By Korir, Chief editor (API)

On the 13th of June, we reported that the Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi has accepted political asylum in Russia.

Arrangements around his departure seems to be moving slowly, but API can confirm that this is real. Gaddafi’s only safe choice is Russia.

As reported on the 5th of July by the Daily Nation, Kenya, negotiations are ongoing. The delay is believed to be caused by ICC’s earlier threats that they were going to have him arrested. The earlier threat by ICC is now a reality because they have managed to get arrest warrant for Gaddafi.

Any asylum outside Libya will now be made difficult. France seems to be saying Gaddafi should be given security guarantees that he will not be arrested if he steps down and seeks asylum outside the country. This can only be accomplished if ICC”s arrest warrant is withdrawn and guarantees given so that Gaddafi can step down and move to Russia as soon as possible.

A quick move in that direction will save many lives on both sides in the ongoing conflict.

Otherwise, Gaddafi will fight until his death.

End.

Related story:

• Muamar Gadhafi accepts Asylum in Russia, will relinquish power in the coming days; says a Senior Diplomat in the Libyan Embassy in Norway

Hammond, Tutu and Gunther Kenya Limited will be conducting a two-day seminar on Tax Compliance, Planning & Management at Hilton- Nairobi, on July 21st & 22nd, 2011.

The seminar will cover broad tax compliance requirements;- Corporate Tax (including emerging issues such as Transfer Pricing & Thin Capitalization), VAT, WithHolding Tax, Payroll Tax, and Taxation of Retirement Benefits. The Seminar will also discuss tax planning and management areas;- Tax Planning v/s Tax Crimes, KRA  Audits (Triggers & Management), and, Tax Payers Rights & Obligations. with highlights on budget 2011/2012 and highlights on East African community
The gathering is seen as a very important forum for all Senior Finance staff, Tax staff, Internal Audit staff and any other personnel dealing with the organizations Accounting, Financial Management Risk & Compliance functions.

Preamble

Compliance with Tax legislation has become a top agenda in determination of an Organization’s Risk Profile. An understanding of Tax Planning and Management measures and an awareness of the thin line between Tax Planning, Management & Tax Crimes is important if personnel involved in Tax Management is to be effective in minimizing an organization’s risk yet be effective at managing tax.

It is important that all Senior Finance Personnel (Heads of Finance, Financial Controllers, Finance Managers and other Senior Finance staff), Risk & Compliance Officers, Internal Audit staff and other decision-makers have an understanding of their organization’s compliance requirements, risk profile and exposures as a basis of acquiring requisite skills to effectively manage tax and mitigate tax exposures.

By Mr. Benson Mwangi / Mr. Ryan Kariuki hammondtutu@gunthergibson.com

By Korir, Chief editor (API)

“Former Voi MP Boniface Mganga died on the spot on Tuesday night in a grisly road accident along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway” writes the Standard Online Kenya.

The standard writes, ““The former MP was trying to overtake a trailer moving in the same direction in a sharp corner and on seeing another vehicle coming from the opposite to avoid collusion, he swerved back to his lane and hit the rear part of a trailer,” said the police boss. Aseneka said after the impact, Mganga’s vehicle veered off the road and landed into the bush killing him.”

Mganga was in the Provincial Administration and founder of Muungano Choir. The choir that became very famous in the 1980s in the country.

The choir was even invited to perform abroad, carrying the Kenyan flag high while representing the country through music.

In 2002, he joined politics and was elected to represent the people of Voi in parliament starting 2003. He lost his seat in 2007 December elections.

 ”Mganga, 52 was the chairman of the Kenya Utalii College Board of Directors;” The Standard Online reports

Kenya has lost a young leader who was excelling in politics.

This writer (API writer) sends heartfelt condolences to his family, especially because this writer worked closely with the late Mganga in the Kenya Provincial Administration in the 1980s in Narobi.

End.

By API

The Norwegian organization “Zero” organizing a climate change conference in Norway on 21 and 22nd November has invited the former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is expected to speak at the conference.

Interestingly, he has now said yes to attend the conference after an invitation was handed to him by  “Zero” Organization’s leader Einar Håndlykken. Arnold Schwazenegger will be paid 4.5 million kroner for accepting to attend the conference; A reliable source in Zero Organization, who does not want her name made public, tells API.

European Union Commissioner for Climate Change Connie Hedegaard will attend the conference, but has not been bought as has been done with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger was better known as the “Terminator”, Hollywood star before entering politics.

