UN agency helping Palestinian refugees warns of looming funding deficit

The United Nations agency tasked with assisting millions of Palestinian refugees may not be able to pay the salaries of its 29,000 staff through the end of this year because of a funding crisis, its top official said today as she urged Member States to donate more generously.

Namibia News Update: Debate Rages on Privatisation; Hamutenya on NewPolitical Party

To privatise or not to privatise

By Felix Njini in Windhoek
Zimbabwe Herald

Namibia has re-ignited debate on privatisation of state assets but warned that off-loading public firms to private investors only works if the process is tailored to local market conditions and poor citizens have access to affordable essential services.

Government and economic experts noted that whilst privatisation of state assets has been a success story in Asian economies, it has not been the case in most African economies, with some having abandoned the programme mid-stream.

In layman’s terms, privatisation is the process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency of public services from government to the private sector.

Since two decades ago privatisation was seen by many as a panacea for Africa’s economic woes and its introduction along with other Bretton Woods prescribed economic reforms was described as a catch-all for inefficient state run organisations and a cure-all medicine for ineffective services provision.

The policy of state withdrawal from essential services and economic endeavour was a major component of the Bretton Woods institutions’ poverty reduction and enhanced structural adjustment plans.

It was tied to financial aid from the multi-lateral lenders.

But two decades down the line, the programme has been a dismal failure. In countries where it has recorded some success, it has resulted in huge job losses and impoverishment of the majority of the citizens.

Namibia’s minister of trade and industry Hage Geingob told business executives at a Bank of Namibia (BoN) annual symposium that the question dogging government was how to address the privatisation issue.

Geingob said Namibia’s private sector “has not even penetrated the local market, much less the regional market” adding that there is no improvement in goods market efficiency, casting doubt on the potential of the sector to take over government entities.

He said the private sector should target non-performing state entities but warned companies of strategic interest to the nation such as Namwater should be left in government hands.

He said privatisation should be aimed at addressing the twin goals of poverty reduction and economic development.

“Privatisation has to have a purpose other than asset transfer.

“It should not be for the sake of it but must be done with a purpose,” Geingob said.

Citing an example of the global economic crisis, which analysts say was triggered by excessive greed on Wall Street, Geingob said: “We have seen how the excesses of capitalism have played havoc on the global economy…the question is which sectors should be privatised-most sectors are already in private hands.”

He added that sectors such as water provision should not be privatised.

“The idea of water for sale is unheard of in Africa. Even the western economies are rethinking privatisation through large scale bail outs,” Geingob said.

He added that private investor tend to go for the most profitable companies “and laugh all the way to the bank.”

Tracing the history of privatisation, Bank of Namibia head of research John Steytler said over the years, public companies had failed to live up to expectations, had drained the state coffers and had failed to produce sufficient, quality products and services.

Steytler said in some cases state-owned enterprises fail due to weak management, running losses of between 5 percent to 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Steytler however noted that some fears of privatisation are unfounded.

“Most of the fears of privatising might be unfounded and under certain circumstances there might be modest or even big net gains, especially at firm level.”

He added that privatisation strategies “should be duly informed by the lessons of previous privatisation cases” adding that programmes should be tailor-made to domestic market conditions.

Jin Park, a professor from Korean Development Institute in South Korea warned Namibia against off-loading into private hands infrastructure related industries and networks industry.

“If these industries are to be privatised, foreign capital’s dominance in the economy will be much more serious.”

But more importantly, privatisation can only succeed if there is political commitment, said Park. “It is better not even try to consider privatisation without strong political determination.”

I have no beef with Swapo — Hamutenya

By Charles Tjatindi in Windhoek

Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) President Hidipo Hamutenya says he does not hold any grudges against Swapo, or its leaders - as they are not his enemies but political competitors.

Hamutenya told The Southern Times in an exclusive interview that no bad blood exists between him and his former political colleagues in the ruling party, as he regards them more as political competitors than enemies.

The RDP president said despite popular belief that political parties formed by

defectors of the ruling Swapo party did not last in the local political arena, the RDP would stand the test of time.

He said it was false and misleading to form such conclusions on the basis of “isolated incidences” based on case studies of only some parties.

“It is false to conclude that all political parties formed after Swapo will not fare well in elections. Let us allow people to express themselves at the ballot,” he said.

A one-time prominent Swapo stalwart, Ben Ulenga in 1999 defected from the ruling party to form an opposition party, the Congress of Democrats (CoD).

