge of the contract.
On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman released e-mails and letters obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that appeared to show the opposite.
"Contrary to the denials of administration officials, advisors to the president and officials in the State and Commerce Departments knew about Hunt Oil's interest in the Kurdish region months before the contract was executed," Waxman, a California Democrat, wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In one e-mail, Hunt Oil's general manager wrote: "There was no communication to me or in my presence made by any of the 9 state department officials with whom I met ... that Hunt should not pursue our course of action leading to a contract. In fact, there was ample opportunity to do so, but it did not happen."
Spokesmen for the State Department and Hunt Oil were not immediately available for comment.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Wednesday that "we continue to stand by our previous statements that he U.S. government made its objections to this arrangement known both to the company as well as to the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government)," The Washington Post reported.
Waxman's office released documents dating to June 2007, saying they raised questions about U.S. involvement in recently announced negotiations between the Iraqi government and major U.S. and multinational oil companies.
He told Rice he was seeking information about a possible U.S. role in the efforts of those companies to obtain Iraqi contracts.
"You and other administration officials have denied playing any role in these contracts. In the case of Hunt Oil, however, similar denials appear to have been misleading," Waxman wrote.
The government of Iraq's northern Kurdish region announced on Sept. 8, 2007, that it had signed a gas and oil production sharing contract with a unit of Hunt Oil and with Impulse Energy Corp.
Hunt Oil Chief Executive Ray Hunt denied that his ties to the Bush family and the Republican Party helped his company cut a deal with the largely autonomous region.
Hunt said in a Wall Street Journal interview in October the company received no government advice before striking the deal.
"The fact is, as a matter of policy, we never have and never will go to the government of the U.S. and ask the government's advice on anything we do from a business point of view," he was quoted as saying.
Iraq has the world's third-largest oil reserves, which are mainly in the north and the south of the country.
Kurdish officials have clashed with Baghdad over the national oil law, which will determine how contracts are awarded and how revenues are distributed. The northern Iraqi region has signed several exploration deals with foreign firms, which Baghdad says are illegal.
(Reporting by JoAnne Allen; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
4 July 2008
U.S. officials condoned Hunt Oil Co efforts to obtain an exploration deal with Iraq's Kurdish regional government, contrary to public statements discouraging it, according to documents cited by a congressional committee.
When the agreement was announced in September, it was criticized as undermining efforts to strengthen Iraq central government, which still had no national oil revenue-sharing law.
Bush administration officials expressed public concern and denied any knowledge of the contract.
On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman released e-mails and letters obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that appeared to show the opposite.
"Contrary to the denials of administration officials, advisors to the president and officials in the State and Commerce Departments knew about Hunt Oil's interest in the Kurdish region months before the contract was executed," Waxman, a California Democrat, wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In one e-mail, Hunt Oil's general manager wrote: "There was no communication to me or in my presence made by any of the 9 state department officials with whom I met ... that Hunt should not pursue our course of action leading to a contract. In fact, there was ample opportunity to do so, but it did not happen."
Spokesmen for the State Department and Hunt Oil were not immediately available for comment.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Wednesday that "we continue to stand by our previous statements that he U.S. government made its objections to this arrangement known both to the company as well as to the KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government)," The Washington Post reported.
Waxman's office released documents dating to June 2007, saying they raised questions about U.S. involvement in recently announced negotiations between the Iraqi government and major U.S. and multinational oil companies.
He told Rice he was seeking information about a possible U.S. role in the efforts of those companies to obtain Iraqi contracts.
"You and other administration officials have denied playing any role in these contracts. In the case of Hunt Oil, however, similar denials appear to have been misleading," Waxman wrote.
The government of Iraq's northern Kurdish region announced on Sept. 8, 2007, that it had signed a gas and oil production sharing contract with a unit of Hunt Oil and with Impulse Energy Corp.
Hunt Oil Chief Executive Ray Hunt denied that his ties to the Bush family and the Republican Party helped his company cut a deal with the largely autonomous region.
Hunt said in a Wall Street Journal interview in October the company received no government advice before striking the deal.
"The fact is, as a matter of policy, we never have and never will go to the government of the U.S. and ask the government's advice on anything we do from a business point of view," he was quoted as saying.
Iraq has the world's third-largest oil reserves, which are mainly in the north and the south of the country.
Kurdish officials have clashed with Baghdad over the national oil law, which will determine how contracts are awarded and how revenues are distributed. The northern Iraqi region has signed several exploration deals with foreign firms, which Baghdad says are illegal.
(Reporting by JoAnne Allen; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
UN Observer Notes Arson, Looting in Operation Storm.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
4 July 2008
By Goran Jungvirth
A former United Nations observer gave an account of how Croatian troops engaged in organised looting and burning of Serb homes after recapturing the Krajina region in a 1995 operation. But defence lawyers argued that he was in no
Herman Steenbergen was giving evidence in the trial of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac. The three men are indicted for crimes committed by Croatian soldiers during the four-day Operation Storm of 1995, in which they retook areas held by Serb rebels since 1991, and also for the destruction and looting of Serb-owned property afterwards.
Steenbergen, now a medical inspector with the Dutch military, was deployed in the town of Gracac as a UN observer at the time of the offensive.
Prosecutors at the Hague tribunal do not dispute the Croatian state’s right to bring the Krajina region back under government control, but they condemn the tactics employed, which, they say, left behind a “scarred wasteland of destroyed villages and homes”.
The prosecution claims that the Croatian army used excessive shelling to “demoralise civilians and get them to flee”.
Steenbergen told the court that from his shelter, he heard shells falling around the town of Gracac at the start of Operation Storm. Two days after the beginning of the attack, when the Croatian army entered the town, he said he saw “organised looting and the burning of Serbian houses”.
Steenbergen described how around 20 soldiers, behaving in a hostile manner, physically stopped him and his team from going to check where arson was occurring.
When Steenbergen and other UN officials then told the police that Serb-owned houses were on fire, they were told it was because of poor electrical wiring.
“[The police officer] explained to you that houses were burning because Serbs installed bad installations. Do you have any knowledge that this had happened before?” the prosecutor asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Steenbergen replied.
The witness said he saw people dressed in civilian clothes with orange bands around their arms carrying things out of Serb houses as Croatian soldiers stood by. The goods were later taken away in trucks.
“It wasn’t looting,” said Markac’s lawyer, Goran Mikulicic, during cross-examination, “but a civilian protection mission to disinfect abandoned houses, which included driving away refrigerators and throwing away rotten meat.”
The witness saw things differently.
“What I observed when I was in Gracac… was that refrigerators … weren’t the only things on the streets,” he said.
Mikulicic showed the witness documents mentioning the presence of a brigade of Serb rebels in the town. But the witness could not remember whether there was such a brigade in Gracac, or whether there were any military targets in the town.
The witness said the Serb rebels were the UN’s only source of information about military positions at the time, and it therefore had no independent means of assessing the location of Serb forces.
Steenbergen confirmed that when Operation Storm started, UN military observers were evacuated to a UN military base manned by Jordanian troops.
Mikulicic said this reduced the significance of the witness’s testimony about shelling in Gracac.
“Mr Steenbergen, at the outbreak of the attack you were in the cellar of the building where you lived in Gracac and after that [you were] in the shelter of the Jordan battalion’s base. And however, from that perspective… reports about the situation in Gracac were being written. What is then the value of those reports? Can you comment on this?” asked Mikulicic.
The witness said the reports were not based solely on his own observations, but on those of the entire team. He added that from the entrance to the cellar in Gracac and from the yard of the building he could see shells falling all around.
After Steenbergen’s two-day testimony, the court heard evidence from a protected witness. The testimony was given behind closed doors.
Prosecutors spent six hours questioning this witness, identified only as No. 86, while the defence team asked for even more time for cross-examination, saying this was “a very important witness”.
This week, the trial chamber instructed the Croatian government to send representatives to a July 18 meeting in The Hague to discuss an earlier prosecution request for documentation from state archives relating to Operation Storm.
The Hague tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, submitted an application on June 13 asking the trial chamber to compel Croatia to supply the material.
“Croatia has failed to produce military documents relevant to the artillery operations carried out during Operation Storm,” Brammertz said in the submission. The prosecution also wants documents relating to special police units subordinated to Markac.
Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor has said that while Croatia is “sincerely and fully” cooperating with the court, the government cannot surrender the documents because it does not have them.
The trial continues next week.
Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR-trained journalist in Zagreb.
4 July 2008
By Goran Jungvirth
A former United Nations observer gave an account of how Croatian troops engaged in organised looting and burning of Serb homes after recapturing the Krajina region in a 1995 operation. But defence lawyers argued that he was in no
Herman Steenbergen was giving evidence in the trial of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac. The three men are indicted for crimes committed by Croatian soldiers during the four-day Operation Storm of 1995, in which they retook areas held by Serb rebels since 1991, and also for the destruction and looting of Serb-owned property afterwards.
Steenbergen, now a medical inspector with the Dutch military, was deployed in the town of Gracac as a UN observer at the time of the offensive.
Prosecutors at the Hague tribunal do not dispute the Croatian state’s right to bring the Krajina region back under government control, but they condemn the tactics employed, which, they say, left behind a “scarred wasteland of destroyed villages and homes”.
The prosecution claims that the Croatian army used excessive shelling to “demoralise civilians and get them to flee”.
Steenbergen told the court that from his shelter, he heard shells falling around the town of Gracac at the start of Operation Storm. Two days after the beginning of the attack, when the Croatian army entered the town, he said he saw “organised looting and the burning of Serbian houses”.
Steenbergen described how around 20 soldiers, behaving in a hostile manner, physically stopped him and his team from going to check where arson was occurring.
When Steenbergen and other UN officials then told the police that Serb-owned houses were on fire, they were told it was because of poor electrical wiring.
“[The police officer] explained to you that houses were burning because Serbs installed bad installations. Do you have any knowledge that this had happened before?” the prosecutor asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Steenbergen replied.
The witness said he saw people dressed in civilian clothes with orange bands around their arms carrying things out of Serb houses as Croatian soldiers stood by. The goods were later taken away in trucks.
“It wasn’t looting,” said Markac’s lawyer, Goran Mikulicic, during cross-examination, “but a civilian protection mission to disinfect abandoned houses, which included driving away refrigerators and throwing away rotten meat.”
The witness saw things differently.
“What I observed when I was in Gracac… was that refrigerators … weren’t the only things on the streets,” he said.
Mikulicic showed the witness documents mentioning the presence of a brigade of Serb rebels in the town. But the witness could not remember whether there was such a brigade in Gracac, or whether there were any military targets in the town.
The witness said the Serb rebels were the UN’s only source of information about military positions at the time, and it therefore had no independent means of assessing the location of Serb forces.
Steenbergen confirmed that when Operation Storm started, UN military observers were evacuated to a UN military base manned by Jordanian troops.
Mikulicic said this reduced the significance of the witness’s testimony about shelling in Gracac.
“Mr Steenbergen, at the outbreak of the attack you were in the cellar of the building where you lived in Gracac and after that [you were] in the shelter of the Jordan battalion’s base. And however, from that perspective… reports about the situation in Gracac were being written. What is then the value of those reports? Can you comment on this?” asked Mikulicic.
The witness said the reports were not based solely on his own observations, but on those of the entire team. He added that from the entrance to the cellar in Gracac and from the yard of the building he could see shells falling all around.
After Steenbergen’s two-day testimony, the court heard evidence from a protected witness. The testimony was given behind closed doors.
Prosecutors spent six hours questioning this witness, identified only as No. 86, while the defence team asked for even more time for cross-examination, saying this was “a very important witness”.
This week, the trial chamber instructed the Croatian government to send representatives to a July 18 meeting in The Hague to discuss an earlier prosecution request for documentation from state archives relating to Operation Storm.
The Hague tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, submitted an application on June 13 asking the trial chamber to compel Croatia to supply the material.
“Croatia has failed to produce military documents relevant to the artillery operations carried out during Operation Storm,” Brammertz said in the submission. The prosecution also wants documents relating to special police units subordinated to Markac.
Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor has said that while Croatia is “sincerely and fully” cooperating with the court, the government cannot surrender the documents because it does not have them.
The trial continues next week.
Goran Jungvirth is an IWPR-trained journalist in Zagreb.
LIPRODHOR: RWANDAN PRISONS SHELTERED 375 INFANTS BEGINNING OF THE YEAR.
Hirondelle News Agency
3 July 2008
Rwandan prisons had in February 375 infants living with their detained mothers, according to the website of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and the Defence of Human Right (LIPRODHOR).
All 14 Rwandan civilian prisons, except for Remera, Kigali, which does not have woman, have infants, according to LIPRODHOR.
“Usually, these children do not benefit from any particular treatment over food, although in certain prisons, they can have their diet improved by vegetables coming from the vegetable gardens of the penal establishments”, adds the organization. It also said that in the prison of Nyagatare (eastern Rwanda), the infants can receive milk.
These children can remain at their mother’s side until they are three years old before being transferred to foster families.
Rwandan prisons held 531 minors and 3,572 women during the period on a total incarceration population of 59,590 people, the majority accused of having played a part in the1994 genocide which resulted, according to the UN, in nearly 800 000 killed, primarily Tutsis.
The majority of the minors are boys imprisoned for theft or rape, while the girls are generally held for infanticide and abortion.
The women are held in separate blocks from men and are generally under the supervision of female guards. They work on basket weaving and embroidery and cleaning activities in front of the administrative offices.
Except for those of Remera and Mpanga, southern Rwanda, all the prisons are over-populated, in certain establishments, the prisoners sleep in the inside ward without covers, notes the organization.
LIPRODHOR, however, noted “an improvement in the detention conditions and a reduction in the density of the incarceration population due to the efforts of the Rwandan government to relieve the suffocation of the prisons."
3 July 2008
Rwandan prisons had in February 375 infants living with their detained mothers, according to the website of the Rwandan League for the Promotion and the Defence of Human Right (LIPRODHOR).
All 14 Rwandan civilian prisons, except for Remera, Kigali, which does not have woman, have infants, according to LIPRODHOR.
“Usually, these children do not benefit from any particular treatment over food, although in certain prisons, they can have their diet improved by vegetables coming from the vegetable gardens of the penal establishments”, adds the organization. It also said that in the prison of Nyagatare (eastern Rwanda), the infants can receive milk.
These children can remain at their mother’s side until they are three years old before being transferred to foster families.
Rwandan prisons held 531 minors and 3,572 women during the period on a total incarceration population of 59,590 people, the majority accused of having played a part in the1994 genocide which resulted, according to the UN, in nearly 800 000 killed, primarily Tutsis.
The majority of the minors are boys imprisoned for theft or rape, while the girls are generally held for infanticide and abortion.
The women are held in separate blocks from men and are generally under the supervision of female guards. They work on basket weaving and embroidery and cleaning activities in front of the administrative offices.
Except for those of Remera and Mpanga, southern Rwanda, all the prisons are over-populated, in certain establishments, the prisoners sleep in the inside ward without covers, notes the organization.
LIPRODHOR, however, noted “an improvement in the detention conditions and a reduction in the density of the incarceration population due to the efforts of the Rwandan government to relieve the suffocation of the prisons."
Panel Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal
The New York Times
3 July 2008
By JAMES GLANZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded.
The conclusions were based on e-mail messages and other documents that the committee released Wednesday.
United States policy is to warn companies that they incur risks in signing contracts until Iraq passes an oil law and to strengthen Iraq’s central government. The Kurdistan deal, by ceding responsibility for writing contracts directly to a regional government, infuriated Iraqi officials. But State Department officials did nothing to discourage the deal and in some cases appeared to welcome it, the documents show.
The company, Hunt Oil of Dallas, signed the deal with Kurdistan’s semiautonomous government last September. Its chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, a close political ally of President Bush, briefed an advisory board to Mr. Bush on his contacts with Kurdish officials before the deal was signed.
In an e-mail message released by the Congressional committee, a State Department official in Washington, briefed by a colleague about the impending deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government, wrote: “Many thanks for the heads up; getting an American company to sign a deal with the K.R.G. will make big news back here. Please keep us posted.”
The release of the documents comes as the administration is defending help that United States officials provided in drawing up a separate set of no-bid contracts, still pending, between Iraq’s Oil Ministry in Baghdad and five major Western oil companies to provide services at other Iraqi oil fields.
In the no-bid contracts, the administration said it had provided what it called purely technical help writing the contracts. The United States played no role in choosing the companies, the administration has said.
