THE FOLLOWING IS EYE OPENING AND A FURTHER GOOD LAUNDRY-LIST OF WHAT IS WRONG WITH PROMISES OF FOREIGN AID THAT LEADS NOWHERE. THESE TWO PRESENTERS SHOW THAT AFRICA STARTS FROM POINTS BELLOW ZERO. BUT WHAT CAN THE G8 ACHIEVE IN THREE DAYS WHEN THE PROBLEMS ARE THAT THERE IS INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM NEGLECT, AND AFRICA’S OWN LEADERSHIP HAS NO CONSIDERATION FOR THE UN RULE  - “THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT.”

Sunday, July 6, 2008

G8 COUNTDOWN: G8 blind to Africa’s true needs, farmer says.

By JANICE TANG
Kyodo News

Zambian farmer Joyce Mwanje landed in Japan after a long journey across half the globe, leaving her husband and seven children to tend to the fields where they till the land with hand hoes to grow maize, soybeans, vegetables and other crops.

Mwanje has come with the important mission of representing fellow African peasant farmers to make their voices heard by the leaders of the Group of Eight countries who will meet in Hokkaido from Monday for their annual summit.

Mwanje, 47, who heads her community’s farmers development club in the rural area of Chibobo in Serenje, central Zambia, wants to ensure that the G8 nations not only live up to their aid pledges, but also realize Africa’s true needs.

“In my village, we produce mainly staple food with occasional or no surplus sold,” Mwanje said in an interview in Tokyo. “The majority of people cultivate less than 2 hectares of rain-fed land using simple techniques and cultivation practices, and produce mainly maize, groundnuts, roots and tubers for their own consumption.”

“The problem we have is we can only use hand hoes for plowing our land. We don’t manage to have much harvest for income,” she said.

Joseph Ssuuna, secretary general of nongovernmental organization PELUM Association, accompanied Mwanje to Japan. He said aid provision is complex and flawed.

“When world leaders meet to talk about the food crisis in the world, they have to look at the means of production that people have at their disposal,” he said.

Ssuuna, whose group promotes ecological land-use management, criticized the developed nations’ emphasis on introducing new seeds and increasing the amount of fertilizers and agrochemicals in their push for the so-called Green Revolution for Africa.

He said that what is really needed to transform the lives of African farmers is access to basic farming machinery and micro-financing.

“People don’t want aid as such. People want to live meaningful lives, to earn their own living,” said Ssuuna, a 46-year-old Ugandan residing in Zambia. “Farmers want to farm, but we need to make sure that the systems and institutions that support farming are functional.”

In Mwanje’s village, where the size of the average family is eight people and agriculture has been the source of livelihood for generations, a Zambian NGO called the Green Living Movement has been promoting sustainable agriculture since 2000.

Mwanje said she and other farmers have adopted the practice of agroforestry, in which nitrogen fixing tree legumes are planted in their fields for soil fertility instead of using synthetic fertilizers. The method has helped improve her productivity and her income base, she said.

Even so, efficiency is relatively low due to a lack of basic farming machinery, electricity and irrigation — she still has to draw water from a well and waters the crops with a jerrycan, and pound harvests of maize and soybeans manually with sticks.

Each year, she harvests about 25 to 30 bags of maize, the main crop for income, at 50 kg each. Most is consumed by her family with only an average of five bags left for sale, and each bag fetches 34,000 Zambian kwachas, or approximately $10.

Ssuuna explained that although the recent surge in global food prices should in theory be an opportunity for African farmers, in places like Zambia, where crop prices are set by the Food Reserve Agency and rural farmers have poor access to open markets, the price hikes only profit the agency and middlemen traders while farmers get paid little for their produce.

Japan, to show its leadership as this year’s G8 chair, has pledged to double aid to Africa by 2012 and help double rice production on the continent as part of medium- to long-term assistance in tackling the food security issue.

But both Mwanje and Ssuuna expressed doubt about promoting rice in Africa.

“I once tried to grow rice in our field, but the harvest was not good and we didn’t get any rice grains to eat. May be water was not enough,” Mwanje said. She added that while she tried for one season because she liked rice, she never went back to growing it again.

Ssuuna noted that while consumption of rice in Africa has risen in recent years, it was partly because rice producers like Japan and other Asian countries have offloaded their large surpluses in Africa. In some cases, the dependence on rice imports have triggered food riots, such as in Sierra Leone, amid the price surges.

“What do we learn from that? If you disrupt people’s production systems and you make them dependent on other production systems for their food, you are creating a catastrophe,” he said.

“I think a more sustainable support system should focus on African indigenous crops that have already been localized and are suitable to the ecosystem in these places,” Ssuuna added.

Mwanje and Ssuuna, with the support of Japanese NGOs, will be in Hokkaido to meet Japanese and international press when the three-day G8 summit begins Monday at the Lake Toya resort.

