The high cost of international trade was a significant barrier to the full integration of landlocked developing countries into the world economy, continuing to hinder their trade and economic development, Special Adviser Cheick Sidi Diarra said today at Headquarters.

Speaking at a press conference on the occasion of the 2-3 October high-level meeting devoted to the midterm review of the Almaty Programme of Action, Mr. Diarra, Under-Secretary-General, Special Adviser on Africa and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, said the priority areas of concern included: the need to improve policies on customs and bureaucracy fees; infrastructure; improving trading opportunities; and increasing technical and financial international assistance.

He said that since the adoption of the Almaty Programme of Action five years ago, landlocked and transit developing countries had made tangible progress in implementing it. With the recognition that high transit costs constituted a more important barrier for trade than tariffs, there had been a significant increase in official development assistance (ODA), from $10 billion in 2000 to $16 billion in 2006. Moreover, foreign direct investment (FDI) had more than tripled over the last five years, from $3.9 billion to $14 billion, although it constituted just 0.8 per cent of global FDI, and flowed primarily to a few resource-rich and economically more advanced landlocked developing countries.

Pointing out that regional and subregional collaborations were among the success stories of the implementation process, he said Asian countries had concluded an intergovernmental agreement to construct an Asian highway, while African countries were strengthening efforts towards integrated infrastructure development and trade facilitation. Landlocked developing countries also continued to increase the efficiency of their transit operations. In 2007, they had spent only 49 days on export, down from 57 in 2006, and 56 days on import, down from 72. The review meeting was calling for measures to deal with transit problems, including inadequate infrastructure, trade imbalance, inefficient transport organization, and weak managerial, procedural, regulatory and institutional systems.

Accompanying Mr. Diarra were Hachim Koumare from the Board of the Sub-Saharan Africa Transport Policy Programme, and Bernard Hoekstra, Director of the World Bank�s International Trade Department.

Mr. Koumare said the fact that some of the equipment used in Africa�s transport corridors was very old increased transportation costs, an aspect that should be factored into the Programme of Action.

Answering questions, Mr. Diarra said tourism had great potential for some landlocked countries, but tourism policies were developed mostly at the national and subregional levels. West African countries, for instance, had developed a common policy on issuing entrance visas.

Mr. Hoekstra said World Bank assistance included developing tourism strategies, such as defining the tourism niche for a particular country, and addressing cross-border issues.

Mr. Koumare added that airline policies in Africa were among the constraints to tourism now being addressed through air-transport liberalization.

In response to another question, Mr. Diarra said development partners could offer cooperation in helping landlocked countries build both physical (roads, railways, airports) and non-physical (information and communication) infrastructures. They could also render technical assistance in capacity-building for world trade, and support trade facilitation in order to alleviate cumbersome procedures for the export, import and transit of goods and services. They could, in addition, simply provide market access. Certain provisions of the Convention on the Law of the Sea applied to those landlocked countries that were party to it. They were allowed free access to the ocean through certain corridors, but still had to agree bilaterally on access to harbours.

Describing the work of his Office, Mr. Diarra said it did not work at the operational level, but was active at the analytical and coordination levels of the United Nations system and the World Bank. It carried out advocacy activities on the priority issues identified by the Almaty Programme of Action. Because the Office had convening power, it was the only entity within the United Nations system that could coordinate the activities of all other entities with respect to landlocked developing countries. It could also approach international financial institutions for project funding.

Responding to a question about the inclusion of South Ossetia in the group of landlocked developing countries, he said that was decided by the United Nations, which decided on the basis of certain criteria, and by the entity requesting inclusion in that category. Austria and Switzerland, for instance, had never asked to be included.

In response to questions about Mongolia�s problems as a landlocked country, �sandwiched� between two big Powers, and how it could reduce its transportation costs, the Under-Secretary-General said 75 per cent of the problems of landlocked countries could be attributed to delays caused by cumbersome procedures, and only 25 per cent could be blamed on lack of infrastructure. Mongolia should, therefore, take the necessary measures to make its procedures less cumbersome.