Disclosure of those contracts has provided substantial fuel to critics of the Iraq war, both in the United States and abroad, who contend that the enormous Iraqi oil reserves were a motivation for the American-led invasion — an assertion the administration has repeatedly denied.
Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, has condemned the Kurdistan deal as illegal because it was not approved by Iraq’s central government and was struck without an oil law, which has still not been passed.
After the deal was signed last year, a senior State Department official in Baghdad criticized it, saying, “We believe these contracts have needlessly elevated tensions between the K.R.G. and the national government of Iraq.”
The State Department said Wednesday that it had discouraged the deal. Hunt officials declined to comment, and Kurdish government officials said there was no impropriety.
In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose chairman is Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, a State Department official wrote that the department had strongly discouraged Hunt from signing the deal until an oil law had been passed.
The State Department told Hunt that “we continue to advise all companies that they incur significant political and legal risk by signing contracts” before then, wrote Jeffrey T. Bergner, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the department, in one of the documents made public on Wednesday.
But in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Waxman wrote that the documents his committee had collected “tell a different story about the role of administration officials.” In letters obtained by the committee, Mr. Hunt informed the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, of which he was a member, last July and August that he was pursuing serious business interests in Kurdistan.
“We were approached a month ago by representatives of a private group in Kurdistan as to the possibility of our becoming interested in that region,” Mr. Hunt wrote to the board last July 12. “We had one team of geoscientists travel to Kurdistan several weeks ago and we were encouraged by what we saw.”
In August 2007, Mr. Hunt informed State Department officials directly of his intentions in Kurdistan, and on Sept. 5, three days before the deal was signed, a flurry of e-mail messages among Hunt and State Department officials make clear that the department was aware of what was in the works.
In a message to a colleague with the subject line “Hunt Oil to Sign Contract With K.R.G.,” one State Department official gives a highly detailed summary of the agreement. Mr. Hunt, the official wrote, “is expecting to sign an exploration contract with the K.R.G. for a field located in the Shakkan district, an area under K.R.G. control (inside the Green Line) but technically in Nineveh Governorate.”
“Hunt would be the first U.S. company to sign such a deal,” the official wrote, suggesting that the news should be rushed onto the State Department’s internal distribution network as quickly as possible.
Despite those exchanges, a State Department official said Wednesday that the company had in fact been discouraged from completing its deal.
“All companies, including Hunt Oil, which have spoken with the United States government about investing in Iraq’s oil sector, have and will continue to be given the same advice,” John Fleming, an Iraq press officer in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, wrote Wednesday in an e-mailed response to questions. “We advise companies that they incur significant political and legal risk by signing any contracts with any party before a national law is passed by the Iraqi Parliament.”
Another State Department official, who asked to remain anonymous, expressed frustration, saying that a local State Department official in Erbil, the Kurdish provincial capital, who was the head of a so-called Regional Reconstruction Team, tried to dissuade Hunt officials from making the deal.
But no notes were taken at that meeting, the official said, and Hunt representatives later gave a conflicting account of what had been said.
“I have talked to the R.R.T. team leader personally, and he sticks by his story and they stick by theirs,” the State Department official said.
Jeanne L. Phillips, a senior vice president for corporate affairs and international relations at Hunt Oil whose correspondence appears at certain points in the documents released Wednesday, said that because Mr. Waxman’s letter was not addressed directly to the company, she could not comment on it.
“As a matter of company policy, Hunt Oil Company does not comment on correspondence between third parties,” Ms. Phillips wrote in an e-mail message.
An official in the Kurdistan Regional Government reached late Wednesday who asked not to be named said that the government had written some 22 contracts to date.
“Anyone can have a contract with the K.R.G., but it must be accepted and suitable according to assessment by our experts,” the official said. “Hunt is a good company and never had its contracts with us illegally or improperly.”
The documents released by Mr. Waxman also lay bare what has become a serious dispute between the company and the State Department over what was said between them before the deal last year.
For example, a senior Hunt official said he was told by State Department officials during a meeting on June 15, 2007, that the United States government did not object to deals with the Kurdish regional government.
“I specifically asked if the U.S.G. had a policy toward companies entering contracts with the K.R.G.,” the Hunt official, David McDonald, wrote in an e-mail message to a colleague last Sept. 28. The State Department officials, Mr. McDonald wrote, replied that there was no policy, neither for nor against.
His message concluded: “There was no communication to me or in my presence made by the nine State Department officials with whom I met prior to 8 September that Hunt should not pursue our course of action leading to a contract. In fact, there was ample opportunity to do so, but it did not happen.”
The encouragement by State Department officials did not end with the signing of the contract on Sept. 8, the documents suggest. Five days later, a State Department official in the southern city of Basra wrote to Ms. Phillips, “I read and heard about with interest your deal with the regional Kurdish government.”
“I don’t know if you are aware of another opportunity,” the official wrote, mentioning an enormous port project and a natural gas project in the south. After a few more lines, the official concluded, “This seems like it would be a good opportunity for Hunt.”
James Glanz reported from New York, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Baghdad. Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow, Mudhafer al-Husaini from Baghdad and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Kurdistan.
3 July 2008
By JAMES GLANZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded.
The conclusions were based on e-mail messages and other documents that the committee released Wednesday.
United States policy is to warn companies that they incur risks in signing contracts until Iraq passes an oil law and to strengthen Iraq’s central government. The Kurdistan deal, by ceding responsibility for writing contracts directly to a regional government, infuriated Iraqi officials. But State Department officials did nothing to discourage the deal and in some cases appeared to welcome it, the documents show.
The company, Hunt Oil of Dallas, signed the deal with Kurdistan’s semiautonomous government last September. Its chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, a close political ally of President Bush, briefed an advisory board to Mr. Bush on his contacts with Kurdish officials before the deal was signed.
In an e-mail message released by the Congressional committee, a State Department official in Washington, briefed by a colleague about the impending deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government, wrote: “Many thanks for the heads up; getting an American company to sign a deal with the K.R.G. will make big news back here. Please keep us posted.”
The release of the documents comes as the administration is defending help that United States officials provided in drawing up a separate set of no-bid contracts, still pending, between Iraq’s Oil Ministry in Baghdad and five major Western oil companies to provide services at other Iraqi oil fields.
In the no-bid contracts, the administration said it had provided what it called purely technical help writing the contracts. The United States played no role in choosing the companies, the administration has said.
Disclosure of those contracts has provided substantial fuel to critics of the Iraq war, both in the United States and abroad, who contend that the enormous Iraqi oil reserves were a motivation for the American-led invasion — an assertion the administration has repeatedly denied.
Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, has condemned the Kurdistan deal as illegal because it was not approved by Iraq’s central government and was struck without an oil law, which has still not been passed.
After the deal was signed last year, a senior State Department official in Baghdad criticized it, saying, “We believe these contracts have needlessly elevated tensions between the K.R.G. and the national government of Iraq.”
The State Department said Wednesday that it had discouraged the deal. Hunt officials declined to comment, and Kurdish government officials said there was no impropriety.
In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose chairman is Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, a State Department official wrote that the department had strongly discouraged Hunt from signing the deal until an oil law had been passed.
The State Department told Hunt that “we continue to advise all companies that they incur significant political and legal risk by signing contracts” before then, wrote Jeffrey T. Bergner, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the department, in one of the documents made public on Wednesday.
But in a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Waxman wrote that the documents his committee had collected “tell a different story about the role of administration officials.” In letters obtained by the committee, Mr. Hunt informed the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, of which he was a member, last July and August that he was pursuing serious business interests in Kurdistan.
“We were approached a month ago by representatives of a private group in Kurdistan as to the possibility of our becoming interested in that region,” Mr. Hunt wrote to the board last July 12. “We had one team of geoscientists travel to Kurdistan several weeks ago and we were encouraged by what we saw.”
In August 2007, Mr. Hunt informed State Department officials directly of his intentions in Kurdistan, and on Sept. 5, three days before the deal was signed, a flurry of e-mail messages among Hunt and State Department officials make clear that the department was aware of what was in the works.
In a message to a colleague with the subject line “Hunt Oil to Sign Contract With K.R.G.,” one State Department official gives a highly detailed summary of the agreement. Mr. Hunt, the official wrote, “is expecting to sign an exploration contract with the K.R.G. for a field located in the Shakkan district, an area under K.R.G. control (inside the Green Line) but technically in Nineveh Governorate.”
“Hunt would be the first U.S. company to sign such a deal,” the official wrote, suggesting that the news should be rushed onto the State Department’s internal distribution network as quickly as possible.
Despite those exchanges, a State Department official said Wednesday that the company had in fact been discouraged from completing its deal.
“All companies, including Hunt Oil, which have spoken with the United States government about investing in Iraq’s oil sector, have and will continue to be given the same advice,” John Fleming, an Iraq press officer in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, wrote Wednesday in an e-mailed response to questions. “We advise companies that they incur significant political and legal risk by signing any contracts with any party before a national law is passed by the Iraqi Parliament.”
Another State Department official, who asked to remain anonymous, expressed frustration, saying that a local State Department official in Erbil, the Kurdish provincial capital, who was the head of a so-called Regional Reconstruction Team, tried to dissuade Hunt officials from making the deal.
But no notes were taken at that meeting, the official said, and Hunt representatives later gave a conflicting account of what had been said.
“I have talked to the R.R.T. team leader personally, and he sticks by his story and they stick by theirs,” the State Department official said.
Jeanne L. Phillips, a senior vice president for corporate affairs and international relations at Hunt Oil whose correspondence appears at certain points in the documents released Wednesday, said that because Mr. Waxman’s letter was not addressed directly to the company, she could not comment on it.
“As a matter of company policy, Hunt Oil Company does not comment on correspondence between third parties,” Ms. Phillips wrote in an e-mail message.
An official in the Kurdistan Regional Government reached late Wednesday who asked not to be named said that the government had written some 22 contracts to date.
“Anyone can have a contract with the K.R.G., but it must be accepted and suitable according to assessment by our experts,” the official said. “Hunt is a good company and never had its contracts with us illegally or improperly.”
The documents released by Mr. Waxman also lay bare what has become a serious dispute between the company and the State Department over what was said between them before the deal last year.
For example, a senior Hunt official said he was told by State Department officials during a meeting on June 15, 2007, that the United States government did not object to deals with the Kurdish regional government.
“I specifically asked if the U.S.G. had a policy toward companies entering contracts with the K.R.G.,” the Hunt official, David McDonald, wrote in an e-mail message to a colleague last Sept. 28. The State Department officials, Mr. McDonald wrote, replied that there was no policy, neither for nor against.
His message concluded: “There was no communication to me or in my presence made by the nine State Department officials with whom I met prior to 8 September that Hunt should not pursue our course of action leading to a contract. In fact, there was ample opportunity to do so, but it did not happen.”
The encouragement by State Department officials did not end with the signing of the contract on Sept. 8, the documents suggest. Five days later, a State Department official in the southern city of Basra wrote to Ms. Phillips, “I read and heard about with interest your deal with the regional Kurdish government.”
“I don’t know if you are aware of another opportunity,” the official wrote, mentioning an enormous port project and a natural gas project in the south. After a few more lines, the official concluded, “This seems like it would be a good opportunity for Hunt.”
James Glanz reported from New York, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Baghdad. Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow, Mudhafer al-Husaini from Baghdad and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Kurdistan.
Former US Congressman Becomes Arms Dealer.
Wired
By Sharon Weinberger
3 July 2008
Defense Solutions has proposed teaming with the Russian arms-export agency, Rosoboronexport, for several arms deals, including supplying Mi-17 helicopters to Afghanistan. Rosoboronexport is blacklisted by the U.S. government for allegedly violating the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act.
Former congressman Curt Weldon is helping broker deals between Russian and Ukranian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments as part of his new job with a private American defense consulting firm, Wired.com has learned.
Weldon, who is currently being investigated by the FBI over alleged corruption during his time in office, visited Libya in March to discuss a possible military deal, according to a letter describing the trip from Weldon to Defense Solutions CEO Timothy Ringgold. In May, Weldon, together with Ringgold and another company representative, traveled to Moscow to discuss working with Russia's weapons-export agency on arms sales to the Middle East.
Both trips were part of the company's effort to tap into the growing -- and often legally murky -- market for selling weapons from former Eastern Bloc countries to the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Ex-Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., is helping broker deals between Russian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments through his company, Defense Solutions.
Photo: H. Rumph Jr/AP The Russians want to sell weapons to Iraq directly, but "must go slow on Iraq because of political reasons" and want to work with an "intermediary" like Defense Solutions, CEO Ringgold subsequently wrote to colleagues. "They have not spoken with any American company that can offer the quid pro quo that we can or that has the connections in Russia that we have," he boasted.
A few years ago, an American company proposing to sell weapons to Libya might have triggered a congressional hearing. So, too, would have a proposal to conduct arms deals with Russia, which the United States has accused of selling high-tech weapons to Syria and Iran.
However, U.S. government efforts to rapidly equip countries like Afghanistan and Iraq -- which have largely Soviet-origin weapons -- have created legal ambiguities and loopholes in export controls that didn't exist in years past and given rise to a new class of arms trade middlemen. So, even though both Libya and the Russian arms export agency are on official U.S. blacklists, government officials and analysts involved in weapons sales say the rules have become unclear as the push to equip allies in the global war on terror has blazed new but uncertain legal ground.
Eagerly stepping into that virgin territory is Defense Solutions, a Pennsylvania-based company that is carving out a small but lucrative niche in a new international arms bazaar. The firm boasts as its advisors a number of influential Washington insiders, such as retired General Barry McCaffrey, the former White House drug czar.
Helping the firm make key connections is Curt Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania at the center of an FBI investigation into alleged conflicts of interest during his time in office. Weldon, now a key executive at Defense Solutions, is working with the company to set up these weapons deals.
Defense Solutions has also proposed refurbishing Libya's BTR-60 armored personnel carriers, according to a sales proposal seen by Wired.com. Defense Solutions denies drafting a sales proposal to Libya. It's an unusual, if not an entirely unexpected chapter for Weldon, whose time in office included frequent trips to Russia. As an influential member of the House Armed Services Committee, Weldon pushed for multibillion-dollar defense programs, like ballistic missile defense, and earned a reputation as a foreign policy gadfly, boasting of his contacts with officials in nations labeled by the administration as "rogue states" such as Libya and North Korea. Weldon's wild claims about a 9/11 cover-up and his sensationalist book warning of an Iranian terror plot, sometimes earned him official scorn and public ridicule, but it was accusations that he steered contracts to Eastern European businesses linked to his daughter's lobbying firm that drew the government's attention.
Weldon was voted out of office in 2006 just weeks after the FBI raided his daughter's home, and that of one of her associates.
Weldon did not respond to e-mails and phone requests to be interviewed or comment for this article. But in a 2006 interview, before the FBI probe was public, Weldon spoke enthusiastically about setting up a "front company" to work with the Russian arms agency, Rosoboronexport. Weldon hoped this company could sell weapons to the Middle East, and other regions, particularly to countries where the U.S. has strained relations. He claimed the director of Rosoboronexport approached him to work with "an American company that would act as a front for weapons these nations want to buy."
Weldon called the proposal an "unbelievable offer."
The administration, he acknowledged at the time, did not welcome the idea of an American company selling Russian weapons to potentially unfriendly countries. But two years later, Weldon, now a private citizen and chief strategic officer for Defense Solutions, appears to be working on precisely that sort of deal. And whether illegal or not, Defense Solutions' business represents a new phenomenon in the international arms trade business.
In years past arms brokers -- firms or individuals who serve as middlemen to facilitate weapons sales between countries -- were largely the stuff of spy thrillers. Unlike traditional American defense companies, like Lockheed Martin or Boeing, which typically sell weapons directly to NATO countries or other governments regarded as friendly to the United States, brokers are often small outfits run by people with sometimes questionable experience and reputations they will sell to anyone. One of the most infamous arms brokers, a Russian named Viktor Bout, is charged by the United States, United Nations, Interpol and others of funneling arms to terrorists and rebels around the world. He was recently arrested in Thailand. The United States is requesting his extradition on charges of supplying arms to a terrorist organization.
