UN and Libya announce joint initiative to improve food security

The United Nations food agency and Libya today signed an agreement to collaborate in a joint programme that seeks to increase food production while protecting the country’s natural resources.

Salvage plan for wrecked Costa Concordia unveiled in Rome

The plan to remove the massive wreck of Costa Concordia, which lies half submerged off the Italian island of Giglio after capsizing in January, was revealed today in Rome. At least 30 people died after the ship ran aground.

UN envoy to take part in regional meeting on Mali, Guinea-Bissau political crises

As part of the United Nations’ ongoing efforts to ensure the full restoration of constitutional rule in Mali and Guinea-Bissau, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for West Africa, Said Djinnit, will participate in an upcoming regional meeting on the political crises in the two countries.

Detroit Mayor Says He Did Not Support Sending Legal Letter Aimed atInvalidation of Corporate-backed Financial Agreement

Detroit City Council members on consent flap: Mayor Dave Bing is not telling truth

11:02 PM, May 17, 2012
By Matt Helms and Suzette Hackney
Detroit Free Press Staff Writers

Despite his denials, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing supported sending a letter to the governor challenging the legality of the consent agreement that the city and state entered into last month, some City Council members said today.

Three council members who were at a meeting last week between the council, Bing and city lawyers said the mayor made it clear he approved of sending a letter from the Law Department challenging the consent deal that granted the state significant power over Detroit’s finances — and the conclusion by city Law Department chief Krystal Crittendon that the agreement violated Detroit’s city charter and Michigan law.

“At one of the meetings, (Bing) said, ‘We got this agreement, and the state is giving us nothing,’ ” said one person who was at the meeting who would speak only on condition of not being named. ” ‘I’m with you 100%.’ He said that.”

But Bing insisted today that he never authorized Crittendon to send the letter to Gov. Rick Snyder that declared the April 4 consent agreement “void and unenforceable.” Crittendon said the city could not enter into the agreement because the state owes $4.75 million to Detroit for water service to the state-owned Michigan State Fairgrounds and, more important, $224 million in state revenue sharing.

Bing’s office issued a statement Thursday afternoon saying that he was aware of the letter, but he still insisted: “I did not authorize, nor do I entirely agree with, counsel’s opinion of the validity of the financial stability agreement.”

Bing’s spokeswoman Naomi Patton declined to comment further beyond Bing’s prepared statement.

But some council members responded to Bing distancing himself from the letter on Thursday, first at an event at Cobo Center, and later in his prepared statement.

Asked whether she thought Bing was being honest, Councilwoman Saunteel Jenkins said, “No.”

“I will say it’s unfortunate people are not always truthful about issues that are this serious,” Jenkins told the Free Press on Thursday, declining to comment further.

Two other council members said they were flabbergasted to read Bing’s reaction to a Free Press report Thursday that revealed the letter.

A council member who was at the closed sessions said Bing was much more supportive privately, and Bing’s denial of that support could “change everything” in how the council works with the mayor on implementing the consent deal — or potentially challenging it.

“I know what I heard with my own ears, and that’s what makes me disappointed in the mayor’s response,” said the council person, who would speak only on the condition of not being named.

Another council person who was at the closed sessions said Bing’s assertion contradicts what he said at the meeting.

“The mayor was in full support of sending that document and meeting with the governor to discuss it,” said the council member, who also did not want to be named. “He sat right there with the council members and expressed his support. It’s disingenuous to try to distance yourself from it when you were at least in line with sending the letter.”

The fallout from the letter continued to grow Thursday. Representatives from the offices of Snyder and state Treasurer Andy Dillon said they don’t believe Crittendon’s missive will pose a serious challenge to the consent agreement, which was approved by Bing and a 5-4 vote of the City Council.

But some council members who spoke to the Free Press said the Law Department may go to court to seek summary judgment to determine whether Crittendon’s concerns — that the consent deal violates the city charter and state law by entering the city into contracts with a state government in serious arrears to the city — are enough to invalidate the consent deal.

Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said the potential of a new city legal fight over the deal won’t change Snyder’s support for the agreement.