It has been reported by Norwegian media that the Norwegian Foreign Minister Jahn Gahr Større and Education Minister Kristin Halvorsen, wanted the former governor to visit Norway while he was still in office, but he declined the invitation at the time because he was not given any money.

What difference is this from corruption, – bribing a person to do something he is not willing to do? The “Zero” organization should have exercised common sense and put the money into better use.

END

SOUTH AFRICA: Government gets lowest rating on xenophobia

Photo: Taurai Maduna/IRIN

Migrants displaced by xenophobic attacks

JOHANNESBURG, 4 July 2011 (IRIN) – In a week that saw two Somali traders shot dead in Cape Town and two more in Port Elizabeth, the South African government’s handling of xenophobia received the lowest possible rating in a report by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Monitoring Project.

Three years after widespread violence against foreigners broke out across the country, evaluators from the Monitoring Project noted that the government had failed to prioritize the issue, and that “there is even an element of denialism on the part of some officials.”

Tara Polzer Ngwato, of the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, agreed with the assessment. “Government responses have been fragmented, poorly resourced and with limited political commitment,” despite a significant rise in attacks on foreign-owned shops in several provinces since the beginning of 2011.

The African Union introduced the APRM in 2003 as an instrument for improving governance and accountability. After agreeing to participate, countries identify their weaknesses and develop a National Programme of Action (NPoA) to address them.

The Monitoring Project, made up of civil society researchers and activists from the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP), and the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), evaluated the government’s track record on implementing its NPoA, and graded its progress on critical government issues.

Green is the highest rating, orange indicates some progress, and red little or no progress. Xenophobia was among seven areas given a red rating with others including corruption, poverty and unemployment. Successful management of elections got the only green rating.

Government initiatives fall short

South Africa’s NPoA did not mention xenophobia, but a section in an official review of APRM implementation released in January 2011 covered government actions to address the issue, including setting up a unit to counter xenophobia and a communications programme to promote greater harmony between citizens and foreign nationals.

However, the Monitoring Project report described the section as “poorly written with inadvertent repetition and… clearly assembled in a hurry”. 

One of the big issues is impunity – people think if they do something to a foreigner there are no repercussions

Several of the initiatives it listed have not been sustained or rolled out nationally; one, the Counter-Xenophobia Unit in the Department of Home Affairs, got off to “a bright start” according to the report, but “appears to have lost momentum”.

Sicel’mpilo Shange-Buthane, director of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CoRMSA), told IRIN that after doing some initial awareness-raising, the group had been renamed the Integration and Repatriation Unit, but under new leadership in the Home Affairs Department it had been reluctant to implement xenophobia-related programmes.

Polzer Ngwato commented that the Unit was severely understaffed, and the new name had narrowed its mandate to dealing only with refugees and asylum seekers.

An Inter-Ministerial Committee on Xenophobia, set up after the 2008 attacks, is no longer active and the drafting of a National Action Plan to address xenophobia started in 2009 has still not been finalized. “Various departments are involved in social cohesion campaigns but there’s no coordination in terms of what they’re doing,” said Shange-Buthane.

Political leaders implicated

There is no centralized system for monitoring and recording xenophobic violence, but in the first quarter of 2011 the Human Sciences Research Council tracked 20 deaths, 40 injuries, 200 foreign-owned shops looted and thousands displaced. One recent incident – the beating and stoning to death of a Zimbabwean national in an informal settlement outside Polokwane in the northern Limpopo Province – was followed by the arrest of a local ward councillor affiliated with the ruling African National Congress party for allegedly inciting the attack.

Local government officials have been implicated in several similar attacks in the last two years. Research by ACMS has identified competition for political and economic power in local communities as a key trigger of violence against foreigners.

“There are… many political leaders, along with much of the general population, who perceive foreigners to be a direct threat to citizen economic empowerment and service access, even though there is no evidence that this is in fact the case,” said Polzer Ngwato, noting recent comments by Maggie Maunye, who chairs the parliamentary oversight committee of the Department of Home Affairs.

A local newspaper, The Star, reported that during a briefing Maunye asked Home Affairs officials how much longer South Africa was going to allow foreigners to enter the country. “Is it not going to affect our resources, the economy of the country?” she was reported as saying.

“Here we have people who are living in poverty daily, people who are unemployed. We’ve never enjoyed our freedom as South Africans – we got it in 1994, and we had floods of refugees or undocumented people in the country.”