Two Marines lower the trim vane on the front of an Iraqi BMP-1 mechanized infantry combat vehicle that was captured during Operation Desert Storm. The American defense consulting firm Defense Solutions has proposed refurbishing Libya's aging fleet of BMP-1s. Defense Solutions denies drafting a sales proposal to Libya. But ironically, Iraq has fueled a new market for these professional middlemen; the United States is funneling billions of dollars into modernizing Iraq's army so that the country's government can fend for itself after coalition troops withdraw. And Iraq's largely Soviet-equipped military is a natural market for Eastern European countries brimming with old or out-of-date equipment they would like to unload. The middlemen, in these cases, serve a key role by allowing the U.S. government to do business with an American company, which in turn buys equipment from Eastern Bloc countries in deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it financed with U.S. taxpayer dollars.
One of Defense Solutions' sales -- a deal to sell Hungarian-owed T-72 tanks to Iraq in 2005 -- was typical of these new foreign military sales. But on the more questionable side is the company's plans to work with Rosoboronexport, which is barred from doing business with the U.S. government, and Libya, which is still on the State Department's arms embargo list.
The Eastern European-Middle East arms-brokering business, while in some cases sanctioned by the U.S. government, has run into problems, including outright corruption and quality. Defense contractor Dale Stoffel, the president of Wye Oak Technology, and another American were gunned down in Iraq in December 2004 after Stoffel alleged that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense was involved in a kickback scheme. Like Defense Solutions, the company Stoffel worked for was refurbishing the Iraq's army Eastern Bloc equipment.
Another problem is quality. Weapons from the former Soviet Bloc, which the U.S. military euphemistically calls "nonstandard equipment," have been flagged as substandard, acknowledges Brigadier General Charles Luckey, who is in charge of security assistance at Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. In an interview from Iraq, Brigadier General Luckey said: "One of the frustrating things about buying nonstandard [weapons], is that I'm the guy who has to deal with the fact that some broker I've never heard of allowed weapons to get to Iraq before they were inspected."
Defense Solutions is carving a new niche in the arms trade, selling Soviet-made weapons to Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. Defense Solutions sold Hungarian-owed T-72 tanks to Iraq in 2005. In one high-profile case, Iraqi officials alleged that a corrupt firm sold them $400 million in shoddy helicopters from Poland. More recently, a company led by a 21-year-old and a former masseur was offered a U.S. government contract worth nearly $300 million to sell ammunition to Afghanistan. The ammunition turned out to be outdated and of dubious origin and several people connected with the company have been indicted. A congressional investigation concluded that the company, which was on a State Department watch list, was able to take advantage of regulatory loopholes by using middlemen.
For those concerned about illicit arms trade, this new wave of weapons deals is rife with the potential for corruption and abuse, but for companies eager to pursue markets once regarded as dubious, it represents a lucrative business opportunity. The problem in these cases, according to those familiar with arms sales, is that it's no longer clear what's legal and what's not.
Rachel Stohl, an expert on international arms trade and a senior analyst at Center for Defense Information, says that in many ways, the rush to equip Iraq has led the United States to throw caution to the wind. She points to a report by the Government Accountability Office last year that found that some 190,000 weapons sold to Iraq have gone missing. "I think the reality is we won't know, until way after the fact, about all of these irregularities with the Iraq weapons provision program," she said. "We were providing them all these assault rifles that have gone missing. Why? They were not following the standard procedures that were in place."
But Iraq and Afghanistan aren't the only markets available to arms brokers like Defense Solutions. The gradual normalization of relations with Libya opens another door into a quasi-legal area of sales.
Like Iraq, Libya has a substantial arsenal of Soviet-origin military weapons, offering a potential market for brokers working with Russia and other former Soviet states. But even when there's not an outright ban, sales to the Middle East are often fraught with controversy, particularly to countries like Libya, which was under international sanction for more than a decade. Even as sanctions against it have been lifted, European companies proposing to sell arms to Libya have faced steep criticism, particularly since the country is still ruled by dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who took power in a military coup in 1969.
While the United States lifted Libya's "state sponsor of terrorism" designation in 2006, other restrictions, such as on the sale of arms, remain in place. A State Department spokesperson confirmed that exports of "lethal munitions" to Libya, such as tanks or related equipment, are still banned, although sales of nonlethal equipment are now allowed on a case-by-case basis.
In late March, Weldon traveled to Libya for a weeklong trip at the invitation of the Gaddafi Foundation, a group run by the son of Libya's leader, and the chairman of Libya's foreign affairs committee, according to the report he sent to Defense Solutions (.pdf), a copy of which was obtained by Wired.com. The trip reports states: "Agreement reached for Weldon to quickly return to Libya for meetings with son [of Libyan leader Gaddafi] Morti regarding defense and security cooperation."
A document dated April 16, just two weeks after Weldon's trip, outlines Defense Solutions' proposal to Libya to refurbish the country's fleet of armored vehicles, including its T-72 tanks, BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, and BTR-60 armored personnel carriers. A copy of the sales proposal, also provided to Wired.com, is on Defense Solutions' letterhead, appears to bear the signature of company CEO Timothy Ringgold, and is addressed to Libya's defense procurement council. "Defense Solutions is committed to delivering a full end-to-end solution to its clients," the proposal states. "Besides refurbishing these vehicles, we are capable of providing a full logistics support package, including a two year supply of spare parts, maintenance and repair services, and operator, maintenance, and repair training."
In an interview with Wired.com, Ringgold admitted that he's interested in doing business in Libya and confirms receiving Weldon's trip report from Libya, but denies drafting or signing an arms-sale proposal. "I've never made such a document to Libya," Ringgold insisted, after being read the proposal, and told that his signature is on it.
In addition to the Libyan arms-deal document, Wired.com has also reviewed copies of e-mails from Ringgold discussing the Libyan deal.
While Ringgold denies proposing an arms sale to Libya, he is open about speaking with Rosoboronexport, which has been on a U.S. government sanctions list since 2006, after the Russian state agency allegedly violated the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act. An April e-mail provided to Wired.com describes Ringgold, Weldon and Stephan Minikes, a senior advisor to Defense Solutions and a former ambassador, meeting with Rosoboronexport. The conversations included a number of potential deals, including supplying Mi-17 helicopters to Afghanistan and spare parts for Iraq's infantry fighting vehicles. Ringgold wrote to colleagues following the visit, describing the meetings as a "spectacular success," saying the Russian agency "has the ability to undercut all cost proposals from brokers."
Ringgold confirmed those discussions and said that his company has sought to do business with Rosoboronexport. Asked whether Ringgold considers his dealings with Russia to be legal, he argued that U.S. companies could work with Rosoboronexport on a "case-by-case" basis. "The particular purpose of the meeting we had -- and I want to be crystal clear -- was in response to a U.S. government requirement," he said.
A number of officials at the State Department and in the Pentagon, when contacted for this article, could not say whether working with Rosoboronexport is legal or not. A Pentagon spokeswoman said she was familiar with the issue, but deferred the question to the State Department. When asked about Rosoboronexport's status on the blacklist, John Herzberg, a State Department spokesman replied: "What's on there is on there."
Asked whether, given the ban, there was any way a company could legally work with Rosoboronexport, as Ringgold suggested, Herzberg provided an equivocal answer. "At the stage of the process we're at, I'm unable to give you an answer," he said. "You can try elsewhere in government, and maybe they'll be braver than me."
In an interview from Iraq, General Luckey conceded it was a murky area, but said, "My understanding is they are currently on our no-go list."
The confusion over debarred parties has even led the U.S. government into its own legal tangles, according to Jim McAleese, a Washington attorney who specializes in government contracting and foreign military sales. Because the Russian government violated U.S. nonproliferation laws, even NASA had to go to Congress to ensure it could work with Russia on Soyuz flights to the international space station. "What I'm warning you about is, don't be surprised by the confusion," McAleese said. "There are a whole bunch of different statutes that were adopted piecemeal and were never intended to be reconciled."
But it's the very ambiguity of the law that troubles those who monitor export control. "It's highly unusual to do anything with the Russians, particularly Rosoboronexport," said Scott Jones, director of Export Control Programs at the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia.
Legal or not, reputable American companies simply don't want to work with banned entities, Jones said, for fear of risking their reputations and business. "Even if it's not an outright prohibition, most companies don't want to put themselves in a liability situation that has really bad PR … and they stay away from it," Jones said. "But if that's your business, pimping out arms from the U.S. or Russia, that's the way it works, and you push as much as possible."
Finding any U.S. defense company working with the Russian government at this point would be "remarkable," Jones added.
In the meantime, the future for Weldon is unclear. The FBI investigation continues and Weldon's former chief of staff recently pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and is cooperating with the government, notes Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed a complaint against Weldon in 2004. Sloan speculated that Weldon may be charged with "honest service fraud" for misusing his office for personal gain. "It's an easier standard than bribery," she said. "I wouldn't be surprised [if he's charged] with bribery, but I think it will be honest services fraud."
Ringgold insists that he and Weldon are on the right side of the law. "Everything we do is in strict compliance with international and U.S. law and we operate only in the best interests of the U.S. government," he said. "I didn't serve 30 years in the United States Army to throw that away on a whim."
Asked if Weldon is still working for the company, Ringgold replied: "Absolutely, proudly so."
By Sharon Weinberger
3 July 2008
Defense Solutions has proposed teaming with the Russian arms-export agency, Rosoboronexport, for several arms deals, including supplying Mi-17 helicopters to Afghanistan. Rosoboronexport is blacklisted by the U.S. government for allegedly violating the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act.
Former congressman Curt Weldon is helping broker deals between Russian and Ukranian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments as part of his new job with a private American defense consulting firm, Wired.com has learned.
Weldon, who is currently being investigated by the FBI over alleged corruption during his time in office, visited Libya in March to discuss a possible military deal, according to a letter describing the trip from Weldon to Defense Solutions CEO Timothy Ringgold. In May, Weldon, together with Ringgold and another company representative, traveled to Moscow to discuss working with Russia's weapons-export agency on arms sales to the Middle East.
Both trips were part of the company's effort to tap into the growing -- and often legally murky -- market for selling weapons from former Eastern Bloc countries to the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Ex-Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., is helping broker deals between Russian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments through his company, Defense Solutions.
Photo: H. Rumph Jr/AP The Russians want to sell weapons to Iraq directly, but "must go slow on Iraq because of political reasons" and want to work with an "intermediary" like Defense Solutions, CEO Ringgold subsequently wrote to colleagues. "They have not spoken with any American company that can offer the quid pro quo that we can or that has the connections in Russia that we have," he boasted.
A few years ago, an American company proposing to sell weapons to Libya might have triggered a congressional hearing. So, too, would have a proposal to conduct arms deals with Russia, which the United States has accused of selling high-tech weapons to Syria and Iran.
However, U.S. government efforts to rapidly equip countries like Afghanistan and Iraq -- which have largely Soviet-origin weapons -- have created legal ambiguities and loopholes in export controls that didn't exist in years past and given rise to a new class of arms trade middlemen. So, even though both Libya and the Russian arms export agency are on official U.S. blacklists, government officials and analysts involved in weapons sales say the rules have become unclear as the push to equip allies in the global war on terror has blazed new but uncertain legal ground.
Eagerly stepping into that virgin territory is Defense Solutions, a Pennsylvania-based company that is carving out a small but lucrative niche in a new international arms bazaar. The firm boasts as its advisors a number of influential Washington insiders, such as retired General Barry McCaffrey, the former White House drug czar.
Helping the firm make key connections is Curt Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania at the center of an FBI investigation into alleged conflicts of interest during his time in office. Weldon, now a key executive at Defense Solutions, is working with the company to set up these weapons deals.
Defense Solutions has also proposed refurbishing Libya's BTR-60 armored personnel carriers, according to a sales proposal seen by Wired.com. Defense Solutions denies drafting a sales proposal to Libya. It's an unusual, if not an entirely unexpected chapter for Weldon, whose time in office included frequent trips to Russia. As an influential member of the House Armed Services Committee, Weldon pushed for multibillion-dollar defense programs, like ballistic missile defense, and earned a reputation as a foreign policy gadfly, boasting of his contacts with officials in nations labeled by the administration as "rogue states" such as Libya and North Korea. Weldon's wild claims about a 9/11 cover-up and his sensationalist book warning of an Iranian terror plot, sometimes earned him official scorn and public ridicule, but it was accusations that he steered contracts to Eastern European businesses linked to his daughter's lobbying firm that drew the government's attention.
Weldon was voted out of office in 2006 just weeks after the FBI raided his daughter's home, and that of one of her associates.
Weldon did not respond to e-mails and phone requests to be interviewed or comment for this article. But in a 2006 interview, before the FBI probe was public, Weldon spoke enthusiastically about setting up a "front company" to work with the Russian arms agency, Rosoboronexport. Weldon hoped this company could sell weapons to the Middle East, and other regions, particularly to countries where the U.S. has strained relations. He claimed the director of Rosoboronexport approached him to work with "an American company that would act as a front for weapons these nations want to buy."
Weldon called the proposal an "unbelievable offer."
The administration, he acknowledged at the time, did not welcome the idea of an American company selling Russian weapons to potentially unfriendly countries. But two years later, Weldon, now a private citizen and chief strategic officer for Defense Solutions, appears to be working on precisely that sort of deal. And whether illegal or not, Defense Solutions' business represents a new phenomenon in the international arms trade business.
In years past arms brokers -- firms or individuals who serve as middlemen to facilitate weapons sales between countries -- were largely the stuff of spy thrillers. Unlike traditional American defense companies, like Lockheed Martin or Boeing, which typically sell weapons directly to NATO countries or other governments regarded as friendly to the United States, brokers are often small outfits run by people with sometimes questionable experience and reputations they will sell to anyone. One of the most infamous arms brokers, a Russian named Viktor Bout, is charged by the United States, United Nations, Interpol and others of funneling arms to terrorists and rebels around the world. He was recently arrested in Thailand. The United States is requesting his extradition on charges of supplying arms to a terrorist organization.
Two Marines lower the trim vane on the front of an Iraqi BMP-1 mechanized infantry combat vehicle that was captured during Operation Desert Storm. The American defense consulting firm Defense Solutions has proposed refurbishing Libya's aging fleet of BMP-1s. Defense Solutions denies drafting a sales proposal to Libya. But ironically, Iraq has fueled a new market for these professional middlemen; the United States is funneling billions of dollars into modernizing Iraq's army so that the country's government can fend for itself after coalition troops withdraw. And Iraq's largely Soviet-equipped military is a natural market for Eastern European countries brimming with old or out-of-date equipment they would like to unload. The middlemen, in these cases, serve a key role by allowing the U.S. government to do business with an American company, which in turn buys equipment from Eastern Bloc countries in deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, much of it financed with U.S. taxpayer dollars.
One of Defense Solutions' sales -- a deal to sell Hungarian-owed T-72 tanks to Iraq in 2005 -- was typical of these new foreign military sales. But on the more questionable side is the company's plans to work with Rosoboronexport, which is barred from doing business with the U.S. government, and Libya, which is still on the State Department's arms embargo list.
The Eastern European-Middle East arms-brokering business, while in some cases sanctioned by the U.S. government, has run into problems, including outright corruption and quality. Defense contractor Dale Stoffel, the president of Wye Oak Technology, and another American were gunned down in Iraq in December 2004 after Stoffel alleged that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense was involved in a kickback scheme. Like Defense Solutions, the company Stoffel worked for was refurbishing the Iraq's army Eastern Bloc equipment.
Another problem is quality. Weapons from the former Soviet Bloc, which the U.S. military euphemistically calls "nonstandard equipment," have been flagged as substandard, acknowledges Brigadier General Charles Luckey, who is in charge of security assistance at Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. In an interview from Iraq, Brigadier General Luckey said: "One of the frustrating things about buying nonstandard [weapons], is that I'm the guy who has to deal with the fact that some broker I've never heard of allowed weapons to get to Iraq before they were inspected."
Defense Solutions is carving a new niche in the arms trade, selling Soviet-made weapons to Middle Eastern countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. Defense Solutions sold Hungarian-owed T-72 tanks to Iraq in 2005. In one high-profile case, Iraqi officials alleged that a corrupt firm sold them $400 million in shoddy helicopters from Poland. More recently, a company led by a 21-year-old and a former masseur was offered a U.S. government contract worth nearly $300 million to sell ammunition to Afghanistan. The ammunition turned out to be outdated and of dubious origin and several people connected with the company have been indicted. A congressional investigation concluded that the company, which was on a State Department watch list, was able to take advantage of regulatory loopholes by using middlemen.
