General Assembly President meets Ecuadorian leader on final leg of trip

The global efforts to achieve the social and economic targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were at the centre of talks today between General Assembly President Ali Treki and Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa.

East African Nations Firm on Nile River Deal

Monday, June 28, 2010
15:04 Mecca time, 12:04 GMT

E African nations firm on Nile deal

The original Nile pact gives Egypt the lion’s share of the river’s total flow of 84 billion cbm

Five East African countries have announced their refusal to go back on a deal they signed last month to share the waters of the Nile, despite fierce criticism from Egypt and Sudan.

The stand was adopted as the latest meeting of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, ended with open disagreements on Sunday.

After more than a decade of talks driven by anger over the perceived injustice of a previous Nile water treaty signed in 1929, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya signed the agreement in May without their northern neighbours.

“The signed [agreement] can’t be unsigned,” Asfaw Dingamo, the Ethiopian minister for water resources, said, referring to the pact signed in May.

“But we hope to reach a consensus and I hope to do it very soon.”

The five signatories have given the other Nile Basin countries - Egypt, Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo - one year to join the pact.

The new deal would need at least six signatories to come into force.

Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have not signed the deal yet and have so far been tight-lipped about whether they plan to or not.

Sudan’s reaction

Responding to the developments, Kamal Ali Mohamed, Sudan’s water minister, said his country would now stop co-operating with the NBI because the agreement raised legal issues.

“We are freezing activities regarding the NBI until these issues, these legal implications, are resolved,” he said.

Mohamed’s statement drew expected criticism from Asfaw, who said the Sudanese had not revealed their intention to freeze co-operation during the two-day meeting.

Separately, Mohamed Nasreddin Allam, Egypt’s water resources and irrigation minister, told the Reuters news agency that a meeting to discuss the Nile agreement would be held in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, some time between September and November.

“The deal can not be forced upon us. It will only be an obligation for those countries, not Egypt’s,” he said.

“Ask the Egyptians to leave their culture and go and live in the desert because [you] need to take this water and to add it to other countries? No.

“Egypt has no source of water other than that coming from upstream countries. The upstream countries have many sources and aren’t managing our Nile properly. That’s what we are asking for.”

Vital water source

Mena, the official Egyptian news agency, said on Monday that other states had said they “understood Egypt and Sudan’s position … and based on this an exceptional ministerial … will be held to decide how to move forward in a matter that serves all Nile Basin states”.

Stretching more than 6,600km from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean, the Nile is a vital water and energy source for the nine countries through which it flows.

Egypt is almost totally dependent on the Nile and already threatened by climate change, is closely watching hydroelectric dam construction in East Africa.

Under the original pact Egypt, which faces possible water shortages by 2017, is entitled to 55.5 billion cubic metres a year - the lion’s share of the Nile’s total flow of around 84 billion cubic metres.

Around 85 per cent of the Nile’s waters originate from Ethiopia and the Lake Basin is estimated to harbour more than half of Kenya’s surface water resources.

Source: Agencies

Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns to End Political Deadlock

Wednesday, June 30, 2010
17:31 Mecca time, 14:31 GMT

Nepal’s PM resigns to end deadlock

Nepal’s Maoists have been agitating for a return to power after their government fell last year

Nepal’s prime minister has resigned his post on live television, saying he hoped that quitting would help break the politicial deadlock gripping the Himalayan state.

Madhav Kumar Nepal had faced weeks of pressure from the opposition Maoists to step down and pave the way for a power-sharing government to be formed.

“I have decided to resign from the post of prime minister so that the peace process can be completed, a new constitution drafted and the current political deadlock resolved,” he said.

“I had frequently urged the political parties including the Maoists to find an appropriate way out of the present deadlock and forge a consensus,” he went on.

“As it would be inappropriate to further prolong the situation of confusion and indecision, I decided to resign from the post of prime minister to help accomplish the tasks of constitution drafting and the peace process.”

Political impasse

The three main parties in the country agreed last month to form a power-sharing government, but have been unable to hammer out details of what form it should take.