Ulenga was preceded by veteran Swapo politicians including Andrew Matjila, who in the early 1990s left the party to establish the Swapo-Democrats (Swapo-D). Both parties failed to chew into the electorate of the ruling party, contrary to expectations.

Asked to comment on the poor performance of the RDP in the two by-elections - in Eenhana (northern Namibia) and Windhoek’s Tobias Hainyeko constituency- the first polls the RDP participated in since its formation, Hamutenya blamed alleged intimidation of RDP members.

“The outcome of those village elections was influenced by fear. People were told RDP will bring the (liberation) war back. Others were told they will lose their jobs if they vote for the RDP, and as such people got scared and never voted.”

Hamutenya claimed that most of those who supported his nomination for the party’s presidency in 2004 had been witch hunted - leading to summary dismissals from their jobs, victimisation and threats of physical harm.

“It is an open secret that all those who supported me were labelled with derogatory names and victimised as they were seen as threats. Some people are threatened by change and would do anything to avoid it,” he said.

In May 2004 Hamutenya sought Swapo’s nomination as its candidate for the presidential elections which took place later in 2004. In the first round of voting for the nomination, Hamutenya won 166 votes, behind Pohamba, who won 213; in the second round, he was defeated by Pohamba, receiving 167 votes against Pohamba’s 341.

As the leadership contest intensified Hamutenya was “relieved” of his position as Foreign Minister by President Sam Nujoma on 24 May, reportedly for inciting division within the ranks of the party in the country’s Omaheke region.

In early November 2007, Hamutenya resigned from Swapo and from his seat in the National Assembly, where he had served for 17 years, and on November 17, he launched the Rally for Democracy and Progress, together with another former minister, Jesaya Nyamu.

However, the RDP has been accused of being a tribal-based party as many of its members are from the Kwanyama sub-set of the Ovambo people.

Hamutenya told the Southern Times that he does nonetheless not regret jumping ship, as “change was needed”, hence the launching of the RDP.

Veteran Swapo politician playing cards close to his chest

By Charles Tjatindi in Windhoek

Veteran Swapo politician Ben Amathila says he will only ponder on a return to the national assembly when such opportunity presents itself, opting to concentrate on his personal life in the interim.

Amathila, who in April 2007 resigned as Swapo representative in parliament and consequently as the party’s Chief Whip, told The Southern Times that he is still to make a decision on whether he will return to parliament when asked to do so, opting to shelve such a decision “until the time warrants it”.

Amathila is one of only a handful of ministers who did not make it back into Cabinet since independence and the only one to remain an MP for a considerable time afterwards.

At the recently concluded Swapo electoral college, the veteran politician came in on number 54 on the 72-member National assembly aspirant list, prompting speculation that he would be returning to the National Assembly.

The ruling party has 55 members in the National Assembly.

He however noted that he would only make his decision on whether he will accept nomination back into the national assembly when the time is right.

“I will have to consider such a decision if and when Swapo gets 54 seats on which number I fall, and make a decision then.

“As for now, all I can say is that I am still a Swapo member and have pledged to avail my services where and when necessary,” he said in an interview.

Amathila said he had resigned as a member of parliament to “concentrate on his personal life”, as it relatively took a back seat to active politics.

Asked whether his time in active politics could have passed, Amathila maintained that experienced politicians like himself, were needed and continued to form an integral part in the ruling party politics.

“The party has a large reservoir of leaders whose wealth of experience could be used to the benefit of new political entrants.

“As is party policy, there is nothing wrong with blending the energy of the youth with the experience of the elders.”

Amathila first became active in Swapo’s forerunner - the Ovamboland People’s Organisation (OPO) - in Walvis Bay in 1959.

Despite not gaining full ministerial status in the national assembly, he remained popular within the party.

Namibia goes to the polls on 27 and 28 November in presidential and national assembly elections, with the ruling Swapo party widely expected to retain its dominance on the country’s political scene.

U.N. Disgraces Itself Again; Obama Helps

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/charen091809.php3

By Mona Charen

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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |The United Nations Human Rights Council, a putrid perversion of every high ideal upon which it was founded, has issued a report calling the Israelis war criminals. The HRC has also, in obedience to the wishes of Chavez and Castro, ejected the representative from Honduras. In the very week it has committed these outrages, the Obama administration has announced that the United States, which quit the organization in 2006, will rejoin. Brilliant.