For those concerned about illicit arms trade, this new wave of weapons deals is rife with the potential for corruption and abuse, but for companies eager to pursue markets once regarded as dubious, it represents a lucrative business opportunity. The problem in these cases, according to those familiar with arms sales, is that it's no longer clear what's legal and what's not.
Rachel Stohl, an expert on international arms trade and a senior analyst at Center for Defense Information, says that in many ways, the rush to equip Iraq has led the United States to throw caution to the wind. She points to a report by the Government Accountability Office last year that found that some 190,000 weapons sold to Iraq have gone missing. "I think the reality is we won't know, until way after the fact, about all of these irregularities with the Iraq weapons provision program," she said. "We were providing them all these assault rifles that have gone missing. Why? They were not following the standard procedures that were in place."
But Iraq and Afghanistan aren't the only markets available to arms brokers like Defense Solutions. The gradual normalization of relations with Libya opens another door into a quasi-legal area of sales.
Like Iraq, Libya has a substantial arsenal of Soviet-origin military weapons, offering a potential market for brokers working with Russia and other former Soviet states. But even when there's not an outright ban, sales to the Middle East are often fraught with controversy, particularly to countries like Libya, which was under international sanction for more than a decade. Even as sanctions against it have been lifted, European companies proposing to sell arms to Libya have faced steep criticism, particularly since the country is still ruled by dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who took power in a military coup in 1969.
While the United States lifted Libya's "state sponsor of terrorism" designation in 2006, other restrictions, such as on the sale of arms, remain in place. A State Department spokesperson confirmed that exports of "lethal munitions" to Libya, such as tanks or related equipment, are still banned, although sales of nonlethal equipment are now allowed on a case-by-case basis.
In late March, Weldon traveled to Libya for a weeklong trip at the invitation of the Gaddafi Foundation, a group run by the son of Libya's leader, and the chairman of Libya's foreign affairs committee, according to the report he sent to Defense Solutions (.pdf), a copy of which was obtained by Wired.com. The trip reports states: "Agreement reached for Weldon to quickly return to Libya for meetings with son [of Libyan leader Gaddafi] Morti regarding defense and security cooperation."
A document dated April 16, just two weeks after Weldon's trip, outlines Defense Solutions' proposal to Libya to refurbish the country's fleet of armored vehicles, including its T-72 tanks, BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, and BTR-60 armored personnel carriers. A copy of the sales proposal, also provided to Wired.com, is on Defense Solutions' letterhead, appears to bear the signature of company CEO Timothy Ringgold, and is addressed to Libya's defense procurement council. "Defense Solutions is committed to delivering a full end-to-end solution to its clients," the proposal states. "Besides refurbishing these vehicles, we are capable of providing a full logistics support package, including a two year supply of spare parts, maintenance and repair services, and operator, maintenance, and repair training."
In an interview with Wired.com, Ringgold admitted that he's interested in doing business in Libya and confirms receiving Weldon's trip report from Libya, but denies drafting or signing an arms-sale proposal. "I've never made such a document to Libya," Ringgold insisted, after being read the proposal, and told that his signature is on it.
In addition to the Libyan arms-deal document, Wired.com has also reviewed copies of e-mails from Ringgold discussing the Libyan deal.
While Ringgold denies proposing an arms sale to Libya, he is open about speaking with Rosoboronexport, which has been on a U.S. government sanctions list since 2006, after the Russian state agency allegedly violated the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act. An April e-mail provided to Wired.com describes Ringgold, Weldon and Stephan Minikes, a senior advisor to Defense Solutions and a former ambassador, meeting with Rosoboronexport. The conversations included a number of potential deals, including supplying Mi-17 helicopters to Afghanistan and spare parts for Iraq's infantry fighting vehicles. Ringgold wrote to colleagues following the visit, describing the meetings as a "spectacular success," saying the Russian agency "has the ability to undercut all cost proposals from brokers."
Ringgold confirmed those discussions and said that his company has sought to do business with Rosoboronexport. Asked whether Ringgold considers his dealings with Russia to be legal, he argued that U.S. companies could work with Rosoboronexport on a "case-by-case" basis. "The particular purpose of the meeting we had -- and I want to be crystal clear -- was in response to a U.S. government requirement," he said.
A number of officials at the State Department and in the Pentagon, when contacted for this article, could not say whether working with Rosoboronexport is legal or not. A Pentagon spokeswoman said she was familiar with the issue, but deferred the question to the State Department. When asked about Rosoboronexport's status on the blacklist, John Herzberg, a State Department spokesman replied: "What's on there is on there."
Asked whether, given the ban, there was any way a company could legally work with Rosoboronexport, as Ringgold suggested, Herzberg provided an equivocal answer. "At the stage of the process we're at, I'm unable to give you an answer," he said. "You can try elsewhere in government, and maybe they'll be braver than me."
In an interview from Iraq, General Luckey conceded it was a murky area, but said, "My understanding is they are currently on our no-go list."
The confusion over debarred parties has even led the U.S. government into its own legal tangles, according to Jim McAleese, a Washington attorney who specializes in government contracting and foreign military sales. Because the Russian government violated U.S. nonproliferation laws, even NASA had to go to Congress to ensure it could work with Russia on Soyuz flights to the international space station. "What I'm warning you about is, don't be surprised by the confusion," McAleese said. "There are a whole bunch of different statutes that were adopted piecemeal and were never intended to be reconciled."
But it's the very ambiguity of the law that troubles those who monitor export control. "It's highly unusual to do anything with the Russians, particularly Rosoboronexport," said Scott Jones, director of Export Control Programs at the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia.
Legal or not, reputable American companies simply don't want to work with banned entities, Jones said, for fear of risking their reputations and business. "Even if it's not an outright prohibition, most companies don't want to put themselves in a liability situation that has really bad PR … and they stay away from it," Jones said. "But if that's your business, pimping out arms from the U.S. or Russia, that's the way it works, and you push as much as possible."
Finding any U.S. defense company working with the Russian government at this point would be "remarkable," Jones added.
In the meantime, the future for Weldon is unclear. The FBI investigation continues and Weldon's former chief of staff recently pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and is cooperating with the government, notes Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed a complaint against Weldon in 2004. Sloan speculated that Weldon may be charged with "honest service fraud" for misusing his office for personal gain. "It's an easier standard than bribery," she said. "I wouldn't be surprised [if he's charged] with bribery, but I think it will be honest services fraud."
Ringgold insists that he and Weldon are on the right side of the law. "Everything we do is in strict compliance with international and U.S. law and we operate only in the best interests of the U.S. government," he said. "I didn't serve 30 years in the United States Army to throw that away on a whim."
Asked if Weldon is still working for the company, Ringgold replied: "Absolutely, proudly so."
Musharraf allegedly 'agreed' for nuclear materials export to North Korea.
BBC News
4 July 2008
Disgraced scientist AQ Khan has said that Pakistan transported nuclear material to North Korea with the full knowledge of President Musharraf.
He told the Associated Press news agency that the army supervised a flight of centrifuges in 2000.
At the time Mr Musharraf was head of the army.
Dr Khan said that uranium enrichment equipment was sent in a North Korean plane loaded under the supervision of Pakistani security officials.
Dr Khan's latest claims contradict a public confession he made in 2004 that he was solely responsible for exporting nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
They also are also at variance with the oft-stated line of the Pakistani government that neither it nor the army had any knowledge of the exports.
"It was a North Korean plane, and the army had complete knowledge about it and the equipment," Dr Khan said.
"It must have gone with his (Musharraf's) consent."
Correspondents say that the allegations are highly controversial and could prove extremely embarrassing for the army and Mr Musharraf.
So far there has been no response from the president, the government or the army in relation to the allegations.
4 July 2008
Disgraced scientist AQ Khan has said that Pakistan transported nuclear material to North Korea with the full knowledge of President Musharraf.
He told the Associated Press news agency that the army supervised a flight of centrifuges in 2000.
At the time Mr Musharraf was head of the army.
Dr Khan said that uranium enrichment equipment was sent in a North Korean plane loaded under the supervision of Pakistani security officials.
Dr Khan's latest claims contradict a public confession he made in 2004 that he was solely responsible for exporting nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
They also are also at variance with the oft-stated line of the Pakistani government that neither it nor the army had any knowledge of the exports.
"It was a North Korean plane, and the army had complete knowledge about it and the equipment," Dr Khan said.
"It must have gone with his (Musharraf's) consent."
Correspondents say that the allegations are highly controversial and could prove extremely embarrassing for the army and Mr Musharraf.
So far there has been no response from the president, the government or the army in relation to the allegations.
03 July, 2008
Oric Conviction Overturned
RIA Novosti
3 July 2008
A UN tribunal overturned a conviction on Thursday for a former Bosnian Muslim commander, Naser Oric, sentenced to a prison term for war crimes against Serbs in 1992-1993 during the Bosnian War.
Oric, 41, was convicted in 2006 for failing to prevent the killing and torture of Serb prisoners and the destruction of Serb villages in Srebrenica. He received two years in prison, but was immediately released taking into account the three years he had already spent in custody pending trial.
In quashing his convictions, the appeal judges said they had overturned the previous ruling as there was insufficient evidence to establish he was aware of the crimes and was in full control of the troops, who committed them.
Presiding judge Wolfgang Schomburg said: "The appeals chamber has no doubt that grave crimes were committed against Serbs detained in Srebrenica," but added that "proof that crimes have occurred is not sufficient to sustain a conviction of an individual for these crimes."
3 July 2008
A UN tribunal overturned a conviction on Thursday for a former Bosnian Muslim commander, Naser Oric, sentenced to a prison term for war crimes against Serbs in 1992-1993 during the Bosnian War.
Oric, 41, was convicted in 2006 for failing to prevent the killing and torture of Serb prisoners and the destruction of Serb villages in Srebrenica. He received two years in prison, but was immediately released taking into account the three years he had already spent in custody pending trial.
In quashing his convictions, the appeal judges said they had overturned the previous ruling as there was insufficient evidence to establish he was aware of the crimes and was in full control of the troops, who committed them.
Presiding judge Wolfgang Schomburg said: "The appeals chamber has no doubt that grave crimes were committed against Serbs detained in Srebrenica," but added that "proof that crimes have occurred is not sufficient to sustain a conviction of an individual for these crimes."
Angola Licensing May Restart in Late 2009.
by Bernd Radowitz
Dow Jones Newswires
July 02, 2008
Angola may restart a delayed upstream oil licensing round in late 2009, Severino Cardoso, Exploration Director at state-oil company Sonangol said Wednesday.
He spoke at the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress that started here Monday and ends Thursday.
Angola had put up 10 blocks for auction in 2007, and was supposed to have opened bids earlier this year. But the government postponed the announcement of the winners of the licensing round without explanation.
"We have elections in Angola this year, and have to wait until after that before being able to retake the licensing round," Cardoso told Dow Jones Newswires.
Cardoso during the event was talking to foreign oil company executives, inviting them to hand in further bids for the licensing round.
The acreage on offer includes three onshore blocks, one shallow water, three deep water and three ultra-deep water.
Angola, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is currently producing 1.9 million barrels a day and is expecting to produce 2 billion barrels a day this year, Oil Minister Desiderio Costa said Wednesday.
Dow Jones Newswires
July 02, 2008
Angola may restart a delayed upstream oil licensing round in late 2009, Severino Cardoso, Exploration Director at state-oil company Sonangol said Wednesday.
He spoke at the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress that started here Monday and ends Thursday.
Angola had put up 10 blocks for auction in 2007, and was supposed to have opened bids earlier this year. But the government postponed the announcement of the winners of the licensing round without explanation.
"We have elections in Angola this year, and have to wait until after that before being able to retake the licensing round," Cardoso told Dow Jones Newswires.
Cardoso during the event was talking to foreign oil company executives, inviting them to hand in further bids for the licensing round.
The acreage on offer includes three onshore blocks, one shallow water, three deep water and three ultra-deep water.
Angola, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is currently producing 1.9 million barrels a day and is expecting to produce 2 billion barrels a day this year, Oil Minister Desiderio Costa said Wednesday.
Rwanda Makes Plans to Reduce Dependence on Kenya, Kagame Says.
Bloomberg
By Jason McLure
July 3, 2008
Rwanda may reduce dependence on Kenya by building a rail line to Tanzania and is looking at other projects to make the landlocked central African nation more economically independent, President Paul Kagame said.
Rwanda has to use the Kenyan port of Mombasa for its imports and exports, a risk that was highlighted during the political violence in Kenya in January and February.
``We were thinking about this many years before these problems in Kenya,'' Kagame said in an interview on July 1. ``It's always logical not to depend on one option. The more options you have to do anything the better.''
In addition to the rail link to the Tanzanian port city of Dar es Salaam, the government is considering a southern railroad through Tanzania to Zambia. Should the political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo stabilize, Rwanda may also help build a railroad west through Congo's vast jungles to the Atlantic.
Kagame believes the small central African state can maintain 7 percent growth for the next two to three years, even with higher food and fuel prices.
``I think we can continue with large growth, or even higher growth, especially if we can solve the problem of energy, which we are also doing,'' he said. Efforts to extract methane gas from beneath Lake Kivu could help the country reduce its dependence on imported oil, Kagame said.
Oil Pipeline
The government also wants Rwanda connected to a new oil pipeline that will link Mombasa with Eldoret in western Kenya. The pipeline will be extended to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, and may go on to the Rwandan capital, Kigali, Kagame said.
Rwanda's efforts to install fiber-optic lines in the country should lead to becoming ``a hub of sorts in terms of IT or financial services,'' he said.
By Jason McLure
July 3, 2008
Rwanda may reduce dependence on Kenya by building a rail line to Tanzania and is looking at other projects to make the landlocked central African nation more economically independent, President Paul Kagame said.
Rwanda has to use the Kenyan port of Mombasa for its imports and exports, a risk that was highlighted during the political violence in Kenya in January and February.
``We were thinking about this many years before these problems in Kenya,'' Kagame said in an interview on July 1. ``It's always logical not to depend on one option. The more options you have to do anything the better.''
In addition to the rail link to the Tanzanian port city of Dar es Salaam, the government is considering a southern railroad through Tanzania to Zambia. Should the political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo stabilize, Rwanda may also help build a railroad west through Congo's vast jungles to the Atlantic.
Kagame believes the small central African state can maintain 7 percent growth for the next two to three years, even with higher food and fuel prices.
``I think we can continue with large growth, or even higher growth, especially if we can solve the problem of energy, which we are also doing,'' he said. Efforts to extract methane gas from beneath Lake Kivu could help the country reduce its dependence on imported oil, Kagame said.
Oil Pipeline
The government also wants Rwanda connected to a new oil pipeline that will link Mombasa with Eldoret in western Kenya. The pipeline will be extended to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, and may go on to the Rwandan capital, Kigali, Kagame said.
Rwanda's efforts to install fiber-optic lines in the country should lead to becoming ``a hub of sorts in terms of IT or financial services,'' he said.
01 July, 2008
CLASHES WITH TOUAREG, FATE OF MNJ NO.2 UNCERTAIN.
MISNA
30 June 2008
There was intense fighting during the past weekend between the MNJ rebels and Niger’s army, which managed to regain its base at Tezerzaït, which was lost a year ago. The toll is still uncertain: the government says it killed 17 rebels including the MNJ second in command, Mohamed Asharif; the rebels, however, said that seven rebels were killed and four wounded and captured by the army, among whom is Mohamed Asharif, who had served as a captain in Niger’s army before joining the rebels. The rebels also said that the army used heavy artillery, including tanks, armored trucks and two helicopters. The MNJ also said that it destroyed one tank and one helicopter, before it had been forced to retreat. The enws has not been confirmed by independent sources.
30 June 2008
There was intense fighting during the past weekend between the MNJ rebels and Niger’s army, which managed to regain its base at Tezerzaït, which was lost a year ago. The toll is still uncertain: the government says it killed 17 rebels including the MNJ second in command, Mohamed Asharif; the rebels, however, said that seven rebels were killed and four wounded and captured by the army, among whom is Mohamed Asharif, who had served as a captain in Niger’s army before joining the rebels. The rebels also said that the army used heavy artillery, including tanks, armored trucks and two helicopters. The MNJ also said that it destroyed one tank and one helicopter, before it had been forced to retreat. The enws has not been confirmed by independent sources.
NEW UN PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS HEAD ANNOUNCED.
