Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Africa and its Issues- Why Have We Ignored Africa? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sea_urchin who wrote (604)	10/2/2006 11:09:41 AM
From: Stephen O	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1267

Zambia has shown common sense with their election: Zambia Re-Elects President Mwanawasa With 43% of Vote 2006-10-02 08:03 (New York) By Kennedy Mambwe Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa won re-election with 43 percent of votes cast, according to preliminary results, on pledges to continue policies that have attracted foreign investors to Africa's biggest copper producer. He beat rivals Michael Sata, 68, and Hakainde Hichilema, 44, who each received 27 percent of votes, Ireen Mambilima, chairwoman of the Electoral Commission of Zambia said today in the capital, Lusaka. The commission has announced results from 135 of the country's 150 constituencies. Mwanawasa, 58, has presided over economic growth in excess of 5 percent, the lowest inflation rate in 30 years and the cancellation of much of the southern African nation's foreign debt. Initial results had indicated a victory for Sata's Patriotic Front, which promised to limit foreign investment and give Zambians a greater share of the country's wealth. ``Let us remain calm as the process continues,'' Agence France-Press quoted Sata as saying after his supporters staged violent demonstrations across Lusaka in protest at the results. ``They should not pick up stones, they should not pick up'' machetes. Investor concern Sata might win the election had led the Zambian kwacha to weaken to an 11-month low of 4,425 against the dollar on Sept. 14 from 3,020 on May 11. The kwacha was Africa's best-performing currency last year. Results Delayed The final results of the election were delayed yesterday after clashes between police and Sata's supporters, who set fire to shops, vehicles and a police station. At least 19 demonstrators were arrested. Mwanawasa, in his first comments on the elections, appealed for calm and called on the nation to ``condemn all acts of lawlessness being perpetrated by some parties,'' Agence France- Presse reported yesterday, citing addresses by the president on state-owned radio and television. Mwanawasa's policies have included tax breaks for mining companies. He also boosted the tourism industry by setting up a fund to encourage local investment, reduced corruption and increased agricultural output by supplying more seed and fertilizer to farmers. Surging copper prices have attracted investment in Zambia's mining industry. During the past three years, copper miners invested as much as $1.5 billion, Mines Minister Kalombo Mwansa said on June 14. Mining companies operating in the country include London- based Vedanta Resources Plc, owner of Konkola Copper Mines Plc, Africa's biggest copper producer, Vancouver-based First Quantum Minerals Ltd. and Baar, Switzerland-based Glencore International AG. Equinox Minerals Ltd., based in Perth, Australia, is digging Africa's biggest copper mine in Zambia at cost of $415 million. Support for Sata has risen from the 3.35 percent he won in elections in December, 2001, on growing discontent about the country's 50 percent unemployment rate, the fact that more than two-thirds of Zambians live below the poverty line and criticism of Chinese mine owners. The final results of the election are expected to be released at 6 p.m. today in Lusaka. --Editor: Sanders

To: sea_urchin who wrote (604)	10/2/2006 11:13:57 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1267

We left Lesotho in mid-August. I will be based in the Washington DC area the next few years. Keep me posted on developments in SA as they come up. I try to keep an eye on the region but it is harder from a distance.

To: sea_urchin who wrote (604)	11/1/2006 5:46:31 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1267

A sore loser's viewpoint on China's lust for Africa: Beijing's race for Africa Simon Tisdall Wednesday November 1, 2006 The Guardian China will steal a march in the new race for Africa when it hosts an ambitious trade, investment and aid summit in Beijing this week for leaders of 48 African countries. But while the meeting is intended to fuel China's global drive for resources, raw materials and markets, concerns are growing that the boosters of Beijing do not have Africa's best interests at heart and that western countries will be cut out of future business. Delegates to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which opens on Friday, can expect full red-carpet treatment, except the preferred colour is green after Communist party chiefs reportedly ordered conference centre floors to be covered with grass. Large posters of giraffes and elephants are also on display to make an expected 2,500 visiting politicians, businessmen and journalists feel at home. Such witless gaucheries aside, the summit's focus will be on shaping the economic and political realities in favour of Asia's rising superpower. China's trade with Africa has risen fourfold in the past four years, and was worth $40bn (£21bn) last year. The target is $100bn by 2010. Beijing has overtaken Britain to become Africa's third most important trading partner after the US and France, according to a report, The New Sinosphere: China in Africa, published today by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). Chinese lending and aid projects are multiplying and the conference is expected to see another round of debt cancellations and preferential tariff deals. The summit also marks a shrewd attempt by China's communist-capitalists to harness the mostly forgotten forces of Marxist historical inevitability. It marks the 50th anniversary of the decision by Nasser's Egypt to recognise Mao Zedong's government as sole rulers of China, rather than Taiwan's nationalists. Egypt was the first African country to do so. Now China has also invited the five African countries that still maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan to Beijing. Financial and other blandishments may yet induce Malawi, Gambia, Swaziland and the other holdouts to succumb to China's blandiloquent embrace. Chinese officials have been busily defending their activities from charges of self-interest and exploitation. "Chinese investment in Africa has promoted economic growth, increased job opportunities ... and improved living standards," said Wei Jianguo, the deputy commerce minister. "It has greatly benefited local people and is very popular." Other officials say the world's biggest, most successful developing country simply wants to share its experience with others. But claims of disinterested altruism are coming under increasing scrutiny as China's clout grows, and not least in the US which sees a looming geopolitical and economic challenge. Beijing is variously accused of propping up corrupt and vicious regimes, as in Angola and Zimbabwe, exploiting cheap African labour, dumping manufactures and destroying indigenous industries, and of quasi-colonialist political interference, as appeared to be the case during Zambia's recent presidential election. Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, said this month that Chinese banks were ignoring human rights and environmental and corporate governance standards when lending to African countries. "There is a real risk of seeing countries which have benefited from (western) debt relief become heavily indebted once more," he told the newspaper Les Échos. And in its new report, the IPPR draws particular attention to Sudan, where China has significant oil investments. It notes China's blocking of UN action over Darfur and its weapons sales to Khartoum and urges increased international pressure on Beijing to help end the crisis. "Managed well, China could bring real development benefits to Africans," Leni Wild and David Mepham, the report's authors, say. "Managed badly, China's role may lead to worsening standards of governance and more corruption. As a one-party state, China's foreign policy is not driven by a concern to promote human rights, in Africa or elsewhere." But it is plainly designed to make money, win friends, and gain influence. In Africa, it is as if the era of 19th century imperial expansion is happening all over again - but this time freebies and open chequebooks have replaced glass beads and pith helmets. guardian.co.uk