Experts urge extra billion dollars to fight bird flu

World donors must extend around an extra billion dollars to fight bird flu as the deadly virus spreads to ill-prepared countries in Africa and the Middle East, experts said Tuesday.
UN avian influenza coordinator David Nabarro and World Bank economist Olga Jonas said the funding requirements would be addressed at the fourth global conference on the virus being held in Mali from December 6 to 8.
They said another 986 million to 1.3 billion dollars is needed over the next two to three years, in addition to 1.9 billion agreed by donors at the last conference held in January in Beijing.
Of the extra funding, 566 million dollars must go to Africa alone, the experts told reporters on a conference call.
"At the time of Beijing, in January 2006, the virus had not yet appeared anywhere in Africa, or in Eastern Europe, or the Middle East," Jonas said.
She said that today about 50 countries have been hit by bird flu, against only a dozen when the Beijing conference was held 11 months ago.
At next month's gathering in Mali's capital Bamako, according to Nabarro, "we'll be looking not just at the needs of Africa but that will be a central focus of the discussion".
"We have also been concerned about the capacity of Middle Eastern and African countries to respond adequately to the stresses posed by avian influenza," he said, highlighting Egypt and Nigeria in particular.
The Bamako meeting, jointly organized by Mali's government, the European Union and the African Union, will include ministers of health and those in charge of the fight against bird flu, veterinary experts and doctors from over 100 countries.
The H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, which can be transmitted to humans and is potentially fatal, has steadily spread west since it first appeared in Asia in late 2003.
In Africa, eight countries -- Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Djibouti, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Niger and Sudan -- have been affected.

Banking--------Africa’s Top 100 Banks

This year’s Top 100 African Banks rankings reveal that the continent is belatedly but determinedly following the global trend towards consolidation. The watchword is big is beautiful. South African banks, which are by far the largest in Africa both in terms of capital and assets, have been consolidating for years. Nigeria has just gone through a frenzied two-year period of mergers and acquisitions; when the dust had settled, only two dozen banks remained standing. More M&As are on the way as are partnerships with strong overseas financial institutions. With the price of oil remaining high and with that country’s non-oil sector showing growth for the first time in several years, Nigerians are anticipating an economic boom and the banks are bracing themselves to deliver. Our Cover Story therefore includes a detailed examination of the latest developments in Nigeria’s banking sector. As in previous years, we have included a region-by region overview. This special report was written by Moin Siddiqi and Neil Ford. The tables were compiled by Moin Siddiqi and Omar Ben Yedder.
African Business’ ranking for the Top 100 African Banks was based on shareholders’ funds (Tier 1 capital) as defined by the Switzerland-based Basel Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The African markets continue to present both opportunities and challenges for strategic investors and nowhere is this better reflected than in the area of the financial services industry. Economic growth in Africa is projected to exceed 5% this year and next, thus conditions are ripe for well-managed banks to perform strongly. Consolidation (as recently in Nigeria) is needed as a number of markets remain over-banked. The rationale for mergers and acquisitions is that larger banks can exploit economies of scale, reduce costs and provide their clients, both retail and corporate, with new and more efficient services – including internet banking and electronic payments.

Source http://www.africasia.co.uk/africanbusiness/ab.php?ID=1067

DVLA introduces new roadworthiness sticker

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority has introduced a new Roadworthiness Sticker to help address the duplication of the security document. The DVLA at a news conference on Tuesday introduced the new document which according to the authority, had security features that would make it difficult to duplicate. The Director of Driver Training, Testing and Licensing C. W. Musah, said the new sticker has been in circulation since Monday. According to him, vehicle owners seeking to renew their certificates from now on would be served the new stickers at the authority’s offices nationwide. He explained that the introduction of the new sticker had become necessary because of the widespread abuse of the current one.“Since the introduction of roadworthiness in this country the roadworthiness sticker has seen very little changes. As a security document, the security features in it have become very obsolete and many modern printing presses could easily reproduce it. Faking has been on a massive scale and the government is losing valuable revenue. Roadworthiness status of vehicles could no longer be guaranteed.”The DVLA was not expecting any rush by drivers and vehicle owners to acquire the new sticker since the objective was to gradually phase out the currently abused sticker. Vehicles that report to renew expired certificates would be embossed with the new sticker.Mr. Musah said the new sticker comes at no additional cost and advised motorists to deal only with officers of the authority to ensure safety.“Bearing in mind the mission of the authority – to ensure the use of roadworthy vehicles driven by qualified drivers, the authority has taken this step to safeguard the motoring public.”

Our party (NPP) Is A Terrorist Party – NPP V/R Secretary

It appears the dirty politicking and bickering that are associated with presidential races have started rearing their ugly heads in the ruling party perhaps earlier than expected.This clearly became evident when one of the big wigs of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Volta Region, Emmanuel Ashiagbor, claimed in an interview that his Party, formed by great minds and personalities,has suddenly turned to a terrorist party, and has urged President Kufuor to be wary of the development.He also asserted that President John Agyekum Kufuor is surrounded by liars, who do not present the true picture of activities within the party to the him.Mr. Ashiagbor, who is the Keta constituency secretary of the party, even went further to claim that the activities of a these liars and hypocrites are tearing the NPP apart in the Volta Region, which is regarded as the NDC’s ‘World Bank”.Highly charged and enraged Ashiagbor who was speaking in an interview with Radio Gold last Friday mentioned presidential aide, Tommy Amematekpor and the NPP regional chairman of the region, Ken Nuworsu, as the main liars who are feeding the President with wrong information about the region and has even dared the two to challenge him.Mr. Ashiagbor’s effusions were provoked by reports that one of the aspiring presidential candidates and former press secretary to the president, Kwabena Agyapong told some delegates that the President always refused to take his advise when he was press secretary to him at the Castle.The Ghanaian Chronicle newspaper had reported that during a recent meeting involving NPP stalwarts, President Kufuor took a swipe at Kwabena Agyapong for making the alleged remarks.However, in an interview, Mr. Ashiagbor maintained that the former press secretary never made such a derogatory statement about the President and blamed the detractors of Kwabena Agyapong for peddling such lies. He challenged those who reported the false allegation about Kwabena Agyapong to the President to come out with their evidence or hold their peace.According to him, the only motive of such lies is to destroy the campaign of Kwabena Agyapong and nothing else. He however warned that their evil machinations will never see the light of day. Dropping more bombshells, Mr. Ashiagbor warned that the party stands a great chance of losing the 2008 general elections if it does not do ay with the acts of deceit, lies, double standards and misrepresentations of facts to President John Agyekum Kufuor.