MISNA
30 June 2008
Frenchman Alain Le Roy has been appointed as the new head of UN peacekeeping operations. A UN note making the announcement says that the choice was made by UN sec. gen. Ban Ki-moon. Le Roy replaces another French official, Jean-Marie Guehenno, who has led the office for peace keeping operations (DPKO) for the past eight years. The DPKO is managing about 20 missions, requiring some 100,000 employees (amid blue helmets and administrative officials) and a budget of USD 7 billion, which was approved just days ago. Le Roy served as ambassador to Madagascar, prefect in Western Kosovo and special EU envoy to Macedonia, Le Roy is considered one of the founders of the ‘Mediterranean Union’ project promoted by Frances’ president Nicolas Sarkozy.
30 June 2008
Frenchman Alain Le Roy has been appointed as the new head of UN peacekeeping operations. A UN note making the announcement says that the choice was made by UN sec. gen. Ban Ki-moon. Le Roy replaces another French official, Jean-Marie Guehenno, who has led the office for peace keeping operations (DPKO) for the past eight years. The DPKO is managing about 20 missions, requiring some 100,000 employees (amid blue helmets and administrative officials) and a budget of USD 7 billion, which was approved just days ago. Le Roy served as ambassador to Madagascar, prefect in Western Kosovo and special EU envoy to Macedonia, Le Roy is considered one of the founders of the ‘Mediterranean Union’ project promoted by Frances’ president Nicolas Sarkozy.
SALESIAN MISSIONARY KILLED ON BORDER WITH INDIA.
MISNA
1 July 2008
Gunmen shot dead Father Johnson Moyalan, 65, an Indian Salesian missionary working for the Don Bosco School of Sirsia, in Nepal around 15km from the border with India. The news was confirmed to MISNA by the Salesian general house in Rome. According to the ANS (Salesian Information Agency), Fr. Moyalan was killed at 1.00 am in the morning when a group of 4 to 5 armed men (“presumably armed robbers”, report the Salesians) intruded into the Mission premises and forced the watchman to take them to the Presbytery. The Assistant Parish Priest, Fr. Mathew Puthuppallil, on hearing the commotion immediately called for help on his mobile phone and the assailants locked him in from outside. They then proceeded to Fr. Johnson Moyalan’s room. “What transpired in the room is anyone’s guess. The men left the place after about 15 minutes, throwing a couple of bombs”, reports the ANS, adding that some residents from nearby arrived on the scene and first freed Fr. Mathew from his room and then found the body of Fr. Moyalan with two gunshots.
In the report, the Salesians describe Fr. Johnson Moyalan as “an enthusiastic and active Salesian engaged in the socio-pastoral works of Sirsia, under the Dharan Community in Nepal”. Fr. Moyalan was born at Ollur, Kerala, in 1948, and became a Salesian in 1967. He was ordained a priest for the Province of Bangalore in 1977. After serving for several years as assistant parish Priest in different parts of Andhra Pradesh, from 1986 to 1994 he served as Rector in different houses of Pezzonipet, Cudappa and Hyderabad. On arriving in Nepal in 1996 he began ministry in Dharan, transferring in 2000 to serve in a new mission in Sirsia, where the Salesians have a parish and run a primary school for the poor children of the locality. The funeral will take place in the Bandel Basilica in a few days, when the body has been brought down to Kolkata from Nepal.
1 July 2008
Gunmen shot dead Father Johnson Moyalan, 65, an Indian Salesian missionary working for the Don Bosco School of Sirsia, in Nepal around 15km from the border with India. The news was confirmed to MISNA by the Salesian general house in Rome. According to the ANS (Salesian Information Agency), Fr. Moyalan was killed at 1.00 am in the morning when a group of 4 to 5 armed men (“presumably armed robbers”, report the Salesians) intruded into the Mission premises and forced the watchman to take them to the Presbytery. The Assistant Parish Priest, Fr. Mathew Puthuppallil, on hearing the commotion immediately called for help on his mobile phone and the assailants locked him in from outside. They then proceeded to Fr. Johnson Moyalan’s room. “What transpired in the room is anyone’s guess. The men left the place after about 15 minutes, throwing a couple of bombs”, reports the ANS, adding that some residents from nearby arrived on the scene and first freed Fr. Mathew from his room and then found the body of Fr. Moyalan with two gunshots.
In the report, the Salesians describe Fr. Johnson Moyalan as “an enthusiastic and active Salesian engaged in the socio-pastoral works of Sirsia, under the Dharan Community in Nepal”. Fr. Moyalan was born at Ollur, Kerala, in 1948, and became a Salesian in 1967. He was ordained a priest for the Province of Bangalore in 1977. After serving for several years as assistant parish Priest in different parts of Andhra Pradesh, from 1986 to 1994 he served as Rector in different houses of Pezzonipet, Cudappa and Hyderabad. On arriving in Nepal in 1996 he began ministry in Dharan, transferring in 2000 to serve in a new mission in Sirsia, where the Salesians have a parish and run a primary school for the poor children of the locality. The funeral will take place in the Bandel Basilica in a few days, when the body has been brought down to Kolkata from Nepal.
VIOLENCE IN SUDAN, MEDIATOR NOW BLAMES UGANDAN ARMY.
MISNA
1 July 2008
The Ugandan army and not the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) are now being blamed for a recent violent episode against civilians that took place in Sudan said the vice-president of South Sudan Riek Machar, mediator in the LRA-Uganda peace talks. Machar made the statement in view of evidence gathered through an independent inquiry on the raid of an armed commando in the village of Nyongwa, last June 14 which killed one man. “Clearly – said Machar to the ‘Sudan Tribune’ – the attack was not led by the LRA but by the Ugandan army”. According to an accord signed in 2002, aiming to oppose the LRA, Uganda can keep troops up to 100 km inside Sudanese territory; in the past days, Machar expressed concern over the army’s violence in a letter sent to authorities in Kampala.
1 July 2008
The Ugandan army and not the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) are now being blamed for a recent violent episode against civilians that took place in Sudan said the vice-president of South Sudan Riek Machar, mediator in the LRA-Uganda peace talks. Machar made the statement in view of evidence gathered through an independent inquiry on the raid of an armed commando in the village of Nyongwa, last June 14 which killed one man. “Clearly – said Machar to the ‘Sudan Tribune’ – the attack was not led by the LRA but by the Ugandan army”. According to an accord signed in 2002, aiming to oppose the LRA, Uganda can keep troops up to 100 km inside Sudanese territory; in the past days, Machar expressed concern over the army’s violence in a letter sent to authorities in Kampala.
WITNESS DENIES FAR RECCONNAISSANCE BATTALION KILLED 10 BELGIUM UN-SOLDIERS IN 1994.
Hirondelle News Agency
30 June 2008
Rwandan Reconnaissance Battalion was never involved in the killings of ten UN peacekeepers from Belgium in 1994, a witness, a former member of the elite brigade, claimed before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Monday.
‘’The reconnaissance soldiers never participated in the 1994 genocide’’, the protected witness, code named “K4’’ for his own safety, said in the Examination-in- Chief for the defence of Major Francois-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, former Commander of Rwandan Reconnaissance Battalion, who is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, alongside three other senior army officers in the joint trial, known as “Military II’’.
Led by Nzuwonemeye’s Cameroonian lead counsel, Charles Taku, further asserted that the troops had no hand in the killings of the Belgians soldiers, charged with the protection of the former Prime Minster, Agathe Uwingiliyimana killed with them on April 7.
The Belgium soldiers, he said, were most killed by the wounded Rwandan government troops at Kigali Military Camp.
In response to Counsel Taku’s question as to why the witness decided to testify for the defence of his former boss, “K4” said: “He (accused) was a dedicated person who will give advice to his fellow officers and soldiers alike without discrimination.”
The witness was later being cross examined by the prosecution.
30 June 2008
Rwandan Reconnaissance Battalion was never involved in the killings of ten UN peacekeepers from Belgium in 1994, a witness, a former member of the elite brigade, claimed before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) Monday.
‘’The reconnaissance soldiers never participated in the 1994 genocide’’, the protected witness, code named “K4’’ for his own safety, said in the Examination-in- Chief for the defence of Major Francois-Xavier Nzuwonemeye, former Commander of Rwandan Reconnaissance Battalion, who is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity, alongside three other senior army officers in the joint trial, known as “Military II’’.
Led by Nzuwonemeye’s Cameroonian lead counsel, Charles Taku, further asserted that the troops had no hand in the killings of the Belgians soldiers, charged with the protection of the former Prime Minster, Agathe Uwingiliyimana killed with them on April 7.
The Belgium soldiers, he said, were most killed by the wounded Rwandan government troops at Kigali Military Camp.
In response to Counsel Taku’s question as to why the witness decided to testify for the defence of his former boss, “K4” said: “He (accused) was a dedicated person who will give advice to his fellow officers and soldiers alike without discrimination.”
The witness was later being cross examined by the prosecution.
Rwanda to send troops to Somalia.
African Press Agency
1 July 2008
Editor's Note: Here's part of the reason Undersecretary Frazier threw her support behind General Karenzi. For recall, Rwanda already has made an agreement with President Yusuf to train the Somali national army.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Sunday said his country would send peacekeeping troops to Somalia, APA learnt here on Sunday.
Kagame, who is attending the African Union summit in Sharm el-Sheik told journalists that his country is still working to send troops to join the African mission in Somalia but he did not give a date for the deployment.
Rwanda is among the few African countries that pledged to send troops to Somalia. The AU planned to have 8,000 troops deployed.
Other countries are Nigeria, Ghana and Malawi, Uganda and Burundi.
However it is only Uganda and Burundi troops, numbering around 2,600, that are currently deployed in Somalia.
The federal transitional government of Somalia is also backed by Ethiopian troops which have been in the country since December 2006.
Countries that pledged to send troops but have not done so cite political and financial constrains for the delay.
1 July 2008
Editor's Note: Here's part of the reason Undersecretary Frazier threw her support behind General Karenzi. For recall, Rwanda already has made an agreement with President Yusuf to train the Somali national army.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Sunday said his country would send peacekeeping troops to Somalia, APA learnt here on Sunday.
Kagame, who is attending the African Union summit in Sharm el-Sheik told journalists that his country is still working to send troops to join the African mission in Somalia but he did not give a date for the deployment.
Rwanda is among the few African countries that pledged to send troops to Somalia. The AU planned to have 8,000 troops deployed.
Other countries are Nigeria, Ghana and Malawi, Uganda and Burundi.
However it is only Uganda and Burundi troops, numbering around 2,600, that are currently deployed in Somalia.
The federal transitional government of Somalia is also backed by Ethiopian troops which have been in the country since December 2006.
Countries that pledged to send troops but have not done so cite political and financial constrains for the delay.
Bosnia's black gold.
Al-Jazeera
1 July 2008
By Alan Fisher in Tuzla, Bosnia
Early attempts to find oil can be seen on the edge of Tuzla.
Drive three hours north from Sarajevo, through the sweeping hills and valleys of central Bosnia and you arrive in the city of Tuzla.
It is a pretty enough place with its elegantly dressed people and numerous cafes, but this place could be about to undergo a remarkable transformation.
The talk here is about oil. Not just the prices which are affecting everyone but supplies, deep underground. It is nothing new. They have been talking about it since the 19th century, during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
On the edge of the city, where the cornfields lie, it is easy to find traces of the exploration carried out here before the second world war. Twenty bore holes were drilled into the ground to find out what lies beneath. And now the oil bubbles to the surface on its own, leaking out of the holes, scarring the surface nearby.
'Transform our economy'
Professor Hazim Hrvatovic is Bosnia's most senior geologist. He has looked at the results from the drilling in the thirties and at the surveys carried out by a British firm in the 1980s.
"From all we've read and all we've seen there may be around 400 million barrels of oil here. It will take money to extract and develop which is why we need a partner to help us.
"But there is enough oil here to supply our demands for the next twenty years and maybe more. This could transform our economy," he says.
The area needs so much though - roads and other transport links to move the oil, somewhere to process it and somewhere to store it. With oil hitting $130 a barrel, it is suddenly financially viable to do all of this.
But drilling for oil is a risky business. No one wants to spend the millions of dollars it takes to drill just one hole only to come up dry. Bosnia needs outside help.
Reaping rewards
Ibrahim Bosto is a senior figure with Bosnia's main energy company Energoinvest, which is 67 per cent owned by the government. In his office, we look over geological maps of the area. There are four places around the country which have been identified as of potential interest.
"The only solution at the moment is to find a strategic partner, who is ready to invest in this works, to co-operate with us and to reap the rewards of what may be there," Bosto says.
In Tuzla, the idea of transforming this place into the oil capital of the Balkans excites the locals.
In an area of high unemployment, they see the benefits. Stop anyone on the street and they know about the stories of oil.
One woman tells me: "Oil could be the sign of wealth and development growth for our whole society, and maybe it's a big chance for employment for the young people because at the moment they don't have jobs."
The government has watched the oil price rise steadily. And now it knows the country could be on the verge of a bonanza.
Vahid Heco, the country's trade minister, is optimistic.
"The potential in raw oil and natural gas that exists here would transform the whole economic situation in Bosnia and I assume we would become a centre for energy development in south east Europe," he said.
But for the moment, all there is is oil bubbling slowly to the surface. So the people must wait to see if the experts are right and deep underground, there lies enough oil to transform this country and its struggling economy.
1 July 2008
By Alan Fisher in Tuzla, Bosnia
Early attempts to find oil can be seen on the edge of Tuzla.
Drive three hours north from Sarajevo, through the sweeping hills and valleys of central Bosnia and you arrive in the city of Tuzla.
It is a pretty enough place with its elegantly dressed people and numerous cafes, but this place could be about to undergo a remarkable transformation.
The talk here is about oil. Not just the prices which are affecting everyone but supplies, deep underground. It is nothing new. They have been talking about it since the 19th century, during the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
On the edge of the city, where the cornfields lie, it is easy to find traces of the exploration carried out here before the second world war. Twenty bore holes were drilled into the ground to find out what lies beneath. And now the oil bubbles to the surface on its own, leaking out of the holes, scarring the surface nearby.
'Transform our economy'
Professor Hazim Hrvatovic is Bosnia's most senior geologist. He has looked at the results from the drilling in the thirties and at the surveys carried out by a British firm in the 1980s.
"From all we've read and all we've seen there may be around 400 million barrels of oil here. It will take money to extract and develop which is why we need a partner to help us.
"But there is enough oil here to supply our demands for the next twenty years and maybe more. This could transform our economy," he says.
The area needs so much though - roads and other transport links to move the oil, somewhere to process it and somewhere to store it. With oil hitting $130 a barrel, it is suddenly financially viable to do all of this.
But drilling for oil is a risky business. No one wants to spend the millions of dollars it takes to drill just one hole only to come up dry. Bosnia needs outside help.
Reaping rewards
Ibrahim Bosto is a senior figure with Bosnia's main energy company Energoinvest, which is 67 per cent owned by the government. In his office, we look over geological maps of the area. There are four places around the country which have been identified as of potential interest.
"The only solution at the moment is to find a strategic partner, who is ready to invest in this works, to co-operate with us and to reap the rewards of what may be there," Bosto says.
In Tuzla, the idea of transforming this place into the oil capital of the Balkans excites the locals.
In an area of high unemployment, they see the benefits. Stop anyone on the street and they know about the stories of oil.
One woman tells me: "Oil could be the sign of wealth and development growth for our whole society, and maybe it's a big chance for employment for the young people because at the moment they don't have jobs."
The government has watched the oil price rise steadily. And now it knows the country could be on the verge of a bonanza.
Vahid Heco, the country's trade minister, is optimistic.
"The potential in raw oil and natural gas that exists here would transform the whole economic situation in Bosnia and I assume we would become a centre for energy development in south east Europe," he said.
But for the moment, all there is is oil bubbling slowly to the surface. So the people must wait to see if the experts are right and deep underground, there lies enough oil to transform this country and its struggling economy.
30 June, 2008
Ivorian rebels prepare offensive against dissidents.
Reuters
29 June 2008
Rebel forces who support Ivory Coast's peace process prepared a counter-offensive on Sunday to take back control of two towns in the western cocoa belt occupied by followers of a sacked rebel chief, a spokesman said.
A local television journalist said three civilians and one dissident insurgent died in clashes on Saturday between rebels and dissidents in Seguela, more than 400 km (248.5 miles) northwest of the main commercial city Abidjan.
