INTERNATIONAL ROUND UP INCLUDING BANGLADESH AND SOUTH ASIA

General news round-up

The European Union is prepared to pay 2.4 billion euros a year through 2012 to help developing nations adapt to climate change as the 27-nation bloc bids to reinvigorate talks on cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. “We need to restore confidence in the U.N. process and between the parties,” Alicia Montalvo said April 9 in Bonn at a United Nations meeting in which the EU representative reiterated that billions in funding announced at the Copenhagen climate summit would be available starting this year. “We must all honor our commitments. We are prepared to do our part,” she said, as cited by Bloomberg. Developed nations agreed to provide USD30 billion to poorer nations over that period in the Copenhagen Accord for climate- change adaptation and mitigation efforts. Delegates from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Grenada criticized the way the Copenhagen summit was conducted, saying nations brokered deals outside of the main talks.

The WHO is rushing medicines and surgical equipment to help doctors in Kyrgyzstan treat the hundreds of casualties from this week’s deadly clashes that have led to the apparent overthrow of the Central Asian country’s Government. Antibiotics that could treat up to 1,500 cases of wounds and disease are being sent, as well as medical equipment that includes forceps and stethoscopes, WHO spokesperson Paul Garwood told reporters April 9. Garwood said WHO was working to dispatch additional supplies to meet a request from the Kyrgyz health ministry, which has reported that at least 75 people were killed in this week’s clashes in the capital, Bishkek, and another 500 are being treated at the three major hospitals in the city. Kyrgyzstan’s opposition has set up an interim government and the President, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has fled Bishkek after several days of deadly unrest. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said a vibrant civil society, political participation, freedom of speech and the rule of law are critical for modernization and social progress in Kyrgyzstan. “The bloodshed in Kyrgyzstan is a deeply troubling reminder of the vital importance of addressing such issues… there are political, economic and social issues underlying the unrest,” Ban said.

More than a million survivors of the massive earthquake that struck Haiti three months ago, or nine of out 10 of those in need, have now received emergency shelter materials, the United Nations reported April 13. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the distribution of shelter material is on target to achieve the goal of reaching 1.3 million people by May 1. However, OCHA noted that distribution of emergency shelter must continue beyond that date because pre-positioned stocks will be necessary to cover increased needs anticipated as a result of the approaching rains and hurricane season. Meanwhile, to support people to return to their home areas where possible, the UN and partners are working with the Haitian Government to identify the home areas of the people living in spontaneous settlements.

Donor aid to the health sector is in many cases replacing, rather than complementing, government health spending in sub-Saharan Africa, according to new research, IRIN reports. Given a lack of transparency and incomplete data, it is unclear where governments receiving donor health aid are channeling national funds that would have gone to that sector, but analysts say states could be putting the funds toward other priority sectors. Every USD1 of health sector aid to sub-Saharan African governments means ministries reduce health funding from domestic resources by USD0.43 to USD1.14, according to a just-published Lancet study. When donor aid is a substitute for government health spending the result is generally a weaker national health system, say the report's authors. The study notes that health aid given to NGOs in the respective countries has no impact on government health spending.

Tens of thousands of children are at risk of severe malnutrition in Niger and neighboring countries unless donors urgently provide more funds for humanitarian programs, the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned. Christiane Berthiaume, a spokesperson for the agency in Geneva, told reporters that UNICEF was very concerned that the ongoing drought in much of the Sahel region of Africa has created a food crisis that is jeopardizing the health of the region’s most vulnerable children. Already an estimated 859,000 children under the age of five in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, northern Nigeria and Chad are classified as needing treatment for severe malnutrition, she said. The Sahel region, an arid belt immediately south of the Sahara Desert, is prone to droughts and creeping desertification. Rates of severe malnutrition are often high.

A decade after the world’s original deadline for eradicating polio, the most tenacious bastions of the crippling virus — Nigeria and India — have recently shown remarkable progress in halting its spread, giving even some of the antipolio campaign’s severest doubters hope that it may yet largely achieve its goal, the New York Times reports. In Nigeria, Muslim leaders in the north — who had allowed the disease to spread by halting polio vaccinations in 2003-4, based on rumors that the drops were part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim girls or spread the AIDS virus — now embrace the cause as their own. So far this year, only two children have been paralyzed by wild polio virus in Nigeria, compared with 123 during the same period last year, according to Nigerian and international health officials. And in India, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar — states that seemed unable to vanquish polio no matter how many times they vaccinated children — for the first time have not had a single case caused by the most virulent polio viral type for four months straight, WHO officials said.

Ten African nations have failed to conclude a long delayed new agreement for sharing water from the Nile and will call for closer cooperation instead. The Nile basin nations have failed for years now to agree on the Nile River Cooperative Framework Agreement to administer the longest river in the world, which would reduce Egypt's share of the Nile water, AP reports. Egypt has categorically refused to sign the agreement. Ugandan Minister of Water and Environment Maria Mutagamba, in her opening speech at the meeting in the Sinai resort of Sharm al-Sheikh called on her counterparts to sign the agreement without further delay. Ahead of the discussions, however, Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohammed Nasreddin Allam insisted that Egypt would maintain its share of 55.5 billion cubic meters of water from the river - more than half of the Nile's flow.

IMF, World Bank & IFI Round-Up

Aid to the world's poorest countries rose marginally in 2009 but EU aid fell because some European donors gave less than promised, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said on April 14, Reuters reports. The OECD, a club of the world's largest economies, said aid from 23 leading donor countries increased by 0.7 percent in real terms to USD119.6 billion in 2009, representing 0.31 percent of their combined gross national income (GNI). Total worldwide aid increased by less than 1 percent in real terms, dented by the financial crisis, the figures showed. Africa and Asia are the regions receiving the most aid and development assistance, including debt relief. While most donors are meeting their commitments, the OECD said the overall figure fell short of a promise made at a G8 summit in Scotland in 2005, when major donors said they would double their aid to USD130 billion by 2010. Aid from the European Union -- the world's largest aid donor bloc -- actually declined in 2009, the OECD said.

