Israel arrests teenager for West Bank mosque attack

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli police say a teenager has been arrested in connection with the torching of a West Bank mosque earlier this month.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed on Thursday that a minor was being questioned in the attack, believed to have been the work of Jewish extremists.

Rosenfeld says undercover agents arrested the teen at a West Bank junction. He says it was the first arrest since the December 11 blaze, but had no further details.

Authorities suspect Jewish extremists carried out the attack in retaliation for a government-ordered slowdown in West Bank settlement construction.

The attackers burned prayer carpets and a book stand with Muslim holy texts, leaving Hebrew graffiti on the floor.

 

UN agency helps Côte d’Ivoire resuscitate war-hit agricultural sector

The United Nations agency responsible for financing agricultural development in poor countries has given $10 million to Côte d’Ivoire to help some 86,000 families revive a farming sector affected by the civil war that in 2002 split the West African nation into a rebel-held north and Government-controlled south.

Afghanistan War Update: CIA Operatives Killed in Attack by ResistanceForces

Thursday, December 31, 2009
09:26 Mecca time, 06:26 GMT

Foreigners killed in Afghan attacks

Nearly 140 Canadian troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002

Five Canadians and eight Americans have been killed in two separate attacks in Afghanistan, with officials saying that the Americans were working for the CIA, the US intelligence agency.

The Taliban on Thursday claimed responsibility for the attack on the Americans, who were killed in a suicide attack on a US base in the eastern province of Khost.

A suicide bomber reportedly evaded security at the base and detonated an explosive belt in a room used as a fitness centre on Wednesday.

A former senior CIA officer who was stationed at the base said a combination of agency officers and contractors operated out of the remote outpost with the military and other agencies.

Initial reports suggested the men killed had been soldiers.

‘Reconstruction staff’

“There has been a great deal of confusion when the reports emerged yesterday,” Hashem Ahelbarra, Al Jazeera’s correspondent reporting from the Afghan capital, Kabul, said.

“We contacted the spokesperson of Isaf [the International Security Assistance Force] to confirm to us that US soldiers were killed.

“Then he came back to us in half an hour and said there had been a great deal of confusion and actually ‘no, these are not US soldiers but civilians’. They are members of the PRT, which is the provincial reconstruction team.”

The PRT was established in Afghanistan in 2002 by the US to assist in reconstruction efforts at district and provincial levels.

US media reports said the Americans killed were employed by the CIA.

The Washington Post newspaper, citing US officials, said the eight killed were working for the CIA, while the Associated Press cited an unnamed US official as saying CIA employees were believed to be among the dead.

According to The Washington Post report, the CIA has been bolstering its ranks in Afghanistan in recent weeks, mirroring the increase in troops.

The CIA has not yet commented or confirmed the deaths.

The base in Khost, known as Forward Operating Base Chapman, is a centre for personnel working on reconstruction projects in the country.

The US has committed to send hundreds of civilians to support work on development projects that aim to undermine support for the Taliban and other fighters.

But as the security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated, many of the civilians working outside Kabul have retreated to army bases.

Several other people, none of them US or Nato troops, were wounded in the explosion, US defence officials said.

Canadians killed

The five Canadians were killed in a attack in the southern province of Kandahar just hours later.

The group, made up of four Canadian soldiers and a journalist accompanying them, were visiting community reconstruction projects and were killed when their armoured vehicle was hit by a bomb, the Canadian defence ministry said.

The journalist, Michelle Lang, was with The Calgary Herald.

The paper said Lang had been in the country since December 11 and was the first Canadian journalist to die in Afghanistan since Canada joined the international mission there in 2002.

The attack was the worst against Canada’s military in the country in two years and brought its military deaths in Afghanistan to 138.

Canada has 2,800 troops in Afghanistan, but the mission has become increasingly unpopular at home and it is scheduled to be withdrawn at the end of 2011.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Dec 30 2009, 11:10 pm by Marc Ambinder

Eight CIA Officers Die In Afghanistan

The Central Intelligence Agency, the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence aren’t commenting on press reports that eight CIA officers were killed when a suicide bomber detonated at a military base in the province of Khost.

The death of eight CIA officers would be the agency’s worst toll since the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, when at least six officers were killed. Robert Baer, the now ubiquitous former CIA officer who spend years hunting down the Beirut bombers, has written that the agency never recovered from the loss of life that day. In an environment where the CIA is under extreme pressure from all corners, the Afghanistan massacre begins history as a tragedy that even under ordinary conditions the agency would find it hard to bear. Leon Panetta, the CIA director, must now add, to the mountain of pressing concerns, the grief counseling for thousands of employees.

The CIA’s semi-covert Predator drone strike program, targeting Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives who cross back and forth from Pakistan, has killed hundreds — a number of which were most likely innocent civilians by any definition.

This is not to suggest an equivalence — just to say that the agency’s American operatives are most definitely combatants in this war, which is also to say that the rules of war and the legal understandings that the CIA is using to fight terrorism in Pakistan are not clear and not easily explicable to the American people. With the CIA’s massive footprint in Afghanistan, some sort of tragedy was probably inevitable. (In 2001, officer Johnny Spann, a member of the CIA’s Special Activities Division, was killed in action in Afghanistan.)

It is tempting to associate the three publicly known CIA-related mass murders — the Beirut bombings, the 1993 shootings near CIA headquarters in Virginia and today’s events — with America’s 30-plus year struggle against Islamic extremism. It is worth noting, however, that the CIA’s two major traitors, Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, directly caused the deaths of dozens of people who risked their life to protect American lives.

One also wonders how many CIA contacts — people who helped provide actionable intelligence against Al Qaeda — have been killed.

latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-afghan-attack31-2009dec31,0,5154434.story

Afghanistan suicide bombing kills 8 CIA officers

The Taliban takes responsibility for the explosion at a U.S. base in Khowst province where the agency has a major presence. No U.S. or NATO military personnel are hurt.

By Greg Miller and Laura King
10:05 PM PST, December 30, 2009

Reporting from Rochester, N.Y. Laura King, and Kabul — A bomber slipped inside a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday and detonated a suicide vest, killing eight CIA officers in one of the deadliest days in the agency’s history, current and former U.S. officials said.

The attack took place at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khowst province, an area near the border with Pakistan that is a hotbed of insurgent activity. It also injured an undisclosed number of civilians, the officials said. No military personnel from U.S. or North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces were killed or injured, they said.

A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the CIA had a major presence at the base, in part because of the strategic location. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a message posted early Thursday on its Pashtu-language website.

The casualties highlight the increasingly important role the CIA is playing in Afghanistan, and come as the United States is embarking on a major buildup of its civilian workforce that parallels an increase in troop strength.

President Obama announced early this month that he planned to send an additional 30,000 troops to the country in an effort to break the momentum Taliban fighters have gained in many parts of the country. The deployment will bring the total U.S. military force in Afghanistan to nearly 100,000.

A former U.S. intelligence official knowledgeable about Wednesday’s bombing said it had killed more CIA personnel than any attack since the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983. Before Wednesday’s attack, four CIA operatives had been killed in Afghanistan, the former official said.

The eight dead were CIA officers, the former official said. “They were all career CIA officials.”

The U.S. official said the bomber detonated his explosive vest in an area that was used as a fitness center. CIA veterans were stunned by the news and at a loss to explain how a bomber was able to penetrate the compound’s security.

“It’s a forward operating base in a dicey area, but to get a suicide bomber inside the wires — it’s hard to understand how that could happen,” the former official said.

Officials said this fall that the agency was deploying spies, analysts and paramilitary operatives in a buildup that would make its station there among the largest in CIA history.

Though the CIA station is based at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, the bulk of its workforce is scattered among secret bases and military outposts dotting the country. Most CIA personnel in Afghanistan is involved in support functions such as providing security or managing computer systems, rather than in gathering and analyzing intelligence.

But some of the tasks civilians perform, particularly those involving law enforcement and intelligence gathering, are considered as dangerous as military duty. Three civilian Drug Enforcement Administration agents were killed in a helicopter crash in October in western Afghanistan. They were accompanying troops on a counternarcotics mission.

Khowst province has been a prime target of militants operating in eastern Afghanistan and just across the border in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Most of the foreign troops in the province are Americans.