Fighting was also reported at another western town, Vavoua, where the dissident fighters had also rebelled against the sacking last month of their commander Kone Zakaria by military leaders of the New Forces rebels who control the north.
"This morning things are quiet, there has been no fighting overnight," New Forces spokesman Issa Flepy told Reuters.
The New Forces rebels, who support an internationally backed peace process in the world's No. 1 cocoa producer, were waiting for reinforcements before fighting back, he said.
"The reinforcements are due to arrive today and after that we will launch the counter-offensive to take back control of the towns," he said.
Witnesses told Reuters they saw military vehicles go towards Seguela.
Ivory Coast's brief 2002/2003 civil war divided the country in two, with the New Forces controlling the north and the government of President Laurent Gbagbo holding the south. The two sides signed a peace and reunification deal in March 2007.
The clashes in the west occurred as Gbagbo's coalition government, which now includes the northern New Forces rebels, pushes ahead with preparations for national elections on Nov. 30 that are aimed at finally reunifying the country.
Gbagbo and his prime minister, New Forces leader Guillaume Soro, who was appointed under the 2007 peace pact, have said they are committed to holding peaceful elections.
Both the government army and the New Forces rebels have withdrawn their soldiers from frontline positions under a pre-election demobilisation and disarmament process that aims to forge a new united national armed forces under the peace plan.
But there have been sometimes violent protests in the rebel ranks in the last few months from fighters who complain they have not received the demobilisation pay they were promised.
(Reporting by Ange Aboa; Writing by Ingrid Melander, editing by Mary Gabriel)
29 June 2008
Rebel forces who support Ivory Coast's peace process prepared a counter-offensive on Sunday to take back control of two towns in the western cocoa belt occupied by followers of a sacked rebel chief, a spokesman said.
A local television journalist said three civilians and one dissident insurgent died in clashes on Saturday between rebels and dissidents in Seguela, more than 400 km (248.5 miles) northwest of the main commercial city Abidjan.
Fighting was also reported at another western town, Vavoua, where the dissident fighters had also rebelled against the sacking last month of their commander Kone Zakaria by military leaders of the New Forces rebels who control the north.
"This morning things are quiet, there has been no fighting overnight," New Forces spokesman Issa Flepy told Reuters.
The New Forces rebels, who support an internationally backed peace process in the world's No. 1 cocoa producer, were waiting for reinforcements before fighting back, he said.
"The reinforcements are due to arrive today and after that we will launch the counter-offensive to take back control of the towns," he said.
Witnesses told Reuters they saw military vehicles go towards Seguela.
Ivory Coast's brief 2002/2003 civil war divided the country in two, with the New Forces controlling the north and the government of President Laurent Gbagbo holding the south. The two sides signed a peace and reunification deal in March 2007.
The clashes in the west occurred as Gbagbo's coalition government, which now includes the northern New Forces rebels, pushes ahead with preparations for national elections on Nov. 30 that are aimed at finally reunifying the country.
Gbagbo and his prime minister, New Forces leader Guillaume Soro, who was appointed under the 2007 peace pact, have said they are committed to holding peaceful elections.
Both the government army and the New Forces rebels have withdrawn their soldiers from frontline positions under a pre-election demobilisation and disarmament process that aims to forge a new united national armed forces under the peace plan.
But there have been sometimes violent protests in the rebel ranks in the last few months from fighters who complain they have not received the demobilisation pay they were promised.
(Reporting by Ange Aboa; Writing by Ingrid Melander, editing by Mary Gabriel)
Iraq Opens 6 Oil Fields for Bidding.
Xinhua News Agency
30 June 2008
Iraqi oil ministry Monday announced a list of six oil fields for bidding from foreign oil companies to boost oil production in the war-torn country.
Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani told a press conference in Baghdad that the fields are Rumaila, Kirkuk, Zubair, West Qurna Phase 1, Bai Hassan and Maysan.
The minister said the oil fields are open for bidding for long- term development contracts with international companies and that the Iraqi government already pre-qualified 41 firms.
All the oil fields on the list are producing oil, Shahristani said, noting that the new contracts would raise the country's oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day.
Iraq's current daily oil production is around 2.5 million barrels.
The six oil fields announced Monday are "the backbone of the oil production in Iraq," but "some of them are getting too old and their production is decreasing," Shahristani said.
"We chose these oil fields because their production rates can be raised in short time and in low cost," he added.
He said the deadline of tender is the end of March 2009, and that preliminary contracts would be signed by next June.
He also disclosed that Iraq's huge natural gas fields of Akkaz and Mansouriyah would be open for bidding, without giving a specific time for the bidding.
Iraq, which holds the world's third largest crude oil reserves, needs billions of U.S. dollars of investment to overhaul its oil industry infrastructure and increase oil and gas output after 13 years of sanctions and war.
30 June 2008
Iraqi oil ministry Monday announced a list of six oil fields for bidding from foreign oil companies to boost oil production in the war-torn country.
Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani told a press conference in Baghdad that the fields are Rumaila, Kirkuk, Zubair, West Qurna Phase 1, Bai Hassan and Maysan.
The minister said the oil fields are open for bidding for long- term development contracts with international companies and that the Iraqi government already pre-qualified 41 firms.
All the oil fields on the list are producing oil, Shahristani said, noting that the new contracts would raise the country's oil production by 1.5 million barrels per day.
Iraq's current daily oil production is around 2.5 million barrels.
The six oil fields announced Monday are "the backbone of the oil production in Iraq," but "some of them are getting too old and their production is decreasing," Shahristani said.
"We chose these oil fields because their production rates can be raised in short time and in low cost," he added.
He said the deadline of tender is the end of March 2009, and that preliminary contracts would be signed by next June.
He also disclosed that Iraq's huge natural gas fields of Akkaz and Mansouriyah would be open for bidding, without giving a specific time for the bidding.
Iraq, which holds the world's third largest crude oil reserves, needs billions of U.S. dollars of investment to overhaul its oil industry infrastructure and increase oil and gas output after 13 years of sanctions and war.
Somalia invites Russian firms to develop uranium deposits.
RIA Novosti
29 June 2008
Somalia hopes Russian companies will take part in the development of uranium deposits, and oil and natural gas production, the Somali ambassador to Russia said Friday.
“Today we say: let’s cooperate. Somalia is a very rich country, this is the main basin of oil and gas on the territory of the Horn of Africa,” Mohamed Handule told a RIA Novosti press conference.
Handule said prospecting for uranium deposits had been carried during the Soviet era.
“Somalia believes that production of this uranium is a prerogative of Russian firms, stemming from former intergovernmental agreements with the U.S.S.R.,” he said.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991, and a transitional government established with UN assistance in 2004 has failed to gain control over the country.
The ambassador also referred to a project to build a space center in Somalia. “A space center in Somalia could be used as an international space center, a site that could supplement Baikonur,” he said, adding that rockets with telecommunications satellites on board could be launched from there.
The Baikonur space center, built in Kazakhstan in the 1950s, was first leased by Russia from Kazakhstan under an agreement signed in 1994 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russian officials have repeatedly said Russia will continue to use the Baikonur launch site until at least 2050.
29 June 2008
Somalia hopes Russian companies will take part in the development of uranium deposits, and oil and natural gas production, the Somali ambassador to Russia said Friday.
“Today we say: let’s cooperate. Somalia is a very rich country, this is the main basin of oil and gas on the territory of the Horn of Africa,” Mohamed Handule told a RIA Novosti press conference.
Handule said prospecting for uranium deposits had been carried during the Soviet era.
“Somalia believes that production of this uranium is a prerogative of Russian firms, stemming from former intergovernmental agreements with the U.S.S.R.,” he said.
Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991, and a transitional government established with UN assistance in 2004 has failed to gain control over the country.
The ambassador also referred to a project to build a space center in Somalia. “A space center in Somalia could be used as an international space center, a site that could supplement Baikonur,” he said, adding that rockets with telecommunications satellites on board could be launched from there.
The Baikonur space center, built in Kazakhstan in the 1950s, was first leased by Russia from Kazakhstan under an agreement signed in 1994 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russian officials have repeatedly said Russia will continue to use the Baikonur launch site until at least 2050.
MPs accuse Puntland leader of 'interfering' with parliament.
Garowe Online
28 June 2008
A group of lawmakers in Somalia's semiautonomous region of Puntland held a press conference in the administrative capital Garowe, where their spokesman launched accusations against President Mohamud "Adde" Muse.
MP Abdirashid Mohamed Hersi, who spoke on behalf of the 10 dissenting lawmakers, told Saturday's press conference that many MPs are "on the verge" of resigning from parliament.
"Since the [June] Parliament Session began, the Speaker [Ahmed Ali Hashi] has been busy with travel to places no one sent him," MP Abdirashid said, adding that the parliament leadership is opposed to rectifying discrepancies between the new constitution and parliamentary bylaws.
He indicated that President Muse's administration is supportive of parliament's leadership and does not wish to see any changes made in the bylaws.
MP Abdirashid stated that parliament Speaker Hashi is now in his home region of Sanaag, while the 20th session is already underway in Garowe.
He further accused the Speaker of misappropriation of funds and violating constitutional and parliamentary bylaws.
Puntland's new constitution has been completed, but the Muse administration has not yet brought the constitution to parliament for ratification.
The constitution calls for multi-party presidential elections, slated for January 2009. But bylaws that "favor the administration" will be used to appoint Puntland's first-ever election commission, according to a parliament insider.
Many lawmakers remain opposed to Speaker Hashi's leadership, accusing him of "illegal conduct" during a vote on the oil law last March.
The Puntland administration and foreign companies claim that the oil law was passed, but many MPs are waiting to challenge Speaker Hashi when he comes to parliament for the first time since that controversial oil law vote.
28 June 2008
A group of lawmakers in Somalia's semiautonomous region of Puntland held a press conference in the administrative capital Garowe, where their spokesman launched accusations against President Mohamud "Adde" Muse.
MP Abdirashid Mohamed Hersi, who spoke on behalf of the 10 dissenting lawmakers, told Saturday's press conference that many MPs are "on the verge" of resigning from parliament.
"Since the [June] Parliament Session began, the Speaker [Ahmed Ali Hashi] has been busy with travel to places no one sent him," MP Abdirashid said, adding that the parliament leadership is opposed to rectifying discrepancies between the new constitution and parliamentary bylaws.
He indicated that President Muse's administration is supportive of parliament's leadership and does not wish to see any changes made in the bylaws.
MP Abdirashid stated that parliament Speaker Hashi is now in his home region of Sanaag, while the 20th session is already underway in Garowe.
He further accused the Speaker of misappropriation of funds and violating constitutional and parliamentary bylaws.
Puntland's new constitution has been completed, but the Muse administration has not yet brought the constitution to parliament for ratification.
The constitution calls for multi-party presidential elections, slated for January 2009. But bylaws that "favor the administration" will be used to appoint Puntland's first-ever election commission, according to a parliament insider.
Many lawmakers remain opposed to Speaker Hashi's leadership, accusing him of "illegal conduct" during a vote on the oil law last March.
The Puntland administration and foreign companies claim that the oil law was passed, but many MPs are waiting to challenge Speaker Hashi when he comes to parliament for the first time since that controversial oil law vote.
Ethiopia’s political landscape worrying.
The East African
30 June 2008
By MICHAEL DEIBERT
When it was announced last month that the ruling party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had swept local polls in this vast Horn of Africa nation, few expressed surprise.
Zenawi’s Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition was declared by the country’s national electoral board to have won 559 districts in the kebele and woreda divisions of local government and all but one of 39 parliament seats contested in the by-election.
Out of a total of 26 million registered voters, the electoral board claimed that 24.5 million, or 93 per cent, voted.
April’s ballot was the first chance for the EPRDF to flex the muscles of its electoral machinery since General election in May 2005. Though early returns that year suggested an electoral triumph for the country’s two main opposition parties, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF). Prime Minister Zenawi declared a state of emergency before final results were announced.
In the unrest that followed, hundreds of people were arrested and at least 200 killed by Ethiopian security forces. Official results — not released until September — gave 59 per cent of the total vote to the EPRDF.
Cries of fraud stained the reputation of one of Washington’s closest African allies, to whom, according to US defense department figures, the Bush administration sold $6 million worth of weapons to in 2006, more armaments than went to any other African country. The weapons are used in part to aid Ethiopia in its war against Islamic militants based in neighbouring Somalia, which Ethiopia invaded in late 2006 and where it remains involved in active combat.
Some observers content that this year’s ballot was even more compromised than the 2005 vote. With an estimated 3.6 million posts up for election, Ethiopia’s opposition parties were only able to register some 16,000 candidates due to obstacles placed in their path by the country’s electoral council.
In response, the UEDF, now the largest opposition party in Ethiopia’s parliament, and the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) — a political party claiming to represent the interests of the Oromo ethnic group (Ethiopia’s largest) — both boycotted the final round of voting.
The situation of the Oromo people — who form the majority in Ethiopia’s largest and most populous state, Oromia — is but one of the thorny politico-ethnic quandaries confronting Ethiopia’s ruling party today.
Amid such internal dissent, several areas of the country are currently on the brink of famine, with the World Food Programme currently estimating that, of Ethiopia’s 80 million citizens, 3.4 million will need emergency food relief from July to September, a number that comes in addition to the eight million currently receiving assistance.
GIVEN SUCH A VOLATILE POLITICAL landscape, some observers have looked upon the EPRDF’s crushing victory in the polls in an extremely circumspect manner.
“The complete lack of any semblance of organised opposition in most of the country reflects how difficult it is in Ethiopia for dissenting voices to emerge without facing a huge level of harassment,” says Chris Albin-Lackey, senior researcher with the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.
Albin-Lackey says that he regards the April ballot as “a stark illustration of just how far Ethiopia’s political space has been closed off since the limited opening that preceded that 2005 polls.”
The EPRDF has governed Ethiopia since 1991, when in its initial incarnation as a rebel army, it succeeded in ousting the violent Marxist military junta known as the Derg that had ruled the country since 1974.
Another source of concern to observers is the Ethiopian government’s “Charities and Societies Proclamation.” The proposed law seeks to strip domestic civil society organisation of access to foreign funding by defining a “foreign” organisation operating in the country as any body that receives more than 10 per cent of its funding from abroad or has any members who are foreign nationals.
Such “foreign” bodies are also thus barred from addressing such issues as human rights and governance in their work. Any foreign human-rights organisation seeking to conduct research in Ethiopia would have to obtain the written permission of the government.
Heavy fines and prison terms are mandated for those who contravene the new law, which bears more than a passing similarity to a draconian law overseeing civil society organisations passed by the government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in 2004.
30 June 2008
By MICHAEL DEIBERT
When it was announced last month that the ruling party of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi had swept local polls in this vast Horn of Africa nation, few expressed surprise.
Zenawi’s Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition was declared by the country’s national electoral board to have won 559 districts in the kebele and woreda divisions of local government and all but one of 39 parliament seats contested in the by-election.
Out of a total of 26 million registered voters, the electoral board claimed that 24.5 million, or 93 per cent, voted.
April’s ballot was the first chance for the EPRDF to flex the muscles of its electoral machinery since General election in May 2005. Though early returns that year suggested an electoral triumph for the country’s two main opposition parties, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) and the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF). Prime Minister Zenawi declared a state of emergency before final results were announced.
In the unrest that followed, hundreds of people were arrested and at least 200 killed by Ethiopian security forces. Official results — not released until September — gave 59 per cent of the total vote to the EPRDF.
Cries of fraud stained the reputation of one of Washington’s closest African allies, to whom, according to US defense department figures, the Bush administration sold $6 million worth of weapons to in 2006, more armaments than went to any other African country. The weapons are used in part to aid Ethiopia in its war against Islamic militants based in neighbouring Somalia, which Ethiopia invaded in late 2006 and where it remains involved in active combat.
Some observers content that this year’s ballot was even more compromised than the 2005 vote. With an estimated 3.6 million posts up for election, Ethiopia’s opposition parties were only able to register some 16,000 candidates due to obstacles placed in their path by the country’s electoral council.
In response, the UEDF, now the largest opposition party in Ethiopia’s parliament, and the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM) — a political party claiming to represent the interests of the Oromo ethnic group (Ethiopia’s largest) — both boycotted the final round of voting.
The situation of the Oromo people — who form the majority in Ethiopia’s largest and most populous state, Oromia — is but one of the thorny politico-ethnic quandaries confronting Ethiopia’s ruling party today.