The World Bank has approved a USD3.75 billion loan for a huge new coal-fired power station in South Africa, despite environmental concerns. Utility firm Eskom says the plant is needed to end power shortages, which have plagued South Africa in recent years. But the BBC reports that environmentalists say the World Bank should not finance plants which could increase carbon emissions. The U.S., the largest lender to the World Bank, the U.K. and the Netherlands abstained from the vote. Eskom said the 4,800 megawatt plant would help South Africa meet its increasing demand for energy, and even export to neighboring countries. World Bank vice-president for Africa Obiageli K Ezekwesili said South Africa needed a better power supply to help raise living standards. "Access to energy is essential for fighting poverty and catalyzing growth, both in South Africa and the wider region," the AP news agency quotes him as saying. Some USD475 million of the loan will be used for renewable power, such as wind and solar projects. This is the second major loan for the construction of the plant. Last year, the African Development Bank lent USD2.77 billion to the company to build the Medupi power plant.

Taking a major step in the global fight against fraud and corruption, leading Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) on April 9 signed an agreement to cross debar firms and individuals found to have engaged in wrongdoing in MDB-financed development projects. The new accord, which applies to debarments that exceed one year, includes: the African Development Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank Group, and the World Bank Group. “With today’s cross debarment agreement among development banks, a clear message on anticorruption is being delivered: Steal and cheat from one, get punished by all,” said World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick " Sanctions by MDBs typically include reprimand, conditions on future contracting, or debarment -declaring a company or individual ineligible to participate in any future activities it finances, either for a period of time or permanently. Under the new agreement, entities debarred by one MDB may be sanctioned for the same misconduct by other participating development banks.

Economic growth across the 10-member Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) could reach 5.5 percent this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last week, outpacing the global average. “We are expecting world growth to be around four percent this year. In the ASEAN region, we are expecting growth at 5.5 percent this year,” IMF Deputy Managing Director Naoyuki Shinohara said on the sidelines of ministerial talks. Asia Pulse writes that the figures were released at the 14th ASEAN Financial Ministers Meeting, which was held in Nha Trang on April 8. The meeting, chaired by Vietnamese Finance Minister Vu Van Ninh, reached a number of agreements, creating a premise for stronger and more effective cooperation in regional financial and monetary integration. In a separate piece Asia Pulse adds that “The World Bank has suggested a deeper integration among ASEAN members to boost the region’s economy as countries with more advanced economies were undergoing slower growth.

The Executive Boards of the IMF and the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) have deemed, on a preliminary assessment, that the Union of the Comoros is eligible for assistance under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The assessment is a step towards forgiveness of the majority of the country’s foreign debt stock, which is estimated at USD285.9 million as of end-2009. To qualify for debt relief under the HIPC Initiative at the decision point, Comoros will need to demonstrate satisfactory performance under the government’s economic program by completing the first review under the current IMF Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement, and reach understandings on appropriate completion point triggers. On reaching the completion point under the HIPC initiative, Comoros would qualify for unconditional debt relief under the HIPC Initiative. It would also qualify for the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) from the IDA and the African Development Fund (AfDF). Debt relief would free up resources for poverty-reducing spending in the authorities’ priority areas, notably education and health.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn stressed the need to maintain momentum in financial overhaul, warning of the risks posed as countries' approaches diverge. Strauss-Kahn said in a speech in Cambridge on Saturday that as the world economy becomes more interconnected, international policy coordination will be important to secure “stable, strong and balanced” economic growth. Dow Jones also notes that he cautioned that global economic imbalances are likely to widen again unless policies are implemented that encourage new sources of growth to emerge. “Many countries are approaching ... big picture reforms from different directions and at different speeds,” Strauss-Kahn said.

The IMF has assured Pakistan it will approve the release of the next tranche of an USD11.3 billion loan at a board meeting on May 3, Reuters reports the Pakistani prime minister's office said April 14. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said in talks with the IMF in Washington that his government was trying to broaden Pakistan's tax base and keep the budget deficit "close to" 5.1 percent of GDP, according to a statement from his office. Pakistan turned to the IMF for an emergency package of USD7.6 billion in November 2008 to avert a balance of payments crisis and shore up reserves. The loan was increased to USD11.3 billion in July last year and the central bank received a fourth tranche of USD1.2 billion on Dec. 28. The fifth tranche will be for the same amount.

Bangladesh

A Dhaka court on April 13 threw out graft charges brought against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed during Bangladesh's previous military-backed interim administration, court officials said. The High Court ruled against charges of underhanded dealings in setting up three power plants near Dhaka during Hasina's previous premiership from 1996 to 2001. Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission filed the case against Hasina and four others in September 2007, alleging that they had taken more than 400,000 US dollars in bribes from Finland's Wartsila Corp power-development company for approving a contract for three barge-mounted power plants. The commission said the money was taken as a donation for the Bangabandhu Memorial Trust, a charity founded to the memory of Bangladesh's founding president, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina's father. The case alleged that the accused had colluded with Wartsila instead of selecting the lowest bidder. (DPA)