The Chapman base is part of NATO’s Regional Command East, which is supervised by the U.S. military. It also houses Western civilians working on reconstruction projects.

The main U.S. base in the province, known as Camp Salerno, has been the target of numerous attacks. Suicide bombers have blown themselves up just outside its gates while trying to penetrate the heavily fortified installation. Afghan civilians usually bear the brunt of such attacks.

Last week, Taliban militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and suicide vests entered a building near a police station in the nearby city of Gardez, setting off a battle with U.S. and Afghan security forces that lasted the morning.

Meanwhile Wednesday, Western military officials said four Canadian soldiers and a Canadian journalist were killed in an explosion in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan.

The Canadian Press quoted journalists in Afghanistan as saying the journalist was reporter Michelle Lang, 34, of the Calgary Herald.

This year has seen the highest death toll among U.S. military forces since the war in Afghanistan began in October 2001. So far this year, 311 American troops have been killed, according to the independent website icasualties.org, bringing the death toll for U.S. forces during the war to 941.

A total of 138 Canadian troops have been killed, 32 of them this year, Canadian Press said.

greg.miller@latimes.com
laura.king@latimes.com

Afghan bomb dead ‘worked for CIA’

Eight Americans reportedly working for the CIA have died in a bomb attack in Afghanistan, the worst against US intelligence officials since 2001.

A bomber wearing an explosive vest entered Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost Province, near Pakistan.

A Taliban spokesman has said one of its members carried out the attack.

In a separate incident, four Canadian soldiers and a journalist died when their vehicle was blown up in the south-eastern province of Kandahar.

It is the worst fatal incident affecting Canadians in Afghanistan for more than two years.

‘Award-winning reporter’

The journalist has been identified as Michelle Lang, 34, from the Calgary Herald, who had just arrived on her first assignment in the country.

The armoured vehicle the group were travelling in was touring local reconstruction projects.

An award-winning health reporter, her colleagues at the newspaper were said to have been devastated by the news of the death of Ms Lang, who was recently engaged to be married and described as bright, quick-witted and kind.

“We are all very saddened to hear this tragic news,” Alberta Health Minister Ron Liepert said in a statement. “Michelle covered health issues with professionalism, accuracy and thoroughness.”

The BBC’s Lee Carter, in Toronto, says the deaths will add to the conviction felt by many Canadians that the country has carried a disproportionate number of casualties - the total has now reached 138 - especially in comparison to some European Nato allies.

Remote areas

A Taliban spokesman has said the group was responsible for the suicide bomb attack at Chapman Base.

Speaking to the BBC, Zabiullah Mujahid claimed that the bomber was also an Afghan soldier and was wearing uniform when he managed to breach security at the base.

Initially, the dead Americans in Khost were described simply as civilians, but they were later reported to be affiliated to the CIA.

The BBC’s Kim Ghattas in Washington says the exact nature of their role is not year clear but some of those killed may have been contractors to the agency.

ANALYSIS

Kim Ghattas, Washington It is probably the deadliest attack against US intelligence officials since the start of the war in 2001. What was unusual about this attack was that the suicide bomber was able to detonate his explosives inside the base. In the past, such attacks would have mostly killed Afghan labourers lined up outside a base, looking for work. There will be a lots of questions asked about this attack - how exactly, for example, did the attacker manage to infiltrate the base, was it perhaps an inside job and did he get help from Afghans on the base?

The CIA has been increasing its presence in Afghanistan and is involved in work ranging from counter terrorism to counter narcotics. It also operates the unmanned aircraft used in aerial strikes against al-Qaeda fighters in the border areas of Pakistan.

Reports suggested the attacker struck inside the gym at the base. It is not clear how many people were injured.

“We mourn the loss of life in this attack, and are withholding further details pending notification of next of kin,” US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

A spokesman for Isaf, the international Nato force in Afghanistan, said that “no US and no Isaf military personnel were killed or injured” in the incident.

Khost province - which is one of the Taliban’s strongholds - has been targeted by militants over the past year.

The number of foreign civilians deployed in Afghanistan has been rising as international efforts there focus increasingly on development and aid.

Civilians work alongside military reconstruction teams at provincial bases around the country.

A “civilian surge” was one of the three core elements of the new US strategy for Afghanistan announced by US President Barack Obama at the beginning of the month.

This has been the deadliest year for foreign troops since the 2001 invasion.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/8435502.stm
Published: 2009/12/31 05:48:10 GMT

Tuesday, December 29, 2009
23:32 Mecca time, 20:32 GMT

Afghan soldier kills US serviceman

The US and Nato are to increase troop numbers in Afghanistan

An Afghan soldier has shot and killed a member of the US army and wounded two Italian troops at a base in western Afghanistan.

The soldier died of his wounds on Tuesday after the shooting during a supply operation in Bala Murghab in Badghis province at about 1130am (0700GMT), security officials said.

“An Isaf service member from the United States died following a shooting today in western Afghanistan,” Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said in a statement.

“Isaf is working with its Afghan partners to investigate the incident.

“The soldier who opened fire was also wounded during the response from Isaf soldiers and the Afghan army who were at the scene. He was arrested immediately and is now under observation in the camp hospital.”

The pair of Italian soldiers suffered only minor injuries and have returned to duty, an Italian military spokesman said.

Motive unclear

An Isaf spokesman said it was not clear whether the incident occured by accident or with intent.

The Afghan soldier is from an area north of Kabul, the capital, and is thought to have mental problems.

In November, an Afghan policeman killed five British soldiers in the south of the country.

The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack.

Barack Obama, the US president, has committed to increasing troop numbers in Afghanistan, with an emphasis on training local security forces.

Italy is one of more than 40 Nato countries with soldiers in Afghanistan to fight with Afghan forces against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Nato has been in Afghanistan following the US and UK’s invasion of the country in 2001, to remove the Taliban, accused of harbouring al-Qaeda operatives, from power.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Taliban responsible for deaths of 8 ‘CIA agents’ in Afghanistan

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a base in eastern Afghanistan that killed eight American citizens believed to be working for the CIA

By Toby Harnden in Washington
Published: 6:00AM GMT 31 Dec 2009

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said that a Taliban bomber wearing a military uniform and a suicide vest entered a base in Khost and blew himself up inside the gym.

One official described Forward Operating Base Chapman, near the Pakistan border, as a former military compound that was “not a regular base” any more. Another source said the base was used by “other agencies”, suggesting that intelligence personnel were involved. Breaching a secure base that carries out potentially sensitive operations made it a particularly bold attack.

A US Congressional official said that CIA employees are believed to be among the dead.

The CIA has not yet commented on or confirmed the deaths.

In a separate incident, four Canadian soldiers and a journalist died when their vehicle was blown up in the south-eastern province of Kandahar. The journalist has been identified as Michelle Lang, 34, from the Calgary Herald, who had just arrived on her first assignment in the country.

The Khost bombing was one of the highest American civilian death tolls in a single incident during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

The last known CIA fatality in Afghanistan was Johnny “Mike” Spann, a paramilitary office killed during a jail riot at Qala-i-Jangi in 2001.

Khost, in eastern Afghanistan, is one of the centres of the Taliban insurgency. Most foreigners working there are soldiers or contractors working in reconstruction and intelligence operations. Afghan civilian casualties in the area have been increasing, raising tensions between the Afghan government and Western forces.

The attack on the Americans came as the international forces in Afghanistan - numbering 113,000 and set to grow to 150,000 next year - were embroiled in controversy over the deaths of Afghan civilians in an operation on Saturday.

President Hamid Karzai has accused international forces of shooting dead ten unarmed civilians, including eight teenagers. Nato’s International Security Assistance Force has disputed the findings of an Afghan government investigation, saying the deaths occurred in a battle in which nine insurgents were killed.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6914708/Taliban-responsible-for-deaths-of-8-CIA-agents-in-Afghanistan.html

Afghans protest civilian deaths in foreign raid

By Amin Jalali
Reuters
Wednesday, December 30, 2009; 4:41 PM

ASADABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Hundreds of Afghans took to the streets on Wednesday to protest against a raid by foreign troops which Afghan officials say killed 10 civilians, but NATO forces said was a battle in which 9 insurgents died.

