By Jeff Otieno, Kisumu – Kenya

Chairman of Sony Sugar Company Herbart Ojwang who for along time served as personal assistant (P.A) to Raila Odinga a couple of years ago is back vigorously once again in the political lime light.

Ojwang who severed links with the Prime Minister on unclear grounds had to jump ship and was salvaged by the former influential foreign affairs Minister now President Mwai Kibaki personal adviser Mr.Raphael Tuju to land the lucrative docket he has todate until the expiry of his contract which runs upto late 2009 next year.

A few days ago, Hebart was spotted by a group of hawk-eyed journalists having dinner with a local Kisumu based controversial contractor, a powerful local government Chief Officer and Gem Mp Jackoyo Midiwo in one of the leading Hotels in  what keen observers believe was a perch up schemes to bring him back into the circles of the PM Raila Odinga.

Jackoyo who many believe is Raila Odinga pointman in the region is said to be having a soft spot for Herbart and according to sources close to the PM Camp, he bitterly protested his unceremonious exit.

Impeccable sources confided to this writer that the schemes to bring him to the lime light started a few months to the last General Elections when Herbart is said to have boarded a passenger plane one evening to Kisumu during Raila Odingaʼs fund raiser at Yatch club.

This journalist could however not establish whether it was by coincidence or design for him to have got a seat next to the PM where they could be  seen exchanging heartily to the amusement of those who were on board.

Itʼs alleged that the former aide had some invitation cards and was destined to go to the occasion to equally extend his olive branch and support to his former boss.

According to the sources, the PM told him to instead channel what he had to one of the aides who was aboard the plane for fear of victimizations by the rival camp.

The sources further confided that the closeness was given some boost when the Spectre international owned by the Odinga family had some difficulties to get molasses which is a crucial raw material for the plant from the local millers.

Recently, during the PM home coming in Bondo, Herbart was in attendance and was seated in away befitting those who matter in the circles of power.

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API

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API

The woman minister in Norway has been kicked out by the prime minister Jens Stoltenberg due to scandals that she has been associated with of late. The minister, due to her love for the ministerial position did not want to step down on her own free will. The prime minister had no choice but to dismiss her today due to public out-cry.

When the media discovered her scandalous associations, she tried to act in a manner that was seen to be stubbornly unbecoming. She took sick leave and was to come back, according to her, after 4 weeks.

Today, as she faced the sack there was no sign of illness when she held a press conference. Observers now wonder whether she was really sick or the public has been taken for a ride? There is now a question on whether she paid taxes at all.

Yesterday she was caught in a new scandal and today she  was finished. Out – she goes. Her demise is good for the Norwegian politics now that she has also quit as the leader of the small Norwegian center Party. API

Åslaug Haga quit Thursday morning as both Norway’s Oil & Energy Minister and leader of her political party, bowing out after a storm of criticism around building violations and questionable political maneuvering. Haga herself said her decision was not political, but rather steered by her health.

Åslaug Haga announced at a press conference Thursday morning that she was quitting as a government minister and as leader of her small political party. PHOTO: FOTO: BJØRN SIGURDSØN / SCANPIX   Haga sitting on the steps of her family’s stabbur in happier days. Haga had rented out the stabbur for years, illegally it turns out. When yet another illegal tenant turned up this week, Haga’s days were numbered. PHOTO: SVEIN FURULUND

Haga went on sick leave last weekend after a tough week of having to fend off questions tied to illegal building projects at both her family’s summer and permanent homes. Supporters claimed the violations themselves weren’t major, but they raised questions about her credibility and even hypocrisy in failing to follow regulations that her own party had championed.

Political rival Siv Jensen of the Progress Party said on national TV Wednesday night that Haga had supported her own party’s policies publicly and carried out the Progress Party’s policies in private.

The recent revelations of building violations came just months after Haga also had to face questions over alleged back-room dealing to win support for a Winter Olympics in Tromsø and her role in arranging a state consultancy job for a party colleague who’d been forced to resign from another state-funded position.

Haga initially tried to fight the growing allegations against her, and resorted to blaming the media for taking issues out of context and invading her family’s privacy. At a hastily called press conference Thursday morning, however, Haga seemed to back off from such a defense, claiming she supported the media’s right to pose questions and demand answers.