“We feel very strongly that it was entered into voluntarily by all parties,” Wurfel said. “It is absolutely critical for being able to move forward for the city of Detroit and its residents.”

Wurfel said Snyder prefers “to stay focused on moving forward” despite litigation she described as “rampant.”

Councilman James Tate said that, while he is focused now on the budget and moving the city ahead, “I do think eventually it will play itself out in the courts.”

Crittendon would not comment on whether Bing and the council agreed to send the letter to Snyder. She also would not disclose whether she will advise city officials to pursue further legal action based on her opinion that the consent agreement violates the city charter.

Crittendon told the Free Press on Wednesday that she drafted two letters — a privileged and confidential document to her client, whom she would not identify, and a letter to state officials on May 11 — challenging the legality of the consent agreement.

But Crittendon had weighed in on the legality of the agreement beforehand, at the request of the council.

Three days before the council voted to approve the consent agreement, Crittendon, in a confidential 10-page opinion, wrote to the council that the agreement could be tossed out if challenges to Public Act 4, the state’s emergency manager law, are successful.

Crittendon’s written opinion, obtained by the Free Press on Thursday, stated that the consent agreement curtails powers of the mayor and City Council, a clear violation of the city charter, and that the agreement likely wouldn’t survive if Public Act 4 is repealed.

Members from Bing’s administration — namely Deputy Mayor Kirk Lewis and Chris Brown, Bing’s chief operating officer — negotiated the consent agreement on behalf of the city. Bing was hospitalized during much of the negotiations and appointed Lewis, who was his chief of staff, to deputy mayor.

Though Crittendon offered her legal opinion, the administration opted to hire outside attorneys to help ultimately reach a deal.

Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Contact Suzette Hackney: 313-222-6678 or shackney@freepress.com

Congolese Armed Forces Shell Rebel Positions

Congolese Armed Forces shell rebel positions

Thu May 17, 2012 10:55PM GMT
presstv.ir

The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) have shelled positions of rebels, who have been fighting the forces in the east of the country.

On Thursday, the FARDC bombarded tank artillery on the hills of Mbuzi and Tchanzu in the restive Nord Kivu province, receiving no return fire, AFP reported.

According to a spokesman for the rebels, they did not retreat, although, several people were wounded by the military’s fire.

The FARDC believes that hundreds of mutineers are gathered in the Rutshuru territory on the border with Rwanda and Uganda.

The military has been fighting the mutineers since late April.

On Monday, fierce fighting continued in eastern DR Congo where the rebels, who are mostly defectors from the Army, are led by General Jean Bosco Ntaganda.

More than 10,000 people have fled the violence to Rwanda and Uganda over the past few days.

Led by Ntaganda, hundreds of former members of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) rebelled against Kinshasa last month in protest over mistreatment in the FARDC.

The CNDP was a rebel militia group that split from the FARDC. In 2009, a peace treaty was signed by the rebels and the Congolese government, which integrated the CNDP into the FARDC.

Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east that has dragged on for over a decade and left over 5.5 million people dead.

Mali Conflict Remains Unresolved

17 May 2012
Last updated at 03:20 ET

Mali coup: Tuaregs tell of ethnic attacks

Up to 60,000, mostly Tuareg, people now live in the makeshift Mbera camp

Since rebels seized control of much of Mali’s vast northern desert region, tens of thousands of people, mainly from Tuareg communities, have fled to neighbouring countries. BBC Afrique’s Maud Julien visited the refugee camp of Mbera in Mauritania.

“My own parents’ house was burnt down in January, right after the beginning of the Tuareg rebellion in the north of Mali,” Oumar Ag Abdul Kader says.

“All of my things - my motorcycle, my computer, my mattress were burned. They did not kill anyone. The police came before anyone got hurt, but it was too late to stop the fire.”

Mr Kader does not know exactly who attacked his house in Mali’s capital Bamako - just that they were black Malians, and none of them were wearing uniforms.

The pale-skinned Tuaregs, who inhabit northern Mali, have long complained of neglect and disrimination by the government dominated by southerns in far-off Bamako.

In February, Mr Kader says attacks increased against Tuareg in Bamako and the nearby garrison town of Kati.