Tina Ghelli, spokesperson for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in South Africa, said a Protection Working Group, set up by civil society groups and UNHCR to provide an early warning system for potential xenophobic violence, worked closely with the South African Police Force’s Visible Policing Unit and had experienced some success in preventing attacks.

“They have been more responsive than in the past, but it hasn’t trickled down to the local police everywhere,” she told IRIN. “One of the big issues is… impunity – people think if they do something to a foreigner there are no repercussions.”

In a list of recommendations to the now inactive Inter-Ministerial Committee in June 2010, CoRMSA urged better access to justice for victims of xenophobic violence. “Perpetrators are often not held accountable, which results in a perception of impunity for crimes against foreign nationals.”

The APRM Monitoring Project report concludes that failing to address xenophobia in South Africa’s NPoA “indicates the ambivalence of government in recognizing and dealing with the issue as a priority, and in a systematic way. The disastrous consequences of May 2008 and subsequent outbreaks of violence are further testimony of this.”

ks/he source www.irinnews.org

GLOBAL: The vital statistics of hunger

Photo: Action contre la Faim

Aid workers and health officials measure a child’s height and weight in western Chad

JOHANNESBURG, 4 July 2011 (IRIN) – Louise Masese-Mwirigi, an analyst recording nutrition data in southern Somalia with her team, have on occasion had to turn away from a village because the local authority that consented to the survey a week ago is no longer in charge or may have changed their minds when they arrive. Fighting between the government, its allies and various armed groups in parts of Somalia has severely restricted humanitarian space.

“The situation is uncertain in Somalia and access is a problem – especially in the last two years in central and southern Somalia,” said Masese-Mwirigi, who works for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Security and Nutritional Analysis Unit (FSNAU) for Somalia.

Armed with an electronic weighing scale and a metre-long board to measure the height of children, Masese-Mwirigi and her team, led by Mohamed Moalim, along with Action Contre la Faim (ACF), a food relief NGO, have carried out a survey in the Mogadishu region, where the capital is located.

The survey is the first in seven years. “It took a month of planning… we could access six districts but had to let go of the remaining three because of security concerns.”

A rapid assessment by FSNAU in Mogadishu in December 2010 picked up high levels of malnutrition based on the measurement of the middle upper arm circumference (MUAC) – a quick, easy and cheap approximate measure of malnutrition in children younger than five years. “We felt we needed more information through a comprehensive nutrition survey, given the rains had performed poorly and the MUAC results were indicating high levels of malnutrition in the town.”

The MUAC measurement uses a long strip of plastic with a series of colour-bands that is put around a child’s bare upper arm. The colours show the level of malnutrition: green indicates a 135mm circumference, which is normal; yellow – 125mm to 134mm – shows a risk of malnutrition; orange – 110mm-124mm means moderate malnutrition; red, for measurements less than 110mm, is an indication of severe malnutrition and risk of death.

In the past two years FSNAU have had to depend entirely on MUAC in parts of the conflict-hit areas. “It is less resource-intensive, and quick and ideal for emergency situations, but ideally we would like a more thorough survey,” Masese-Mwirigi said.

Detailed data

A thorough survey would take into account four variables – age, weight, height and gender – as well as the MUAC. Crude mortality rate (usually measured in deaths per 10,000 people per day in emergency situations), rate of disease prevalence, child care and feeding practices, household food security, and water and sanitation indicators, are also taken into account to understand the overall nutrition situation.

When two of the anthropometric variables are used together they are called an index. Three indices are commonly used to assess the nutritional status of children: weight for age (WFA), height for age (HFA) and weight for height (WFH).

These indices are then compared to a reference standard to get a sense of the severity and distribution of the nutritional problem in a country.

The survey is the first in seven years. It took a month of planning… we could access six districts but had to let go of the remaining three because of security concerns

The WFA of a child compared to a reference population will tell if the child is normal, overweight or underweight. HFA indicates whether the child’s height is normal for his or her age. If the child is not as tall as expected then he or she is stunted, reflecting a long-term, chronic problem – stunting is a good indicator of chronic malnutrition.

WFH is commonly used in acute emergencies to determine the scale of the crisis. It is often used when the child’s age is not known, and in countries like Somalia, where hardly any public records of births and deaths exist. WFH is regarded as a good indicator of acute or short-term exposure to a negative environment, such as a drought, as it reflects recent weight loss or gain. WFH is a measure of acute malnutrition.

Room for error

With so many measurements involved there is always a lot of room for error.