She insisted, however, that she had done nothing that would prevent her “from standing up straight,” and she was proud of her lengthy career in Norwegian politics. Haga, a long-time member of the farmer-supported Center Party that champions rural interests, has been a member of parliament, a state secretary in the Foreign Ministry, and a cabinet minister in both center-right and center-left government coalitions, for culture, municipal governments and, most recently, oil and energy.

“This is a personal decision,” she said of her decision to step down, “not a political decision.” She said that while politicians must adhere to stricter standards than the general public, and she admitted to making mistakes, it was her health that didn’t allow her to tolerate the pressures of office any longer. Government ministers need “good health and strength, and I don’t have that anymore.”

Nor did she have the same degree of public confidence she enjoyed earlier. Questions remain as to whether she and her husband paid taxes on the illegal rental income at her home in Ås, south of Oslo.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he will name a successor for Haga as Oil & Energy Minister on Friday. Haga, who already had planned to step down as leader of the Center Party, will be initially succeeded by Lars Peder Brekk. Liv Signe Navarsete, currently Norway’s transport minister, is due to take over as the party’s new, permanent leader.

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African Press International – API

Bujumbura (Burundi) – The country’s last active rebel leader, Agathon Rwasa, has declared the end of the armed struggle against the government.

“We want to show the Burundian and international community that we are committed to reaching a lasting peace,” Rwasa said at a ceremony to mark the formal start of the cantonment of his fighters in Rugazi Commune, Bubanza Province, western Burundi, as 150 combatants from his Palipehutu-Forces nationales de libération (FNL) assembled at Rugazi. Others were to assemble at Rukoko in Gihanga Commune.

The launch of the cantonment process was a step that showed the FNL was “committed to moving forward in implementing the ceasefire accord”, he said on 16 June. It was also “a gesture that will, among other things, allow an improvement of security, and people to [perform] their ordinary activities without problems”.

The two locations have been designated by the government as cantonment sites for FNL combatants. However the FNL has said more sites are needed, commensurate with the number combatants, which they say is 15,000. Other sources say they number 3,000.

Without revealing the number of his combatants, Rwasa, who on 30 May returned home from years of exile in Tanzania, said: “What matters is that the war is over.” The number of his fighters that would be reintegrated into other forces, such as Burundi?s army and police, would be discussed with the government, he said.

The launch of the cantonment process was witnessed by members of the Joint Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JVMM) and the Political Directorate, as well as the ambassadors of Tanzania, France, and the African Union, and representatives of the World Food Programme in Burundi, the European Union, and the Burundian government. Rwasa, who was dressed in military uniform, was welcomed by cheering, dancing FNL combatants. Calling on the government to “withdraw its troops from villages” and confine them to barracks, Rwasa said a show of political will was necessary.

“The cease-fire agreement links both sides,” he said, adding that the FNL had, by assembling its combatants signalled it wanted to join the government.

The leader of the government team in the JVMM, Maj Lazare Nduwayo, hailed the FNL for agreeing to prepare for cantonment. “Joining Assembly zones is very important to us,” he said. “The government, too, wants peace.”

The cantonment of FNL combatants is starting after weeks of talks at the JVMM over implementation of the September 2006 ceasefire accord signed with the government of President Pierre Nkurunziza. A former guerrilla leader, Nkurunziza was elected president in 2005 under an agreement brokered by the African Union and the UN. The FNL refused to be part of that pact, but later signed a separate accord. That deal soon stalled, however, and clashes resumed.

In May, it again attacked the suburbs of Bujumbura, leaving 33 people dead and at least 20,000 displaced. Under intense international pressure, however, the group eventually signed a ceasefire agreement on 25 May with the government, paving the way for Rwasa?s return to Bujumbura.

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API#source.UN Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

Nairobi (Kenya) – Waiyua Mwongeli, a vegetable vendor in Nairobi?s Kibera slum, is yet to understand why her business is doing so badly.

?No one is buying, including my routine customers,? says the 40-year-old. ?Something is wrong, but I don?t know what.? The previous day, she had to throw away a sack of rotten tomatoes. Her fellow vendors are undergoing the same nightmare.