Amid such internal dissent, several areas of the country are currently on the brink of famine, with the World Food Programme currently estimating that, of Ethiopia’s 80 million citizens, 3.4 million will need emergency food relief from July to September, a number that comes in addition to the eight million currently receiving assistance.
GIVEN SUCH A VOLATILE POLITICAL landscape, some observers have looked upon the EPRDF’s crushing victory in the polls in an extremely circumspect manner.
“The complete lack of any semblance of organised opposition in most of the country reflects how difficult it is in Ethiopia for dissenting voices to emerge without facing a huge level of harassment,” says Chris Albin-Lackey, senior researcher with the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch.
Albin-Lackey says that he regards the April ballot as “a stark illustration of just how far Ethiopia’s political space has been closed off since the limited opening that preceded that 2005 polls.”
The EPRDF has governed Ethiopia since 1991, when in its initial incarnation as a rebel army, it succeeded in ousting the violent Marxist military junta known as the Derg that had ruled the country since 1974.
Another source of concern to observers is the Ethiopian government’s “Charities and Societies Proclamation.” The proposed law seeks to strip domestic civil society organisation of access to foreign funding by defining a “foreign” organisation operating in the country as any body that receives more than 10 per cent of its funding from abroad or has any members who are foreign nationals.
Such “foreign” bodies are also thus barred from addressing such issues as human rights and governance in their work. Any foreign human-rights organisation seeking to conduct research in Ethiopia would have to obtain the written permission of the government.
Heavy fines and prison terms are mandated for those who contravene the new law, which bears more than a passing similarity to a draconian law overseeing civil society organisations passed by the government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in 2004.
Libyan investors to buy oil refinery in Kenya.
Daily Nation
30 June 2008
Story by LUCAS BARASA
As the controversial sale of the Grand Regency Hotel rages, it has emerged that the strategic Kenya Pipeline Refineries Limited is on the verge of being sold to Libyan company, Tamoil.
This follows a deal reached when a delegation led by President Kibaki visited Libya last year.
And Safina party leader Paul Muite Sunday opposed the sale, saying that the Libyan investors wanted to buy the crucial public asset at a throw-away price.
Mr Muite said that an Indian firm, which had won a tender to buy 50 per cent of shares being off-loaded by private firms, had been rejected in favour of the Libyan investors.
“The Indians had offered 10 million US dollars to buy the Shell, Chevron and BP shares. They were further to give 15 million dollars for the upgrading of the refinery. However, when the deal was about to be concluded, somebody intervened and said the shares should be sold to Libyans. The procurement procedure has been violated and another corrupt deal is in offing,” Mr Muite told the Nation in his Nairobi office.
The former Kabete MP said that the Libyan investors had kept off the tendering process because “that is not the way they do business”.
Mr Muite told President Kibaki to clear the air over the trip to Libya, saying that the assets being sold to the oil-rich country belonged to the public.
Trade pact
Months to last year’s General Election, Kenya signed an exclusive trade pact with Libya, granting Tripoli a “most favoured nation” status — giving Libyan companies a head start over other investors when competing for lucrative Government contracts.
Titled: “Agreement on Promotion Guarantee and Protection on Investment”, the document was signed by Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, the then minister for Trade, and Dr Ali Elisaue, the secretary-general of Libya’s General People’s Committee for the Economy and Investment.
During discussions with the Kibaki mission, the Libyans expressed interest in six projects.
First was the purchase of the Grand Regency Hotel by the state-owned Libya African Investment Portfolio (LAP).
In the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, the Libyans wanted to take up a 20 per cent stake in The East African Marine Cable System (Teams).
Under the project, a fibre-optic cable will be built between Mombasa and Fujaira in the United Arab Emirates at an estimated cost of $100 million. The current partners are the Kenya Government and Etisalat of the UAE.
Libya’s state-owned company Tamoil also wants to participate as a major equity partner in Kenya Pipeline Company’s Eldoret-Kampala pipeline, in which its equity is at least 51 per cent.
Not disposing
On Sunday, Energy assistant minister Charles Keter confirmed that private companies wanted to off-load their shares in the refinery. However, he said that the Government was not disposing of its 50 per cent stake.
Other sources said yesterday that Essar Energy Overseas of India was being forced to surrender half of the 50 per cent stake it had won to a Libyan firm whose bid came third.
The Libyan firm has also been holding discussions with the Kenya Petroleum Refineries Limited on its participation in the proposed LPG handling and storage facility in Mombasa.
It has expressed a desire to hold 51 per cent of equity in the proposed joint venture.
The current shareholders of KPRL have since given a commitment to sell their entire equity to new shareholders.
According to the shareholders’ agreement, the Government has the right of pre-emption if the industry shareholders decide to sell their shares.
The refinery in Changamwe, Mombasa, has a capacity of around 72,000 barrels. The intended modernisation programme is aimed at raising the production of liquefied petroleum gas from 30,000 tonnes to 120,000 tonnes per year.
The Indians are said to have pledged to use over $400 million (about Sh22 billion) in both equity and loans to upgrade the refinery, a process that would eventually dilute the Government’s 50 per cent stake.
Libya, whose president, Muammar Gaddafi, has been advocating for the formation of a United States of Africa, has been using its diplomatic, political and economic muscle to penetrate and invest in various countries in the region.
Libya wants a foothold on the East African coast, which has huge potential for offshore oil exploration.
On Sunday, Mr Muite joined leaders calling for the sacking of Mr Kimunya, saying that four major scandals had occurred during his watch at the Treasury.
He said that President Kibaki should stick to his promise during the formation of the grand coalition Government that ministers named in graft would be sacked to facilitate investigations.
The Safina leader recalled that Mr Kimunya had assured the House that all promissory notes for Anglo-leasing type projects had been cancelled only for Sh4 billion to be factored into this year’s Budget for payment. The former Kabete MP said that Kenya was one of few countries still using old technology to print money and that De La Rue company was charging exorbitant rates.
“We are paying two-to-three times more. Mr Kimunya’s assertion that a contract to print new notes was cancelled due to lack of storage does not hold water. If the contract was cancelled, where is the 25 million US dollars that had been paid to De La Rue?” Mr Muite posed.
Mr Kimunya has also been on the spot over the identity of Mobitelea, which owns shares in Safaricom and lately the controversial sale of the Grand Regency Hotel.
Broke news
The Nairobi Metropolitan Development minister, Mr Mutula Kilonzo, has revealed that businessman Kamlesh Pattni paid Sh4 billion for the hotel in 1994.
He termed the sale of the hotel 14 years later at Sh2.9 billion a “superscale corruption.”
It also emerged that the Libyan Government officials who bought the hotel were formally introduced to the staff members on Saturday.
Additional reporting by Kenneth Ogosia
30 June 2008
Story by LUCAS BARASA
As the controversial sale of the Grand Regency Hotel rages, it has emerged that the strategic Kenya Pipeline Refineries Limited is on the verge of being sold to Libyan company, Tamoil.
This follows a deal reached when a delegation led by President Kibaki visited Libya last year.
And Safina party leader Paul Muite Sunday opposed the sale, saying that the Libyan investors wanted to buy the crucial public asset at a throw-away price.
Mr Muite said that an Indian firm, which had won a tender to buy 50 per cent of shares being off-loaded by private firms, had been rejected in favour of the Libyan investors.
“The Indians had offered 10 million US dollars to buy the Shell, Chevron and BP shares. They were further to give 15 million dollars for the upgrading of the refinery. However, when the deal was about to be concluded, somebody intervened and said the shares should be sold to Libyans. The procurement procedure has been violated and another corrupt deal is in offing,” Mr Muite told the Nation in his Nairobi office.
The former Kabete MP said that the Libyan investors had kept off the tendering process because “that is not the way they do business”.
Mr Muite told President Kibaki to clear the air over the trip to Libya, saying that the assets being sold to the oil-rich country belonged to the public.
Trade pact
Months to last year’s General Election, Kenya signed an exclusive trade pact with Libya, granting Tripoli a “most favoured nation” status — giving Libyan companies a head start over other investors when competing for lucrative Government contracts.
Titled: “Agreement on Promotion Guarantee and Protection on Investment”, the document was signed by Dr Mukhisa Kituyi, the then minister for Trade, and Dr Ali Elisaue, the secretary-general of Libya’s General People’s Committee for the Economy and Investment.
During discussions with the Kibaki mission, the Libyans expressed interest in six projects.
First was the purchase of the Grand Regency Hotel by the state-owned Libya African Investment Portfolio (LAP).
In the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, the Libyans wanted to take up a 20 per cent stake in The East African Marine Cable System (Teams).
Under the project, a fibre-optic cable will be built between Mombasa and Fujaira in the United Arab Emirates at an estimated cost of $100 million. The current partners are the Kenya Government and Etisalat of the UAE.
Libya’s state-owned company Tamoil also wants to participate as a major equity partner in Kenya Pipeline Company’s Eldoret-Kampala pipeline, in which its equity is at least 51 per cent.
Not disposing
On Sunday, Energy assistant minister Charles Keter confirmed that private companies wanted to off-load their shares in the refinery. However, he said that the Government was not disposing of its 50 per cent stake.
Other sources said yesterday that Essar Energy Overseas of India was being forced to surrender half of the 50 per cent stake it had won to a Libyan firm whose bid came third.
The Libyan firm has also been holding discussions with the Kenya Petroleum Refineries Limited on its participation in the proposed LPG handling and storage facility in Mombasa.
It has expressed a desire to hold 51 per cent of equity in the proposed joint venture.
The current shareholders of KPRL have since given a commitment to sell their entire equity to new shareholders.
According to the shareholders’ agreement, the Government has the right of pre-emption if the industry shareholders decide to sell their shares.
The refinery in Changamwe, Mombasa, has a capacity of around 72,000 barrels. The intended modernisation programme is aimed at raising the production of liquefied petroleum gas from 30,000 tonnes to 120,000 tonnes per year.
The Indians are said to have pledged to use over $400 million (about Sh22 billion) in both equity and loans to upgrade the refinery, a process that would eventually dilute the Government’s 50 per cent stake.
Libya, whose president, Muammar Gaddafi, has been advocating for the formation of a United States of Africa, has been using its diplomatic, political and economic muscle to penetrate and invest in various countries in the region.
Libya wants a foothold on the East African coast, which has huge potential for offshore oil exploration.
On Sunday, Mr Muite joined leaders calling for the sacking of Mr Kimunya, saying that four major scandals had occurred during his watch at the Treasury.
He said that President Kibaki should stick to his promise during the formation of the grand coalition Government that ministers named in graft would be sacked to facilitate investigations.
The Safina leader recalled that Mr Kimunya had assured the House that all promissory notes for Anglo-leasing type projects had been cancelled only for Sh4 billion to be factored into this year’s Budget for payment. The former Kabete MP said that Kenya was one of few countries still using old technology to print money and that De La Rue company was charging exorbitant rates.
“We are paying two-to-three times more. Mr Kimunya’s assertion that a contract to print new notes was cancelled due to lack of storage does not hold water. If the contract was cancelled, where is the 25 million US dollars that had been paid to De La Rue?” Mr Muite posed.
Mr Kimunya has also been on the spot over the identity of Mobitelea, which owns shares in Safaricom and lately the controversial sale of the Grand Regency Hotel.
Broke news
The Nairobi Metropolitan Development minister, Mr Mutula Kilonzo, has revealed that businessman Kamlesh Pattni paid Sh4 billion for the hotel in 1994.
He termed the sale of the hotel 14 years later at Sh2.9 billion a “superscale corruption.”
It also emerged that the Libyan Government officials who bought the hotel were formally introduced to the staff members on Saturday.
Additional reporting by Kenneth Ogosia
Libya beats out India’s Essar in struggle for Kenya refinery.
The East African
30 June 2008
The government has finally given Libya Oil Holdings Ltd the go-ahead to purchase 50 per cent shares of Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd — introducing a new twist to a battle for control of the refinery that has pitted the Libyans against Indian conglomerate Essar Group.
The Libyans will be purchasing shares hitherto owned by three European multinationals — Shell International Petroleum Ltd, BP Africa Ltd and Chevron Global Energy Inc.
On paper, the arrangement is that the Indians will be accommodated by being offered shares in the company once the Libyans seal the deal with the three multinationals.
As a matter of fact, the government has held discussions with both the Libyans and the Indians and agreed on an arrangement where the Indians will be accommodated.
But whichever way one looks at it, the Indians have been snookered over the deal. Once the Libyans sign a deal with the European multinationals, the Indians will have to rely on the benevolence of the former to accommodate them.
Sources told The EastAfrican that the Treasury was last week trying to persuade the parties to sign a written document committing them to agree to the accommodation arrangement.
In a sense, the deal has once again exposed the growing clout and influence the Libyans are acquiring within the corridors of power in Kenya.
The transaction has been conducted against the background of intense lobbying by influential agents representing the two investors.
At one point, it appeared that the Indians would clinch the deal, especially after they emerged tops in the tender floated by Shell, Chevron and BP paving the way for the signing of a sale and purchase agreement between the parties.
As the Indians waited for the government to waive its pre-emption rights and consummate the deal with the multinationals, the government asked for time to seek an alternative offer from the Libyans.
But on January 29, the Libyans wrote to the Ministry of Energy, declining to respond to the offer on the grounds that the offer the ministry was giving them was a breach of a memorandum of understating signed between the governments of Kenya and Libya in June last year.
It is then that intense lobbying by the Libyans and their well-connected agents started. The multinationals found themselves unable to consummate the deal with Essar group.
On February 2, they wrote a letter to Finance Minister Amos Kimunya, protesting the delay in getting the waiver of pre-emption rights by the government.
“We find difficult to understand the reason for the government needing a further extension of time. We will reluctantly agree to a further extension only until March 14,” said Martin Dickinson on behalf of the multinationals.
At that stage, the excuse by the government was that they needed to do a due diligence on the Essar Group.
30 June 2008
The government has finally given Libya Oil Holdings Ltd the go-ahead to purchase 50 per cent shares of Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd — introducing a new twist to a battle for control of the refinery that has pitted the Libyans against Indian conglomerate Essar Group.
The Libyans will be purchasing shares hitherto owned by three European multinationals — Shell International Petroleum Ltd, BP Africa Ltd and Chevron Global Energy Inc.
On paper, the arrangement is that the Indians will be accommodated by being offered shares in the company once the Libyans seal the deal with the three multinationals.
As a matter of fact, the government has held discussions with both the Libyans and the Indians and agreed on an arrangement where the Indians will be accommodated.
But whichever way one looks at it, the Indians have been snookered over the deal. Once the Libyans sign a deal with the European multinationals, the Indians will have to rely on the benevolence of the former to accommodate them.
Sources told The EastAfrican that the Treasury was last week trying to persuade the parties to sign a written document committing them to agree to the accommodation arrangement.
In a sense, the deal has once again exposed the growing clout and influence the Libyans are acquiring within the corridors of power in Kenya.
The transaction has been conducted against the background of intense lobbying by influential agents representing the two investors.
At one point, it appeared that the Indians would clinch the deal, especially after they emerged tops in the tender floated by Shell, Chevron and BP paving the way for the signing of a sale and purchase agreement between the parties.
As the Indians waited for the government to waive its pre-emption rights and consummate the deal with the multinationals, the government asked for time to seek an alternative offer from the Libyans.
But on January 29, the Libyans wrote to the Ministry of Energy, declining to respond to the offer on the grounds that the offer the ministry was giving them was a breach of a memorandum of understating signed between the governments of Kenya and Libya in June last year.
It is then that intense lobbying by the Libyans and their well-connected agents started. The multinationals found themselves unable to consummate the deal with Essar group.
On February 2, they wrote a letter to Finance Minister Amos Kimunya, protesting the delay in getting the waiver of pre-emption rights by the government.
“We find difficult to understand the reason for the government needing a further extension of time. We will reluctantly agree to a further extension only until March 14,” said Martin Dickinson on behalf of the multinationals.
At that stage, the excuse by the government was that they needed to do a due diligence on the Essar Group.
Qatar Funnels $8 Billion Into Libya.
Money Morning
30 June 2008
By Jason Simpkins
The State of Qatar will invest about $8 billion in Libyan companies across various sectors, officials told the Financial Times.
The investment is one of many made by large, national sovereign wealth funds, or global cash barons, and will help Libya diversify its economy away from a reliance on hydro carbons.