Rather than working together, each of the parties has been jostling for positions of power, creating a climate of political uncertainty and instability in the troubled country.

The prime minister, who took office in May 2009 after the Maoist-led government collapsed in a row over the failure to integrate the party’s former rebel fighters into Nepal’s armed forces, had the support of 22 political parties in parliament and more than half of the 601 members in the assembly.

But he was unable to draw support from the Maoists, who have the largest number of seats in the assembly.

They had staged protests demanding that the government was disbanded, bringing Nepal to a complete standstill for a week in May when they organised a general strike.

The protests also set back the timetable for the writing of a new constitution, which was supposed to have been completed in May. The deadline was extended by a year when it became apparent that there was no sign of the stalemate being broken.

Prime Minister Nepal is expected to stay in the job in a caretaker capacity while his successor is chosen.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Haiti: Ban welcomes setting of date for presidential polls

Haitian President René Préval has set 28 November as the date for the people of the earthquake-devastated nation to vote for his successor, a move welcomed today by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

South Africa’s Eskom Says Firm Can’t Meet Union Demands

S. Africa’s Eskom says can’t meet union demands

Wed Jun 30, 2010 6:25pm GMT

Eskom says cannot afford union demands

NUM issues strike notice

Eskom says strike illegal, sees arbitration as next step

By James Macharia

JOHANNESBURG, June 30 (Reuters) - South African power utility Eskom said on Friday it cannot afford demands sought by unions, adding to fears of a strike that could disrupt power supply during the soccer World Cup.

The company’s biggest union said it had issued a strike notice to the
firm, and a second union said on Wednesday it would join the strike
after its members rejected a new pay offer from the firm.

“We cannot afford that as a company,” Chief Executive Officer Brian
Dames of state-owned Eskom said of the union demands. “The offer we have put on the table is fair and it is reasonable.”

He added that a strike could disrupt supply if it lasts for more than
a few days, and Eskom would take disciplinary measures against anyone who participates in strikes it considers illegal.

A spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers, Lesiba Seshoka, said the union which represents half the firm’s 32,000 employees had issued Eskom with notice of its planned strike.

“We have issued a notice to Eskom, giving them more than the 48 hours required by law,” Seshoka told Reuters. “We cannot as yet disclose the date of the strike, which will be next week, but we will inform the public as soon as we finish planning the logistics for the work stoppage.”

Sources close to the talks said informal negotiations were still under
way, however.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) said its
members had also rejected Eskom’s latest offer and would join the NUM in the planned strike. “Members have rejected the offer, and there will be mass action next week. We are going to strike together with the other union,” Castro Ngobese, Numsa’s spokesman, told Reuters.

A third union at Eskom, Solidarity, said its members had also rejected an improved offer from the firm, but it wanted the utility to revise its offer by Monday before it would take a decision on whether to join any strike.

DISRUPTION

Any power disruption could harm manufacturing and mining companies in the world’s top platinum and fourth-largest gold producer possibly forcing them to curtail operations and pushing up precious metals prices.

It could also embarrass the country and anger fans during the World
Cup, which ends on July 11. Stadiums are equipped with their own power generators but millions of fans watching from home on TV could potentially be affected.

“The unions are prepared to fight it out. I do think that management
will fold. Management will be under enormous pressure from the
government and elsewhere,” said Nic Borain, an independent political analyst.

Seshoka said Eskom had offered an 8.5 percent pay rise and 1,000 rand per month housing allowance, which was turned down by the NUM’s members. The NUM has been seeking a 9 percent wage raise and an allowance of 2,500 rand.

Eskom’s human resources managing director, Bhabhalazi Bulunga, said it was unlikely the union would strike.

“The next process is to go to arbitration, there is no room for
industrial action because this is an essential service and the parties
are not far from each other,” he told Reuters.

“It will be an illegal strike. We also have a court interdict in force
to prevent such action,” he said in reference to a court order
obtained by Eskom in May preventing a similar strike threatened by the NUM.