China

At least 400 people have died and thousands are feared hurt after a magnitude-6.9 earthquake struck China's Qinghai province, officials say. The powerful tremor hit remote Yushu county, 800 kilometers southwest of provincial capital Xining. Most of the buildings in the worst-hit town of Jiegu town were wrecked, and landslides have cut off roads. Rescue crews were traveling to Yushu, hundreds of kilometers from a major airport. Many of the buildings in Yushu, a county with a largely Tibetan population of about 250,000, were thought to be made from wood. In 2008, a huge quake struck neighboring Sichuan province that left 87,000 people dead or missing. After the Sichuan quake, five million people were left homeless, and officials estimated rebuilding work would take at least three years. (BBC)

India

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has ruled out talks with Pakistan until it takes "credible steps" to bring the Mumbai attackers to justice. India blames Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the November 2008 attacks which left 174 people dead, including nine gunmen. On April 12, India and Pakistan's prime ministers met at a nuclear security summit in the U.S. Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gilani spoke to Singh at a reception hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama. A Pakistani embassy spokesman said it was "not a formal meeting." Singh said he had briefly met Gilani twice in Washington, but that the two leaders had only exchanged pleasantries and that "there was no serious discussion." The meeting between the two prime ministers came a day after Singh told Obama that Pakistan's government lacked the will to punish those responsible for the Mumbai attacks. (BBC)

Indonesia

A protest over a historic tomb on government land in the Indonesian capital turned bloody April 14, with nearly 30 people wounded in clashes between riot police and hundreds of demonstrators armed with machetes and sticks. Some 2,000 civil service officers and 600 police used tear gas, water cannons and batons to beat back the protesters near the country's main seaport of Tanjung Priok in northern Jakarta, city spokesman Cucu Ahmad said. Police estimated the number of protesters at 500. The protesters believed city officials were trying to remove the tomb of an Arab cleric who helped spread Islam in North Jakarta in the 18th century. The tomb is located on land claimed by the state-run seaports operator Pelindo II. (AP)

Myanmar (Burma)

Southeast Asian leaders urged Myanmar to hold fair and inclusive elections, and pledged to work together to sustain recovery from the global financial crisis as they wound up their summit last week. A statement at the end of the ASEAN meeting in Hanoi said the flood of government spending and easy credit had borne fruit, putting the region's economy on an increasingly solid footing. They said ASEAN will maintain monetary and fiscal support "until the recovery is on a firm footing," but needed to start working out ways "to reverse the fiscal and monetary stimulus and then phase out these policy accommodations." The leaders urged Myanmar to hold a "free, fair and inclusive" election, and to work with ASEAN and the U.N. in this process, after Myanmar's Prime Minister Thein Sein briefed them on the election plans, said this year's ASEAN chairman, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. He went to Myanmar's capital just before the summit to deliver a similar message from the leaders, including that the election should have "the participation of all parties." (Reuters)

Pakistan

More than 200,000 people have fled Pakistan's latest offensive against Taliban militants in the northwest, the U.N. said April 12, as fresh clashes in the remote region killed 41 insurgents and two soldiers. The military has pounded the Orakzai tribal region with airstrikes and artillery in an attempt to rout insurgents from the rugged, mountainous area near the Afghan border. Many Taliban fighters fled to Orakzai last year to escape a separate army offensive in their tribal stronghold of South Waziristan. The exodus of civilians from Orakzai adds to the more than 1.3 million people driven from their homes by fighting in the northwest and unable to return. The U.N. warned April 12 it faces a severe shortfall in funding needed to aid those displaced, saying it has only received about USD106 million, or 20 percent, of the USD538 million appeal it launched in February for the next six months. Last year, the U.N. had received 40 percent of its appeal by this time, it said. (AP)




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Sub-Saharan Africa

Chad

The United Nations has allocated USD2.7 million in emergency funding to two of its humanitarian agencies so they can help combat fresh outbreaks of measles and meningitis in Chad. The Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), set up in 2006 to allow the U.N. to dispatch funds to tackle disasters and crises as soon as they emerge, is giving about USD1.9 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) and almost USD850,000 to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The two agencies aim to vaccinate about 627,000 young Chadians against meningitis, and some 966,000 children against measles. Outbreaks of meningitis and measles have become more and more common in Chad in recent years, and they are also becoming increasingly severe. This year an outbreak of measles has been reported in the capital, N’Djamena, and in the western and central regions of Chad, while a meningococcal epidemic has been recorded in the south. (U.N. News Service)

Congo (DRC)

About 530,000 children younger than five and more than a million women need urgent nutritional support in the Congo (DRC), says the Ministry of Health. Officials are calling for more resources for prevention and treatment and for agricultural production to be improved. "At least 700 children under-five die each day in the five provinces where only 20 percent of children have a varied diet," Victor Makwenge, the Minister of Health, said. An estimated one million women aged 15-49 are malnourished in Equateur, Orientale, Occidental, Katanga and Maniema provinces, he said. A 2009 study by the national nutrition program in the provinces, which represent about half the national population, found global acute malnutrition rates above the 15 percent emergency threshold in children under five in some regions. Meanwhile, the top U.N. official in the country has told the Security Council that the first stage of withdrawing blue helmets from the country by July is “operationally feasible,” but the safety of civilians under threat from militias and criminals remains a priority. (IRIN, U.N. News Service)

Ethiopia

The European Union has agreed to monitor Ethiopia's elections in May, nearly five years after Addis Ababa accused the EU's chief observer in the last poll of helping to spark violence. The U.S.-based Carter Center declined an invitation to observe, saying there was not enough time to prepare for the May 23 vote in the impoverished nation on the Horn of Africa. "(EU foreign affairs chief) Baroness (Catherine) Ashton last week decided to send a full observation team for the elections," EU ambassador to Ethiopia, Dino Sinigallia, said late on Tuesday on state-run Ethiopian television. The monitoring team will be 200-strong and have a budget of about USD10 million, Sinigallia said. Next month's election will be the first since a government victory in 2005 was disputed by opposition parties and some observers. Monitors said the poll fell short of global standards. Security forces killed about 200 protesters and imprisoned the main opposition leaders in the aftermath of the vote five years ago. (Reuters)