According to the FT, Barwa Real Estate Co., an affiliate of the Qatar Investment Authority’s $40 billion property wing, agreed to invest $2 billion in state-owned Libyan Development and Investment Co to develop commercial, residential and leisure facilities.
Libya and Qatar also agreed to establish a $2 billion joint-investment fund, a $600 million Libyan-Qatari bank, and a $300 million sports and services project, according to unnamed officials.
In February, Qatari Diar Real Estate Development joined with the Libyan government to create the Libyan-Qatari Real Estate and Tourism Company. With a total capital of $8.3 million (10 million Libyan dinars), the goal of the venture is to build and operate utility services and infrastructure developments throughout the country.
That includes purchasing and developing residential, commercial and tourist real
estate, as well as improving the infrastructure in Libya’s urban areas, by providing them with necessary services such as water desalinization and treatment solutions and electricity.
Libya plans to invest a total of $126.5 billion (150 billion dinar) in what will be a five-year infrastructure redevelopment plan to modernize water and sanitation facilities, and build airports, schools and houses.
Libya’s Resurgence
In the 1980s Libya was anything but a friend to the United States, or the international community for that matter. In fact, Libya was one of the first staging grounds of the “war on terror” before there actually was a war on terror.
In 1986, the bombing of a Berlin disco resulted in the killing of U.S. soldiers and provoked a series of American air strikes on Libyan military installations. More acrimony arose between the nations in 1988 when a Pan Am jet mysteriously exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Many looked to Libya for answers but none were given.
But in 1999, Libya, and its leader, Muammar Qaddafi, had an apparent change of heart and handed over suspects thought by the United States to be involved in the Lockerbie bombing. Then, in 2003, it accepted responsibility for the attack, agreed to pay out compensation to relatives of the victims, and voluntarily gave up its nuclear program. Three years later, the United States removed Libya from its list of state sponsors of terror and restored diplomatic relations in full.
Since dismantling its nuclear weapons initiative, Libya has been courted by a growing number of Western companies hoping to secure business and infrastructure contracts, particularly in the nation’s energy sector. Its oil and gas industries earned Libya more than $40 billion in oil and natural gas revenue in 2007.
The country finds itself in a very favorable position, both politically and geographically, as Europe, which relies heavily on Russia for energy supplies, is looking for an alternative.
Libya is being pulled in both directions, having struck deals with Russian energy giants Stroytransgaz OAO and Gazprom OAO, as well as ExxonMobil (XOM), Royal Dutch Shell PLC (ADR: RDS.A, RDS.B), and Italy’s Eni S.p.A (ADR: E).
To finance its renaissance Libya is dipping into the bank of petrodollars it has accrued as proprietor of the largest oil reserves in all of Africa. It is also getting help from sovereign wealth funds such as the Qatar Investment Authority, which has making moves of its own lately.
Money At Work
Two months ago, Qatar Investment Authority bought a 27% stake in Dragon Capital, a Vietnamese property fund, which will buy into offices and serviced apartments in Ho Chi Minh City. And in February, it bought a 15% stake in an Indian office development being built at the Bandra Kurla complex in Mumbai.
The fund has $60 billion to play with and one of its managers said that more emerging market real estate investments are in the works.
“We are focusing on prime cities in India, China, Singapore, Korea, Vietnam and Malaysia, cities around the world where there is strong [gross domestic product] growth and fundamental unmet demand for high quality real estate,” Navid Chamdia, head of real estate at Qatar Investment, told Bloomberg at a wealth funds conference in Abu Dhabi. “About 40% of our real-estate investments will be in Asia.”
Last week, the fund joined China Investment Bank, Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd., and Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., in financing a $8.9 billion investment in struggling Barclays PLC (ADR: BCS).
30 June 2008
By Jason Simpkins
The State of Qatar will invest about $8 billion in Libyan companies across various sectors, officials told the Financial Times.
The investment is one of many made by large, national sovereign wealth funds, or global cash barons, and will help Libya diversify its economy away from a reliance on hydro carbons.
According to the FT, Barwa Real Estate Co., an affiliate of the Qatar Investment Authority’s $40 billion property wing, agreed to invest $2 billion in state-owned Libyan Development and Investment Co to develop commercial, residential and leisure facilities.
Libya and Qatar also agreed to establish a $2 billion joint-investment fund, a $600 million Libyan-Qatari bank, and a $300 million sports and services project, according to unnamed officials.
In February, Qatari Diar Real Estate Development joined with the Libyan government to create the Libyan-Qatari Real Estate and Tourism Company. With a total capital of $8.3 million (10 million Libyan dinars), the goal of the venture is to build and operate utility services and infrastructure developments throughout the country.
That includes purchasing and developing residential, commercial and tourist real
estate, as well as improving the infrastructure in Libya’s urban areas, by providing them with necessary services such as water desalinization and treatment solutions and electricity.
Libya plans to invest a total of $126.5 billion (150 billion dinar) in what will be a five-year infrastructure redevelopment plan to modernize water and sanitation facilities, and build airports, schools and houses.
Libya’s Resurgence
In the 1980s Libya was anything but a friend to the United States, or the international community for that matter. In fact, Libya was one of the first staging grounds of the “war on terror” before there actually was a war on terror.
In 1986, the bombing of a Berlin disco resulted in the killing of U.S. soldiers and provoked a series of American air strikes on Libyan military installations. More acrimony arose between the nations in 1988 when a Pan Am jet mysteriously exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Many looked to Libya for answers but none were given.
But in 1999, Libya, and its leader, Muammar Qaddafi, had an apparent change of heart and handed over suspects thought by the United States to be involved in the Lockerbie bombing. Then, in 2003, it accepted responsibility for the attack, agreed to pay out compensation to relatives of the victims, and voluntarily gave up its nuclear program. Three years later, the United States removed Libya from its list of state sponsors of terror and restored diplomatic relations in full.
Since dismantling its nuclear weapons initiative, Libya has been courted by a growing number of Western companies hoping to secure business and infrastructure contracts, particularly in the nation’s energy sector. Its oil and gas industries earned Libya more than $40 billion in oil and natural gas revenue in 2007.
The country finds itself in a very favorable position, both politically and geographically, as Europe, which relies heavily on Russia for energy supplies, is looking for an alternative.
Libya is being pulled in both directions, having struck deals with Russian energy giants Stroytransgaz OAO and Gazprom OAO, as well as ExxonMobil (XOM), Royal Dutch Shell PLC (ADR: RDS.A, RDS.B), and Italy’s Eni S.p.A (ADR: E).
To finance its renaissance Libya is dipping into the bank of petrodollars it has accrued as proprietor of the largest oil reserves in all of Africa. It is also getting help from sovereign wealth funds such as the Qatar Investment Authority, which has making moves of its own lately.
Money At Work
Two months ago, Qatar Investment Authority bought a 27% stake in Dragon Capital, a Vietnamese property fund, which will buy into offices and serviced apartments in Ho Chi Minh City. And in February, it bought a 15% stake in an Indian office development being built at the Bandra Kurla complex in Mumbai.
The fund has $60 billion to play with and one of its managers said that more emerging market real estate investments are in the works.
“We are focusing on prime cities in India, China, Singapore, Korea, Vietnam and Malaysia, cities around the world where there is strong [gross domestic product] growth and fundamental unmet demand for high quality real estate,” Navid Chamdia, head of real estate at Qatar Investment, told Bloomberg at a wealth funds conference in Abu Dhabi. “About 40% of our real-estate investments will be in Asia.”
Last week, the fund joined China Investment Bank, Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd., and Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., in financing a $8.9 billion investment in struggling Barclays PLC (ADR: BCS).
Sudanese president and Libyan leader meet over tensions.
Sudan Tribune
30 June 2008
Sudanese and Libyan leaders met Sunday on the sideline of the African Union summit in Egypt to discuss bilateral relations for the first time since a Darfur rebel attack against the government in Khartoum last May.
Omer al-Bashir shakes hands with Muammar Gadhafi in 2006 After an armed attack on the capital by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), pro-government press published reports about the Libyan support to the Sudanese rebels. However the government which controls the newspapers says these reports do no reflect the official position.
Omer Hassan al-Bashir held talks with Muammar Gadhafi on latest developments in Darfur and the current tension between Sudan and Chad, as well as the bilateral ties between the two countries.
Libyan Minister of African Affairs Ali Al Triki told the press that Libya as neighbour to Sudan is interested in Darfur peace and hosting the negotiations on this matter. He also underlined that the meeting between the two leaders discussed bilateral relations and ways to support and develop it.
Before the meeting the Gadhafi dispatched his special envoy Saleh Bashir to Khartoum to prepare for the meeting. Saleh told the reporters on Saturday that the meeting would discuss Darfur crisis, the rebel attack on the capital, bilateral relations between Chad and Sudan and Libyan relations with both countries.
The Libyan leader who wants to be the sage of Africa and constructor of the African unity, seems bothered by the publication of reports about his support to the JEM against Khartoum.
However, during last February rebel attack against N’djamena, Gadhafi supported President Idris Deby by providing weapons and ammunitions against the Sudanese-backed Chadian rebels who were at the doors of the Presidential palace.
Libya had already brokered the Tripoli Agreement between the two countries in February 2006 but the deal remains unimplemented.
The Sudanese foreign minister Deng Alor said President al-Bashir could meet President Deby on the sideline of the African summit. He also added that African efforts could succeed to put an end to the bilateral tension between the two countries.
The chairman of the African Union (AU) Commission Jean Ping last Friday has called on the Sudanese parties involved in Darfur conflict to initiate without delay a major dialogue without preconditions.
Speaking on Friday at the Opening session of the AU foreign ministers meeting in Sharm El Sheikh Ping deplored the continuing tensions, between Sudan and Chad, which led to the broke off diplomatic relations between the two countries.
"As members of the African Union, these states are obliged to respect their commitments regarding the good neighbourliness policy, peace and security in the region," said Ping.
30 June 2008
Sudanese and Libyan leaders met Sunday on the sideline of the African Union summit in Egypt to discuss bilateral relations for the first time since a Darfur rebel attack against the government in Khartoum last May.
Omer al-Bashir shakes hands with Muammar Gadhafi in 2006 After an armed attack on the capital by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), pro-government press published reports about the Libyan support to the Sudanese rebels. However the government which controls the newspapers says these reports do no reflect the official position.
Omer Hassan al-Bashir held talks with Muammar Gadhafi on latest developments in Darfur and the current tension between Sudan and Chad, as well as the bilateral ties between the two countries.
Libyan Minister of African Affairs Ali Al Triki told the press that Libya as neighbour to Sudan is interested in Darfur peace and hosting the negotiations on this matter. He also underlined that the meeting between the two leaders discussed bilateral relations and ways to support and develop it.
Before the meeting the Gadhafi dispatched his special envoy Saleh Bashir to Khartoum to prepare for the meeting. Saleh told the reporters on Saturday that the meeting would discuss Darfur crisis, the rebel attack on the capital, bilateral relations between Chad and Sudan and Libyan relations with both countries.
The Libyan leader who wants to be the sage of Africa and constructor of the African unity, seems bothered by the publication of reports about his support to the JEM against Khartoum.
However, during last February rebel attack against N’djamena, Gadhafi supported President Idris Deby by providing weapons and ammunitions against the Sudanese-backed Chadian rebels who were at the doors of the Presidential palace.
Libya had already brokered the Tripoli Agreement between the two countries in February 2006 but the deal remains unimplemented.
The Sudanese foreign minister Deng Alor said President al-Bashir could meet President Deby on the sideline of the African summit. He also added that African efforts could succeed to put an end to the bilateral tension between the two countries.
The chairman of the African Union (AU) Commission Jean Ping last Friday has called on the Sudanese parties involved in Darfur conflict to initiate without delay a major dialogue without preconditions.
Speaking on Friday at the Opening session of the AU foreign ministers meeting in Sharm El Sheikh Ping deplored the continuing tensions, between Sudan and Chad, which led to the broke off diplomatic relations between the two countries.
"As members of the African Union, these states are obliged to respect their commitments regarding the good neighbourliness policy, peace and security in the region," said Ping.
29 June, 2008
Nigeria, Venezuela to Discuss Global Energy Crisis and Ties.
This Day (Lagos)
28 June 2008
Juliana Taiwo
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua yesterday in Abuja disclosed that he would soon meet his Venezuelan counterpart, President Hugo Chavez, to discuss the current energy situation as well as lay a framework for enhanced bilateral relations.
The planned meeting is coming on the heels of soaring oil prices, which hit another record high of $142 per barrel during trading yesterday.
Yar'Adua disclosed his planned meeting with Chavez during a farewell meeting with the out-going Venezuelan Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. Boris Henrique Martinez.
He said such a meeting had become imperative because "fingers are being pointed at both countries as a result of the energy situation in the world."
The president, while acknowledging that both countries have a common responsibility to improve the welfare of their people, stressed the need for "much greater cooperation and collaboration especially in the petroleum sector."
He wished the outgoing Ambassador well in his future endeavours and urged him to continue to promote the interests of Nigeria.
Dr. Martinez thanked the government and people of Nigeria for making his two-year stay in the country a happy one.
No indication was given of whether steps had already been taken to set up a meeting between the two leaders.
Crude oil, which rose to a record of over $142 a barrel in New York, Friday, sent shivers down the spines of many across the globe.
Crude oil for August delivery rose as much as $2.62 a barrel, or 1.9 percent, to $142.26 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was trading at $141.95 at 12:31 p.m. London time yesterday.
The President of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Chakib Khelil said prices might reach between $150 and $170 within months.
Khelil said he believes oil prices could rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer before declining later in the year. However, he does not think prices will reach $200 a barrel.
Concerned about rising oil prices and the impact on the global economy, Saudi Arabia, last weekend, held a one-day summit of oil producers and consumers.
However, the summit failed to reach a concrete agreement on how to stem the rise in oil prices, with several consumers leaving the summit disappointed.
In response to record prices, the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices.
Venezuela, an anti-U.S. price hawk in OPEC, has consistently opposed calls to raise oil production to stem soaring prices despite heavy pressure from consumer nations.
Nigeria pumps around two million barrels per day of crude and has said it aims to double output by 2010, but with militant attacks in the Niger Delta and funding shortfalls hampering its industry, most analysts agree that target is rather ambitious,
28 June 2008
Juliana Taiwo
President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua yesterday in Abuja disclosed that he would soon meet his Venezuelan counterpart, President Hugo Chavez, to discuss the current energy situation as well as lay a framework for enhanced bilateral relations.
The planned meeting is coming on the heels of soaring oil prices, which hit another record high of $142 per barrel during trading yesterday.
Yar'Adua disclosed his planned meeting with Chavez during a farewell meeting with the out-going Venezuelan Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. Boris Henrique Martinez.
He said such a meeting had become imperative because "fingers are being pointed at both countries as a result of the energy situation in the world."
The president, while acknowledging that both countries have a common responsibility to improve the welfare of their people, stressed the need for "much greater cooperation and collaboration especially in the petroleum sector."
He wished the outgoing Ambassador well in his future endeavours and urged him to continue to promote the interests of Nigeria.
Dr. Martinez thanked the government and people of Nigeria for making his two-year stay in the country a happy one.
No indication was given of whether steps had already been taken to set up a meeting between the two leaders.
Crude oil, which rose to a record of over $142 a barrel in New York, Friday, sent shivers down the spines of many across the globe.
Crude oil for August delivery rose as much as $2.62 a barrel, or 1.9 percent, to $142.26 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was trading at $141.95 at 12:31 p.m. London time yesterday.
The President of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Chakib Khelil said prices might reach between $150 and $170 within months.
Khelil said he believes oil prices could rise to between $150 and $170 a barrel this summer before declining later in the year. However, he does not think prices will reach $200 a barrel.
Concerned about rising oil prices and the impact on the global economy, Saudi Arabia, last weekend, held a one-day summit of oil producers and consumers.
However, the summit failed to reach a concrete agreement on how to stem the rise in oil prices, with several consumers leaving the summit disappointed.
In response to record prices, the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices.
Venezuela, an anti-U.S. price hawk in OPEC, has consistently opposed calls to raise oil production to stem soaring prices despite heavy pressure from consumer nations.
Nigeria pumps around two million barrels per day of crude and has said it aims to double output by 2010, but with militant attacks in the Niger Delta and funding shortfalls hampering its industry, most analysts agree that target is rather ambitious,
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