At home, she cooks less food than before for her children, and sometimes her family of five goes hungry. Like other slum dwellers, she no longer eats enough. Once important dietary staples like meat, beans and sugar have suddenly become luxuries.

The sprawling village, with a population of close to 900,000 people, is among the slums in Kenya that are hardest hit by rising food prices. Most people who live on less than a dollar a day are now struggling to survive and the spikes in food prices mean they must eat less or sometimes not at all. Mwongeli?s case is an example of what experts are referring to as the ?new face of hunger,? a situation in which shops and markets have plenty of food, but not enough customers who can pay for it.

Kenyans first saw food prices rise in the wake of the post-election violence that killed 1,200 people early this year, with at least 350,000 others being displaced from their homes. According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, annual inflation had risen to 31.5 per cent last month from 26.6 per cent in April. This is the steepest increase since the early 1990s, when increased spending in the run-up to the 1992 general election put it at 31 per cent.

The current food crisis amounts to a gross violation of human rights and could fuel a global catastrophe, as many of the world?s poorest countries, particularly those in the import-dependency category, struggle to feed their people, warn international development agencies, including ActionAid. ?It is an outrage that poor people are paying for decades of policy mistakes such as the lack of investment in agriculture and the dismantling of support for smallholder farmers,? says Magdalena Kropiwnicka, policy analyst with ActionAid.

This year, the food import bill for developing countries is expected to rise by 40 per cent; in cases such as Burundi, Eritrea and Haiti the impact is catastrophic because of their high reliance on food and fuel imports as well as high existing levels of undernourishment. Many families in these poor countries are already spending well over three-quarters of their income on food. They are unable to cope as prices continue to rise.

As part of its HungerFree campaign, ActionAid is demanding that governments act decisively to address the food crisis. Decisions must be taken that will allow states to act immediately to fund increased social protection and boost the purchasing power of the poor, provide support for farmers, particularly women, and to boost production through access to seeds, water, credit and other inputs. Decisions on longer-term solutions are equally essential, including the need for investment in small scale sustainable agriculture and strategies to increase access to land for small farmers, especially women.

Essentially, world leaders must finance these solutions with bold and serious commitments to increase aid to agriculture, debt relief and trade reforms that will benefit poor import-dependent countries, added Ms Kropiwnicka.

The World Bank, in its report, Global Economic Prospects for 2008 indicates that food prices have risen by 75 per cent since 2000. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, 37 countries are facing a crisis and require external assistance ? 21 of them in Africa, 10 in Asia, five in Latin America and one in Europe.

In 2007, the world?s grains harvest ? 2.1 billion tonnes ? was a new record, 5 per cent more than the previous year. However, only 1.01 billion tonnes of the harvest is likely to be used to feed people. An important proportion will be used to feed animals ?760 million tonnes ? and around 100 million tonnes will be used to produce biofuels. Although there is enough food for everyone, recently there has been a substantial increase in the demand for cereals, led by a growing food demand in Asia as well as demand for biofuels, bringing global reserves to their lowest level in 25 years.

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API#source.East African (Kenya) by Philip Ngunjiri

The factors behind the global food crisis may be complex, but its effect is simple in its brutality. The worst affected countries are those that need to import agricultural produce, and the hardest hit people are those who spend the largest proportion of their incomes on food.

It is therefore the poorest people in the poorest countries who are feeling the brunt of this catastrophe. The Food and Agriculture Organisation notes that 21 of the 37 counties worst affected by high food prices are in Africa.

Yesterday , the Africa Progress Panel produced its inaugural report on the state of Africa, assessing the state of the continent?s development and identifying the challenges that threaten progress. Chaired by Kofi Annan and including statesmen, development experts and high-profile campaigners, the panel was established to focus world leaders on their commitments to Africa.

The report calls for immediate steps to tackle the food crisis. The food supply must be increased by increasing financial assistance to the governments of affected countries and aid agencies. All countries must make every effort to increase the quantity of food on international markets, so that the World Food Programme, relief organisations and individual governments are able to buy food.