Mr. Hoekstra, on the other hand, pointed out that the 75-25 per cent ratio was a matter of ongoing debate. The key to the whole issue was that changing policies demanded very little financial investment and generated, therefore, a great rate of return. Mongolia spent 8 per cent of its gross domestic product on transit costs, but it could focus more on its function as a bridge between Asia and Europe.

Mr. Koumare, referring to an earlier question, added that some African countries had solved the question of access to the sea through the concept of �free zones� and �dry ports�, which had reduced transit time and given landlocked countries sea access.

Asked about corruption in transportation, Mr. Diarra said both the international and African anti-corruption conventions had entered into force, and aid donor countries had taken measures to ensure that investments were more transparent.

Mr. Hoekstra added that corruption in transportation was at the petty end of the spectrum, and did not contribute significantly to transport costs and delays.

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Published by Chief Editor Korir, African Press International – API, Source:7sphace

By Ye Xie and Daniel Kruger

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) — The dollar posted its biggest weekly advance ever against the euro on a surge in demand for U.S. currency funding amid a worldwide credit crunch.

The U.S. currency erased its gain versus the yen on speculation the $700 billion financial bailout approved by Congress today won’t be an economic cure-all. The yen dropped against major currencies including the euro and the New Zealand dollar as approval of the rescue encouraged investors to borrow in Japan to buy higher-yielding assets.

“The dollar should continue to do well,” said Benedikt Germanier, a currency strategist at UBS AG in Stamford, Connecticut. “It’s the most liquid asset. This bill won’t change the reality that global economic activities will slow down further.”

The greenback rose 5.6 percent this week versus the euro, the biggest increase since the 15-nation currency debuted in 1999. It rose 0.2 percent to $1.3796 at 4:17 p.m. in New York, from $1.3819 yesterday. The dollar fell 0.1 percent to 105.19 yen, from 105.33, declining 0.8 percent this week. The euro dropped 0.3 percent to 145.16 yen, from 145.55. It fell 6.3 percent this week, the biggest drop ever.

Japan’s yen fell 0.8 percent to 69.72 against the New Zealand dollar on speculation the bailout will prompt investors to get funds in a country will low borrowing costs and buy assets where returns are higher. Japan’s 0.5 percent target lending rate compares with 7.5 percent in New Zealand.

U.S. Bailout

Congress passed a financial-market bailout designed to unlock credit markets, reversing a rejection by the U.S. House of Representatives that caused global stocks to plunge. The bill authorizes the government to buy troubled assets from financial institutions reeling from record home foreclosures.

The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, that banks charge each other for three-month loans in dollars increased to 4.33 percent today, the highest since January, the British Bankers’ Association said. The Libor-OIS spread, a gauge of cash scarcity among banks, widened to a record.

“Very strong demand for dollars is still evident,” said Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York.

U.S. payrolls shrank by 159,000 last month, following a revised decline of 73,000 in August, the Labor Department said today in Washington. It’s the biggest loss in jobs since 2003. The unemployment rate stayed at 6.1 percent.

`Dollar Liquidity’

“It’s not doing any good for money markets and liquidity given the real economy is starting to freeze up,” said Alan Ruskin, head of international currency strategy in North America at RBS Greenwich Capital Markets Inc. in Greenwich, Connecticut. “The market is short of dollar liquidity.”

The euro was headed for a record weekly drop against the dollar after European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said yesterday policy makers discussed cutting the main refinancing rate. European economies face “increasing downside risks,” he said at a press conference following the decision to keep the benchmark at a seven-year high of 4.25 percent.

The implied yield on the Euribor futures contract expiring in March fell to 4.10 percent, from 4.77 percent a month ago. The Euribor contract has averaged 44 basis points, or 0.44 percentage point, higher than the ECB’s overnight target during the past two years, Bloomberg data show.

Five European banks including Dexia SA, the world’s biggest lender to local governments, and Fortis, Belgium’s largest financial-services firm, accepted government-backed bailouts this week.