The incident, which took place in a remote part of eastern Afghanistan at the weekend, has inflamed tensions between the Afghan government and Western forces.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack and ordered an investigation, but his denunciation comes at a time when there are signs that foreign forces’ efforts to reduce civilian deaths may finally be having some effect.

Karzai’s relationship with the West has soured following his fraud-ridden re-election in August and he is under mounting pressure to stamp out widespread government graft.

However, he is also under domestic pressure to do more to rein in foreign troops. Civilian casualties in previous attacks by NATO-led forces have stoked public anger toward both Westerners and the Afghan government they are backing.

Asadullah Wafa, head of the presidential delegation sent to investigate the weekend attack in Kunar province, one of the most remote and unstable corners in the east, said on Wednesday he had confirmed there were no insurgents among the dead.

“Those people that were killed were innocent civilians,” Wafa told reporters. The victims were eight boys, aged between 13 and 18, and two men in their 20s, he added.

Wafa said foreign troops had been airlifted in for the attack, resolving some confusion about an operation which had previously been described by senior officials as both an airstrike and a “commando-style” raid.

The NATO-led force on Wednesday said they were questioning the claims of civilian casualties and called for a joint investigation with Afghan authorities.

A joint coalition and Afghan force entered the village of Ghazi Khan in Narang district in search of a known insurgent group, the NATO-led force said in a statement.

“As the joint assault force entered the village, they came under fire from several buildings and in returning fire killed nine individuals,” it said.

But Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Zaher Azimy earlier said Afghan troops had not taken part in the operation.

FEWER DEATHS AT FOREIGN HANDS?

Violence in Afghanistan is at its highest level in the eight years since the ouster of the Taliban. More than 2,000 civilians were killed in the first 10 months of this year, a 10 percent rise on the same period in 2008, according to U.N. figures.

But while total numbers of civilian casualties have risen year on year, the number of ordinary Afghans killed by Afghan and foreign forces decreased this year.

Seventy percent of civilians killed in the first 10 months of 2009 died in insurgent attacks, the United Nations said, up from 55 percent last year. Civilian deaths caused by foreign and Afghan troops fell from 38 percent in 2008 to 22 percent in 2009.

“We attribute this to concerted efforts on the part of the military forces to put civilians at the fore of military planning,” said U.N. spokesman Aleem Siddique.

There are around 110,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan and Washington is sending 30,000 more to try and quell the mounting violence. Other NATO countries are sending 7,000 more.

Since taking command in June, the commander of foreign troops, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, has issued new orders designed to reduce civilian deaths by placing limits on the use of firepower.

But for most Afghans, civilian deaths will continue to be an emotive issue.

In Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar province, which borders Kunar, around 200 university students rallied in the streets to protest, demanding those responsible for the weekend attack be brought to justice.

“We have no more patience. It has happened repeatedly. If it occurs again, we will drop our pens and take arms,” one group chanted. Others blamed Karzai and U.S. President Barack Obama.

“Death to Obama. Down with Karzai,” they shouted.

In Kabul, a crowd of around a hundred, mostly young men, gathered in a western district to vent their frustration at the killings.

“Obama! Obama! Take your soldiers out of Afghanistan!” the protesters chanted, wearing blue headbands with the words: “Stop killing us!” Others held placards with pictures of dead children they said were killed by foreign troops. (Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin and Emma Graham-Harrison in KABUL; Writing by Jonathon Burch)

US Slaps New Duties on Chinese Steel

US slaps new duties on Chinese steel

By Alan Rappeport in Washington
December 31 2009 00:44

The US will impose tough new duties on Chinese steel piping imports, raising tensions with its biggest trading partner and emerging geopolitical rival.

With Chinese piping imports worth $2.8bn in 2008, the case is the biggest against China brought before the International Trade Commission, a US trade body.

It follows other US actions to counter a flood of goods that it claims China is exporting at below market prices.

The ITC’s ruling will slap Chinese companies with additional taxes ranging from 10 per cent to 16 per cent, and backs an earlier claim from the commerce department that argued that the US steel industry was being harmed by Chinese dumping. The US government has been under intense pressure to protect domestic industries to stem the flow of job losses.

“While the Chinese have been eating our lunch, this ruling doesn’t allow them to have our dinner also,” said Tom Danjczek, president of the US Steel Manufacturers Association.

Through its decision, the ITC is siding with US steel piping producers who argue subsidised Chinese imports have been harmful or could threaten the industry. The ruling will be passed on to the commerce department, which will impose the additional tax. “Nothing can create jobs faster in the United States than making China trade fairly,” said Roger Schagrin, a lawyer representing the US steel industry.

According to the Steel Manufacturers Association, China’s trade practices had cut US steel pipe and tube production 40 per cent in the past year and cost thousands of jobs. In spite of those claims, four of the six ITC commissioners based their ruling on the threat of future harm to the industry rather than on existing damages.

Steel piping is widely used by the oil industry for drilling and was in great demand last year when oil prices surged. The commerce department estimated that between 2006 and 2008 Chinese pipe imports surged 203 per cent. Daniel Porter, a lawyer representing 11 of China’s largest steel pipe exporters, said the decision was not fair because US steel pipe producers notched record profits in 2008 when they could not keep up with demand, which fell in 2009 along with oil prices.

“We’re obviously disappointed,” Mr Porter said, noting that his clients would consider appealing the case to the World Trade Organisation. “Demand collapsed, but that’s not the fault of the Chinese. In our view, the Chinese were just responding to the market.”

Friction between the US and China has been building this year after disputes over tariffs on tyres, cars and chickens. China denounced a move by the US earlier this year to tax imports of Chinese car and light truck tyres as a “serious act of trade protectionism”.

Iraq Oil Contract Goes to Angola

Iraq oil contract goes to Angola

The Angolan state-owned oil company, Sonangol, has signed two initial oilfield deals in Iraq.

The two, the Qayara and Najmah oilfields, are in Nineveh province, known as one of the most dangerous regions of the country.

There are frequent insurgencies there, as Sunni Islamic militants and al-Qaeda are both active.

Sonangol will be paid between $5 and $6 a barrel, one of the highest fees awarded in Iraq’s oil deals.

The two fields combined contain an estimated 1.7 billion barrels of oil.

The deals were awarded in Iraq’s second bidding round for oil contracts, held earlier this month. Contracts went to companies including Shell, CNPC and Lukoil.

Risky venture

The high fees for Sonangol reflect the risks and relatively low quality of oil at the two sites.

But they were well below what the company initially pitched for. The firm had proposed fees of between $8.50 and $12.50 a barrel.

Sonangol has said it will invest $2bn in Qayara and that several firms have shown an interest in forging joint exploration partnerships with it.

“There are at least five companies that have approached us and showed an interest to work with us to invest. We are still holding talks with them. The companies are European and American,” said Paulino Jeronimo, exploration manager at Sonangol.

The deals must now be approved by Iraq’s cabinet before they can be finalised.

Iraq is potentially a vastly rich oil country.

Its proven reserves now stand at 115bn barrels, below Iran’s 137bn and Saudi Arabia’s 264bn. But Iraq’s data dates from the 1970s, before improvements in technology transformed the industry.