Guinea Bissau

The U.S. has accused two senior military men from Guinea-Bissau of drug running. Air force head Ibraima Papa Camara and former navy chief Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto have been named "drug kingpins." Under the Drug Kingpin Act, financial sanctions have been imposed on the two men and U.S. citizens are barred from doing business with them. Guinea-Bissau is a major transit point for cocaine smuggled from Latin America to Europe, and last week suffered an apparent army coup attempt. Adam Szubin, head of the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said Camara and Na Tchuto have played "significant roles in international narcotics trafficking. Na Tchuto, has been accused of plotting a 2008 coup and was due to be handed over to the government of Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior for trial. (BBC)

Niger

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said April 12 that its credit-based farming project in Niger has been so successful that the agency plans to scale it up and expand into Burkina Faso, Mali and Senegal, which are also suffering food shortages. “It shows that growing more food is not the only way of increasing poor farmers’ food security. Simple, storage-based credit systems can also play an important role in improving their livelihoods,” said FAO rural finance expert Ake Olofsson in a statement. The financing scheme is built around warrantage, or inventory credit system. Rather than selling their crops immediately after harvest – when everyone else is selling and prices are lowest – farmers can use it as collateral to obtain credit from a bank and sell at a later date when prices rise. FAO started a version of the project in Niger in 1999. In exchange for a bank loan, farmers’ groups left their millet, rice and peanuts in a locked warehouse with keys held by both the bank and the group. (U.N. News Service)

Nigeria

The World Bank estimated Nigeria's economy to grow by 4.8 percent this year, up from 4.3 percent in 2009, its Managing Director said last week. The World Bank's outlook was significantly below the central bank's forecast of 7.53 percent last month, and a 6.4 percent estimate from nine analysts polled by Reuters in January. “This economy is just waiting for a bedrock of right and consistent policies ... to get some of our sectors going,’ said Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the World Bank's Managing Director, at an economic conference in Lagos. Platts reports that Okonjo-Iweala, in a lecture delivered in southern city of Calabar, also said that Nigeria's 2010 budget might be unrealistic, leading to more borrowing and a larger deficit, the BusinessDay newspaper reported. “I am... concerned about the realism of the 2010 budget, assumptions of a reference oil price of USD67/barrel and production of 2.35 million b/d [of crude],” she was quoted as saying. (Reuters, Platts)
Senegal

Somalia

Most radio stations in Somalia have stopped playing music, on the orders of Islamist Hizbul-Islam insurgents who say that songs are un-Islamic. The stations said they had to comply with the ban as if they did not, they would be putting their lives at risk. The BBC correspondent in Somalia says this latest order has strong echoes of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the past, militants in some areas have banned watching films and football and forced men to grow beards. Somalia has not had a functioning central government since 1991 and the Islamist militants control large parts of its territory. The transitional government – backed by African Union troops and UN funds – controls only a small part of the capital, Mogadishu. The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says the order to stop playing music and jingles was issued in early April. All but two of the city's 15 radio stations used to broadcast music. (BBC)

South Africa

A South African doctor wants to distribute 30,000 free anti-rape condoms for women ahead of the football World Cup. Dr Sonnet Ehlers first developed the special condom five years ago and says it is now ready for widespread use. The Rape-aXe, as it is called, is a condom women can insert themselves. The interior has tiny spines which, in case of rape, attach to the man's penis. Dr. Ehlers emphasizes that they do not draw blood, since this would increase the danger of HIV infection. However, they do cause a great deal of pain if the man tries to remove the condom. The condom has to be removed in hospital, she says, which means the rapist can immediately be arrested. Critics argue that the Rape-aXe could work as a provocation and the rapist is likely to become more violent when he realizes he has been trapped. The anti-rape condom is not yet available in the shops in South Africa and has not yet been tried out on test subjects. (Radio Netherlands)

Sudan

The U.N. has welcomed the decision by Sudanese electoral authorities to extend the voting period in the country’s historic elections until April 14 to allow them to deal with the many technical challenges that have emerged during the ballot. “The U.N. also hopes that this will enable more Sudanese voters to cast their vote, especially in areas and constituencies where the technical errors caused delays to the voting process or where voters have been unable to determine which polling centre they are registered in,” Martin Nesirky, a spokesperson for the Secretary-General, told reporters in New York. The extension came after some Sudanese and international observers complained of technical problems, including ballots being sent to the wrong polling stations and registers missing voters’ names. The polls – which began on April 11– are meant to be symbolic milestone in a country recovering from a decades-long civil war between the north and the south, in addition to the conflict in the western region of Darfur. (U.N. News Service)

Uganda

The U.N. will help Uganda mobilize resources to restore the Tombs of Buganda Kings, a World Heritage List site, following their near-destruction in a fire last month. UNESCO reported April 13 that a mission of experts it had sent at the Government’s request had determined that reconstruction of the Tombs, which were badly damaged in the March 16 fire, is feasible. Only the walls and some of the frame of the Muzibu Azaala Mpanga, the building that housed the four royal tombs, still stand, and they have been seriously weakened. Two people were killed during protests sparked by anger at the destruction a day after the fire, the cause of which remains unclear. Situated on the Kasubi Hill, five kilometers from the center of Kampala, the capital, the building was thatched with dry grass and wood which burned in the fire. (U.N. News Service)