The Human Rights Council is the successor to the thoroughly discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission, which boasted such members as China, Zimbabwe, Russia, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. In 2004, the commission unanimously accepted membership for Sudan, a state actively engaged in genocide in Darfur. (That was when the U.S. walked out.)

Changing one word in its name, the Human Rights Council instantly resumed its former practices: ignoring massive human rights violations around the globe and condemning Israel. Anne Bayefsky of Eye on the UN summarizes:

"The council has passed more resolutions and decisions condemning Israel than all other 191 U.N. members combined. The council has one (of only ten) formal agenda items dedicated to criticizing Israel. And one agenda item to consider the human rights of the remaining 99.9 percent of the world's population. … It has terminated human rights investigations on Belarus, Cuba, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And all investigations of 'consistent patterns of gross and reliably attested violations of all human rights and all fundamental freedoms' in such states as Iran, Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been 'discontinued.'"

The council's "investigation" of war crimes in Gaza, published this week, is everything we have come to expect from an organization that gives Cuba a pass and welcomes Sudan to monitor human rights violations.

In the first place, the mission's mandate was slanted from the start. It was tasked with investigating violations of international law by "the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people." One of the mission's four members, Christine Chinkin, signed a public letter denouncing Israel for "war crimes" before the investigation got under way. For this reason, Mary Robinson, former high commissioner for human rights (and no great friend of Israel) refused to participate. She said the mandate was "not balanced because it focuses on what Israel did, without calling for an investigation on the launch of the rockets by Hamas." She might have added that Israel is not the "occupying" power in Gaza, having withdrawn in 2005.

While the report accuses "both sides" of committing war crimes (and mentions those rockets, in passing), the bulk of the 575 page report addresses supposed Israeli offenses. The mission's capacity to hear impartial testimony was hampered by its willingness to permit Palestinian witnesses to be accompanied by Hamas officials. Call it the Middle Eastern version of Card Check. Nor could they expect to hear a balanced presentation from the representatives of radical non-governmental organizations within Israel who routinely side with the Palestinians. Without offering evidence for its conclusions, the mission denied widespread reporting that Hamas combatants dressed in civilian clothing, hid in hospitals, schools, and apartment buildings, and used ambulances for military transports.

Seated comfortably in Geneva, the mission denounced Israel for failing to take more precautions to protect civilians. It acknowledged neither Israel's extensive use of warning leaflets and phone calls, nor the culpability of Hamas in placing rocket launchers in civilian areas. But above all, the report turned reality on its head by conceiving of Israel, the target of 12,000 rockets fired directly into civilian areas, as the aggressor, and of Hamas, a terrorist gang behaving as terrorists do, as the victims. After enduring the terror of rocket attacks for eight years, Israel defended herself militarily. Now Israel stands morally condemned by the United Nations for doing so. Hamas, whose unrelenting aggression provoked a response, and whose use of human shields should be regarded as a war crime, is given a pass.

The U.N. scored a public relations coup in getting South African jurist Richard Goldstone, who is Jewish, to chair the panel. He must answer to his own conscience, but his participation does point up some of the bald contrasts in the world. While there are any number of Jews and even Israelis who side with the Palestinians, or whose longing for international respectability causes them to lean over backwards in criticizing Israel, there are no Palestinians who openly sympathize with Israel. Where do you find Palestinian moderates? In the graveyards.

Just as the U.N. Human Rights Council is besmirching itself in this way, the Obama administration elects to lend it the prestige of American membership. Shame appears to be in season.

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Kenya Government Begins Clearance of Kibera

Kenya begins huge slum clearance

Kenyan authorities have begun to move residents out of Africa’s largest slum - the Kibera settlement in Nairobi.

Officials expect to take from two to five years to clear the slum, which is home to about one million people.

The first people to move are being rehoused nearby in 300 newly built apartments, each paying about $10 (£6) a month in rent.

But some residents and landlords have gone to court in a bid to stop the moves as they claim they own the land.

People in Kibera have had to cope with overcrowding, soaring crime rates and poor sanitation in recent years.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is the local MP, said the the project - which has UN backing - will prepare the ground for a “modern, low income residential estate with modern schools, markets, playgrounds and other facilities”.

“Today we make the first step of a long journey towards meeting the basic needs and basic human rights of our people in the slum,” he said.

Land sensitivities

The BBC’s Anne Mawathe in Kibera said some families began moving with their belongings at 0630 local time.

They assembled to wait for trucks to take them to their new homes.

One elated resident, Hilda Orlale, told the BBC how she and her family could not wait to get to their new home.