If the scale of the emergency is not acknowledged, or the response is delayed, we will see an increase in hunger and malnutrition. The cost of food will not only be gauged in the wheat or rice price, but also in the rising number of infant and child deaths across Africa.

What gives this call to action added resonance is the fact that Africa has in the past few years been making real, tangible progress. Gross domestic product per capita across Africa has risen steadily since 1994. On the most recent International Monetary Fund estimates, the rate of growth reached 6,6% last year, exceeding the Middle East and Latin America. The number of people living in poverty has levelled off in the past few years, and Africa?s poverty rate has declined almost six percentage points since 2000. There have also been significant improvements in health and education, with infant and child mortality declining in many parts of Africa.

These hard fought gains are now at risk. The panel?s report shows the food crisis threatens to destroy years, if not decades, of economic progress in Africa, as 100-million people could be pushed back into absolute poverty. For me, this is where the real tragedy lies. The very people who have fought against the odds, harnessed their talents to better their lives, and dared hope their children would continue the journey, could see their efforts reduced to nothing.

The panel is thus calling for more than immediate outside aid to alleviate problems of high food prices. As Africans, we must take responsibility for the fundamental, structural problems with agricultural productivity on our continent. With the lowest use of fertilisers in the world, average grain yield in Africa is less than one ton a hectare, equivalent to just 25% of the global average. Our population has increased, yet African agricultural yields have stagnated since the early 1960s.

We must therefore raise agricultural productivity and increase food output. This includes reforming outdated policies and investing in key inputs such as fertiliser, improved seeds, effective management of water and new crop varieties, and linking farmers to markets via investments in basic infrastructure. In short, Africa needs a green revolution.

If the challenge seems daunting, there is some comfort in knowing the expertise and the experience exist. With appropriate technology and support, for example, Malawi has gone from experiencing serious food shortages to becoming both self-reliant and a net exporter of food. The key is to build on this success and replicate it.

It is no coincidence the Africa Progress Panel has published its report just ahead of the European Council summit in Brussels and a few weeks ahead of the Group of Eight (G-8) summit in Hokkaido, Japan. Our report shows G-8 commitments to double assistance to Africa by 2010 ? agreed at Gleneagles in 2005 ? are badly off track. With a shortfall of $40bn in aid, G-8 states must urgently address the deficits against their targets, set clear delivery timetables and increase transparency to improve aid quality. The crisis has put a clear premium on the G-8 delivering its original pledges.

I am conscious that on numerous occasions in the past few decades, it has been said that Africa is at a crossroads. If we agree the continent has demonstrated real progress in the past decade, and we acknowledge that the food crisis threatens to reverse much of this, then we are ? once again ? at a defining moment. European and G-8 leaders should be in no doubt when they gather in Brussels and Hokkaido that they face a very real test of leadership. Millions of people across the world are demanding that they deliver.

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API”Source.Business Day (South Africa) by Graca Machel

Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of Lagos, Anthony Cardinal Okogie, yesterday passed a damning verdict on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led Federal Government.

Okogie, who was disturbed by the state of the nation, declared that the PDP, which has ruled the country since 1999, has proved that it lacks the solutions to Nigeria’s multifarious problems. At a press conference to mark his 72nd birthday, Okogie also put the President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua government on the scale. He attributed its non-performance after one-year in office to lack of vision on how to lead the nation to the economic prosperity and political stability.

He described Yar’Adua as a leader who only “clears and fails to build” on public structures and institutions. Yar’Adua’s problem, he said, was made worse by the presence of incompetent ministers in his cabinet.

Okogie therefore asked the President to overhaul his cabinet by sacking the “dead woods” in the Federal Executive Council.

“From the look of things, it is glaringly clear that the Federal Government has no compass with which to direct and lead the nation aright. The Presidency has not given us the needed leadership since the military returned power to the civilians in 1999. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-controlled Federal Government has not given Nigeria a focused and purposeful leadership. It has been ‘grab, grab’, flamboyance, committing atrocities and bribing its way through the National Assembly to impose its will on the electorate. In short, it has been an administration full of personal aggrandisement, corruption and greed!

