Johannesburg (South Africa) — African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma will approach the Constitutional Court in a bid to challenge the Supreme Court of Appeal ruling that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) did not have to give him an opportunity to make representations before he was charged again.

“We have taken the decision to bring an application for leave to appeal (to the Constitutional Court),” Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, said yesterday.

Papers would be filed in due course, and the grounds of the application would then be made known, he said.

According to the rules of the Constitutional Court, Zuma should lodge his application within 15 days of the appeal court judgment. His application should set out the constitutional issue raised in the decision. The decision to approach the court is one of two options Zuma has in his bid to have the fraud and corruption charges against him dropped and to clear the way for him to head the ANC’s election effort later this year.

Hulley said on Monday that Zuma would also make representations to the authority on his case. It is understood that Zuma’s legal team will try to convince the authority to reconsider the charges in the hope that the state will drop its case.

On Monday, the appeal court overturned a ruling by Judge Chris Nicholson last September in which Nicholson found that Zuma should have been given a chance to make representations before being charged. Nicholson also inferred that there had been political interference in Zuma’s case, which led to the ANC deposing Mbeki as state president.

Mbeki has since welcomed the appeal court judgment.

In 2007, the national director of public prosecutions Mokotedi Mpshe charged Zuma with 18 main counts of racketeering, corruption, money laundering, tax evasion and fraud. The appeal court found that Mpshe’s decision to charge Zuma was not a review of a decision in 2003 by former prosecutions head Bulelani Ngcuka to not charge Zuma. Mpshe was therefore not obliged to consult Zuma first.

The court said Zuma’s reliance on section 179(5) of the constitution was “misplaced”.

Appeal Court Deputy President Louis Harms found that when Judge Herbert Msimang struck the case off the roll in 2007 the criminal proceedings against Zuma were terminated, and the proceedings were no longer pending.

“The effect of this is that what went before the Mpshe decision was spent, and a new decision to prosecute was required. The Mpshe decision was not simply a review of the Ngcuka decision, which was no longer extant.”

Ngcuka said in 2003 that he would not prosecute Zuma with his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik. When Shaik was convicted of corruption in 2005, the now-suspended NPA head Vusi Pikoli charged Zuma.

source.Business Day (South Africa) – January 16, 2009.

Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania) – The busy Kariakoo market in the Tanzanian capital is stocked with knock-off merchandise – from imported car parts to handbags – and traders from across Africa come to buy cheap imports to sell at home.

But the most dangerous counterfeits are the imitation medicines sold to unwitting consumers. In Tanzania and across the developing world, the business of fake drugs is booming. A 2006 report by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in developing countries in Africa, and in parts of Asia and Latin America, up to 30 percent of medicines on the market are counterfeit.

“People are interested in getting a profit, but this is a human rights issue,” said Edith Ngirwamungu, president of the Medical Association of Tanzania. “The consequences of this business are really immense. Take, for example, a person with severe malaria: if he or she cannot access the genuine drug, then it means they may die.”

She said that inefficacy of counterfeit pharmaceuticals also made some Tanzanians lose confidence in crucial medicines, such as antiretrovirals for people living with HIV/AIDS.

“By having these counterfeit drugs, it makes people fearful of conventional drugs and revert back to traditional drugs,” Ngirwamungu told IRIN.

Counterfeit drugs are designed to fool consumers by using misleading packaging and mimicking the shape, colour, size and imprints of genuine drugs. Fake drugs sold in Tanzania’s markets include knock-offs of so-called “lifestyle” drugs, such as those for erectile dysfunction and weight loss. But there are also imitations of life-saving pharmaceuticals, including anti-malarial and anti-cancer drugs. Often, counterfeits contain just trace amounts of the purported active ingredients, and sometimes no active ingredients at all. But they are usually difficult to identify without a laboratory test.

“We’ve found that most pharmaceuticals don’t have the content and quality of the drugs we’d expected,” said Hussein Kamote, director of policy and advocacy at the Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI), a trade group that issued a report lambasting Tanzania’s thriving counterfeit market. He said when the group recently tested a batch of anti-malaria capsules, they contained only wheat flour.

Fake drugs are extremely profitable. The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest projects that fake drugs will generate US$75 billion in revenues by 2010, nearly double that of 2005. Global counterfeit syndicates use evolving consumer technologies that make it ever easier to imitate legitimate drugs.