Zambia

The UNHCR has urged the Zambian Government to halt the expulsion of refugees and asylum-seekers to the Congo (DRC) after 36 individuals were recently sent back. According to Melissa Fleming, spokesperson for the UNHCR, the affected individuals are from the Meheba refugee settlement in Zambia’s northwest. Six people were sent back in February, including a pregnant woman, and another group of 30 were sent back earlier this month. “The refugees were given no explanation regarding the reasons for their deportation or the possibility of challenging the decision under Zambian law,” Fleming said. They were deported following a security and police operation in Meheba on Feb. 24, which brought an end to a protracted demonstration by refugees, she noted. During the operation, a refugee woman was shot and killed, several others were injured and some 150 persons were arrested. (U.N. News Service)

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s government withdrew a proposed law that would have compelled foreign companies to cede 51 percent of their shares to the country’s citizens. A Zimbabwean minister says mostly white-owned businesses won't immediately have to hand over 51 percent control to blacks. Saviour Kasukuwere says implementation of the law on businesses will be delayed for more discussions. The first deadline was set for April 15. Opposition lawmakers say the law will scare investors and hurt the ailing economy. The law affects local businesses but foreign investors also need to meet an "empowerment quota." The law was passed in 2008, when parliament was still dominated by President Robert Mugabe's lawmakers. It's meant to benefit "indigenous" Zimbabweans - those who suffered under colonial-era racial discrimination and their children born after independence in 1980. (AP)


Americas & Caribbean

Argentina

Argentine human rights groups are turning the tables on Spain, hoping to open a judicial probe of murders and disappearances committed during the Spanish Civil War and the long dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. Lawyers representing Argentine relatives of three Spaniards killed during the 1936-39 war will ask the federal courts here April 14 to open an investigation, and hope to add many more cases in the months to come. Such cross-border human rights probes have long been the specialty of Spain's crusading investigative judge Baltazar Garzon, whose case against Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet helped lead to the undoing of amnesties that had protected Latin America's dictators. But Garzon himself now faces the prospect of a career-ending judicial investigation for allegedly abusing his authority by opening an investigation into deaths and disappearances in Franco's Spain. (AP)

Brazil

The death toll from floods and mudslides near Brazil's Rio de Janeiro has reached 224, with authorities fearing that it could reach as high as 400 people. Four bodies were pulled out of the rubble at dawn on April 10 in the Niteroi slum of Morro do Bumba, where up to 200 people are believed to be buried. Officials said the heavy rain had forced about 50,000 people to leave their homes, either because their homes were damaged or because they were ordered to leave due to fear of fresh landslides. About 150 people worked through the night searching for survivors in Morro do Bumba, as a stream of lorries came and went loaded with debris. The slum had been built on top of what had been a rubbish landfill site, making the foundations very weak. The mudslide demolished more than 50 houses as well as churches and stores in its path, leaving a rubble-strewn gash of earth on the hillside. (Al Jazeera)

Cuba

Cuba is turning over hundreds of state-run barber shops and beauty salons to employees in what may be the start of a long-expected privatization drive. All barbers and hairdressers in shops with three seats or fewer will be allowed to rent the space and pay taxes instead of getting a monthly wage. The retail sector has long been derided for poor service and rampant theft. The country's former President, Fidel Castro, nationalized all small businesses in 1968. Now his younger brother and successor Raul Castro is trying to modernize the system without jumping to full-scale capitalism. Other communist countries such as China and Vietnam have long since pushed through market reforms while maintaining political control. President Castro's first economic reforms involved giving unproductive state-owned land to private farmers. Some taxi drivers are allowed to work for themselves. This is his first attempt to deal with shops in the retail and service sector. (BBC)

Ecuador

Representatives of Ecuador's ombudsman's office and environmental groups are visiting the Yasuni National Park, home to some of the world's last indigenous people still living in voluntary isolation, to verify reports of illegal activity by oil companies. Ecuador's new constitution bans oil drilling in the "untouchable zone" declared by the government in the southern part of the park to ensure the survival of the Tagaeri and Taromenane indigenous communities. But despite the ban, construction of an oil pipeline that would connect currently operating oilfields with possible deposits in the park has continued, Esperanza Martínez, head of the Amazonia por la Vida - Salvemos al Yasuní campaign carried out by Accion Ecologica, a local environmental group, told IPS. Ecuador has approved the creation of an international trust fund to carry out the environment friendly program aimed at avoiding oil exploitation in the Amazon rainforest. To fulfill the ecological Yasuni-ITT program, Ecuador aspires to sign a trust agreement with the UNDP in April (Inter Press Service, Xinhua)

Guatemala

More than a month after the U.N. and its aid partners appealed for USD34 million to respond to the food crisis in Guatemala, less than 10 percent of that amount has been received, prompting U.N. officials to express concern today over the plight of the estimated 680,000 people in need. Guatemala has been hit by a prolonged drought, one of the worst in the country in three decades, resulting in severe food shortages that have exacerbated the country’s chronic malnutrition problem, Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters in Geneva. An estimated 43 percent of Guatemalan children below the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition, one of the worst rates in the world. But so far only USD2.9 million has been received in the appeal, according to OCHA. The rise in acute malnutrition, including clinical cases of kwashiorkor and marasmus, has hit the so-called “dry corridor” in the east and center of Guatemala particularly hard. (U.N. News Service)

Haiti

Relief organizations working with United Nations peacekeepers in Haiti are preparing to relocate some 7,500 earthquake survivors at risk of potential flooding in a camp above Port-au-Prince, the capital. People living in dangerous areas at the Petionville Club settlement were presented with voluntary relocation options and when those are not possible, relocation will be facilitated to a new site at Corail Cesselesse, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. Relocation to this site will start tomorrow and is expected to take several days. The new site will include health care and food distribution services as well as specialized services for children, such as a learning area provided by UNICEF, the U.N. Children’s Fund. (U.N. News Service)