Angola is Africa’s second most oil-rich nation after Nigeria.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/8435151.stm
Published: 2009/12/30 15:54:18 GMT

Corn Cobs Have Energy Use

By IAN BERRY
The corn cob could go from farmer trash to treasure if an effort by the world’s largest ethanol maker takes root.
Poet, Sioux Falls, S.D., is readying production of a new cellulosic ethanol plant that uses the corn waste product, rather than corn itself, to make the biofuel. The plant, located in Emmitsburg, Iowa, where Poet already has a traditional corn-based ethanol refinery, is expected to produce 25 million gallons per year once it starts commercial production in 2011. Poet already has a pilot project in Scotland, S.D., that produced about 20,000 gallons of cellulosic ethanol since it opened in November 2008.
The plant, called Project Liberty, could be a new revenue source for farmers, proponents say, although the future for the technology remains uncertain.
“We’re looking at $30 to $60 per ton is what we’d be paying for the corn cobs,” said Scott Weishaar, vice president of Commercial Development for Poet. “You take a look at a farmer who maybe has 1,000 or 2,000 acres of corn, that’s pretty significant incremental income to his operation.”
Currently, farmers have little use for the stripped-down corn cobs. The industry is moving toward cellulosic, as spelled out in the Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable-fuel mandate. The mandate calls for cellulosic ethanol to account for 16 billion gallons of the total 36 billion gallons of production by 2022. Other sources for the cellulosic ethanol include wood waste, switchgrass and other corn “residue” besides the cob, such as the stalks. Corn cobs are currently the sole focus of Poet’s cellulosic effort.
Unlike some of the other corn residue, the cobs are seen as having little if any value to the land and can be removed without depleting the soil. And the cob, unlike the grain, doesn’t ignite the “food versus fuel” debate. Poet said that it is quickly finding ways to make cellulosic ethanol profitable. Since the pilot project started, it has cut costs almost in half, to $2.35 per gallon from $4.13, by reducing energy usage and enzyme costs, among other expenses. It costs roughly 50 to 80 cents more per gallon to make ethanol from corn cobs than from the grain, Poet said.
It hopes to have the costs per gallon below $2 by the start of commercial operation. Ethanol futures are trading around $1.90 at the Chicago Board of Trade.
Chief Executive Jeff Broin said that two years ago he would have considered cellulosic ethanol “a long shot” but that it is now a reality.
For farmers, harvesting the cobs requires additional equipment, and Poet is working with farm machine manufacturers to “accelerate their development” of equipment that will harvest cobs, Mr. Weishaar said.
The company hosted 16 different equipment makers in Emmitsburg for a field day in November, in which industry leaders showed off prototype machines to area farmers.
One of those companies, Agco Corp., has rarely before, if ever, taken a prototype machine to such a public event, said Agco spokesman Reid Hamre. The Duluth, Ga., company is probably at least several months away from deciding whether to mass-produce the equipment.
“It’s a prototype machine, we’ve got some more testing and exhibiting and gathering of feedback for farmers and dealers we want to do,” Mr. Hamre said.

More China Companies Are Going Green

By JASON DEAN
BEIJING — Chinese entrepreneurs and private citizens are starting to become more active in trying to address concerns over global warming, a nascent trend that could have significant long-term impact on the ability of the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitter to curb its effects on the climate.
The shift is most pronounced among a small-but-growing group of private business executives, who are adjusting their business practices and helping to spread awareness more broadly among the public.
Wang Shi, the 58-year-old chairman of China Vanke Co., the country’s largest housing developer, said he became concerned about global warming through mountain climbing, a hobby he took up in 1998. He had read the Ernest Hemingway story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” and in 2002 went to Tanzania to scale the mountain in the title. He was surprised at what he found.
“I didn’t see any snow,” he says. “I did more research, and discovered that within 50 years…its glaciers could be entirely gone as well.”
Mr. Wang is gradually replacing wood used in the interiors of Vanke’s apartment buildings with recyclable materials. Vanke is using more solar and other renewable energy, and adopting prefabrication techniques, borrowed partly from Japan, that are less wasteful than standard Chinese construction.
Mr. Wang is building a new corporate headquarters in Shenzhen designed by Steven Holl, an American architect, that he aims to make the first building in China with a platinum ranking — the highest available — on the international Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system for “green buildings.”
“China is a big country,” says Mr. Wang, who founded Vanke 25 years ago. “It should try to shoulder the responsibilities of a large country, and therefore China’s companies need to shoulder their own responsibilities.”
In 2004, Vanke’s Mr. Wang and about 60 other businessmen founded the Society of Entrepreneurs and Ecology to promote awareness and action on climate change and other environmental issues. It now has 160 members, each of whom pays 100,000 yuan ($14,620) in annual dues. That means an annual budget of at least $2.3 million, not including other contributions like free rent — a hefty sum for a Chinese NGO.
SEE uses the funds for reforestation programs in China and educational efforts, and to help support more than 150 smaller environmental groups around the country.
On Dec. 8, at the beginning of the Copenhagen climate summit, the group joined several other organizations representing 200 business members to issue a communiqué pledging to reduce their companies’ emissions and calling on governments to reach a deal including binding legal benchmarks.
Yang Peng, SEE’s secretary-general, says the growing green consciousness is a natural outgrowth of China’s development.
“In the past, people just wanted to get enough to eat. Now, many people live in nicer homes, and they’re more concerned about the environment,” he says. “Low carbon is a new idea, but it’s spreading very fast.”
Most of the focus in assessing China’s climate-related practices has been on the government. That is logical, since Beijing, in addition to setting policy, plays an enormous direct role in the economy. The government has pledged to reduce China’s carbon emissions relative to the size of its economy, but has refused to commit to outright emissions cuts. Some foreign officials and scientists have criticized China’s stance and said it contributed to the failure of the Copenhagen summit to reach a breakthrough. China says it played a constructive role at the summit, but can only agree to a deal that treats developing nations fairly.
But the participation of private businesses and regular citizens in the world’s most populous nation will also be a major factor in China’s climate impact.
Until recently, there was little of the sort of nongovernmental activity on climate change and other environmental issues that is common in more-developed places like Europe, Japan and the U.S. Now, climate experts take heart in the increasing activities of some executives, educators and others — even if it is too early for them to have had major impact, and abundant examples remain of indifference and waste.
“We are starting to see a growing level of awareness of climate change among people” in China, says Barbara Finamore, China program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based environmental organization. Ms. Finamore points to educational efforts in schools and by the state media to make people aware of climate issues, as well as “forward-looking companies who recognize the importance of this issue and are taking a leading role in trying to encourage their government to do more.”
Some executives are changing their personal, as well as corporate, behavior. Zhang Yue, chairman of Broad Air Conditioner Co., was one of China’s first entrepreneurs to buy a private jet, back in 1997. About five years ago, he became aware of the huge volume of carbon dioxide produced by a single 1,900-mile trip on the jet. Since then, he has heavily restricted the jet’s use, and he often takes commercial flights.
Mr. Zhang has also made emissions reduction a central mission of his company. Broad is a major producer of giant air conditioners used in buildings, and it specializes in chillers that don’t use electricity, instead relying on other energy sources like natural gas and waste heat. Broad says its air conditioners have only 20% the carbon-dioxide emissions of electric models.
Still, Mr. Zhang, who considers himself a pioneer on climate-change issues in China, is pessimistic about the overall level of awareness in the country.
“Public understanding of energy conservation and emissions reduction is still woefully behind,” he says, adding that more education and publicity of the issue by the government is needed.
Others see progress already. Huang Ming, the chairman of Himin Solar Energy Group Co., China’s largest maker of rooftop solar water heaters, says the desire among some of his customers, particularly educated, urban residents, to use more-environmentally friendly devices is helping to boost Himin’s sales.
If property companies like Vanke change their behavior, it could have an especially strong impact, since China has the largest building market in the world by floor space. Building operations create about one-sixth of China’s total carbon emissions, according to the China Greentech Report 2009, published by a business consortium.
A separate report in October by the NRDC and Boston Consulting Group estimated that “moderate” energy conservation, affecting 5% of China’s existing buildings and 60% of new buildings, would have an environmental impact equivalent to halting global air traffic for four months.
Write to Jason Dean at jason.dean@wsj.com

Zimbabwe News Update: Unity is the Best Enemy Repellent

Unity: Best enemy repellent

By Reason Wafawarova in SYDNEY, Australia

AS we come to the end of 2009, it is important for all Zimbabweans to once more be reminded of the need to appreciate the importance of oneness and the inviolability of patriotism.

The callous attitude towards the inclusive Government by Western governments and their representatives and agents is not surprising at all.

It must be understood in the context that whatever conflict we had among ourselves as Zimbabweans from 1999 — that conflict was a fight to repel an external enemy.

It was never a conflict to express a quest for tyranny or the love for self-inflicted suffering. That is the propaganda we have heard from the enemy and it is time we earnestly engaged ourselves in the national healing process that will help us rebuild a country we helped shatter by allowing ourselves to collaborate with those external forces that sought to strangulate our economy.

The denunciation of President Mugabe has become a secular doctrine in the West, and that fulmination is all rooted in the imperial commitment to world domination and the establishment of client states in place of the fallen colonies.