“We are here to remind the leaders of their failure to meet commitments made in the last several G8 summits,” Ssuuna said. “It’s also important for them to know that when they make these commitments, there are so many people’s hopes and lives that now focus on them.”

“A failure to meet those commitments means they are failing so many people who do not have the voice to represent themselves in the G8, who do not have the means to change their own lives.”

On photo of rape-seed plants, it says “Biofuels are responsible for 75 percent of recent food price rises, according to a secret World Bank report.”

Food and fuel crises pushing world into ‘danger zone’, says World Bank’s Robert Zoellick.

LEIGH PHILLIPS, for the EUobserver, July 4, 2008.

As the head of the World Bank warns world leaders that the planet is entering the “danger zone” with millions thrown into extreme poverty by the twin food and fuel crises, a leaked report from his organisation shows that biofuels have pushed up global food prices by 75 percent - a much bigger role in the disaster than previously thought.

In a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, ahead of next week’s G8 summit, and copied to other G8 leaders, World Bank president Robert Zoellick has called on them to act immediately to address the “man-made catastrophe” of soaring food and oil prices.“What we are witnessing is not a natural disaster - a silent tsunami or a perfect storm. It is a man-made catastrophe and as such must be fixed by people,” he said in the letter.

There has been an 82 percent rise in food commodity prices since 2006, with the crisis worsening since April, Mr Zoellick warned.

This has pushed an additional 100 million people worldwide into extreme poverty, he said, noting that some 41 countries have lost three to ten percent of their GDP from rising food, fuel and commodity prices since January 2007. Over 30 countries have been hit by food riots, as the impact of the crisis reaches the household level, said Mr Zoellick.

He described the current situation as an “unprecedented test” for the international community and called on wealthy countries to stump up €6.4 billion ($10 billion) in immediate short-term emergency aid for the countries hardest hit by the crisis.

Over the medium term, an additional €2.2 billion ($3.5 billion) is needed for agricultural supports and social programmes for the poor in a further 50 countries, he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Zoellick’s organisation has produced a confidential report leaked to a UK newspaper that says that the rush for biofuels, particularly by the EU and US, is responsible for 75 percent of the rise in global food prices.

Until now, the US has claimed that biofuels policies have resulted in only three percent of the rise in food prices, while European Union officials have repeatedly claimed their policies have had a “negligable” impact, without attaching any percentage.

Other international institutions have assigned considerably more blame to such policies. The UN Food and Agriculture organisation says that biofuels explain 10 percent of recent price rises.

The International Monetary Fund puts this figure at 30, the same number reached in assessments from the International Food Policy Research Institute.

“Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate,” the report says.

EU and US leaders have argued that it is not biofuels, but rather higher demand from India and China as incomes there rise, alongside increased oil costs and droughts in parts of the world such as Australia.

The World Bank report, produced by Don Mitchell, a senior economist at the institution, argues that emerging economies are not to blame. “Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases,” reads the report, adding that droughts in Australia have had a marginal impact.

Higher energy and fertiliser prices were responsible for an increase of only 15 percent says Mr Mitchell, while biofuels have been responsible for 75 percent of the price rise of 140 percent between 2002 and February 2008.

This happened in three ways, the report explains: the diversion of grain from food to fuel; the encouragement of farmers to set aside land for biofuel production; and the speculation in grains.

The report also says that other estimates of the role of biofuels have come to smaller estimates because they analysed the crisis over a longer period. Mr Mitchell instead studied food price rises month by month.

Separately, international development NGO ActionAid on Tuesday (1 July) published a report that claims that the “biofuels juggernaut” is responsible for leaving some 290 million people hungry or at risk of chronic hunger.

Additionally, on Thursday at a Brussels conference hosted by the French EU presidency, John Holmes, UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, called on the EU to “look again” at its target that would see biofuels to fuel 10 percent of vehicles by 2020.

www.SustainabiliTank.info has argued for a long time that agricultural-land set-asides were invented to “support” prices of the commodities. The bio-fuels can thus safely be produced from putting back into production those already existing set-asides.

If the World Bank would like to do something for the world’s poor, it would start helping those poor directly with microcredit type of lending rather then seeking out large corporate-based government credit-seekers. Go out and study Malawi - learn how help comes only for those that are ready to help themselves - not their Mugabe kind of despots. Zoelick, Don Mitchell, and George Bush are doing disservice to humanity by not laying bare a reality study and instead talk of symptoms rather then the underlying cancer. US and EU agriculture have caused the destruction of autonomous production in places like Africa - first by underselling them, then by keeping them dependent of “benevolent” hand-outs when teaching to fish is much more important then shipping away free fish. NGOs’ help has also been misconstrued so it makes the philanthropists feel good by having around dependent poor - why in the world don’t you go to Malawi and learn how to make a whole country independent? Why don’t you not simply say to Africa - if you do not get rid of your Mugabes we will not dish food to you anymore. Without your Mugabes we are ready to come help you organize your self-help - and by god - we are really intent to help you this time.

