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The Eye on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa Vol. XXXIII N0. 122 July 2005 DIPLOMATIC BRIEFINGS NEWS VIEWS & REVIEWS
He said that Kenya spends five times more treating health problems from smoking than it raises in tobacco tax. Health officials also urged Kenya's tobacco farmers to switch to other crops. Urgent need Mr Nyikal said that the Tobacco Control Bill 2004 was being examined to ensure that it did not conflict with existing legislation. "There is an urgent need to increase tax on tobacco in the next financial year and the money will be used to treat the sick and educate Kenyans," he said. Some 8,000 Kenyan smokers die each year, while some 4,000 are killed by the secondary effects of tobacco smoke, he said. Some five million Kenyans smoke. Neighboring Uganda banned public smoking last year but the ban is not strictly enforced, reports the AFP news agency. Tanzania has also outlawed smoking in public places. Somalia warlords clash in Baidoa Rival Somali warlords have clashed in Baidoa, killing at least 15 people over plans to relocate the government - now based in Kenya - to the city. The heavy fighting broke out in the early hours of Monday morning, lasting more than six hours, eyewitnesses say. The city remains in hands of Mohamed Habsade, who wants the government to move to the capital, Mogadishu - in defiance of the new president. Somalia has been devastated by civil war and anarchy for 14 years. The Mogadishu warlords want the interim government to set up in their city when it leaves neighbouring Kenya. But President Abudullahi Yusuf, who has little support in the capital, says Mogadishu remains too dangerous and wants to go to Baidoa and Jowhar instead. People fleeing According to the BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan there has been tension in and around Baidoa for months, with both militias amassing weapons. The rival fighters, loyal to Mohamed Habsade and Hassan Mohamed Nuur Shargudud - both members of the Somali parliament - were using assault rifles, double-barrelled anti-aircraft missiles mounted on big trucks, and heavy machineguns, our correspondent says. Sources from the only hospital in the city say 15 people, including children, were killed and more than 20 others were wounded. Since fighting died down, hundreds of people have begun to flee from the city, fearing the clashes may restart as reinforcement militias from both sides are heading towards the city. The row over where to where to relocate the new administration - formed last year after two years of talks in Kenya - is threatening to split the government. A third of Somali MPs have already moved back to Mogadishu. Mr. Habsade and his supporters see the president as an ally of Ethiopia.
Hoping for a Sudanese golden age The government in Khartoum has come under increasing international pressure to curb ethnic cleansing and other human rights abuses in the western province of Darfur. Yet, in Khartoum, many locals are surprisingly upbeat about the country's prospects. Every spring, Ahmed and his friend Hamad come down from the Nuba Mountains to the banks of the Blue Nile in Khartoum, to make bricks. The winter floods have dumped a thick layer of rich, chocolate-coloured silt over low-lying land, which dozens of young men, stripped to the waist, are digging out with spades.
Making bricks is good business, Ahmed says, and though the methods do not seem to have changed for thousands of years, he has a new transistor radio blaring away on his mixing-table, to prove his point. Growth Indeed, large areas of Khartoum have been turned into building sites. With an estimated population of around five million, the city now spreads out for 40 kilometres or more in every direction. Hundreds of thousands of traditional red-brick compounds, in which extended families live, have been built. But so too have growing numbers of private mansions. Even if a substantial proportion of Sudan's population lives well below the poverty line, some people are making a great deal of money, not just from trading, but from oil.
As I was visiting this building the other day, a smartly-dressed young Sudanese, who introduced himself as Ali, took me to see the large extension to Oil House that is being built at the water's edge. It will be an entertainment hall, entirely glass-walled, where Chinese oil executives will be able to practise their karaoke skills, while watching local fishing craft drift past. Golden age? Ali explained that he normally lives in Dhahran in Saudi Arabia, headquarters of the giant Aramco oil company, but he had come home to see what opportunities now exist in Sudan. He suspects that when his country celebrates the 50th anniversary of its independence on January 1 next year, it will be ushering in a new golden age. The reason for this confidence is not just the existence of the oil, which has been known about for years. Rather, it is the successful conclusion this January of the peace agreement between the government in Khartoum and rebels in the south, who have been fighting a protracted civil war.
'Oil bonanza' Not only should that carnage now end, with the rebel leader, John Garang, even becoming a vice-president of the whole country, but peace should enable the safe exploitation of the oil, most of which is in the south. Like many Sudanese, Ali is happy that the United States is likely to miss at least the first wave of the anticipated oil bonanza, as Washington operates an economic boycott of Sudan. George Bush is something of a hate figure among young people in Sudan, and his predecessor, Bill Clinton, still has not been forgiven for ordering the bombing of a Khartoum pharmaceuticals factory in 1998. The shell of that building still stands, as a silent reproach. But just down the road from it, a swish new Volkswagen showroom has opened up and the formerly vacant plots nearby are starting to sprout new villas. As I was pondering the implications of these developments, Ali, declaring emphatically, Yes, shook me from my reverie! I think I will stay! HARD NEGOTIATING" STILL TO DO ON G8 GOALS, SAYS PM, On 13 JUNE 2005 A 'real prospect of progress' on Africa and climate change exists, Tony Blair has said. But in a joint press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister stressed that there was still some 'hard negotiating' to do."
The
PM was in Moscow on the first leg of a two-day European tour which will
also take in trips to Germany, France and Luxembourg. Mr. Putin said he fully supported the ideas put forward by the UK for the agenda of the July Summit at Gleneagles. The PM went on to tell journalists he would be 'diplomatic but firm' with his fellow leaders in the run-up to the European summit in Brussels at the end of this week, where the UK's EU rebate is likely to be discussed. "The context for this discussion is one in which two countries have now voted against the European constitution. Why? Because people in Europe did not feel that sufficient attention was being paid to their concerns about Europe and its future. "When we come to debate the future financing of the European Union, let us bear that in mind."
Mr Blair also talked about the
Russian commemoration for the end of the Second World War, which he was
unable to attend last month. Perspectives The EPRDF did not stop at prosecuting war criminals. It rather engaged in ushering in an era of constitutional rule. The constitution drafting was preceded by a convention of nationalities in July 1991. At the July convention the debate focused on the formation of a multinational parliament, the creation of a transitional government and multinational cabinet, new division of the country based on language and nationality, replacing the command economy by one that gives freedom to the private sector, political pluralism, and the holding of regional elections aimed to pave the way for nationwide election scheduled for 1993. |