The cranky obsession with President Mugabe that we saw in the Western media after he joined 134 world leaders at a dinner hosted by the Queen of Denmark recently just goes to show that the enemy is not going to retreat just because we have decided to rebuild our shattered country as one family.

It was commendable that Mr Gordon Brown decided not be exiled in his own continent this time around and he attended the Copenhagen Summit without throwing the childish tantrums the way he did with the 2007 Lisbon EU-Africa Summit, which he boycotted by fleeing his own continent for Iraq.

As if it was of any necessity or relevance the handlers of the British Premier needlessly told Danish function organisers that Brown had no intention to speak to President Mugabe. It was all the now too familiar snivelling rhetoric that Britain is dead worried about human rights in Zimbabwe, and that its Premier is too holy to be in the same place with the President of Zimbabwe.

In 1999, the British government decided to invest in an illicit regime change agenda in Zimbabwe. This was a snorting effort at halting what Tony Blair saw as Mugabe’s “land invasion policy”.

The rascality of the regime change project became apparent when the United States weighed in with a sanctions law, ZDERA, and Australia’s John Howard came in with his rancorous campaign for the expulsion of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth.

In 2000, as we prepared for a parliamentary general election, our country was hit by a disastrous sabotage campaign targeted at basic commodities like sugar, fuel, salt and cooking oil. The calculation was to create conditions for a protest vote against Zanu PF and in favour of the British sponsored MDC. We fought back as a country. We confronted the enemy’s material superiority and abundant supplies with a collective political and revolutionary determination.

The vanguard of our national revolution — the war veterans, the Defence Forces, the youth and the masses decided against fighting from the same corner with the imperial aggressors.

It was a time to unleash a collective sense of genius, and the strategies adopted have written heroic deeds into the pages of African anti-imperialism history — albeit with a sad and dear price on the welfare side of our country.

This is how the revolution was protected. It was protected because it was under attack, and we as Zimbabweans owe our country protection day and night.

We defended the country not as a duty to protect Zanu-PF, but as a duty to defend the revolution.

The economic war that we saw against Zimbabwe in the last 10 years was just like any other war, which is nothing but an extension of politics.

The enemy’s politics were extended and became a sanctions war. Our politics were extended and became a generalised popular defence of the revolution and the country.

Two political lines confronted each other and the end result so far has been the GPA and the inclusive Government led by the West’s number one enemy, President Mugabe, and which includes arguably their number one favourite African politician, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

Now it is time to think about all those who succumbed to death as the economy of the country was shattered by the ruinous Western sanctions onslaught. To us these people should be viewed as having fallen on the field of honour.

It is time to spare a thought for all those who were injured in political conflict, about the tearful families, our people from across the political divide who were touched by this confrontation. Each of us Zimbabweans must make an effort to surmount all feelings of hate, rejection, bitterness and hostility towards our fellow citizens.

It is time to repel the enemy — the real enemy behind this confrontation. We can all now see clearly that it is only the Western community that stands opposed to the inclusive Government and our efforts to rebuild our nation. We have the blessing and good will of all members of the family of nations but the West.

Each of us Zimbabweans must win the ultimate victory by killing all seeds of hostility and enmity within us towards fellow citizens.

This is an important victory to win — bigger than any election victory that anyone can ever dream of.

It is time to plant seeds of genuine love and oneness in our hearts — a love capable of withstanding the murderous assault of ruinous sanctions and isolation.

This kind of oneness and patriotism can only be built on the revolutionary bedrock of sincere love for our country and heritage.

This writer is convinced that each Zanu-PF member and supporter is capable of this kind of love for the MDC members and supporters, and likewise each MDC member and supporter is capable of this kind of love for those from Zanu-PF.

The principals presiding over the GPA have expressed a willingness to work together, and their respective parties have been doing more negotiations than fighting of late. All Zimbabweans should chant yes, to this. That chanting must then be put into practice.

We should all remember that there has never been anything but unity and oneness among Zimbabweans. Our confrontation has been in the context of the presence of an unwanted external enemy.

Our people — the real guardians of power in Zimbabwe — must speak loud and clear that in Zimbabwe we are one and our heritage and future is one. This is the cheapest and easiest way of repelling the enemy.

Those sheepish smiles from the faces of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora whenever they are confronted with patronising statements like “you poor thing”, or “aren’t you lucky to be here?” must be translated into bold declarations that we are neither poor nor lucky to be away from home.

On behalf of our country we must boldly tell the world that there are no more problems in our country and none of us should ever gain posture as an asylum seeker of any kind.

We must make it clear that we can return to Zimbabwe when and as we wish, in total freedom and pride.

We did not fight against the imperial onslaught in order to create refugees and economic prisoners. We fought to repel the enemy and we are happy that the objective of the enemy was thwarted.

Now that the enemy can be fully repelled by our one voice, it is time we realise that we are one family as Zimbabweans. We are our own liberators and together we will always triumph.

It is time to avoid being dragged and diverted into fights that are not for the benefit of our country and our people.

It is time to avoid being involved in concerns that are not concerns of our people in this mad race toward aid money and all manner of sponsored campaigns.

It is understandable that the pressures of want create this great temptation and pressure on some of our people to keep pace with welfare needs by stepping up to the dictates and requirements of the Western donor.

That only gives justification for the bellicose actions of such aid providers as the USAid and Endowment for Democracy, together with Britain’s Westminster Foundation.

When we do their bidding to dupe them into releasing those much wanted US dollars, all we are doing is providing them with a pretext for holding our country for ransom.

When we think we are duping those gullible immigration officials by dramatising false stories so we can be granted asylum, all we are doing is giving the enemy the pretext he needs to portray our country as having a terrible human rights record.

It is when we stop all this self-defeating behaviour that we can successfully repel the enemy.

The Western media, in reality the imperialist Press, has often said of Zimbabwe that recovery of the economy would take decades.

Now the same media has passed a sentence on itself by reversing its opinion — albeit in an attempt to create an economic wizard out of our Finance Minister.

Whichever way, the economic reality on the ground clearly shows that most of what they wrote about the state of Zimbabwe’s economy in the last five or so years was a slander. We can rebuild our country so fast if we stand as one and the enemy will be forced to come face-to-face-with his own slander.

We can live freely and happily as a family and the enemy who wrote that we were a pariah state will have to come face to face with his own slander.

Iraq, Guantanamo, Palestine and Afghanistan have shown the world who the real human rights abusers are. It is all now too clear.

It is time for Zimbabweans to wash away our shame and to re-establish the truth about our country and its true revolution. Those who detest the revolution for various illicit reasons will not stop causing confusion.

Their manoeuvres will continue and so we must brace ourselves for the battles that await us as a nation.

This writer would like to wish every Zimbabwean a happy 2010 — happiness in keeping with our national goal of rebuilding our economy and with the collective efforts we are all ready to make.

In wishing the nation a good and happy 2010, this writer would also like to plead with every Zimbabwean to brace up and look on the experience of the last ten years. This must be viewed as an unfortunate episode — nevertheless very rich in lessons.

We all need to analyse the experience so that we can benefit our future and the future of our revolution.

We must always remember that “when people stand up, imperialism trembles” as Thomas Sankara said on March 26, 1983; when he launched the Burkinabe Revolution.

Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

–Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwafa warova.com or visit http://www.rwafawarova.com

Land: The sticking point

By David Martin and Phyllis Johnson

THE Lancaster House conference had opened on September 10 1979 and concluded after 47 plenary sessions with agreement on a new constitution, arrangements for the transitional period preceding independence, and a ceasefire agreement on December 15, with the formal agreements being signed by the leaders of the delegations on December 21 1979.

THIS is the eighth and final article in a series on the Lancaster House agreement of December 21 1979.

The conference was a tortuous finale to the Rhodesian saga. Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary, had been under pressure to reach a swift agreement at Lancaster House, and he used a mixture of shrewd diplomacy mixed with blunt determination with those who crossed him.

Ian Smith, the erstwhile Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, was to feel the sting of Carrington’s tongue when on one occasion he accused the Foreign Secretary of having blood on his hands.