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In total 15 EU states (out of 27) have nuclear power plants, accounting for nearly a third of electricity generated in the EU. So, 12 States do not have nuclear plants, but being part of the European grid get their electricity from such plants anyway.
Support for nuclear power in Europe growing, says commission survey
RENATA GOLDIROVA, from Brussels, for the EUobserver, July 3, 2008

Although nuclear energy continues to be a “strongly” divisive subject in the European Union, support for the controversial source of electricity generation has grown “significantly” over the last three years, a new European Commission survey suggests. A “permanent, safe solution” to managing radioactive waste seems to be the decisive factor when it comes to a possible shift in opinion about nuclear energy.

Should such a solution be found to safely storing the waste, some 39 percent of people say they would change their mind about nuclear energy, according to the poll released by the commission on Thursday (3 July). { What about the decommissioning of these plants when time has come for their closing? Do you have any solution for this problem ? }

Dutch, Belgians, Lithuanians, Britons, the French, Slovenians and Finns are the most open to new arguments. Half the opponents in these countries would change their view regarding nuclear energy should a solution to waste be developed.

However, 48 percent of Europeans - mainly in Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Portugal and Germany - would stick to a firm No irrespective of any solution to waste. Eight percent are convinced there is no solution to be found. The European Commission itself stopped short of saying what a permanent and safe solution should be, saying it instead is promoting expert discussion on the issue.

Brussels has recently set up a high-level group designed to establish common criteria on ways how radioactive waste should be treated. One of the possible methods discussed has been “geological storage facilities”, currently used in Finland, the commission spokesperson said.

He also referred to a piece of EU legislation on radioactive waste that “is still on the table of the council [representing EU capitals] and has not been addressed”.

According to the survey, 93 percent of Europeans say a solution for high level radioactive waste “should be developed now and not left for future generations”.

In general, some 44 percent of Europeans express support for nuclear energy, while a nearly identical number, 45 percent, oppose it. The figures represent quite a shift in views compared to 2005, when 37 percent of people were in favour and 55 percent were against nuclear power.

There is a clear link between the level of citizens’ support and whether their home country operates nuclear power plants. The Czechs, Lithuanians and Hungarians are most in favour.

Currently, 15 EU states have nuclear power plants - something that accounts for nearly a third of the electricity generated in the EU.

The current European Commission, under the leadership of Jose Manuel Barroso, has not shied away from supporting the nuclear path, a controversial option in many parts of Europe. Brussels says that nuclear energy has a role to play in meeting the EU’s growing concerns about security of supply and CO2 emission reductions.

Food Crisis Accelerates Africa’s Rural-Urban Drift, UN Says.
By Eric Ombok

June 19 (Bloomberg) — Stagnating agricultural production in Africa is fueling a population drift from rural areas to the cities that may lead to civil unrest, the head of the United Nations Human Settlements Program, Anna Tibaijuka, said.

“If we do not secure the African farming system, all these people will be heading to urban areas,” Tibaijuka told a regional meeting of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization today in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. “Where are the hungry? Where are the rioters? You will find most of them in urban areas.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the Food Security Summit this month in Rome that the world needed to spend as much as $20 billion a year on agriculture to tackle a 60 percent rise in food prices over the past 18 months that has sparked riots in more than 30 countries.

The percentage of Africans living in urban areas will rise to 60 percent in the next two decades, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki told the meeting. That compares with about 37 percent as of 2004, according to the UN settlements program, known as UN- Habitat.

He called for greater investment in developing irrigation and water-supply systems, which he said could triple crop production on the continent.

Water Resources

“Unless we invest in and finance agriculture, we are unlikely to change the tide” of food insecurity, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Ombok in Nairobi via Johannesburg at  pmrichardson at bloomberg.net.

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We must repeat - go to Malawi and learn how it is done. Start with a government that wants to do it.    In case of crisis, remember, sending out food rather then teaching how to grow the local food - is just a temporary crutch that makes the recepient even more dependent on crutches. 

Malawi cultivates cash gains for its farmers.
By Alan Beattie, The Financial Times, June 10 2008

Try walking 25 kilometres carrying a 50-kilogramme bag of fertiliser on your head, as farmers in Malawi do, and you might get a sharper appreciation of the difficulties in building agricultural supply chains in Africa.

It is hard to find a country that more embodies the struggles to improve African farming. Landlocked, crowded, one of the poorest countries on earth, Malawi’s 10m semi-subsistence smallholders coax harvests of corn from poor soils in family plots averaging just half a hectare. { BUT THEY DO IT - A success story! }

Yet a nationwide experiment, and a more intensive local pilot operating as part of an international trial, have shown the gains possible from giving farmers access to inputs that their counterparts elsewhere in the world would regard as routine.