“To be a good leader, you must clear and build. Yar’Adua has been clearing and not building, that is where he is lacking. This is probably because he is not getting support from the ministers. He should knock out ministers that are not performing,” he said.

“The seven-point agenda of President Yar’ Adua is already being called to question and described by many as lack of initiative to solve what is on his own agenda. When they are viewed along with performing governors like Babatunde Fashola (SAN) of Lagos State, one would not hesitate to rate him (Yar’Adua) “low and slow. Without any equivocation, Yar’Adua’s scorecard is zero on all his seven-point agenda, because of his failure in his first trumpeted priority, which is power and energy! And he is yet to embark on the others,” he stated.

Okogie said that Nigerian politicians and government officials lacked vision and direction to put the nation on the path of growth. Turning to the legislature, he said: “Our present National Assembly gave us hope of ‘oversight’ functions. Some of their elections are being nullified by the tribunals. How we wish that the tribunals have the power to jail those found guilty! This would have helped a great deal in curbing those who wanted power to enrich themselves.”

He believes that the crime-fighting machinery of the Federal Government is faulty and urged the EFCC and ICPC to scrutinise petitions and reports before arresting and prosecuting suspects.

Okogie praised the judiciary for being the hope of the electorate by serving as a check to the excesses and recklessness of the PDP. He nevertheless enjoined the judiciary “to watch and scrutinise with eagle eyes any petition brought before it so as to continue to stand the test of time. The judiciary must be mindful of the bad eggs within its rank; these should be flushed out to let credibility be its hallmark”. Okogie charged the press to be extra-vigilant and be investigative in their practice by moving away from the traditional roles of informing, educating and entertaining the public.

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API#Source.The Guardian (Nigeria) by Gbenga Salau

Amid raging hostilities near the north-eastern town of Biltine, some 750 kilometres (470 miles) from the capital N’djamena, the African Union (AU) has condemned the rebel offensive, even as the government in N’djamena dismissed the insurgents’ threats to take the capital as nothing more than a “stunt.”

“The African Union is particularly concerned by the resumption since June 11 of clashes between rebel Chad groups and the Chad army in the eastern Chad,” the Pan-African body said in a statement. “These new developments seriously endanger current efforts aiming to revive the process of dialogue in Chad and to promote peace and stability in the region,” it added. The statement followed the seizure by Chadian rebels on Sunday of a second town, Am Dam, as they headed west towards their stated objective, the capital.

Chadian authorities confirmed that Am Dam had fallen to the rebels but said the move was not significant. “The rebels are effectively in Am Dam but it’s a locality where there is neither a garrison nor troops deployed,” said a Chadian military source on Sunday.

Chad’s Minister of Communications, Mahamat Hissene, said the government was still in control of the situation. “We are serene. The army is deploying its plan,” Agence France Presse (AFP) quoted the minister as saying.

Am Dam was taken by the rebels “without much resistance” from government forces, said their spokesman — a day after they also briefly occupied Goz Beida, closer to the Sudan border.

“Our objective is not to take towns but to clear obstacles on the road to N’djamena,” Ali Gueddei, the spokesman for the National Alliance grouping of rebel factions, said. “We are not occupying them. Our objective is Ndjamena,” he added.

France, meanwhile, said it did not intend to intervene. The former colonial power “has not intervened and will not intervene,” said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner on Sunday, adding that the claims about the rebels’ progress towards the capital had been denied by EUFOR forces.

Mahamat Nouri, who leads the National Alliance uniting several rebel factions, however, said that their forces were still on the move and that the capital remained their ultimate objective. Nouri refused to set a date on the attempt to topple Chad’s President Idriss Deby Itno, saying only it would be “in the short term.”

Fighting near Goz Beida on Saturday saw Irish members of the European Union force (EUFOR) protecting Sudanese refugees exchange fire with unidentified gunmen. There were no apparent casualties. There are nearly 80,000 displaced Chadians and some 36,000 refugees from neighbouring Sudan’s war-battered Darfur region living in camps around Goz Beida. Staff with German and Italian aid agencies in the area said that their supplies had been pillaged, with vehicles stolen and a garage set ablaze in the attacks Saturday night.

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API#Source.The Guardian (Nigeria)