Union leaders have said arbitration is not an option. (Additional
reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Shapi Shacinda; Editing by Peter
Graff)

Nigeria Rescued Bank Profits Underlying Economic Weakness

Nigeria rescued bank profits mask underlying weakness

An aerial view shows the central business district in Nigeria’s
commercial capital of Lagos

By Chijioke Ohuocha

LAGOS (Reuters) - Most of the Nigerian banks rescued in a $4 billion
bailout last year may show they have returned to profit in the first
quarter but the figures are illusory as they have not had any
underlying growth, analysts said.

Afribank, Finbank, Oceanic Bank, Spring Bank, Union Bank and Wema Bank are among the banks to have swung back to profit months after deep losses and huge writedowns.

The central bank wants new investors to recapitalise the nine
institutions it rescued and Governor Lamido Sanusi told Reuters this
month that a number of foreign banks and private equity investors were still interested.

However, the underlying business of Nigeria’s banks has improved
little since the bailout. Growth in bank credit to the private sector
was still stuck at 0.35 percent in the first quarter compared to 25
percent growth in the same period of 2008.

Analysts have said the rescued banks’ first-quarter profits are due to
last year’s high levels of provisioning rather than growth in lending,
which has been reflected in the fact the results have failed to lift
stock prices in the banking sector.

“I don’t think what we’ve seen from the first quarter is a result of
their direct intermediation or improvement in their core business. The
results represent some recoveries and provisions no longer required,” said Anthony Orororo, head of research at Lagos-based Future View Financial Services.

“The results have failed to lift market sentiment. I don’t see any of
these rescued banks delivering 10 to 15 percent upside (returns)
between now and the third quarter,” he said.

The nine rescued banks made provisions for loan losses totalling more than 2.2 trillion naira after the bailout last August and October,
wiping out their shareholders’ funds and throwing them deep into the
red.

Two senior bankers, who asked not to be named, said the profits could be explained by the “big bath” accounting technique, in which firms write off massive amounts of certain assets from their balance sheets in a single year and show increased future net income.

“The rescued banks were forced to provide massively for every loan
they had and the ones they were not sure of… This is the big bath
technique, you take a big hit last year and this year any loan
recovery is a profit,” one of the bankers said.

STOCK RALLY FALTERS

Concerns over the slow pace at which the underlying health of
Nigeria’s financial sector is improving has caused a rally on the
stock market to falter.

Banks account for 60 percent of market capitalisation and the index
has retreated to three-month lows in the wake of the banks’ first
quarter results, although it is still up more than 20 percent since
the start of the year.

Analysts had predicted a 40 percent rally over the year as a whole,
driven by the quick resolution of banking reforms.

But progress has been slower than anticipated.

The creation of an asset management company (AMCON) to soak up
non-performing loans and get banks lending again has taken longer than hoped. Parliament has passed a bill to form AMCON has been passed by parliament but is still awaiting presidential approval.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said on Monday Nigeria’s banking
system remained “very high risk”, with banks in the single B category,
and there was “still a long way to go” with regulatory reforms.

The central bank said on Monday it was granting a three-month
extension to a recapitalisation deadline for two banks, Unity and
Wema, because of delays to the formation of AMCON.

Central bank auditors last year determined Unity Bank had insufficient capital but it was not one of the nine banks to receive a capital injection because it was deemed to have a healthy liquidity position.

2010-06-30 14:23:34

Experienced legal campaigner to head UN-backed crime probe in Guatemala

A renowned Costa Rican advocate against organized crime has been chosen as the next head of the United Nations-backed commission charged with dismantling illegal armed groups and tackling impunity in Guatemala.

Ban to visit Jamaica to participate in Caribbean regional summit

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will travel to Jamaica this weekend to attend a Caribbean summit and discuss regional efforts to try to achieve the social and economic targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the United Nations announced today.

Today on New Scientist: 30 June 2010

All today’s stories on newscientist.com at a glance, including: everything you need to know about general relativity, video of a crater being born, and the toughest fish in the sea

US mulls clampdown on farmyard antibiotics

The FDA seeks to decrease the use of antibiotics in farm animals, saying they pose a “serious public health threat”