“Where we lived we never even had a toilet,” she said.

“We had to pay three shillings (three US cents) to access one while the children used the flying toilets,” she said referring to excrement that is placed into plastic bags and then thrown out of windows.

But our reporter says land ownership in Kenya is very sensitive, and not everyone is happy with the scheme.

More than 80 people - a mix of landlords and residents - have taken their grievance to court, arguing that the land in Kibera is theirs and the government should not be allowed to demolish the shacks.

About 90% of Kibera residents rent their homes from middle-class Kenyans who have built temporary structures on the government land over the last 30 years.

Planning worries

The Nubian community - an ethnic group who have been living on the land for more than a century - are also annoyed with the slum clearance.

Ibrahim Diaby, a Nubian elder, says improvements should be made to the existing housing in the slum instead.

“My house has water and electricity, but I’m restricted from putting up a permanent building because the government says the land belongs to them,” he said.

“It’s a question of natural justice. We’ve lived in Kibera long before Nairobi was Nairobi, long before Kenya was Kenya.”

The high court has ordered that the demolition cannot begin until their case is heard next month.

Mr Odinga said the slum now houses many more people than the Nubians, and must be redeveloped.

“Over the years, it has grown to be cosmopolitan with many Kenyan communities found here,” he said.

“But it also remains the biggest slum in Africa south of the Sahara. It is not a reputation we can be proud of.”

Urban planners have also expressed concern at the project, saying that it risks repeating the mistakes of the past.

In another similar project poor families either shared two-roomed apartments with one or two other families in order to pay the rent, or sub-let them to middle-class families and moved back into the slums.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8258417.stm
Published: 2009/09/16 16:37:01 GMT

Ban presses G20 leaders to maintain commitment to help world’s most vulnerable

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has written to the leaders of the so-called Group of 20 (G20) industrialized nations to cement their commitment to help the world’s most vulnerable who are bearing the brunt of the global economic turmoil.

Somalia: Ban reassures African Union mission of UN backing after deadly attacks

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today personally assured the African Union Mission in Somalia of the United Nations’”steadfast commitment” of support following yesterday’s deadly suicide bombing of its headquarters in Mogadishu, the capital.

Dead salmon ‘responds’ to portraits of people

Why did part of a dead salmon’s brain light up when it was shown images of humans in various social situations?

Libyan Convicted in 1988 Lockerbie Bombing Releases Appeal Online

Friday, September 18, 2009
20:13 Mecca time, 17:13 GMT

Lockerbie bomber puts appeal online

Al-Megrahi, who is dying of prostate cancer, was released from jail on compassionate grounds

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the only person convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, has posted documents online which he believes will help clear his name.

The 57-year-old Libyan, who is dying of prostate cancer, released information on Friday which he hopes will “persuade the public” of his innocence.

Al-Megrahi returned to his hometown in August this year after being released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds.

He said in a statement: “I have returned to Tripoli with my unjust conviction still in place.”

“As a result of the abandonment of my appeal, I have been deprived of the opportunity to clear my name through the formal appeal process.

“I have vowed to continue my attempts to clear my name. I will do everything in my power to persuade the public, and in particular the Scottish public, of my innocence,” he said.

‘Sketchy testimony’

Al-Megrahi, who is in hospital in Tripoli, Libya’s capital, had been serving a 27-year-sentence for planting a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 people when it exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.

He abandoned his second appeal against his conviction earlier this year, paving the way for his release.

But the decision made by Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary, sparked anger in Britain and the US from officials and relatives of victims, who say he should have remained behind bars.

The former Libyan intelligence agent, who was sentence by a specially convened Scottish Court in The Netherlands in 2001, has always proclaimed his innocence.

His Scottish lawyers also argued he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

The legal argument released online consists of the written grounds of appeal submitted to Scotland’s High Court this year.

In the papers, his lawyers argued that al-Megrahi’s conviction relied on sketchy eyewitness testimony and several “leaps of faith”.

Source: Agencies

UN authorizes emergency grant to assist Mexican flood survivors

The United Nations humanitarian arm announced today that it is authorizing an emergency cash grant of $100,000 to help provide immediate support to flood survivors in Mexico City’s Valle Dorado suburb.

New General Assembly President calls for strengthening of 192-member body

The new General Assembly President, Ali Treki of Libya, today reiterated his call for the revitalization of the 192-member body, saying its decisions should be respected. At present only the decisions of the 15-member Security Council are binding.