“If there is blood on anyone’s hands, it is yours,” Carrington retorted angrily. During the Lancaster House conference, the Patriotic Front fought against constitutional provisions they regarded as racist (such as 20 seats in Parliament reserved for whites), against restrictions on constitutional changes, the retention of the Rhodesian forces, the restrictions placed on the ability of a new government to distribute land that had been taken from the Africans over the previous 90 years, the short length of time given for a ceasefire to take effect, the location of forces during the ceasefire, and many other issues.

The Prime Minister of the interim government of “Zimbabwe-Rhodesia”, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, fought to preserve his position as much as possible against constitutional changes that he felt would undermine it, for the retention of the Rhodesian forces, and any other item he felt he could turn to his advantage.

The Patriotic Front leaders faced pressures from two quarters: from their own guerrillas, many of whom viewed the unfolding events as an attempt to prevent them from gaining the military victory they believed was near; and from the Front Line States, who emphasised that the Patriotic Front could not be seen to be responsible for wrecking the conference and whose own economies were being wrecked by the war.

That they would have continued to support them had the conference collapsed is not in doubt, although they threatened otherwise, but, like Zimbabwe-Rhodesia and Britain, the Front Line States needed a settlement more than they needed a continuation of the war . . .

Throughout all the hot and cold flushes of hope and despondency, an air of inevitability hung over the Lancaster House conference, as indeed it had since that epic weekend in July in Lusaka when Commonwealth leaders met in summit and agreed on the holding of a conference.

No one could afford to be seen to be responsible for breaking the Lancaster House conference, and the guerrillas had brought Rhodesia to a point where it needed the end of the war even more than recognition and the lifting of sanctions.

There was only one way to end the war, and that was to agree to a new internationally acceptable constitution and to the holding of new British-supervised elections.

Once an independence constitution had been agreed, there was really no way out for either side.

The main principles of one-person-one-vote elections, majority rule and independence were all contained in it and even if the constitution was flawed on points of detail and obnoxious in some of its racial provisions, the fact remained that most of the main reasons for going to war had been removed — except for the issue of land reclamation.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General, Sonny Ramphal, had convened a secret meeting on this subject midway through the conference, in November 1979, at his official residence in the exclusive west end of London.

Initially only three people were present: Ramphal, Robert Mugabe and Joshua

Nkomo, as the political leaders of the Patriotic Front. The US Ambassador was later invited to join the meeting.

“The meeting concluded that the constitutional provisions proposed by the British would have to be accepted, but these would only be accepted alongside the resources necessary to pay for the land.

“It was decided that the US would make a gesture by starting such a fund, the stipulation was that it be referred to as an ‘Agricultural Development Fund’ and not as money to buy out the white farmers. We thought this would encourage the British. But this never happened.”

Ramphal blames Thatcher for not instituting the fund.

“In those first 10 years after independence, all of this should have been worked out in London. But it was not,” he said, adding that, “Robert was interested in the details as well as the principle regarding land at Lancaster House.”

–D. Martin and P. Johnson, The Struggle for Zimbabwe: The Chimurenga War, Faber/ZPH, 1981.

Land audit not a witch-hunt

IT is a fact that people always develop resistance to things that are not explained to them and this is why many farmers have been questioning Government’s motive for undertaking another land audit.

We thus commend the Government for spelling out the purpose of conducting yet another land audit and allaying fears of displacement.

The Government has done exceptionally well to define the terms of reference of the land audit amid growing fears among many farmers that it was designed to displace them from their pieces of land.

We are told the latest round of land audit seeks to help the Government come up with initiatives to empower farmers for sustainable food production.

New farmers will need a lot of persuasion to believe that this is indeed the motive.

They can’t quite trust the inclusive Government given tendencies by certain sections and elements of that Government to dine with our erstwhile colonisers.

We have always said that now is not the time to cause uncertainty on the farms but to come up with schemes that promote effective land use and productivity.

Schemes that ensure farmers are able to get back to the land, replenish the Grain Marketing Board’s strategic grain reserve, make a profit and help the nation attain food security really excite farmers and spur them to work hard.

Indeed, the focus has shifted from land redistribution to land use and if the envisaged land audit will help the nation achieve high productivity levels, then it is precisely what the doctor has ordered.

Let us come with policies that ensure that farmers are capacitated to productively use the land they were allocated. We strongly support the direction the land audit has taken.

It was quite refreshing to hear Minister of Lands and Land Resettlement Herbert Murerwa dispelling rumours that farmers would lose their land as a result of the audit.

Some farmers have done exceptionally well on the farms while others have struggled owing to various reasons and so we believe that before any displacement takes place Government needs such an audit to establish the reasons for the success and failure registered by farmers.

It would be unfair to conduct an audit largely designed to remove resettled farmers from their pieces of land without establishing the cause of failure.

We are told that the audit would assess activities on the ground, land uptake, production levels and availability of water sources.

These are the issues that should really concern not only farmers but the Government as well.

Anything that helps farmers to fully use the land allocated to them should get the support of everyone.

Once we achieve the production levels this country is renowned for, then a lot of money we have previously spent on imports can be channelled towards other sectors directly or indirectly involved with agriculture, such as seed houses and fertilizer firms to produce inputs to feed agriculture. Let not the land audit be used as a witch-hunt but as a correctional tool in cases were things were not done properly.

We want to encourage farmers to continue their cropping programmes without any fear, and trust that the audit will be conducted to their advantage.

2010: Africa, arise and shine!

THE countdown to 2010 is finally over. Tomorrow heralds an historic year, which is not just another New Year.

2010 is the year that will mark the end of the first decade of the 21st century — a century whose beginning was marked with so much hype.

The Arena salutes 2010 with hope and confidence that everyone will realise their dreams, and for those that religiously do New Year resolutions, may 2010 be different from the other years where you never went beyond the first one. This is the year when all resolutions should be realised.

Make that commitment that it is too special a year to leave things undone or unfinished, for you are part of the outfit that will make Africa arise and shine.

We reminisce not only the passage of an eventful year, 2009, but go down memory lane remembering many unforgettable moments of the past decade from a global perspective, simply because Zimbabwe is not an island.

We remember those moments that defined you and me; defined history; defined the future - events that cannot simply be ignored.

They are too many, so we do so randomly, and in some cases haphazardly. Leaving out some does not in any way diminish their relevance in shaping this decade.

We also go global because Zimbabwe will soon join other global citizens in celebrating 2010’s crowning moment, that moment when the beautiful game of soccer comes to Africa and lights up the continent. As the football fraternity descends on host nation South Africa in their thousands for the showcasing of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, the whole of Africa will be with them.

Time will tell whether this soccer extravaganza will be the raison d’être in Africa’s reawakening.

Will the Fifa World Cup prove that Africa is the world’s last sleeping giant? Will other members of the international community learn a thing or two from the so-called “dark continent”?

Lest we forget, this first decade of the 21st century was marked initially by the Y2K (year 2000 compliancy) bug that obsessed many.

Most of you readers remember the scare – computers, banking or airline systems just coming to a standstill, after failing the compliancy tests and crash landing everything in the process.

But nothing of the sort happened. Life went on almost normally, although it became increasingly obvious that the 21st century was being reconfigured, by the very element feared by many – ICTs!

Apart from compliancy of electronic gizmos, it emerged that even people were supposed to be Y2K compliant. This meant a total overhaul in the way we view or do things in order to be fully operational in the new millennium.

Entering the 21st century was a milestone, but the transition from one hundred years to another century was a major challenge that has been felt in all spheres.

A decade later, as The Arena reminisces it does so with more questions than answers. Have we achieved compliancy not only for 2010, but for the next decade and beyond? How do we deal with future challenges? Is the global village now a reality and how can you and me be better citizens in that village?

Will it also take that village to raise the global citizen, and who decides on the modus operandi?

In Zimbabwe, it is not possible to talk about 2009 (milestones and failures alike), without looking at the year 2000, when the most revolutionary programmes initiated by Government kicked off in earnest — the land reform programme.

It was a programme that put Zimbabwe on a collision with its former colonial master Britain and its Western allies.

This single factor defined the Zimbabwe of the 21st century - politically, economically, culturally, socially and religiously. The major spin off was the imposition of illegal economic sanctions by the United States and other Western nations in 2001.