A widely-watched government subsidy scheme, which gives smallholders vouchers to buy seed and fertiliser, helped to double the harvest between 2004-05 and 2005-06, and has just helped produce another rich corn crop.

Meanwhile, in the south of the country near the high Zomba plateau, a cluster of settlements that is home to about 35,000 people has become part of the international “millennium villages project” inspired by Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and backed by the United Nations.

The millennium villagers receive intensive help across a wide range of areas such as education, healthcare and setting up small businesses. On the agricultural front they get seeds and fertiliser on a more generous basis than the nationwide government scheme, and advice to help them diversify into cash crops such as groundnuts, cabbages, tomatoes and fish farming.

Glenn Denning, who helps run the project as director of the Millennium Development Goals Centre in Kenya, says that the villages should reach sustainably higher output in five to 10 years, though the Malawi one is likely to take longer. Currently, the corn cribs in the villages are overflowing with the second successive year of bumper harvests, two or three times the national average yield, which is helping to support the project’s other aims. A school-feeding programme giving corn porridge to pupils has increased attendance at the local primary school from 380 children to 500, the headmaster says.

Esnart Kaphesi, a farmer in the millennium village, used to harvest about eight 50kg bags of corn from planting traditional varieties of seed. Having been given higher-yielding hybrid seed and 100kg of fertiliser, her crop is now 21 bags and counting.

“This year is the best yet,” she says. Her first priority is an iron roof for her house to replace the thatch. If she continues to generate surpluses she wants to open a sideline trading rice.

Connecting farmers to the cash economy requires overcoming considerable challenges in itself.

Although the Zomba villages are closer to the nearest town than many in Malawi, some farmers still have to walk or cycle 25km to buy inputs or sell produce. Some club together to hire pick-up trucks to take their crops to the market. Cecilia Natchengwa, another villager, says that the rising cost of fuel is cutting into the money to be made from selling cabbages, although they remain her most profitable cash crop.

Whether the schemes of subsidised inputs are sustainable, or indeed applicable, elsewhere in Africa, remains in question. The national voucher scheme will be repeated for next year’s harvest. But global fertiliser prices, which largely reflect the cost of energy used to make it, will increase by 70 per cent. Ms Kaphesi estimates that, after keeping enough for her family to eat, she will be able to sell 10 bags of corn this year to raise 15,000 kwacha ($110, €70, £57).

Last year, that would have been enough to buy the seed and fertiliser she was given, suggesting the scheme could be self-supporting. This year, fertiliser prices have doubled to K9,000 for 50kg, meaning she would not break even without the free inputs.

Experts say that it is tricky to design large-scale government interventions that correct market failures rather than add to them.

A recent review of the national subsidy programme led by Andrew Dorward, a UK academic, was generally positive – especially since the scheme now encourages private markets to develop by allowing farmers to buy their fertiliser from agro-dealers rather than the government procuring it centrally.

But Prof Dorward says great care is needed when translating lessons from Malawi to other areas in Africa such as, say, western Kenya, which have better access to ports and more scope for agribusinesses to penetrate rural areas on their own.

“Input subsidies may also be appropriate here, but would need to be implemented very carefully to build on and strengthen the existing demand and supply systems,” he says.

Mr Denning is enthusiastic about the Malawian voucher scheme, but refers to the experience as “an inspiration rather than a model”.

The UK’s Department for International Development is one of Malawi’s biggest donors, and after much internal debate has continued to support the programme.

However, it is cautious about replicating it. Douglas Alexander, international development secretary, says: “I would not at this stage say the lesson is to increase agricultural subsidies across Africa.”

{ ??? - are the donors to stop short from getting Africa on its feet ? Is this because of OECD economies actually liking it if others are not able to become potential competitors? The halt-back attitude by those depicted in this article make us feel sick.  www.SustainabiliTank.info comment)}

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Hunger spreads to Ethiopia’s adults as food crisis worsens: Chronic drought, global food prices deal double blow.

Tariken Lakamu, 6, has been living on one meal a day. “I’m weak,” the child said. “I feel sick. I don’t get any food.”
 http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/…

SHASHAMANE, Ethiopia - Like so many other victims of Ethiopia’s hunger crisis, Usheto Beriso weighs just half of what he should. He is always cold and swaddled in a blanket. His limbs are stick-thin.

But Usheto is not the typical face of Ethiopia’s chronic food problems, the scrawny baby or the ailing toddler. At age 55, he is among a growing number of adults and older children - traditionally less-vulnerable groups - who have been stricken by severe hunger due to poor rains and recent crop failure in southern Ethiopia, health workers say.

“To see adults in this condition, it’s a very serious situation,” Mieke Steenssens, a volunteer nurse with Doctors Without Borders, said as she registered the 5-foot-4 Usheto’s weight at just 73 pounds.

Aid groups say the older victims suggest there is an escalation in the crisis in Ethiopia, a country that drew international attention in 1984 when a famine compounded by communist policies killed 1 million people.