“People started attacking anything Tuareg: They burnt houses, cars and attacked anyone with white skin - even Arabs,” he says.

‘Tuareg’s fault’

Mr Kader’s new home is a canvas tent in the desert, emblazoned with the blue of the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR.

Mbera refugee camp in Mauritania is 50km (30 miles) from the border with Mali - and hosts 60,000 people, mainly from Mali’s Tuareg community.

Schoolteacher Mr Assala fled after he overheard threats from his colleagues
Some of the refugees fled the south of Mali - out of fear of the sort of reprisal attack Mr Kader suffered.

Abdul Ag Mohamed Assala moved to Bamako from the northern city of Kidal when the rebellion broke out - only to find tension in the capital quickly escalated, forcing him to flee across the border.

“There were riots and I was afraid that they would take me for a member of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb or the MNLA [rebel National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad],” says Abdul Ag Mohamed Assala, the headmaster of a school set up in Mbera.

“I was not threatened directly, but colleagues at my office were talking, saying all of the Malian crisis, including the coup, was the fault of the Tuareg people,” Mr Assala says.

“Some of them were saying the Tuareg people killed their relatives - and that now they must do the same to the Tuareg who are among them.”

Mr Assala says he was especially shocked when he saw a Tuareg policeman being beaten by his colleagues because he introduced himself as a Malian, rather than by the name of his tribe.

When news of January’s Tuareg rebellion reached Bamako, panic spread through the Tuareg community and people fled - often leaving all their belongings behind.

‘Child of the camp’

“I left all my money in my bank account, I didn’t take any of my things, I just ran,” says Mr Hamel, who works for an international aid agency in Bamako.

One of the reasons people say they fled so quickly is that the events of the early 1990s were still fresh in their minds.

During that period - the last time Tuareg rebels took up arms - hundreds of civilians were killed by the Malian army.

It is not Mr Hamel’s first time in Mbera - he calls himself a “child of the camp”.

He went to school there for several years - having fled Mali with his family in the early 1990s.

Many Tuareg families have also fled the north because of rising insecurity since the rebels took over.

In January, after a couple of years of relative peace, several rebel groups, including the MNLA and the Islamist Ansar Dine, launched a rebellion - the fourth Tuareg uprising since Mali’s independence in 1960.

Mr Mohamed, who is an MNLA fighter, says the rebels are not looting and killing
The MNLA’s aim was to set up their own autonomous Azawad region, which they have declared although no country has recognised it.

Ansar Dine fought to establish Sharia or strict Islamic law, which they have started to do in Timbuktu, where they largely control.

Their task was made easy by March’s military coup in Bamako - and the rebels swept into the main northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu without meeting much resistance from the Malian army.

Abdul Aziz Ag Mohamed is a MNLA fighter. He is in Mbera visiting his wife and family who fled from Lere because, they say, there was no food.

Mr Mohamed was also a child during the Tuareg rebellion of the 1990s.

His grandfather, a religious leader, and his uncle, a doctor, were killed by the Malian army - it is that memory that influenced his decision to become a rebel.

He insists he would never harm civilians - and blames reports of atrocities, including rapes and killings, committed in the north on rogue criminal elements and armed militia, which, he says, are taking advantage of the instability.

Mr Mohamed says 400 MNLA members are working to restore law and social order in Lere, the town close to the border of Mauritania where he was based until 4 May.

“Now that we control the area, we have no other objective than to stabilise it, and to show the world that we are in our own state and that we deserve a free, democratic and independent state. “

He says in the area around Lere, unknown groups are transporting weapons and waving MNLA flags - but, he insists, they do not belong to the rebel movement.

Conditions in the rebel-held north are very difficult - and many people are fleeing because they are faced with rising prices, food and fuel shortages as trade via Mauritania dries up.

“I was very far away from the fighting but we couldn’t stay because we couldn’t find food, we couldn’t find cars, we couldn’t find anything,” says Mohamed el-Moktar Ag Mohamed, a refugee from the region of Timbuktu.

Life in Mbera camp is not easy: The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says residents share one latrine between 220 people and, due to insufficient aid, do not receive enough food rations to meet the nutritional needs of the children in the camp, some of whom are suffering from malnutrition.