So much happened between then and now, but Zimbabwe has stood firm on its principles although the punishment was unbearable. It is also a matter of interpretation on how you and I understand the sum total of the countless events in the past decade.

Despite the relative peace and tranquility achieved after the formation of the inclusive Government early this year, sanctions remain a destablising factor on the Zimbabwean landscape.

The partial dollarisation and use of multiple hard currencies introduced at the beginning of the year also stabilised the economy slightly improving people’s living standards.

However, more tangible effects of this policy move still have to be realised, especially the revival of industrial and commercial sectors.

The Arena also hopes that everybody will throw their weight behind efforts by various sectors to depolarise our society and create an atmosphere of tolerance where everybody will fully utilise their potential to the maximum, and make Zimbabwe prosper.

The Arena also wonders whether the Fifa World Cup tournament will kick-start under the hostile sanctions regime, since Zimbabwe hopes to fulfill the mandate it made to South Africa – assist as best as possible so that the tournament is a successful African story.

The dawn of the century also saw Zimbabwe holding a referendum on a people driven constitution. When the “No” vote prevailed, Zimbabwe went back to the Lancaster House constitution, but with 2010 only hours away, it is hoped that current initiatives to come up with a home grown constitution will succeed, despite constraints.

Zimbabwe also celebrated its silver jubilee in 2005, and at one of the gatherings, music maestro Dorothy Masuka announced how happy she was to be finally back home.

But, the biggest surprise of the first decade was the discovery of diamonds at Chiadzwa in Marange after which the daring descended on the diamonds fields: panners, “buyers” and many more, until efforts were made to create order out of the chaos. The past decade also saw Zanu-PF nominating for the first time since independence a woman to its presidium, Cde Joice Teurai Ropa Mujuru, who proceeded to become the first woman Vice President.

When MDC-T became part of the inclusive Government it also followed suit and elected Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe.

However, these high powered appointments have not seen women participating fully in major decision-making bodies. Like Shylock who demanded his pound of flesh, women want proportional representation in all key positions.

In the past decade, we have also celebrated exploits made by the likes of. Kirsty Coventry, Cara Black, Kevin Ulyett, Benjani Mwaruwari among others, who have done the nation proud on the international sporting arena.

Musicians like Oliver Mtukudzi have also been Zimbabwe’s true ambassadors, taking our songs in otherwise unfriendly arenas and in the process mellowing them.

This in no way diminishes achievements by everyone who played their part in positively telling the Zimbabwean story.

During the first half of the decade, Zimbabwean security forces foiled an attempt by mercenaries led by Simon Mann, to topple the government of Equatorial Guinea.

The past decade has also seen Zimbabwe losing some of its founding fathers and mothers. Among them were Vice Presidents Simon Muzenda and Joseph Msika; Mama MaFuyana, late Vice President Joshua Nkomo’s wife; and many more war of liberation heroes and heroines.

Zimbabwe also lost many notable personalities including Mrs Susan Tsvangirai, PM Tsvangirai’s wife, who died in a tragic car accident, barely three months after the formation of the inclusive Government.

We also lost many sporting and entertainment personalities; professionals in various disciplines and the rank and file of Zimbabweans.

The HIV and Aids pandemic has continued to claim more lives despite the awareness campaigns and the availability of anti-retroviral drugs, resulting in more children being orphaned and having more vulnerable people in our midst.

As the economic challenges worsened, many service delivery sectors were adversely affected, especially water and sanitation, resulting in thousands of deaths due to the cholera epidemic. Cholera and other diseases continue to pose serious threats countrywide.

The past decade also saw a sharp increase in cases of domestic violence and cases of child abuse, especially rape of minors. It is hoped that the new constitution will adequately protect all citizens from such people, especially sexual predators.

However, one of the major causes of untimely deaths in the past decade are the countless traffic accidents that continue to claim hundreds of lives, whose causes are numerous, including drunken driving, unroadworthy vehicles and pot holed roads.

The poor state of the nation’s road network is a major cause for concern. Together with power and energy supply, this is an area The Arena hopes will be prioritised in the reconstruction programme, since Zimbabwe is a major gateway to other regional trading destinations.

Zimbabwe has also not been spared by the climate change phenomenon, and the past decade has seen the nation experiencing one drought situation after another, a situation that has seriously affected the agricultural sector, which is supposed to be the backbone of the economy.

This has exacerbated poverty among various classes of people with vulnerable groups mostly affected. The net effect has been a heavy dependency on humanitarian assistance.

After three decades of investment in education and skills training, Zimbabwe lost a large majority of these skilled people to the Diaspora that continues to offer better remunerations.

Every sector has been seriously affected by the brain drain, especially the education sector which is the foundation of a well trained skills base.

Despite the closure of most companies where thousands lost jobs, schools continue to churn out youths whose chances of securing viable employment is bleak, unless Government and key stakeholders make deliberate efforts to resuscitate the industrial and commercial sectors.

From an international perspective, the single most important event that has defined this first decade is the September 11 2001 terror attacks in the United States. It is an event that is increasingly becoming a threat to international peace and security.

After the 9/11 attacks, the US redefined its relations with the rest of the world, as President George W Bush openly declared a “war on terror”, and put new meaning on “them” and “us”, a policy that has polarised nations in this post-Cold War era.

This was followed by the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the execution of Saddam Hussein for allegedly possessing weapons of mass destruction.

Peace and security have remained fragile in the Middle East, even after the death of Chairman Yasser Arafat. There is also instability in most parts of the world, especially after the global economic meltdown of 2008.

After the arrest last Friday of the 23-year old Nigerian on terrorism charges, it now remains to be seen whether US President Barack Obama’s talk on terrorism will take a different tone from that of his predecessor.

Although terror attacks have occurred on African soil, with some of the perpetrators having lived in Africa, it is the first time that an African has made such a daring move.

The decade also witnessed one of the most catastrophic natural disasters, the December 2004 tsunami that left more than 250 000 people dead and millions more homeless. More devastating national disasters followed, and climate change has continued to be blamed.

In 2008, the Sadc region also mourned the loss of Zambian President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa. And, that voice that entertained thousands for decades and campaigned against the evil apartheid system also fell silent in 2008.

Miriam Makeba or Mama Africa who could probably have been a major attraction at the soccer tournament suffered a heart attack while performing in France, and died shortly after.

But it was the death of pop icon Michael Jackson in 2009 that topped the bill. Single-handedly, MJ almost caused the collapse of the Internet, and this just goes to show how “bad” he really was. The best entertainer Hildegarde has ever known.

Changes in governments — in some cases through violent means took place in various parts of the world, with Africa remaining in the spotlight because of armed conflicts.

This decade also saw former Cuban President, Commandant Fidel Castro stepping down from office due to ill health. President Vladmir Putin did the same, but has remained in the Russian government as Prime Minister.

Four hundred years after black people landed in the United States as slaves, in 2008 the US finally elected Barack Obama as its first black president — and, he completes his first year in office in a few days time, under the shadow of terrorist threats.

Two decades ago they celebrated the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union which also ended the Cold War.

Two decades later, there has been a shift with the emergence of new economic and political power houses — Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), minus the ‘-isms’. The power shift has been felt more this decade.

In golf, as the Tiger entered the Woods, dogged by sexual scandals, Usain Bolt continued to rule the roost in the athletic arena, while the Maputo Express, Maria Mutola, has slowed down.

The decade had also many weirdos. Before leaving office, President Bush had some nasty experiences with some members of the public, with one of them throwing a shoe at him.

But maybe Italy comes tops. Barely a month after Prime Minister Silvio Belusconi was seriously attacked by a member of the public believed to have psychological problems; then on Christmas Eve, a young woman attacked Pope Benedict XVI, while he was saying mass. And the initial claims were that she also had mental problems.

The 2008 financial meltdown is also one of the biggest events of the past decade, whose far-reaching impact is still being felt, and whose end seems to be nowhere near.

No one has been spared, and millions on all continents are jobless, and facing a bleak 2010.

However, even in my sleep, I would not hesitate to tell you that the Internet is the most revolutionary invention that has really shaped the first decade of the 21st century.

After getting acquainted to it in 1992, I never doubted that this was an invention that would reshape the 21st century in a manner that would defy odds.