Futures on the Chicago Board of Trade showed an 82 percent chance that the Federal Reserve will cut the 2 percent target lending rate for overnight lending between banks by a half- percentage point at its Oct. 29 meeting, with the balance of bets on a reduction of 0.75 percentage point. Futures showed no chance of reduced borrowing costs a month ago.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ye Xie in New York at yxie6@bloomberg.net; Daniel Kruger in New York at dkruger1@bloomberg.net

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Published by Chief Editor Korir, African Press International – API/ Source.Bloomberg

By Mike Cohen

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) — Paul Mashatile, the chairman of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress in Gauteng, won the party’s backing to become governor of the province, which includes the capital Pretoria and Johannesburg, the largest city.

“The ANC’s national leadership has decided to recommend to the ANC in Gauteng that Paul Mashatile be elected premier,” the party said in an e-mailed statement today. “This follows the resignation of Mbhazima Shilowa earlier in the week.”

Shilowa, who was appointed to the post in 1999, quit after criticizing a decision by the ANC to fire President Thabo Mbeki and replace him with deputy party leader Kgalema Motlanthe.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mike Cohen in Cape Town at mcohen21@bloomberg.net

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Published by Chief Editor Korir, African Press International – API/Source:Bloomberg

By Mike Cohen

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) — The African National Congress, which led an eight-decade fight to bring democratic rule to South Africa, is on the verge of splitting as an internal power struggle that forced President Thabo Mbeki to resign deepens.

Former party chairman Mosiuoa Lekota accused his colleagues in an open letter published in Johannesburg’s Star newspaper today of ignoring attacks on the judiciary and threats of violence by party members and backing “policies that are dangerous to democracy.” That prompted a riposte from Transport Minister Jeff Radebe, accusing Lekota of fostering an ANC split.

“Put bluntly, you and those who share your views are giving notice to leave the ANC,” said Radebe, an ANC executive committee member. “Remember that the ANC as an institution will stay forever while individuals like yourselves will go.”

The ANC fractured in 2005 when Mbeki dismissed his vice president, Jacob Zuma, amid allegations of corruption. It widened last December when Zuma wrested control of Africa’s oldest political movement and won nomination as the ruling party’s presidential candidate in next year’s elections.

Disgruntled Mbeki supporters may boycott the poll or form a breakaway party, trimming enough of the ANC’s support to block its ability to change the Constitution, which would allow it to infringe on the independence of the courts and the central bank. That would also limit the ANC’s ability to protect Zuma from corruption charges and meet demands of its labor union allies to force the central bank to focus more on poverty and unemployment rather than curbing inflation.

Breakaway Party

“It sees to me a decision has been taken to form a breakaway party,” Aubrey Matshiqi, an analyst at the Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg, said. “The bellicose exchanges between the various leaders in the ANC suggest that. The question is whether those who want to leave will leave with leave with a significant group of people.”

Mbeki’s resignation last month followed a ruling by a High Court judge that suggested his government sought to pressure prosecutors to charge Zuma with graft. The ANC replaced Mbeki with its deputy leader Kgalema Motlanthe because Zuma, who isn’t a member of parliament, wasn’t eligible.

The ouster of Mbeki triggered the resignation of some of South Africa’s highest-profile politicians, including Defense Minister Lekota, his deputy Mluleki George and Mbhazima Shilowa, the governor of Gauteng, the richest province.

“The ANC are going to lose a lot of votes and would lose more if there was” an alternative party, said Alister Sparks, author of three books on South African politics, in an interview from Johannesburg. “Ordinary people are frustrated with the ANC.”

`Grossly Unfair’

Belligerent statements against the judiciary and Mbeki by Julius Malema, the head of the ANC’s youth league, and other party officials have alienated some voters. Others have been angered by policy failures that led to millions of AIDS sufferers being denied treatment and rolling power cuts earlier this year.

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, who retained his post, has said he opposed Mbeki’s sacking, while Essop Pahad, who quit as minister in the office of the presidency, said the decision was “grossly unfair.”

“This state of affairs leaves me and many other comrades no doubt, with a clear sense that our membership to the organization is an endorsement of practices that are dangerous to the democracy that many people in our country struggled to bring into being,” Lekota said.

Motlanthe, in an interview published today in the Johannesburg-based Mail & Guardian newspaper, sought to dampen fears of a split.