Respiratory infections and diarrhoea are also common, according to MSF.

Despite the difficulties in the camp, continuing instability in Mali means many people prefer to be there - and the chance of their returning home anytime soon are very slim.

“We don’t know who controls what,” says Meini Ould Chebani, an Arab former civil servant also from the Timbuktu region.

“Where I am from, only women and children are left, those who were too weak and too poor to leave,” he says.

“There are no local authorities to protect them, no mayors, no police, no judges. There is no-one. Most of them were from the south of Mali so they fled back. “

“We need an authority in Bamako so there can be someone to negotiate with, because we cannot stay in this situation.”

Magharebia
Published on Magharebia‎ (http://www.magharebia.com) ‎
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2012/05/17/feature-02

Mali constitutional crisis continues

17/05/2012

As the Malian interim government’s deadline approaches, stakeholders struggle to find common ground.

By Jemal Oumar for Magharebia in Nouakchott – 17/05/12

Mali’s military junta is resisting an ECOWAS proposal for a year-long interim government.

Time to end Mali’s political deadlock is running out.

The military junta, the interim government and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have less than a week to resolve the country’s leadership crisis. By law, the tenure of Interim President Dioncounda Traoré must end on May 22nd.

Amadou Sanogo, who led the military coup that ousted President Amadou Toumani Toure in March, adheres to the constitutional point that limits the interim government to 40 days.

ECOWAS mediators, however, want Traoré to lead the government for another 12 months, in order to allow the country to prepare for elections.

Earlier this week, Sanogo proposed a “national convention” under the chairmanship of Interim Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra and the supervision of Traoré.

“It is about time we solved our problems ourselves and reached an agreement before May 22nd to avoid jumping into the unknown,” Sanogo said on May 14th.

In his proposal, all viable forces, including political parties, civil society organisations, and unions would choose a president to lead the upcoming period until a Mali presidential election could be held.

Sanogo’s plan has failed to gain support from the political elite.

“Politicians believe that the constitution must be respected and that the tenure of the current president must be extended until a presidential election is held and a new president is elected,” Renaissance Party leader Tibile Drame said.

“This is not the first time that the insurrectionists proposed national reconciliation in order to prevent the restoration of constitutional system,” he said, adding that the proposal was “just an attempt to legitimise the coup”.

Malians are also voicing concerns over the stalemate.

“If the two sides don’t reach a final solution to overcome the strangling crisis and start looking for solutions to counter threats of terrorism in northern provinces, this will pose a threat to the future of security and stability in Mali and Sahel in general,” Malian journalist Bab Ahmed said.

Abu Bakr al-Sedik Ag Hami, a professor at Bamako University, stressed the need for supervision from a figure capable of “bringing together all political and unionist entities”.

“I support the national reconciliation initiative that the military have called for provided it’s not under the supervision of the military or current interim president,” he told Magharebia.

“As to the next president, I suggest choosing him from a religious or ethnic minority because they are the only ones capable of creating a balance between the competing, conflicting and contradicting Malian groups,” he added.

Magharebia
Published on Magharebia‎ (http://www.magharebia.com) ‎
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2012/05/16/feature-02

Azawad schools reopen under strict Sharia

16/05/2012

After seizing control of Timbuktu and Gao last month, extremists re-opened schools and imposed new rules on students and teachers.

By Jemal Oumar for Magharebia in Nouakchott – 16/05/12

In a city known as an ancient centre of learning, armed Islamists are now trying to force their own educational agenda on the people of Timbuktu.

Armed groups in northern Mali are forcing their Salafist version of Sharia upon their captive populations. Their latest target: school children.

Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and their Ansar al-Din allies re-opened schools in Timbuktu and Gao on May 7th, but students returned to something unknown before the March coup.

“Islamists imposed a system separating boys from girls at classes,” Journal Du Mali reported. ‘Students were also separated according to shifts, with boys now studying in the morning and girls studying in the evening”.

The Islamists also decreed that schools could no longer teach philosophy and biology.