The Internet hopes to be everywhere, used by all and sundry for all sorts of things: the good and the bad. It is creating virtual communities that act differently from the face-to-face communities we are used to.

Not only is it a computer mediated communication tool, but it is the world’s largest repository of information organised and stored in multi-media formats, and disseminated at great speed.

It defies, time, space and boundaries, and even legislations. It threatens all other technologies before it. It will continue to beat its own record, until another block buster invention comes up.

Indeed soccer is 2010’s major stimulant, but there is a lot more to this season of hope that is required in order to achieve the unrealised dreams of the past decade.

As The Arena looks forward to 2010, let’s not forget that the past decade was a decade of sorts: the beautiful and the ugly; the pleasant and the unpleasant.

It was a decade where Zimbabweans will remember pain and suffering, a decade characterised by lack of basics and one which some would love to describe as a lost decade.

But against all odds, they triumphed because of that intrinsic will power.

Woza 2010 and a happy New Year to you all!

Feedback:tendai.manzvanzvike@zimpapers.co.zw

‘Carousel’ frauds plague European carbon trading markets

Why are mysterious UK businesses registering to trade carbon in Europe?

By Rowena Mason, City ReporterPublished: 6:07PM GMT 30 Dec 2009

It is a building site, formerly a derelict car park, in a deprived part of West London, where the neon glow of curry houses and late-night grocery stores could not be further from the wealth and glamour of London’s financial markets.
Described as a “consulting” business, this is the address of a UK company that has signed up to trade carbon permits under the European Emissions Trading Scheme in Copenhagen. But there is no trace of its existence on the Companies House database.

At the newsagent next door, nobody has ever even heard of emissions trading – the system where companies buy and sell the right to emit carbon dioxide – and there has not been a building there for many years.
It is not the only oddity to emerge from the Danish Carbon Registry. All the expected big players are on the list – utilities, oil and heavy industry – the only sectors obliged by law to own permits to cover emissions.
Quite a few investment banks are also signed up, on behalf of industry or trading to make a profit.
But outnumbering these familiar names, hundreds of UK companies selling anything from hair loss treatments to electronics have mysteriously registered to buy and sell carbon permits in the Scandinavian nation – mostly in the last 18 months.
Many give addresses in the regions such as Yorkshire, Lancashire, Essex and other places not known for their links to the world of finance.
The appearance of these obscure British companies – among them businesses with unreachable addresses and Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo email accounts for company representatives – has recently come to the attention of the Danish authorities.
While many are bound to be genuine individual private traders playing the carbon markets, investigators are examining the possibility that some of these unknown UK-based companies have used the system to commit “carousel” fraud linked to VAT.
As the Copenhagen summit on global warming began this month, Denmark, the host nation, was bringing in an emergency ban to halt VAT on carbon. This followed similar suspensions in Britain, France, Spain and Holland.
According to sources, the Danish registry may be at the heart of Europe’s problems with carbon trading fraud. Local media has repeatedly raised the fact that few, if any, checks are done on new traders and approval can be much quicker than in other countries.
Criminals profit by importing goods VAT-free, selling them through a series of companies, each liable to VAT, before exporting them again. Then, the first link in the chain often goes missing without accounting for the VAT and the final link reclaims the VAT it has paid from the state before disappearing.
It might sound like the tinpot scheme of local small-time crooks, but fleecing the tax man can bring in big money.
Just a few weeks ago, Europol, the cross-border police force, said that carbon trading fraudsters may have accounted for up to 90pc of all market activity in some European countries, with criminals mainly from Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland pocketing an estimated €5bn (£4.5bn).
“It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90pc of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities,” Europol said.
Figures from New Energy Finance show the value of the global market falling from $38bn (£23bn) in the second quarter to $30bn in the three months to the end of September after several countries cracked down.
The London platform, the European Climate Exchange, where banks and energy companies tend to trade, is not affected by the fraud because it does not offer the spot contracts on which VAT was payable. But British traders can still defraud authorities by buying and selling permits on other European exchanges.
This organised criminal activity has even “endangered the credibility” of the current carbon trading system, according to Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol.
So why have fraudsters particularly targeted carbon trading? And what is being done to iron out problems in Europe before other areas – such as the US – start to trade carbon in the next few years?
Carousel fraud has been a known scam for years among mobile commodities, such as phones, computer chips and cigarettes.
But the attraction of carbon permits is their intangible nature, so there is no need physically to ship goods across borders. All is done at the click of a mouse.
It now looks like Europe will start a so-called “reverse charge” mechanism, which would remove the need for VAT to change hands between carbon traders every time permits are sold.
But will this remove all problems from the system? It should certainly eradicate VAT fraud, but the very nature of carbon credits makes them “an incredibly lucrative target for criminals”, Rafael Rondelez, who was involved with the Europol investigation, has warned.
His message is clear: other types of carbon fraud could soon spring up because there are “no strong regulations or checking principles as there is in banking to prevent such activities as money laundering.”

Investing in coal is dysfunctional

Power companies, investment bankers and pension fund managers are fuelling an unlivable future – with our money

Jeremy Leggett
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 December 2009 14.23 GMT
The acid test of the Copenhagen climate change summit was always going to be coal. Had governments managed to come up with a meaningful agreement, those who seek to continue burning coal would have faced significant risk that they would be spending their money on what investors call “strandable” assets – assets that become obsolete and therefore worthless. And for their part, financial institutions would have had to think twice whether they should keep pouring billions of dollars into new coal-fired electricity generation, seeking short-term returns while knowingly fuelling future climate ruin that is not costed in today’s books.
But there was no meaningful agreement. And so we see the first in the queue to foist coal horrors upon us already knocking at the door. Since Copenhagen, E.ON has announced that any further emissions cuts by the company will depend on governments making progress in 2010 in the climate negotiations. E.ON and Centrica have both said they are less likely to build coal plants attempting carbon capture and storage. We can expect to see similar sentiments from most of the other big energy companies. Enlightened business leadership ahead of legislation is not their bag. More plans for unsequestered coal, without trapping and burying the carbon dioxide, will be the best we can expect.
To be fair to the power companies, the fault is wider. Most investors expect this behaviour of them. Most banks, insurance companies and pension funds are happy, as things stand, to continue investing in coal.
When it comes to the London Stock Exchange, they will have their first major chance soon. The largest Russian steam coal producer is eyeing an initial public offering in London during the first half of 2010. Suek, owned by two oligarchs, is worth $8-9bn (£5-6bn), and will be floating as many as a quarter of its shares. As one anonymous banker put it to Reuters: “There haven’t been any good opportunities in this sector for a long time, and the sector is on its way up, so therefore this will be a positive story.”
Of course, at the same time, those buying shares will be fuelling long-term wealth destruction – let me not be so base as to mention killing people to boot, let’s stick to the money – by stoking climate change. This is the bottom line with the dysfunctional form of capitalism we have allowed to evolve. And the most galling thing is this: the bonus cultists are doing it, in large part, with our money.
A pension fund manager invests billions built up from tiny parcels of the peoples’ pension contributions. He is rewarded, like everyone else in the temples of finance, on the basis of short-term returns. That the pension holder might retire into a world that is increasingly unliveable because of the actions of his fund manager features nowhere in any bonus calculation.
Hugo Chávez gloatingly told the Copenhagen summit that capitalism is to blame for climate change. He has more than half a point. After this failure of a summit many leaders had cast as a last-chance saloon, surely now we have to think hard about capitalism in the form we have allowed it to evolve.
The fact is that as things stand – to use the parlance of the investment bankers who will scrabble to win the Russian coal business and the pension fund managers who will line up to invest in the listing – there is no place on the global balance sheet for the assets most relevant to the survival of economies: ecosystems and civilisation. There is plenty of space for spectres they label as assets while shovelling the attendant megarisks off the books. That is the real bottom line.
Unless, that is, we can mobilise enough people-power, on enough fronts, for the citizenry to turn around the course of a war in which our leaders are currently displaying toothless impotence. The listing by Suek, and the role of our money it, might be a good place to start.
Any company investing in that IPO is a company that I will no longer bank or insure with. And any pension fund investing in it is one that I will encourage all my friends to switch their pension out of.
Jeremy Leggett, jeremyleggett.net, set up his company, Solarcentury, to fight climate change.