`Always a Tomorrow’

“I don’t believe any of the ministers who are steeped in ANC traditions of struggle will sign up for a breakaway party,” according to a transcript of the interview. “I don’t think it could challenge the presently ruling ANC. In the ANC there is always a tomorrow. The ANC will prevail.”

Should the wrangling give birth to a new party, its members will face huge challenges, said Keith Gottschalk, a politics lecturer at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town.

“Any breakaway faction cannot get any patronage, government jobs or tenders,” Gottschalk said. “They will take with them the great shame of having split an historic liberation movement.”

The ANC has ruled since Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994. The party won almost 70 percent of the 15.6 million votes cast in the last elections in 2004. The Democratic Alliance, its closest rival, won 12 percent.

Insulating Zuma

Retaining its two-thirds majority in parliament would enable the ANC to change the Constitution to ensure sitting presidents are granted immunity from prosecution, insulating Zuma from being recharged for taking bribes from arms dealers.

South Africa’s High Court invalidated charges against Zuma on Sept. 12, saying that prosecutors failed to follow correct procedures. The National Prosecuting Authority is appealing that decision. The ANC wants the case dropped completely.

The ANC is likely to retain its majority for the foreseeable future, said Steven Friedman, a political analyst at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa.

“A lot of people are going to decide they don’t like the ANC any more, but they don’t have an alternative,” Friedman said. “Party loyalty in this country is very strong.”

The divisions in the ANC are encouraging opposition politicians to dream that they may finally be able to chip away at the ANC’s tight grip on South Africa’s democracy.

Opposition Alliance

The Democratic Alliance has proposed forming an alliance with other opposition parties, which include the Inkatha Freedom Party and the United Democratic Movement. It hopes to capitalize on the party’s disunity and voter unease about having a suspected felon as a president.

“The time is now upon us to radically realign the political landscape,” said party leader Helen Zille. “We must bring together all of those in the opposition and in the ruling party who believe in the supremacy of the Constitution and build an alternative to Jacob Zuma’s ANC”

To contact the reporter on this story: Mike Cohen in Cape Town at mcohen21@bloomberg.net

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Published by Chief Editor Korir, African Press International -API/Source:Bloomberg

By Fred Ojambo

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) — Coffee exports from Uganda, Africa’s biggest producer of the robusta variety, rose 19 percent in 2007-08 because of a bigger crop, the state-run Uganda Coffee Development Authority said.

Shipments in the 12 months through September rose to 3,211,256 60-kilogram (132-pound) bags, from 2,704,246 bags in 2006-07, according to a tally by Bloomberg News today of figures provided by the Kampala-based authority.

Exports in September, the last month of the season, rose 19 percent to 212,846 bags, from 179,394 bags a year earlier, James Kizito Mayanja, a principal market analyst at the authority, said today in a phone interview.

“Exports were good last month because of the good stocks in the country during the season,” he said. “We are now carrying out inventories on the carry-over stocks, which we believe are good.”

September sales are estimated at $27 million, from $14 million a year earlier, because of better world prices and improved volume, said Mayanja. This could boost coffee earnings in 2007-08 by 51 percent to $388.62 million from $257 million a year earlier, according to a tally by Bloomberg News.

Exports of the beans may rise as much as 9.4 percent in the 2008-09 season as the country contains wilt disease and new trees increase their yields, David Kiwanuka, the authority spokesman, said in a Sept. 23 interview. Shipments in the 12 months to Sept. 30 may rise to 3.5 million bags, he said.

The forecast is based on rising output in the last two seasons, with 2 million bags being exported in 2005-06 and 2.7 million in 2006-07, he said.

Uganda’s best season was in 1996-97 when more than 4.2 million bags were exported, according the figures from the authority.

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Published by Chief Editor Korir, African Press International – api/ Source:Bloomberg

By Paul Okolo

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) — Pirates operating off the coast of Somalia held 374 hostages last month, a record high, a maritime security company said.

The pirates abducted seafarers from several countries in September, and the total held surpassed the 292 people taken in all of 2007, Hans Hansen, managing director of Risk Intelligence, a Vedbaek, Denmark-based company, said today in an e-mailed statement.

“This is the highest number of hostages held at one given time in recent years,” said Hansen, without saying where or how he got the information.