“In addition to cancelling some subjects and separating girls from boys, the Islamists forced young girls at schools to wear Islamic clothing that requires them to fully cover their heads and bodies,” Abou Bacrin Cissé, an education representative in Timbuktu, told Magharebia.

In response, some families have pulled their children out of school, some students have refused to be tested under these conditions, while others, however, have “accepted the status quo because they can’t afford the alternatives,” Bacrin Cissé said.

“This is not acceptable,” Timbuktu mayor Hallé Ousman said as he condemned the radical groups’ approach to education. “It has caused a shock for residents, especially students’ parents,” he said.

In Gao, the situation is not much different from Timbuktu. Even though boys and girls are allowed to sit in the same class, the boys are at the front of class and the girls are in the back, Malian daily L’Express reported.

Anara Miga, a teacher in Gao, described her work since schools re-opened there in late April.

“As teachers, we’re searched on a daily basis by Ansar al-Din,” she said. “They fear we may teach some subjects that they consider ‘prohibited’ and ‘contrary to God’s Sharia’,” she added.

Meanwhile, Timbuktu parent Abdallah Hamanu complained that what is going on was the same as “medieval times”. The similarities manifest themselves “in terms of restricting thought, preventing the teaching of some subjects under the pretext that they promote infidelity, and establishing inquisition courts”, he said.

“It’s a crime against children,” Hamanu added.

Former Yugoslavian and Serbian Gen. Mladic’s Trial Delayed Due toProsecution Errors

Mladic trial delayed because of evidence issues

The former Bosnian Serb general’s trial has been postponed because prosecutors may have failed to disclose evidence to the defense

By Mike Corder, The Associated Press / May 17, 2012

In a video image taken from ICTY video former Bosnian Serb military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic was seen on the second day of his trial at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands Thursday May 17.

An apparent clerical error prompted judges to postpone the long-awaited war crimes trial of former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic on Thursday, possibly for months.

The delay cast a shadow over one of the court’s biggest cases — and over the reputation of the court itself, where most prominent trials have proceeded at a snail’s pace, frustrating many victims.

It also highlighted problems faced by international tribunals in prosecuting sweeping indictments covering allegations of atrocities spanning years in countries far from the courts where defendants face justice.

“It is fraught with delay because of the volume of documentation and scope of alleged crimes,” Richard Dicker, the director of Human Rights Watch’s international justice program, said in a telephone interview Thursday. “Add to that the need to translate and it really takes it to a whole new level of complexity that you don’t see in domestic trials.”

Presiding judge Alphons Orie said he was delaying the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal case due to “significant disclosure errors” by prosecutors, who are obliged to share all evidence with Mladic’s lawyers.

Orie said judges will analyze the “scope and full impact” of the problem and aim to set a new starting date as soon as possible. The presentation of evidence was supposed to begin later this month.

Prosecutors had already acknowledged the errors and did not object to the delay. Mladic’s attorney has asked for six months to study the materials.

Mladic is accused of commanding Bosnian Serb troops who waged a campaign of killings and persecution to drive Muslims and Croats out of territory they considered part of Serbia during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war.

His troops rained shells and snipers’ bullets down on civilians in the 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. They also executed thousands of Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, the site of Europe’s worst massacre since World War II. The war itself left over 100,000 dead.

Mladic has refused to enter pleas to the charges but denies wrongdoing. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Court spokeswoman Nerma Jelacic told The Associated Press that much of the material the defense did not get was about witnesses prosecutors had intended to call to testify before the court’s summer break. Prosecutors acknowledged the error “could impact on the fairness of the trial,” she said.

The tribunal published a letter from prosecutors to Mladic’s lawyer that said the missing documents were not uploaded onto an electronic database accessible to defense lawyers. “We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience,” it read.

Hatidza Mehmedovic, whose husband and two sons were slain by Serb forces during the Srebrenica massacre, said she hoped the delay would not be too long.

“We are worried he won’t live to see justice,” Mehmedovic said in the tribunal’s lobby as she prepared to make the long trek back to Srebrenica.

Her fears are not without reason. Mladic, now 70, suffered three strokes during his 15 years as a fugitive, his lawyer says.