This year’s crisis, brought on by a countrywide drought and skyrocketing global food prices, is far less severe. But while figures for how many adults and older children are affected are not available, at least four aid groups said they noticed a troubling increase.

“We’re overwhelmed,” said Margaret Aguirre, a spokeswoman for the International Medical Corps, an aid agency based in Santa Monica, Calif. “There’s not enough food and everyone’s starving, and that’s all there is to it.

“Older children are starting to show the signs of malnutrition when normally they might be able to withstand shocks to the system,” she added. “What’s particularly concerning is that the moderately malnourished are soaring. It’s increasing so much that it means those children are going to slide into severe malnutrition.”

Ethiopia is not alone in suffering through the worldwide food crisis, which is threatening to push the number of hungry people in the world toward 1 billion. Last week, a UN summit of 181 countries pledged to reduce trade barriers and boost agricultural production to combat rising food prices.

But in Ethiopia, food production is hampered by drought, meaning the country has been hit with a double blow. Drought is especially disastrous in Ethiopia because more than 80 percent of people live off the land. Agriculture drives the economy, accounting for half of all domestic production and 85 percent of exports.

Sending more food is one solution, but there already is a global crunch as rising fuel prices drive up the cost of fertilizers, farm vehicle use, and transport of food to market. Biofuels, which are made from crops such as sugar cane and corn, are another contentious issue, with critics saying they compete with food crops.

The problem is echoed across Africa, from Kenya and Somalia and farther west. Exacerbating the global rise in food prices, which has sparked protests and riots in several West African nations, is an annual decline in food reserves across the high desert-like region called the Sahel, just below the Sahara Desert.

The so-called lean season that begins around June is marked by near-empty grain stores, with the next harvest not due until around September. Locust invasions and poor rains in recent years have only worsened the condition, which leads to deadly malnutrition among young children.

Aid agencies in Ethiopia are issuing desperate appeals for donor funding, saying emergency intervention is not enough. Ethiopia receives more food aid than nearly every other country in the world, most of it from the United States, which has provided $300 million in emergency assistance to relief agencies in the past year.

But despite the international help, the country is again facing hunger on a mass scale. Part of the reason, according to John Holmes, the top UN humanitarian official, is the country’s climate, chronic drought, and the large population of 78 million people.

The UN children’s agency has characterized this year’s food shortage - in which an estimated 4.5 million people are in need of emergency food aid - as the worst since 2003, when droughts led 13.2 million people to seek such aid. In 2000, more than 10 million needed emergency food.

Studies by the International Medical Corps in southern Ethiopia - the epicenter of the crisis - indicate that up to one in four young mothers is showing signs of moderate malnutrition.

Ethiopia’s top disaster response official, Simon Mechale, insists that the food situation is “under control” and will be resolved within four months. But in the countryside, there are signs that drought has taken a more serious toll.

At a recent food distribution in a village some 155 miles southwest of the capital, more than 4,000 people showed up for free wheat and cooking oil, but only 1,300 rations were available.

Harried health workers picked through the impatient crowd, sorting out the sickest children. Frantic mothers proffered their withered infants, hoping the children’s poor state would earn some food for the family.

Ayelech Daka said her 6-year-old son, Tariken Lakamu, has been living on one meal a day for the past three months.

“He was very fat three months ago,” said his mother, Ayelech said. “He was normal.”

Now, he’s skin and bones; he vomits just seconds after taking a bite of a ration offered by an aid worker. “I’m weak,” the child said. “I feel sick. I don’t get any food.”

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Amid food crisis, a growing focus on local farmers: Poor countries were discouraged by development experts for decades from pouring too much resources into agriculture, instead being told they would be wise to focus more on manufacturing, tourism and other industries and then buy a lot of imported food from rich countries. But the ongoing food crisis is changing this mindset, with poor nations now increasingly being urged to invest more in local farming to become more self-sufficient. This is a self criticism in today’s The Wall Street Journal - June 10, 2008. THAT IS THE TRUTH !!!

Defiant Mugabe threatens to expel US ambassador: “I’ll kick him out of the country.”

By Cris Chinaka, for the Independent of London, as per Reuters.
Monday, May 26, 2008

 
REUTERS
Robert Mugabe: ‘I’ll kick him out of the country’ - this about the US Ambassador.

The Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, accused the United States of political interference and threatened to expel its ambassador yesterday, as his party, Zanu-PF, began its campaign for next month’s election run-off.

Mr Mugabe also said the US State Department’s top diplomat for Africa had behaved like “a prostitute” by suggesting that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had won the elections on 29 March.

Mr Mugabe’s attacks on the American Ambassador, James McGee, and Assistant Secretary of State, Jendayi Frazer, signalled the start of his campaign for the run-off on 27 June against Mr Tsvangirai, who won the first round but fell short of an absolute majority.