Attacks off Somalia this year have more than doubled, yielding as much as $30 million in ransom payments, Chatham House, a London-based analysis group, said in a report today. Piracy may force ships to avoid the Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal in Egypt, increasing the costs of oil and other goods from Asia and the Middle East.

France today circulated a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council that would urge all nations to “take part actively in the fight against piracy” by deploying naval vessels and military aircraft off Somalia and to use the “necessary means” to combat crime at sea.

The Security Council will likely vote early next week on the measure, diplomats said.

June Vote

The council voted in June to adopt a resolution that allows any nation, with the permission of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, to enter Somali waters to pursue pirates.

France, Germany and six other European Union governments yesterday said they would deploy more warships off Somalia to fight piracy.

Such measures will have only a temporary effect as long as the nation’s security problems persist, Hansen said.

About 60 boats have been attacked by pirates this year in waters off Somalia, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Two people died last month while being held by the pirates, one from a gunshot and another from heart failure, Risk Intelligence said.

The pirates make an average of $1 million from every ship they seize and typically hold crews for five weeks, according to Risk Intelligence.

“For them, piracy is a business,” Hansen said. “At the moment, they are successful at what they are doing, unfortunately.”

The report blamed piracy in the Horn of Africa country on local political instability.

Somalia has been wracked by violence since the UN-backed transitional government ousted an Islamic militia from southern and central parts of the country in January 2007. The nation hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the 1991 removal of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Okolo in Lagos at pokolo@bloomberg.net.

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Published by Chief Editor Korir, African Press International – API/ Source:Bloomberg

By ANGELA CHARLTON

PARIS (AP) � The 468-page French indictment makes seamy reading: secret arms deals feeding bloodshed in an oil-rich African country. Envelopes of cash changing hands in a Paris mansion. A cast of defendants ranging from a debt-ridden tycoon to a Chinese opera singer.

Piece by piece, judicial investigators have spent seven years assembling a searing accusation that penetrates the shadows of a dirty global trade.

Kalashnikov rifles and Soviet-made land mines poured by the planeful into Angola as it fought a civil war. In exchange, Angolan oil flowed to multinational companies. And a pair of savvy negotiators allegedly reaped millions of undeclared dollars in profits.

Their stacks of cash were then doled out to French and Angolan officials given secret code names, in exchange for political and commercial favors, according to the version laid out by French authorities.

On Monday, the case goes to trial in a Paris court.

Though the weapons sent to Angola weren’t made in France, French arms vendors, like other major players in the world weapons market, have long been accused of similar machinations.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to clean up the way his country peddles military materiel abroad, to better compete with the United States, the No. 1 seller. The trafficking trial demonstrates how hard it will be to regulate an industry that prefers to operate out of sight.

Prosecutors allege that corruption in the Angolan arms trading case went to the pinnacle of power in France, starting with a nod from the son of then-President Francois Mitterrand, and growing into a tangle of laundered money and parallel diplomacy that left a stain on France’s relations with Africa and on the country’s reputation in the global arms market.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand and 41 other defendants feature in the climax of what the French dub “Angolagate.”

Investigators got wind of wrongdoing after an apartment break-in not far from Paris’ Arc de Triomphe in 1997, according to the indictment viewed by The Associated Press.

Three years of digging later, it says, they traced the apartment’s ownership back to two men who have taken center stage in this legal drama: Arkady Gaydamak and Pierre Falcone.

Soviet emigre Gaydamak, 56, is an Israeli billionaire who is eyeing the Jerusalem mayor’s post and owns Israel’s Beitar soccer team. He is named in international arrest warrants issued by France, but Israel historically has not extradited its citizens, so France has not sought his extradition.

Falcone, 54, is an Algerian-born French businessman with oil industry ties. He now serves as Angola’s representative to UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency, a post that provides him limited diplomatic immunity. He faces many legal cases in France, and spent 11 months in detention during the trafficking probe.

Their names pepper the indictment. Both are accused of illegal weapons sales, influence trafficking, tax evasion, corrupt practices and misuse of company funds, and face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Through their attorneys, both deny wrongdoing. Falcone’s lawyers are seeking dismissal of the arms trafficking charges, and perhaps the whole case.