For instance a baby can often be not held properly to measure its length, or perhaps the child is not standing straight. Aid organisations are constantly trying to improve the skills of surveyors involved in taking measurements by organising training workshops periodically.

Determining the correct age can also be problematic. “We use the calendar of events to accurately determine a child’s age,” explained Masese-Mwirigi. Events like major natural disasters or elections can indicate when a child was born.

The other contentious issue in measuring malnutrition is what is considered average. The World Health Organization (WHO) provides a reference of growth standards, against which surveys calculate their deviations from the norm.

Yet the WHO growth standards might not be the norm for a particular ethnic population that is naturally long-limbed, like Kenya’s Maasai, or short-limbed, like the Gurkhas of Nepal. Even though the WHO standards were recently updated to better reflect human genetic diversity some experts feel country- or region-specific growth standards should be developed. 

Prominent experts like Mark Myatt, Senior Research Fellow at the Division of Epidemiology, of the Institute of Ophthalmology, University College, London, feel MUAC is a much more accurate measure.

But that is not all. There are different scales of malnutrition. For individuals malnutrition can be moderate acute or severe acute.

To work out levels of malnutrition, WFA, HFA and WFH measurements are used to calculate and classify using what is known as the “percentage of the median” and “Z-scores”.

For instance, in expressing the WFH as a “percentage of the median”, a child’s weight is divided by the average weight for a child of that height, as provided in the WHO growth standards, and then multiplied by 100 percent. Fortunately, there is computer software that does the calculation.

The “Z-score” represents the difference between the observed weight and the median weight of the reference population, expressed in standard deviation units. When the percentage of the median is less than 70 percent, and the Z-score is less than -3, or oedema is present, the child is said to be suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

GAM or SAM?

Populations are described as severe acute or global acute. “Global acute malnutrition (GAM) refers to the total cases of moderate acute and severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in a population,” Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the medical NGO, notes in their useful manual, A Beginner’s Guide to Malnutrition.

GAM is calculated with the Z-score defined as a weight-for-height index less than -2 standard deviations from the mean weight of a reference population of children of the same height.

A GAM value of more than 10 percent generally identifies an emergency. Commonly used thresholds for GAM are less than five percent (acceptable), between five and just under 10 percent (poor), between 10 percent and under 15 percent (serious), while anything more is critical.

Clinical signs such as bilateral oedema – swelling in the feet, legs or face caused by an extreme shortage of protein – are a separate indicator of severe malnutrition in children.

“We recorded a GAM rate of 15.2 percent for Mogadishu in our survey,” said Masese-Mwirigi. In Somalia the FSNAU has been recording GAM rates of 15 percent and above for a long time, GAM rates of over 15- 20 percent indicate a critical nutrition situation, while rates over 20 percent are seen as very critical. The GAM rates reported in Mogadishu town are high, also given that there are a large number of feeding interventions in the town.

Prices of the staple grains – maize and sorghum – have gone up by between 52 and 95 percent in most markets. FSNAU reports that in some areas prices have doubled and even tripled since 2010.

In 2011 the major rainy season began late and was poorly distributed across time and place in southern Somalia – the second bad season consecutively, as the first harvests in January failed.

A smaller cereals harvest, low stocks and poor access because of continued conflict to Bakara, the main market in Mogadishu, have made basic foodstuffs harder to get and more expensive.

jk/he/bp source www.irinnews.org

All Norwegian missions abroad now offer visa applicants the opportunity to use an online system. Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Støre commented, “This will give visa applicants a much better service and reduce the processing time for applications.”

In 2010, Norwegian missions abroad processed 143 000 visa applications and received 18 000 applications for residence. The large missions deal with 100-450 applications a day. On Application Portal Norway<https://selfservice.udi.no/>, almost everyone can register applications for a visa, residence permit or citizenship online.

“Using the application portal, you can register your visa application wherever you are, whenever you like, without any queue. This reduces waiting time for applicants and ensures more effective processing of all types of applications,” said Mr Støre.

The online system also reduces processing time at the missions because applicants do most of the work themselves. The applicant also pays the fee online and makes an appointment with the mission or the police for submitting the necessary documents. This means that the time it takes to apply for a visa at a mission is reduced in certain cases from several hours to less than 15 minutes.

The Application Portal Norway has been developed by the EFFEKT programme, which is a collaboration between the police, the Immigration Appeals Board, the Directorate of Integration and Diversity and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is owned by the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration.

By the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway
Duty Press Officer:July 4 2011