Honduras

Suspected drug hitmen killed nine people in Tegucigalpa in one of the deadliest attacks in Honduras since Mexican drug kingpins escalated their war over smuggling routes, police said on April 10. Masked men with automatic weapons opened fire in the street in a poor area of the Honduran capital on Saturday night and then burst into two houses, killing seven men and two women, police said. Several bodies lay in the street, oozing blood, police said. "These deaths were provoked by territorial disputes between drug traffickers," Tegucigalpa's police chief Mario Chamorro told reporters. Since last year, drug violence has been rising in Honduras, a key transit route for Colombian cocaine heading to the U.S., as powerful Mexican cartels fight over smuggling corridors through Mexico and Central America. Some 1,600 people died in drug violence in Honduras in 2009. Honduran authorities say Mexico's top trafficker, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, is trying to crush rivals from the ruthless Gulf cartel from northeastern Mexico who are also fighting for control in Central America. (Reuters)

Mexico

More than 22,700 people have been killed in Mexico's drug war since a U.S.-backed military crackdown on cartels began more than three years ago, according to a government report. The report said 2009 was the deadliest year in the drug war, with 9,635 people killed in violence tied to organized crime. That compares to 2,837 in 2007, the first year of President Felipe Calderon's military-led offensive. Gang violence has continued surging this year, with 3,365 people killed between January and March, according to the confidential report sent to lawmakers April 12. In the latest violence, the bodies of six men were dumped on the side of a highway in Cuernavaca, a city near Mexico's capital where authorities say a battle has erupted for leadership of the Beltran Leyva cartel, whose leader was killed in a shootout with marines in December. Police said the six men were tortured, then each shot once in the head. (AP)

Peru

Around 50 people in Peru suffered injuries April 11 when part of a glacier broke off and burst the Hualcan River banks in a development the local governor attributed to climate change. A 2009 World Bank-published report warned Andean glaciers and the region's permanently snow-covered peaks could disappear in 20 years if no measures are taken to tackle climate change. Blaming climate change, local governor Cesar Alvarez said: "Because of global warming the glaciers are going to detach and fall on these overflowing lakes. This is what happened." Peru is home to 70 percent of the world's tropical ice fields. A 2009 World Bank report warned Andean glaciers and the region's permanently snow-covered peaks could disappear in 20 years if no measures are taken to tackle climate change. According to the report, in the last 35 years Peru's glaciers have shrunk by 22 percent. (AFP, Fox News)

United States

A misplaced document passed to the Guardian reveals the U.S. government's increasingly controversial strategy in the global U.N. climate talks. Titled Strategic Communications Objectives and dated March 11, 2010, it outlines the key messages that the Obama administration wants to convey to its critics and to the world media in the run-up to the vital U.N. climate talks in Cancun in November, including to: "Reinforce the perception that the U.S. is constructively engaged in U.N. negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change." It also talks of "managing expectations" of the outcome of the Cancun meeting and bypassing traditional media outlets by using podcasts and "intimate meetings" with the chief U.S. negotiator to disarm the U.S.'s harsher critics. But the key phrase is in paragraph 3 where the author writes: "Create a clear understanding of the CA's [Copenhagen accord's] standing and the importance of operationalizing ALL elements." This is the clearest signal that the U.S. will refuse to negotiate on separate elements of the controversial accord, but intends to push it through the U.N. process as a single "take it or leave it" text. (The Guardian, U.K.)


Asia & Pacific

Australia

Australian authorities on April 12 refloated a huge Chinese ship that had been stranded on the Great Barrier Reef for more than a week after running aground, averting a potential environmental crisis. Emergency workers successfully moved the 230-meter Shen Neng 1 coal carrier apparently without adding to the two-ton oil spill that spread a three-kilometer slick after the ship crashed on April 3. "They have moved it to a position off the shoal. It has been stabilized and will probably be floating there for another hour," a Maritime Safety Queensland spokesman told national news agency AAP. The accident, described as "outrageous" by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, evoked anger in Australia and raised questions about the environmental impact of the country's mineral exports boom. The giant ship, still carrying 68,000 tons of China-bound coal, was due to be towed to a more sheltered point before a stormy weather front brings high winds and heavy seas to Australia's northeast coast. (AFP)

South Korea

A South Korean who allegedly hunted down North Korean refugees hiding in China and sent them home has been arrested in Seoul, reports say. The man, identified only by his surname Kim, is also accused of spying on the South's military and on people aiding refugees, Yonhap news agency reports. Tens of thousands of North Koreans are thought to have fled to China to escape hardship or persecution at home. Activists say those sent home face severe punishment or execution. Kim, 55, was recruited by North Korea during an illegal visit to China in the late 1990s, Yonhap quoted prosecutors in Seoul as saying. He received espionage training in Pyongyang in 2000 before being sent to China as an agent to hunt defectors, they said. But he left China after an accomplice was jailed there. He was arrested as he arrived back in South Korea. (BBC)

Thailand

Thailand's anti-government protesters have begun consolidating their forces at one camp in the center of Bangkok, saying they expect another crackdown. But with the onset of the three-day New Year "Songkran" festival, large numbers of the red-shirted protesters appeared to have left the city. The organizers have canceled plans for a march on an army barracks. The crisis has pitted Thailand's rural poor, many of whom support ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in a coup in 2006, against the metropolitan elite. The protesters are demanding that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve parliament and call new elections. The protesters, who withstood a failed army crackdown at the weekend, have rejected the government's latest offer to dissolve parliament in six months. Abhisit Vejjajiva has rejected calls to step down. (BBC)