In another case that suffered repeated delays, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died of a heart attack in 2006 before judges could deliver a verdict in his trial, which dragged on for four years. Milosevic was accused of orchestrating deadly conflicts across the Balkans in the 1990s.

The delays in Milosevic’s trial were largely caused by his ill health and his lengthy political grandstanding while acting as his own defense lawyer.

“The script we have seen used for Milosevic’s trial is now repeating,” said Enisa Salcinovic, who said she was attacked by Serb soldiers under Mladic’s command. “First, they did not want to capture him while he was healthy enough to stand a trial and now when he is sick they will let the trial drag on just as they did with Milosevic.”

Suspects like Milosevic and his Bosnian Serb counterpart Radovan Karadzic — whose trial is at its half-way stage after starting in October 2009 — “seek to use the criminal process as a platform to expound their views and rewrite history in a way that is favorable to them,” said Dicker.

The Yugoslav court is not the only war crimes tribunal to suffer. Cases at the International Criminal Court and the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor also have been hit by lengthy delays.

The U.N. Security Council set up the Yugoslav tribunal with war still raging in Bosnia in an attempt to hold the perpetrators of massive crimes in the conflict criminally responsible.

The move was quickly followed by a similar court dealing with the genocide in Rwanda as activists pinned their hopes on international justice not only to deter crimes but also to promote reconciliation in countries torn apart by conflict. Temporary tribunals also have since been set up to deal with crimes in Sierra Leone, Lebanon, East Timor and Cambodia, followed in 2002 by the International Criminal Court, the first permanent war crimes tribunal.

Earlier Thursday, prosecutors wrapped up their opening statement in Mladic’s genocide trial by recounting in chilling detail his forces’ systematic slayings in Srebrenica in July 1995.

Mladic’s army “carried out their murderous orders with … dedication and military efficiency,” prosecutor Peter McCloskey said.

Mladic showed no emotion as McCloskey showed video footage of what he said were the bodies of executed Muslim men piled in front of a bullet-riddled wall.

McCloskey described how Mladic’s forces summoned buses and trucks from across Bosnia to transport women and girls out of the Srebrenica enclave. The Muslim men and boys were then driven to remote locations and gunned down by firing squads, their bodies plowed into mass graves.

The remains — sometimes no more than a couple of bones — of 5,977 victims have been exhumed so far, McCloskey said. Estimates of the dead run to 8,000.

He showed photographs of an exposed mass grave to underscore the point that the victims were not war casualties. One photo showed a skull, its teeth exposed and its eyes covered by a blindfold. Another showed a pair of hands bound with a strip of cloth behind a body’s back.

In a video, Mladic was seen strutting through the deserted streets of Srebrenica and berating the commander of Dutch U.N. peacekeepers.

It was all too much for Mehmedovic, who wept in the court’s lobby.

“I buried both of my sons and my husband. Now I live alone with memories of my children,” she said. “I would never wish even Mladic to go through what I go through. Not Mladic or Karadzic. Let God judge them.”

In Mladic’s former wartime stronghold of Pale, Bosnian Serbs who regard him as a hero clapped each time he appeared on TV screens in cafes.

“I’m sorry to see our general being treated like this,” said Bosnian Serb Milan Tadic. “We should all be ashamed of allowing this to be happening to him. He only defended the Serbs. He will always have support in Pale.”

Mali Interim President Rejects Proposal for New Caretaker Head

5/17/12 11:56 AM

Mali president rejects proposal for new caretaker head

BAMAKO - Mali’s interim President Dioncounda Traore on Wednesday rejected a proposal by a former junta which staged a coup in March for a national convention to choose a caretaker head of state.

“It’s a proposal but I don’t think this is a solution, in any case, not a solution that has been agreed to in a deal signed by the former putchists and the Economic Community of West African States,” regional bloc, he said after talks with Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, who also heads ECOWAS.

Mali, once considered one of Africa’s democratic success stories, was thrown into turmoil on March 22 when mid-level army officers staged a coup and ousted president Amadou Toumani Toure whose government they charged was not doing enough to fight a Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country.

The Tuareg separatists and their Islamist allies took advantage of the ensuing chaos to seize the country’s vast north, including its three main towns, Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu.