“He [Mr McGee] says he fought in Vietnam, but fighting in Vietnam does not give him the right to interfere in our domestic affairs. I am just waiting to see if he makes one more step wrong. He will get out,” Mr Mugabe said at a campaign rally. “As tall as he is, if he continues to do that, I will kick him out of the country.”

Of Ms Frazer, he said: “You saw this little American girl trotting around like a prostitute celebrating that the MDC had won. A disgraceful act.”

Mr Mugabe, who has been in power since the end of white rule in 1980, routinely accuses the US and Britain of backing the MDC to punish him for seizing thousands of white-owned farms since 2000. He told supporters in Harare that the Western allies wanted to control Zimbabwe’s resources.

He also promised land to Zimbabweans who returned from South Africa. Some 3.5 million people have fled the country to escape poverty in an economy where inflation is more than 165,000 per cent; four in five adults have no job; and food and fuel are in desperately short supply.

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Tsvangirai returns and calls on Mugabe to “set the people free:” Zimbabwe’s opposition leader tells the President that attacking his supporters will not stop them voting.

By Angus Shaw in Harare
Sunday, 25 May 2008

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader and presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, returned home quietly yesterday after an absence of more than a month, stopping first to visit supporters in hospital who were targeted in an onslaught of state-sponsored violence. He then called on President Robert Mugabe to “set his people free”.

Mr Tsvangirai left six weeks ago to warn the world about impending violence. He first tried to return last weekend, but called that off after his party said he was the target of a military assassination plot. The former union leader has survived at least three assassination attempts.

Last week, a meeting of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Harare and a rally had been planned for his return. In the end, he came back in typically low-key style, speeding off in a three-car convoy to a Harare hospital where victims of political violence were being treated. “I return home to Zimbabwe with a sad heart,” he said afterwards. “I have met and listened to the stories of the innocent people targeted by a regime seemingly desperate to cling to power.”

Mr Tsvangirai faces a presidential run-off against Mr Mugabe on 27 June. Independent human rights groups say opposition supporters have been beaten and killed by ruling party thugs to ensure the 84-year-old President, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, wins the second round. He trailed the MDC leader in the first round on 29 March.

“Mugabe once led our people to freedom,” Mr Tsvangirai said. “He can now set his people free from poverty, hunger and fear” by stepping down.

The violence poses questions about whether the run-off can be free and fair, but the opposition candidate did not expect his supporters to stay away from the polls. “If Mugabe thinks he has beaten people into submission, he will have a rude shock on the 27th,” he said.

Mr Tsvangirai said farewell to his family in Johannesburg, and said it was not clear when his wife and six children would join him. Among the assassination attempts the 56-year-old has survived was one in 1997 by unidentified assailants who tried to throw him from a 10th-floor window. Last year, he was brutally assaulted by police at a “prayer rally”, and images seen around the world of his bruised and swollen face came to symbolise the plight of the opposition in Zimbabwe.

When Mr Tsvangirai left Zimbabwe early in April, he said he wanted to present regional leaders with information that Mr Mugabe planned attacks on the opposition. He then embarked on an international tour to rally support for democracy in his country. “I’m sure that we have managed to ensure an African consensus about the crisis in Zimbabwe,” he said yesterday, adding it was now time to turn his attention to rallying his supporters at home.

Since the first round of voting, 42 of his party’s “most dedicated, brightest and strongest” supporters and activists had been killed.

The MDC leader says he won the first round outright, and that official results released on 2 May, showing a run-off was necessary, were fraudulent. Asked whether he thought Mr Mugabe would be any more likely to step down in June than he was in March, Mr Tsvangirai said the run-off result would be “definitive”.

Saying that he was looking ahead to the difficult task of healing a nation “traumatised” by political violence, Mr Tsvangirai called on Zimbabweans who have fled political and economic collapse to return. At least four million Zimbabweans are abroad, most in South Africa, where they have been among the main targets in a deadly wave of anti-foreigner violence. This could also be blamed on Mr Mugabe, he said yesterday, adding: “Our crisis in this country is impacting on [neighbours’] economies and societies. The entire… region awaits a new Zimbabwe.”

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Mbeki says South Africa ‘disgraced’ by xenophobic riots as death toll rises to 50.
By Ian Evans in Cape Town
Monday, 26 May 2008

President Thabo Mbeki admitted last night that South Africa had been “disgraced” by the wave of anti-foreigner violence which has convulsed the nation.

Facing intense criticism over his government’s ineffectual handling of the attacks, Mr Mbeki said in a televised address that South Africans’ heads were “bowed” and reminded his countrymen that their economy rested on the work of migrants from across Africa.

His intervention came as police raised the official death toll from the spree of violence from 43 to 50 and said that 35,000 people had been left homeless in the fortnight since armed gangs in the squatter camps and informal settlements in the main urban centres of Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town began killing, raping, beating, stabbing and burning nationals from other African countries.