Europe & Central Asia

Afghanistan

A gunman lying in wait shot and killed an 18-year-old woman as she left her job at a U.S.-based development company April 13, casting a spotlight on a stepped-up campaign of Taliban intimidation against women in this southern city where U.S. troops plan a major operation in the coming weeks. Although there was no claim of responsibility and police said the motive for the attack was unclear, Taliban militants have been particularly harsh with women who work for foreign organizations or attend school. Bands of thugs are increasingly harassing women who want jobs, education and their own style of clothing, women and aid workers say. In the April 13 attack, the gunman emerged from a hiding place and shot the woman, whose first name was Hossai. She worked for Development Alternatives, Inc., a Washington-based global consulting firm that "provides social and economic development solutions to business, government, and civil society in developing and transitioning countries," according to its Web site. (Washington Post)

Greece

The euro has jumped sharply against the dollar April 12 after the eurozone agreed details of a multi-billion euro loan package to debt-ridden Greece. Eurozone nations have agreed to provide up to 30 billion euros in the first year of a three-year package. Greece hopes it will not have to ask for the emergency loans. Instead, it hopes that an extensive package of austerity measures will help to cut its debt levels and restore confidence in Greek government debt. This would mean it could raise money itself, rather than relying on financial assistance from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is also contributing to the 30 billion euro loan package. In recent weeks, the euro has weakened and the rate at which the Greek government borrows money on the international capital markets has increased. (BBC)

Hungary

Hungary's prime minister in waiting on April 12 linked the weekend striking electoral surge of a militia-backed far-right party to corruption and unemployment and pledged to address those problems. And the European Union expressed concern about the rise of the far right across the continent. The far-right Jobbik party won 16.6 percent of the vote over the weekend. The party is tied to the Hungarian Guard, a group whose black uniforms are reminiscent of Hungary's pro-Nazi groups of the 1940s, and which is seen as a source of intimidation of Gypsies and other minorities. Viktor Orban's center-right Fidesz scored a landslide victory in Sunday's first round of parliamentary elections, capturing nearly 53 percent. But the real political shake-up was the strong showing of Jobbik, which finished third - hard on the heels of the governing Socialists. The Socialist Party tumbled to less 20 percent compared to 43 percent in the last elections four years ago. The E.U. and Jewish groups used Jobbik's showing to sound the alarm about the rise of extremist parties across the continent. (AP)

Kyrgyzstan

The president of Kyrgyzstan, who was forced from the capital last week by rioting protesters, returned to public view April 10, holding a rally with supporters and declaring that if the interim government that supplanted him sought his arrest, “there will be blood.” President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has retreated to his ancestral stronghold in the south, several hours south of Bishkek. He had given interviews to journalists at his compound in recent days, but on Monday, gathered 500 or so people for a demonstration. “Let them try to come and take me,” he told journalists after the rally. “Let them try to destroy me. There will be blood.” Bakiyev was responding to earlier statements in Bishkek from leaders of the interim government that they intended to try to arrest Bakiyev. The nation is the site of an important American military base that supports the NATO mission in Afghanistan. (New York Times)

Netherlands

The Dutch NGO ChildRight is being investigated on suspicion of fraud, the Amsterdam police confirmed on Tuesday, following an article which appeared in the Dutch morning daily De Telegraaf. The paper claimed that the former president of ChildRight pocketed several million euros earmarked for projects in developing countries to finance a gambling addiction. ChildRight is an organization dedicated to combating the exploitation of children in developing countries. It was founded in 1994 by Nobel Peace Prize winner Jan Tinbergen and it builds schools and provides underprivileged children with food, clothes and housing. Both the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela are among the organization's influential supporters. (Radio Netherlands)

Poland

As Poles mourn the loss of their president and scores of the country’s top civilian and military leaders in a plane crash on April 10, they are only just beginning to ponder the implications for Poland’s political landscape. Commentators say the full repercussions of the tragedy – an unprecedented decapitation of the country’s political elite -- are still unclear. Instead they dwell on the extraordinary nature of the situation -- one that "stretches the limits of the imagination," as Polish constitutional expert Ryszard Piotrowski put it to Polish Radio TOK FM. President Lech Kaczynski and other top political, military, and financial figures, including the country’s military chief and central bank governor, were among nearly 100 people killed as their plane crashed on approach to Smolensk in western Russia. Kaczynski and other officials were heading to a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacres, when Soviet secret police executed more than 20,000 Polish officers and others on the orders of Josef Stalin. Most immediately, the tragedy means a new presidential election will be brought forward -- within 60 days -- though it was scheduled for October this year anyway. (RFE/RL)

Russia

A leading Russian federal judge has been shot dead as he was leaving his apartment building in central Moscow, court officials have said. Eduard Chuvashov was leaving for work on the morning of April 12 when he was shot by an unknown gunman who fled the scene. He had presided over several cases involving nationalist organizations and had received death threats. In February, he sentenced nine members of a neo-Nazi skinhead group called the White Wolves to up to 23 years in jail. The group was behind a series of racist murders. He also worked on cases involving Russian officials accused of corruption and embezzlement. Just last week Chuvashov had convicted the teenage leader of the most notorious skinhead gang in Russia for the murder of three more immigrants, says the BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow. (BBC)

Spain

Tensions are running high in the north-eastern Spanish town of Salt, where police intervened recently to prevent violence from breaking out between Spaniards and immigrants. "Stop stealing and go home," Spaniards shouted to Moroccans and other migrants they were facing on the streets. Days earlier, hundreds of demonstrators had forced their way into the city hall to protest the presence of immigrants, who make up about 40 per cent of the population of 30,000. There are signs that opposition to immigration is on the rise as the country struggles with a deep economic crisis and an unemployment rate of nearly 20 percent. Observers are watching especially the region of Catalonia, of about 7 million residents, where Salt is located and where far-right parties or groups have appeared on the political scene. The number of immigrants in Spain has increased fivefold over a decade to about 5.3 million people, or 12 percent of the population, according to official figures. (DPA)