Mali interim govt raises gold sales tax

Thu, May 17 2012

BAMAKO, May 17 (Reuters) - Mali’s interim government has raised the combined sales tax on gold by 2 percentage points to 8 percent, a move aimed at bringing it in line with peers in the West Africa region, according to a government statement.

The tax hike came as a senior mines ministry official said Mali will miss its 2012 output target of just over 49 tonnes. The official said it was too early to give a new figure.

Africa’s No. 3 gold miner remains in political limbo after a March 22 coup, which led to the nation’s neighbours temporarily imposing sanctions and a slowdown of many businesses amid sporadic violence and uncertainty over future leadership.

A mix of Islamist and separatist rebels have also seized the north of the country, though this is far from operations of the miners, which include Randgold Resources, AngloGold Ashanti and Avion Gold Corp.

A government statement, seen by Reuters on Thursday after a Wednesday cabinet meeting, said the 2 percentage point increase in the ISCP tax on gold ingots to 5 percent was the only increase in taxes announced by the government.

A 3 percent ad valorem tax is maintained, bringing to 8 percent the total sales tax for gold from Mali, according to a senior mining official.

The government is currently headed by Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra, who was appointed after a deal saw Mali’s coup leaders step aside to allow a civilian-led government last month.

But it is not clear how long the government will remain in place as the interim president’s term runs out later this week and regional mediators and the military are still at loggerheads over who should oversee the country’s future.

Although the rebels have not threatened mining operations in the south and west, and borders have re-opened since sanctions were lifted, firms have been disrupted.

“There has not yet been an evaluation of the overall impact of the crisis but everything points to the 49-tonne forecast being lowered,” said the mine ministry official, who asked not to be named.

Earlier this month, Avion lowered its production forecast for the year to 90,000 - 100,000 ounces of gold, down from 140,000 to 150,000 ounces after it halted mill expansion plans at its Tabakoto mine due to the coup.

Mali’s gold revenues surged by more than 20 percent in 2011 to 240 billion CFA francs ($487 million), tracking a surge in world prices, though gold output slipped to 43.5 tonnes from 46 tonnes in 2010.

The largely desert country relies on gold for about 70 percent of export revenues and 15 percent of gross domestic product.

For a FACTBOX on gold miners operating in Mali, click (Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by David Gregorio)

Hewlett-Packard Said to Consider Cutting Up to 25,000 Jobs

Hewlett-Packard Said to Consider Cutting Up to 25,000 Jobs

Aaron Ricadela

May 17 (Bloomberg) — Hewlett-Packard Co. is considering cutting as many as 25,000 jobs, or 8 percent of its workforce, to reduce costs and help the company contend with ebbing demand for computers and services, people briefed on the plans said.

The number to be cut includes 10,000 to 15,000 from Hewlett-Packard’s enterprise services group, which sells a range of information-technology services and has been beset by declining profitability, said these people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t final and may change.

Meg Whitman, chief executive officer since September, is seeking to reverse the growth slump that led to the ouster of her predecessor, Leo Apotheker. The company’s PC sales are dropping as consumers favor tablets, such as Apple Inc.’s iPad, and it has been slow to adapt to the shift toward cloud computing, away from the IT services Hewlett-Packard provides.

“Hewlett-Packard could make the difficult decision of announcing” a workforce reduction, Brian Marshall, an analyst at ISI Group, wrote in a research note earlier this month. This “would enable investments in strategic, higher growth areas.”

Eliminating 18,000 jobs could result in savings of about $1.2 billion and add 50 cents to annual per-share earnings, he estimated.

Michael Thacker, a spokesman for Palo Alto, California- based Hewlett-Packard, declined to comment.

Shares of Hewlett-Packard rose to as high as $22.27 after Bloomberg reported the changes, and gained 3 cents to $22.06 the close in New York. The stock has dropped 14 percent this year.

Early Retirement Offers

Some of the cuts to Hewlett-Packard’s workforce of 324,600 may come through early-retirement packages, the people said. Hewlett-Packard may offer early retirement to several thousand people, the people said.

The overall reduction and additional cost savings throughout the company could result in savings that reach billions of dollars, one person said.

Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest maker of personal computers and printers, is working with management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. to draw up the job-cuts plan.

Whitman, former CEO of EBay Inc., said in March that she’ll combine the PC and printing divisions, ending deliberations to spin off the PC unit. She has also said she’ll step up investment in research and development and take steps to shore up Hewlett-Packard’s balance sheet.

Besides tussling with Apple, Hewlett-Packard is also vying with companies including International Business Machines Corp., Oracle Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. in the market for hardware, software and services for large corporations.

More Declines Predicted

Hewlett-Packard in February forecast sales for the quarter through April that fell short of analysts’ predictions. Sales in the current year may decline 4 percent to $122.4 billion, according to average analyst predictions compiled by Bloomberg.

The enterprise services group includes the 2008 acquisition of Electronic Data Systems for $13.9 billion made by former CEO Mark Hurd.

Hurd, who was CEO from 2005 to 2010, reduced costs through actions including a 5 percent pay cut for most employees in 2009, lower research spending and plans to eliminate at least 48,000 jobs.

Hewlett-Packard is scheduled to report fiscal second- quarter earnings on May 23.

Hewlett-Packard plans “significant” layoffs and seeks to cut its workforce by 10 percent to 15 percent, Business Insider reported yesterday, citing an unidentified person.

–Editors: Tom Giles, Lisa Rapaport

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Ricadela in San Francisco at aricadela@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tom Giles at tgiles5@bloomberg.net

Washington Coordinates Arms Supplies to Syrian Rebels

Washington coordinates arms supplies to Syrian rebels: US officials

Wed May 16, 2012 12:55PM GMT
presstv.ir

“We are increasing our nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, and we continue to coordinate our efforts with friends and allies in the region and beyond in order to have the biggest impact on what we are collectively doing.”

Top State Department official

The US has coordinated the climbing number of illegal shipment of more advanced weapons to anti-Damascus Syrian rebels paid for by Persian Gulf Arab states, US and foreign officials say.

President Barack Obama administration officials, however, claim that American support is limited to ‘expanded contacts with opposition military forces’ to provide ‘credibility assessment’ of rebel forces and command-and-control infrastructure to US-sponsored Persian Gulf dictatorships that fund the purchase and shipment of lethal weapons to anti-Damascus armed gangs, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, American officials also met and negotiated in Washington this week with a delegation of Kurds from sparsely populated eastern Syria, where little violence has occurred. The talks, says an Obama administration official, included discussions about the likelihood of opening a second front against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in efforts to compel him to move resources from the west.

“We are increasing our nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, and we continue to coordinate our efforts with friends and allies in the region and beyond in order to have the biggest impact on what we are collectively doing,” said a senior State Department official, one of several US and foreign government officials who discussed the developing efforts on the condition of anonymity.

Many officials, the report adds, now consider an expanding military confrontation to be inevitable.

The American military, the paper notes, has also prepared options for Syria “extending all the way to air assaults to destroy the nation’s air defenses.” However, US officials describe such scenario as unlikely, claiming instead, that the United States and its allies are increasingly focusing on coordination of intelligence and the supplying weapons to anti-Damascus rebel groups.

Moreover, the new weaponry for the Syrian rebels are being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border, according to the report, with the rebels claiming that their supplies of arms and ammunition has significantly increased following a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf Arab kingdoms to provide millions of dollars in funding each month.

Furthermore, anti-Syrian rebel leaders say they have been in direct contact with the State Department officials to “designate worthy rebel recipients of arms and pinpoint locations for stockpiles, but US officials said that there currently are no military or intelligence personnel on the ground in Syria.”

The paper also emphasized that the despotic Persian Gulf Arab regimes would take pleasure in the fall of President Assad’s government “as a blow against Iran” and would welcome further US assistance to such end.

Syria will reportedly be on the agenda at this week’s NATO summit, due to be held in the US city of Chicago.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March 2011 and more than 6,000 police forces, army troops, security forces and pro-government people have been killed in the unrest.

While the West and the Syrian opposition say the government is responsible for the killings, Damascus blames “outlaws, saboteurs and armed terrorist groups” for the unrest, insisting that it is being orchestrated from abroad.