Mr Mbeki has come under fire for travelling to Tanzania for an African Union summit on Wednesday and for waiting until the same day before ordering the army on to the streets to help the police. He has also been criticised for being too out of touch to realise that the violence was in part fuelled by the lack of adequate housing and jobs for the poorest South Africans.

A front-page editorial in South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper said: “Throughout the crisis, arguably the most grave, dark and repulsive moment in the life of our young nation, Mbeki has demonstrated that he no longer has the heart to lead.”

Moeltsi Mbeki, of the South African Institute of International Affairs, who is Thabo Mbeki’s brother, said the government had lost credibility.

“Even a strong statement by somebody who has such weak authority will not convince the people. This crisis is the result of the failure of their foreign policy against Zimbabwe and they don’t want to admit that,” he said.

The Johannesburg area has borne the brunt of the trouble and most of the deaths, but seven of the nine South African provinces have reported attacks against immigrants.

Thousands of refugees and economic migrants from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi and other countries are making their escape from South Africa from bus and train stations in the transport hub of Johannesburg. But even there, armed police are guarding them from marauding gangs armed with axes and knives.

Mozambique said yesterday that 20,000 of its nationals had fled South Africa, a reverse influx which has prompted authorities there to declare a national state of emergency.

In South Africa, makeshift tented refuges have sprung up in the big urban centres to take in some of those fleeing their attackers. In Cape Town alone, 10,000 people have been displaced. Some refugees have been put up at police stations, community halls and churches, also with armed police protection, but voluntary groups complained yesterday that they, rather than the authorities, were bearing a disproportionate burden of the humanitarian relief and emergency response.

On Saturday, 400 people arrived at a Cape Town race track looking for a place to shelter after a nearby settlement was targeted. Hundreds of Zimbabweans and Somalis chased from Cape Town into the surrounding Cape Peninsula have been put up in giant marquees on a beach on the Atlantic coastline. Volunteers and local government workers have been providing blankets, clothing and food to the community at Soetwater, which police claim is too remote for local South Africans to attack.

The violence has been waged by poor South Africans who claim the refugee population, which some estimate to be as high as five million, take their jobs and dwellings and commit crime. However, police and politicians say there is also a significant element of thuggery and criminality with shops and homes looted for personal gain.

Jacob Zuma, the ANC leader and the man tipped to succeed Mr Mbeki as president, visited townships around Johannesburg yesterday. He told a rally of some 5,000 people in Johannesburg yesterday: “Fighting won’t solve your problems but will instead exacerbate them and they will therefore remain unsolved. Peace should prevail and we must engage each other on whatever issues there might be.”

On Saturday, 2,000 people marched in central Johannesburg to protest against xenophobia. Risking violence themselves, the crowd held aloft posters saying “xenophobia hurts like apartheid” and “we are all Zimbabweans”.

The president of the United Democratic Movement party, Bantu Holomisa, said yesterday that Mr Mbeki’s inquiry into the outbreak of violence needed to reveal whether a so-called “third force” was responsible for stoking the crisis. He said: “The key here would be to remove any kind of suspicion that this thing was unleashed deliberately and orchestrated by whoever. Ministers are already telling us there is a third force. Let them bring that evidence to the commission.”

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The Independent Leading article: Lessons for Mbeki.
Memorial Day in the US, Monday, 26 May 2008.

There is a terrible irony in the recent tragic events that have gripped parts of South Africa, where township residents have been turning on economic migrants, killing some and driving away thousands of others.

It lies in the fact that Thabo Mbeki’s government has bent over backwards to remain onside with the Mugabe regime in Harare, downplaying its criminal folly and blunting initiatives to rid Zimbabwe of its dictator. South Africa is now suffering the consequences of Mbeki’s policy, as Zimbabwe’s misery ripples outwards to encompass its neighbours and as millions of Zimbabweans flee their country in search of jobs and livelihoods.

Of course, there are other elements to this grim saga, starting with the inexcusable xenophobia of the men behind the violence. It is notable that not all the incomers who have borne the brunt of these thuggish attacks have been Zimbabweans. But the huge number of Zimbabwean migrants present in South Africa, estimated to be at least 3 million, is a factor in the bloodshed, placing enormous strain on the bonds holding the townships together and adding to the competition for resources.

And when the question is asked, as it should be, about why so many Zimbabweans have left their country for its neighbour, part of the answer is that the Mugabe regime remains in power, and is busy completing the ruin of Africa’s former breadbasket, with the South African president’s apparent complicity.

Loath to bow to the former colonial powers, Mbeki has shielded Zimbabwe’s venal and selfish old leader from criticism, blind to the consequences. Now that the wretched condition of Mugabe’s dissolving state has been brought to his door, one must hope the president sees this as a reminder of the need for South Africa to play a more constructive role in helping its once flourishing neighbour get back on its feet.