Developing countries are particularly vulnerable, in part because regulatory officials often lack the capacity or political will to curb the distribution of fake goods. And because legitimate drugs can be expensive, poor consumers also fuel demand by knowingly or unwittingly turning to cheaper counterfeit versions.

“We are trying to tell people in Tanzania that counterfeits are dangerous products, they kill people,” said John Mponela, head of the anti-counterfeits department at Tanzania’s Fair Competition Commission. “They are not working for poor people, they work against poor people.”

The CTI estimates between 15 and 20 percent of all merchandise circulating in the country is counterfeit, earning Tanzania a reputation as a dumping ground for imitation goods, including fake drugs. Officials say suppliers from China, India, Europe and the USA have used the country as a gateway into Africa.

“These drugs come from abroad, and those who supply them know we need these drugs,” Mponela told IRIN. “When they supply them, they supply them in parallel with the genuine drugs. They get more profit – for nothing.”

It is difficult to punish the vendors of fake drugs in Tanzania, because fakes are so hard to identify. In Dar es Salaam, one pharmacist pointed to receipts showing where he sourced the medicines in his shop, and insisted he only purchased drugs from wholesalers that worked with the Tanzania Pharmacy Board.

“I have to trust my suppliers,” he said. “We get these from the right suppliers, who have passed through the proper channels. Those are the people we deal with.” However, he admitted: “I know that 10 percent of the drugs in this place are probably fake, but I’m not about to kill 90 percent of my business because of it.”

source.UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) – January 15, 2009.

Kampala/Masaka (Uganda) – Two National Forestry Authority employees were on Wednesday night murdered by pit-sawyers in Jubia Forest Reserve in Bukakata Sub-county, Masaka District.

The bodies of Alfred Ezaaki, a forest supervisor and Emmanuel Asiimwe, a forest guard, were found with deep cuts after suspected pit-sawyers armed with pangas and axes hacked them to death.

The Southern Regional Police Commander, Mr Andrew Sorowen, said Ezaaki, 35, and Asiimwe, 28, had gone 8 kilometres into the forest reserve for their routine patrol to check on illegal timber cutting. Mr Sorowen said the pit-sawyers turned against the NFA staff at around mid-night and hacked them to death but one of their staff, identified as Mr Charles Bogere, escaped and hid in the forest.

The bodies of Ezaaki and Asiimwe were discovered yesterday morning with multiple cuts on their bodies. The Masaka NFA Sector Manager, Mr Stephen Galima, told Daily Monitor yesterday that the two had a fight with the sawyers.

“They were responding to an illegal activity in the forest by pit-sawyers using chainsaws and when they went there, they were overpowered and killed. Mr Bogere, the survivor, was cut deeply in the back,” Mr Galima said.

Unfortunately, the managers went to the forest without sufficient security, according to NFA spokesperson, Mr Moses Watasa.
The NFA banned sawing of timber using chainsaws because they waste the wood.
Sources said that Asiimwe was known to be very tough on those cutting trees in the forests in the sub-county, and this may be the reason why the pit-sawyers killed him.

Mr Sorowen said Police is hunting for the three pit-sawyers who are on the run. He advised the NFA staff to always ask for protection from the Police before going for their routine supervision and cracking down on illegal cutting of trees.
“Pit-sawyers illegally cutting trees for timber and charcoal are very dangerous, you need to be armed to protect your lives,” Mr Sorowen advised.

Mr Sorowen says Police have arrested Mr Mande Musaazi, a resident of Buzirango village in Bukakata Sub-county, who is an employer of the pit-sawyers. Mr Sorowen said Mr Musaazi will help Police in investigating the circumstances under which the NFA staff were murdered.

The District Forest Officer, Mr Charles Mutyabule, said the forest guards have tried to protect the forests but they face risks because some of them are not armed, adding that they are few and can not Police the forests effectively.
Mr Mutyabule said at least 50 per cent of the natural forests in the district have been degraded due to increased demand for timber, firewood, settlement and that the cultivation of wetlands has also increased.

He said political interference and rampant poverty have contributed to the increase in cutting down of trees for fuel and timber.

source.The Monitor (Uganda) – January 15, 2009.

 Banjul (Gambia) – Ghana ’s new President, Mr John Evans Atta Mills, was sworn in on Wednesday in a ceremony that gave Africa a reason for celebration. It reminds one of a cause for African celebration fifty-one years ago when Ghana became the first Sub Saharan African country to brake free from European colonialism.