United Kingdom

A clampdown on so-called vulture funds that use the U.K. courts to prey on some of the world's poorest nations yesterday made it into law. The private member's bill is designed to curtail funds that buy up the debt of developing countries and then use the courts to extract payments the debt relief (developing countries). The bill was pushed through as part of the pre-election wash-up, gaining House of Lords support and making its way to royal assent. The law applies to the debt of the 40 countries in the World Bank and IMF’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative. It seeks to ensure creditors cannot pursue debt repayment beyond a level assessed as sustainable by the World Bank. (The Guardian, Reuters)


Middle East & North Africa

Egypt

A draft law in Egypt curbing the independence of local NGOs has angered aid workers and bodes ill for civil society freedom, experts say. The bill, which is due to go to parliament for endorsement in its current session, would tighten the government's supervision of local NGOs and attempt to mute opposition in parliamentary elections later this year and presidential elections next year, activists say. "Egypt's civil society is crippled already with laws that curb its freedom," Baheieddin Hassan, head of local NGO the Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies, told IRIN. "The new law will inhibit civil society even more by doing what amounts to nationalizing it." The new law, which was leaked to the local press on March 7, would usher in a new government-appointed association called the General Federation for Civil Society Organizations. It would be responsible for authorizing the work of local NGOs. Civil society activists and NGOs who work without authorization from, or registration with, this association could be sent to prison. (IRIN)

Iran

Iran's president has urged the U.N. to launch an investigation into the aims of Western military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The office of U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon said that it was studying the letter from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but had no comment. Ahmadinejad asked the UN to set up a fact-finding team. Tensions are growing over Iran's nuclear program, and its rising anger at Washington's nuclear policy. The fact-finding team requested by Iran's president would investigate the intentions and results of Western military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said that, so far, the invasions had only victimized people in the region, and he declared that U.S. and NATO methods of fighting terrorism had failed. It was not immediately clear what had prompted the letter but it comes amidst rising tensions over Iran's nuclear program, which the West fears has military aims. (BBC)

Iraq

Iraq must drop its new rules that impose harsh penalties on television stations for vaguely defined charges of incitement, said a U.S.-based human rights group. Human Rights Watch said the guidelines for broadcast media in Iraq are too vague and give the Iraqi Communications and Media Commission "unfettered power to halt broadcast transmissions, close offices, seize equipment, revoke licenses, and levy fines on broadcasters," it said in a letter. The commission was established by the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority that took control of Iraq immediately after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and ouster of former president Saddam Hussein. It is touted as an independent regulatory agency, but its directors are appointed by the Iraqi government. The new guidelines set vague standards for broadcasters to follow or face having their licenses revoked after a single offense. There is only a limited appeals process. (AP)

Israel

Israel is set to impose a military order that could see tens of thousands of Palestinians deported from the occupied West Bank. The order, which came into force on April 13, could have "severe ramifications" for people in the West Bank human rights groups say. It classifies people without the right Israeli paperwork as "infiltrators." Many residents of the West Bank have ID cards from neighboring countries, or papers that list Gaza as their home. Many other residents of the West Bank are married to other Palestinians who at one time lived in refugee camps in neighboring Jordan, Egypt, Syria or Lebanon, and may not have Israeli-approved ID cards. The Israeli Defense Forces said Israel was within its rights to tighten restrictions on people in the West Bank illegally, and the order was being amended to allow what it called "judicial oversight" in cases of accused "illegal sojourners." (BBC)

Kuwait

Kuwait has deported at least 21 followers of Egypt's high-profile opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei, human rights groups say. Another 20 or so are still being held in Kuwait, according to colleagues of ElBaradei in Egypt. A former chief of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), ElBaradei is an emerging contender to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has been in power for almost three decades. According to Human Rights Watch, Kuwait's interior minister Sheikh Jaber al-Sabah said the Egyptians had assembled without permission and had criticized the Egyptian president. It is rare for Kuwait to deport expatriates for political activities. (BBC)

Palestinian Authority

Beit Jala is one of a growing number of Palestinian villages holding regular protests against Israel's occupation of the West Bank. Many end with Palestinian youths throwing stones and Israeli troops firing tear gas and sometimes rubber-coated bullets. But organizers in Beit Jala, such as Ahmad Lazza of the Holy Land Trust who trains protesters in non-violent tactics, are determined to keep things peaceful. This is partly out of personal belief, and partly about avoiding escalation with Israeli soldiers. "You don't want him to feel threatened, because it is a very good excuse for him to shoot you," he says. Protesters in the area have recently chained themselves to olive trees to protect them from Israeli bulldozers and rebuilt a destroyed garden on land cleared for the barrier - which Israel says is for security, but Palestinians see as a land grab. They have also forced their way into the main checkpoint keeping Bethlehem Palestinians from Jerusalem. (BBC)

Yemen

A 13-year-old Yemeni girl has died of internal bleeding three days after being married, rights groups say. The report comes amid ongoing debate on setting a minimum age for brides in Yemen, where more than a quarter of girls are married before the age of 15. A 2009 law setting the minimum age at 17 was repealed after some lawmakers said it was un-Islamic. A final decision is due this month. There was no official confirmation of the death by Yemeni officials. The girl, said to have been married to a man in his 20s, died in the west of the country last week, the Arab Sisters Forum (Saf) rights group said. A medical report by the hospital where she was treated said she had suffered a tear to her genitals and severe bleeding after intercourse, the group said. (BBC)



(Source: Dev. Ex)