It is especially urgent that South Africa changes its tune on Zimbabwe now, as Mugabe heads into a run-off presidential election with his nearest rival, Morgan Tsvangirai. The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change returned to Zimbabwe for the campaign yesterday.

Arguably, this election should not be taking place; because Tsvangirai appeared to win the first round. But we are where we are. As Zimbabwe prepares to vote a second time, Mbeki must stop making excuses for his ally and start expediting rather than blocking change in Harare. If he does not, the impact of Zimbabwe’s collapse will continue to have repercussions for South Africa, and we may see more shameful scenes in South Africa’s already fragile, hard-pressed townships.

At www.SustainabiliTank.info we saw all of this coming when we watched that May 2007 Friday night, in Room #4 of the UN New York Headquarter’s Basement how South Africa led the Africans to self-immolation and the tearing down of the UN Commission for Sustainable Development by fighting for Mugabe’s Zimbabwe to take over the CSD Chairmanship for one year.

Now that year is over. The CSD is still in the pits, Mugabe is on the roll - but South Africa is in deep …. and my friends tell me that it will only get worth. They did not like what Thabo Mbeki did to it, and say that Zuma will be worse. They even told me that the Soviet Union under Stalin will be the model for next phase of the SA - that will still be led by this intermediate generation that did not study leadership through the academy of Robin Island - but still is not led by people that are true Nationalists. The problem is called corruption.

The UN Is Incapable Of Helping Solve The World’s Food Problems Like It Was Incapable To Solve Many Other Problems - This Simply Because Of Vested Interests That Will Not Allow It To Do So. The Case in Point is that When The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon was instrumental in Getting The ECOSOC President, Mr. Leo Merores from Haiti to hold May 20, 21, and 22, 2008 a three days meeting “On The Global Food Crisis,” Lots Of Presentations Were Made, But The Most Positive Ray of Hope That Could Have Been Gleaned From The Case Of Malawi, Was Relegated To A Foot-Note.

We will deal with the other stuff later, but our approach is to put up in front the positive example of Malawi, to us the poster-case of success that puts to complete shame all the other spokespeople.

So what happened to Malawi? Seemingly they decided that to succeed they must undertake self help. They stopped spending on arms, instead designed a program where they will subsidize the supply of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides to their small farmer. They knew not to give out things for free. Farmers had to pay something, but it was calculated so, that what they got for their money will be showing profit if they put in the work. And by God, work they did, and the enterprise turned into great success. Now the President of Malawi can teach the UN how to go about making Africans independent of the hand-out industry. In effect - free food that comes in as foreign aid - had the side effect of destroying the local agriculture in the first place. US and EU subsidized exports also have the same effect of making impossible the marketing of local produce.

Some countries prefer to fight the dragons, talk about Doha, and unfairness. Malawi stopped talking and went instead to work, telling the world - keep your handouts.

Having presented the Malawi case, let me now mention the May 15, 2008 panels at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development “Food Commodity Crises Caught World Napping, Say Speakers.” The meeting was chaired by Minister Francis Nhema of Zimbabwe - a neighbor of Malawi that used to be Africa’s Bread Basket and is now Africa’s Basket-Case. There the Head Of State, President Magus preferred to destroy the agriculture, being motivated in games he was playing against the land holders. He did not invent hunger, this was produced earlier by Stalin who starved the Ukrainians for exactly the same reasons. But South Africa led the other Africans to make Zimbabwe Chair of the CSD for exactly the session for which they showed least talent - the session on Land Use and Agriculture. What we got out of this was Ms. Kathleen Abdallah showing up at the UN Briefings to The Press and saying that the production of biofuels causes hunger. Neigh, hunger was there for completely independent reasons - look into the cases of Malawi and Zimbabwe for understanding.

But this is not the issue, the issue is that biofuels cut into the use of oil - and oil-sales-people do not like the concept.

If what I said in the last line looks strange to you - here what the Representative from Colombia said May 21, 2008 at the second day of the ECOSOC meeting: “Fuel prices were a big factor in pushing up food prices and generalizations about biofuel production could be misleading. Colombia produced biofuel from crops like sugar cane and palm oil which did not entail replacing food crops grown on fertile land or reducing the national food supply. On the contrary, biofuel production had dynamized the agricultural sector, generating thousands of new rural jobs, stimulating investment, research and technological development, and promoting higher productivity in under-utilized lands - he said.” These are all arguments we dealt many times on this website. what we want to note now is that this story about the biofuel-production being the culprit for the food riots, is being told now at every UN event by eager NGOs that could represent any interest you can think of. One such intervention I just described at http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2008/05… happened on May 21st, and another one, that I will be describing also (not done yet) happened on May 22nd.

The bottom line is that short term emergency aid is important - but this is not the solution to the problems of the survivors. For that, it seems the UN is lacking the capacity, because it is lacking in staff that is ready to do the right thing that is guaranteed to put them out of business.