President Atta Mills won a razor-thin mandate, squeezing just slightly over 50 per cent of the vote to beat his sole rival in the run-off poll, Mr. Nana Akufo-Addo of the former ruling New Patriotic Party.

The thin margin would have given justification for protracted post-election strife, but the people and leadership of Ghana thought differently and gave a peaceful transition a chance.

This served to spare the continent political acrimony and probable bloodbath, and served to obliterate the negative impression that Africa is a continent of chaos, death and destruction designed and sponsored by power-hungry politicians.

It was a stark contrast to the ugly scenes witnessed in Kenya after the 2007 elections, Zimbabwe after the stolen elections of March last year, and coups in Guinea and Mauritania.

Indeed, this was a clear demonstration that Ghana has reclaimed its rightful position as a leading democracy, having pioneered, in 1956, to overthrow British colonialists and set the continent on the path to political liberation.

The message from Ghana is that African leaders must respect the verdict of the ballot, and most importantly, give a chance to free and fair elections, a clear harbinger to democracy and good governance.

It is no surprise that President Jammeh was not among the West African leaders invited to grace the occasion of the swearing in of the new President in Accra. It would have fit properly into his planned itinerary for this week since he is attending Friday’s extraordinary summit of ECOWAS heads of state. But even if he were to be invited, it is doubtful if Jammeh would have attended, first because of the lingering issue of his alleged responsibility for the massacre of over 40 Ghanaians in Banjul in July 2005. Second is the less episodic fact that Jammeh would certainly not love celebrating the achievement of changes brought on by the execution of free and fair electoral exercises? He and his APRC party have for long used the impossible removal of African governments through the ballot box. Only the coming into power of President Wade after the electoral victory by his Alternance coalition several years ago did the APRC stopped using this dogma as an instrument of electoral campaigns. But Jammeh and his cronies are not alone in this under-estimation of the level civil courage in Africa.

Not long ago, the saying was that the African voter would only vote for one in power. “I will vote for you when you become president,” was the order of the day. The African voter was seen as backward, cheap, cowed and unable to vote in rational terms. If and when he cared to exercise his right to vote, it would be for sentimental reasons of ethnic or other forms of affinities and not over issues that have to do with rights and responsibilities of the state and citizens; how resources are collected, for instances, and how the are distributed.

But the recent Ghanaian presidential and legislative elections add up on other signing examples in Sierra Leone, Senegal and even Nigeria in 2007 to shatter this myth. Ghana shows not only that the African voter is not just one amorphous mass of irrationality but also that they can also tolerate each other even when they are divided almost right across the middle and allow power to be transferred peacefully. Voters in Africa and citizens and civil societies on the continent have in deed a cause to celebrate in Accra on Wednesday.

source.The Gambia Journal (Gambia) – January 16, 2009.

 Mogadishu (Somalia) — The Ethiopian troops pulled out completely from the Somali capital Mogadishu, witnesses and officials told radio Shabelle on Thursday.

Ethiopia invaded Somalia 2006 to help the interim government oust Islamists from the capital, since then it has been supporting Somalia’s weak transitional government for two years.

The Ethiopian presence was deeply unpopular with many Somalis and different groups were united in opposing them.

Residents say a lot of people have gathered in former Defence Ministry building and Digfer Hospital where the Ethiopian soldiers vacated. Residents expressed hope to return to their houses after two years.

Locals saw Ethiopian troops with their military trucks traveling on the long, tarmac road that connects Mogadishu and southwest regions of the country.

The chairman of Hawiye Traditional Council Mohamed Hassan Haad said they would mediate the opposing Somali factions.

Abdirahim Isse Adow, the spokesman of the Islamic Courts Union called for the Somali people to work for peace and solidarity after the withdrawal of the Ethiopian troops.

At least 24 people were killed and more than 50 others were injured Wednesday when Ethiopian troops shelled parts of Mogadishu.

Ethiopian mortar shelling killed in Mogadishu 25 civilians yesterday (Wednesday) after Insurgents attacked departing Ethiopian soldiers. The Ethiopian troops armed with tanks and heavy artillery fought back and shelled parts of Mogadishu including Bakaro market.

source.Shabelle (Mogadishu) – January 16, 2009.