In July these lawyers produced a letter from Defense Minister Herve Morin saying there was no reason to prosecute the case in Paris because the weapons never crossed French territory.

Prosecutors disagree, drawing links to a French bank and French companies.

Gaydamak built up a translation service in France in the 1980s and then, as the Soviet empire imploded, used his knowledge of it to capitalize on oil wealth and huge arsenals thrown open to world markets, often at cut-rate prices.

“Our family is very proud of Arkady Gaydamak. All those who know him know that he has every reason to be proud of what he has done, what he has done for France,” his wife, Irina Tsirulnikova, told the AP by telephone from her Paris apartment. She would not comment on the charges against him, nor would his office in Jerusalem.

The indictment says French and Russian intelligence services had suspected illegal activity by Falcone and Gaydamak as far back as 1996.

Angola in the early 1990s was among the world’s poorest, sickest and hungriest places, ravaged by a civil war that erupted in 1979 and became a Cold War proxy conflict between the Marxist government of Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, aided by Cuban soldiers, and the UNITA rebels of U.S.- and South Africa-backed Jonas Savimbi.

Dos Santos was looking for weapons to hold back UNITA’s territorial gains. But France and others shied away from selling arms to a country at war. Dos Santos had no money, but he had oil.

French investigators say Gaydamak hooked up with Falcone, and the two enlisted Jean-Christophe Mitterrand to put them in touch with the Angolan leader. Mitterrand had served as Africa adviser to his father, then the president of France.

Via a Slovak company called ZTS-OSOS that they controlled, Gaydamak and Falcone arranged for military goods to be dispatched, mostly from Russian arms depots, to Angola starting in 1993, according to the indictment.

Dos Santos’ shopping list was long: more than 44,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 170,000 anti-personnel mines, 30,000 grenades, 500 grenade launchers, 420 tanks, and more.

Dos Santos regained the offensive in city-by-city battles in a country nearly twice the size of Texas. Survivors in the city of Kuito recall 1992-93 as “the time we ate our dogs,” and a decade later still had no electricity or running water. Land mines rendered swaths of the fertile country uninhabitable.

Investigators say arms supplies from ZTS-OSOS continued through 2000, for a total worth $791 million.

Mitterrand, 61, says he is “totally innocent,” that he was merely consulting a French business interested in Angola, using contacts built during his years as Africa adviser. “I never discussed arms with Mr. Falcone,” he said on France-Info radio this week. “The case rests on nothing.”

But the case is not just about weapons sales.

Other defendants include politicians of the left and right as well as Charles Pasqua, France’s one-time top cop; Chinese opera singer Alexandre Jia; Jean-Noel Tassez, a tycoon with a huge Monte Carlo casino debt; and Paul-Loup Sulitzer, a novelist who specializes in tales of espionage and organized crime.

Most are accused of “receiving misused funds” from Brenco International, a company Falcone controlled. Investigators say these undeclared gifts came in the form of cash, armored cars, French Riviera real estate, trips to Las Vegas, even private medical care.

According to the indictment, Falcone told investigators the money was spent to “facilitate things, not to buy people.”

The accusations span continents and bank accounts in Geneva, Moscow, Sao Paolo, the British Virgin Islands. The indictment relies heavily on ledgers kept by Falcone’s personal secretary, Isabelle Delubac, with entries such as: “Robert – Luanda – Nov 97 – 300000 US.”

In depositions cited in the indictment, other secretaries described greeting influential visitors to Brenco’s tony Paris offices while Delubac went into the basement to fetch envelopes of cash.

When the probe began under the presidency of conservative Jacques Chirac, who had succeeded the Socialist Mitterrand, many thought the case would never get to trial. Prosecutors annulled part of the probe in 2001 for procedural reasons, but later reopened it.

Sarkozy won election last year in part by pledging to rip up traditions of the past, including those dictating French relations with Africa and the arms sector.

Associated Press writers Pierre-Antoine Souchard in Paris and Casimiro Siona in Luanda, Angola contributed to this report.

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Published by Chief Editor Korir, African Press International – API; Source:AP