Month: November 2003

LRA Troops Murder Nine Children in Lira District

The Mail and Guardian reports that earlier this week Lord’s Resistance Army troops murdered several children they had previously kidnapped in Uganda’s Lira district,

UgandaÂ’s LordÂ’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels on Tuesday bludgeoned to death nine children they had earlier abducted as well as three others they found in a village in northern Uganda, army sources said.

This follows a week of incursions by the LRA in which more than 100 people were killed.

Source:

Children latest victims of LRA rebels. Mail and Guardian, November 24, 2003.

Nigeria to Crack Down on 419 Scammers?

Africa Online reports that Nigeria is creating a special government commission to crack down on 419 scammers.

Of course you have to remember that Nigeria is one of the largest oil exporting countries in the world, but it’s government has not been able to solve the country’s long-running gasoline shortages. So don’t expect to see much of a decline in 419 scam spam e-mails.

Source:

NIGERIA TO TACKLE INTERNET FRAUD CRIMES. Africa Online, November 28, 2003.

Group Fighting LRA Requests More Guns

Members of Parliament from Lango, Uganda, urged the government to supply more rifles to pro-government militias fighting the Lord’s Resistance Army in Lango. The LRA recently released letters promising to undertake widespread killings in Lango.

Kampala newspaper The Monitor quoted Lango member of parliament Omara Atubo as saying,

Imagine 2,000 people being given only 800 guns to fight! We appeal to government to give us more guns to counter the bigger threat the rebels pose now. As a result, many [fighters] have abandoned [the war] because they will definitely not fight with their bare hands.

According to The Monitor, the government has agreed to give guns to the Amuka Group, which is fighting the LRA in Lango, as well as the Arrow Group which is fighting the rebels in the Teso region.

Source:

Lango MPs Ask for Guns. The Monitor (Kampala), November 28, 2003.

Does UNFPA Indirectly Support Coerced Abortions?

Last July the U.S. House of Representatives voted 216-211 to deny funding to the United Nations Pouplation Fund on the grounds that its activities indirectly support China’s coercive one child policy.

In September the pro-abortion Catholices for a Free Choice sent nine investigators to China to investigate such charges. In its report, Cathlics for a Free Choice argues that coercive policies in China have declined in recent years and, in any event, the UNFPA criticizes such policies and does not actively assist them.

Yet the report also concedes that, at a minimum, China continues its highly coercive tax on those who violate its population goals. Specifiically, couples who have more than their allotted quota of children may be assessed a special tax equivalent to as much as three years’ worth of income.

Catholics for a Free Choice says that this tax is “mischaracterized” by anti-abortion groups and, besides, sometimes it isn’t even enforced!

The bottom line here is quite simple — China engages in coercive reproductive policies. Sending money to support family planning efforts there makes about as much sense as sending money to support physics programs in North Korea. By sending funds for non-coercive family planning, the United Nations Population Fund indirectly subsidizes China’s coerceive family planning efforts.

China should not receive a single cent of U.S. taxpayers money until it has renounced and abandoned coercive family planning methods.

Source:

Religious leaders visit China to investigate claims against UNFPA. U.N. Wire, September 4, 2003.

Ethiopia and the International Monetary Fund at Loggerheads Over Privatization

Ethiopian officials complained in September about International Monetary Fund requirements that it privatize several industries in order to receive further IMF aid. Ethiopia formally rejected IMF requirements that it privatize state-run telecommunications, power and water utilities.

The IMF agreed on a $190 million loan to Ethiopia in 2002 to reduce poverty in that country, and provided it with an emergency loan of $14.3 million in August 2003 to combat the effects of drought.

In a press release announcing the August loan, IMF Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chairman Shigemitsu Sugisaki said of Ethiopia’s economic performance,

Recent economic performance has been seriously affected by a severe drought in 2002, the worst in many years. As a result of the drought and a sharp drop in cereal production, real GDP declined in 2002/03, and food prices rose markedly. An estimated 12.6 million people are in need of food assistance.

Despite this shock, Ethiopia’s performance during the second annual program was broadly satisfactory. All the quantitative performance criteria and benchmarks through December 2002, as well as the indicative targets for end-March 2003, were observed. In particular, the introduction of the value-added tax was carried out in January 2003, a performance contract was signed with the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) in June 2002, and an audit of the CBE by independent auditors was completed in May 2003, after a delay of four months. The ongoing decentralization of fiscal powers to woredas (local districts), however, contributed to delays in the implementation of structural benchmarks (and HIPC Initiative completion point triggers) related to the improvement of public expenditure management.

Ethiopia apparently wants to retain a controlling interest in any utilities that it privatizes, even though at the moment the state industries represent a drain on Ethiopia’s budget.

Meanwhile, the World Bank and IMF plan to send representatives to Ethiopia by the end of November to evaluate Ethiopia’s progress in making structural changes that it agreed to in order to receive the 2002 loan.

Sources:

Ethiopia hits out at IMF. The BBC, September 1, 2003.

Ethiopia rejects IMF proposal to privatize loss-making state firms. Agence-France Press, August 31, 2003.

IMF to send experts to review EthiopiaÂ’s achievements. Tamiru Geda, CapitalEthiopia.Com, September 29, 2003.

IMF Completes Review Under Ethiopia’s PRGF Arrangement and Approves US$14.3 Million Disbursement. Press Release, International Monetary Fund, August 28, 2003.

World Bank Report Warns of Impending Central & Eastern European AIDS Crises

The World Bank released a report in September highlighting the increasing rate of HIV infection in Central and Eastern Europe, and warned that if governments there do not do more to deal with the problem, it could turn into a catastrophe for that part of the world.

The World Bank estimates that 1.2 million people in Central and Eastern Europe are currently infected with HIV, and that number is growing by as much as 25 percent annually. About a quarter million people in the region, for example, were infected with HIV in 2002. The total number of people infected with HIV in Central and Eastern Europe is expected to rise to 8 million by the end of the decade.

The World Bank warned that if that infection rate is not curtailed, it could have serious widespread effects. In a press release, the World Bank said,

An uncontrolled HIV/AIDS epidemic could have devastating consequences on health and development in ECA, the report warns. If the HIV epidemic becomes widespread among the working age groups in the region, annual economic growth rates could decline by 0.5 to 1.0 percent. The effects of this drop will be compounded by rising health expenditures, which could increase by 1-3 percent, with substantial impacts on the health budgets of poorer countries in the region. Furthermore, the dependency ratio (the ratio of non-economically active to economically active people) could rise, which would severely strain social protection systems.

Despite such warnings, some country’s in the region aren’t doing much to combat the AIDS epidemic. For example, Russia’s total spending on AIDS is less than 1 percent that of Great Britain, even though Russia has 20 times as many HIV infected individuals than Great Britain. Five hundred people a month die from AIDS-related causes in Russia, with that number projected to increase to as much as 20,000 per month by 2020.

Sources:

Europe’s looming Aids ‘catastrophe’. David Bamford, The BBC, September 16, 2003.

HIV / AIDS Epidemic in the ECA Region. World Bank, September 2003.

Averting AIDS Crises in Europe and Central Asia. Press Release, World Bank, September 16, 2003.