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.

Ghana to host first Africa Summit for International Yoga Practitioners

Ghana is to host the first Africa Summit for the International Association of Black Yoga Teachers (IABYT) slated for August 8 to August 12 2007. The summit, which is expected to attract about 300 International Yoga Practitioners from the US, Europe, Asia and Africa, would provide the platform to create the awareness of yoga practice and its relevance to the overall development of mankind. Yoga is a form of practice that aims at improving the spiritual, mental and physical well-being of people by means of certain mental and physical exercises. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency after a Yoga Clinic to educate people about the health benefits of yoga practice in Accra on Tuesday, Mr Issah Musah Adams, Public Relations Officer of the IABYT-Ghana, said besides the summit, delegates with varying professional disciplines would take the opportunity to explore business opportunities in Ghana. “They are coming not only as Yoga Practitioners but also as businessmen and women and strategic investors to meet the Ghanaian business community, interact with them and find ways of forging partnership. “They will also tour most parts of the country especially tourist sites”, he said. Explaining the health benefits of yoga, Mr Adams said its practice had now been universally accepted as an effective complementary therapy for the cure of ailments such as heart related problems, asthma and migraine among many others. He said it helped to manage and/or alleviate stress and its related ailments as well as boost the immune system for a healthy living. “Today in a lot of universities and hospitals in the world especially in the USA, researchers have seen the need to incorporate yoga practice into the health delivery system”, Mr Adams said. He said yoga practice slowed down the aging process in terms of physical appearance and improved the life expectancy of a population which guaranteed healthy labour force for productive activities. Explaining some misconception about yoga, Mr Samuel Sasu, Executive Director of the Yoga Association in Ghana, said the practice is not a religion nor had anything to do with spiritism as some had been made to believe. He said yoga, which comes from the same root as yoke meaning to join together cuts across religion, race, colour, profession, and ethnocentrism. Mr Sasu said because of pervasion of justice, sectarian and religious interest the term yoga had been misconstrued making a lot of people to lose the true meaning and, therefore, the benefits by way of health. He traced the origin of yoga practice to Africa and said even though almost all the texts on yoga that were written in India between fifth century and 15th Century AD, historical research had confirmed that it was practised in Egypt before India.GNA

Lawyers have decided the Association must not play politics

The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) said on Tuesday that its members had decided that the Bar should not play politics and would not make any pronouncement or engage in any act that might appear to compromise its hard-won independence. It would, therefore, be slow to engage in debate on politicised issues, it said in a press release signed in Accra by Mr Kwami Tetteh, National President of the GBA. The press release was in reaction to a statement by Professor John Evans Atta Mills, Former Vice President and candidate for the presidential slot of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), expressing unhappiness at the “undue silence” of the Bar on alleged abuses of incumbency by the Government. The GBA said it had decided that it would remain a professional association and not a political party. It said at a meeting of the General Council of the Bar held on May 31, 2006, the involvement of the Bar in national debate was discussed and a decision was reached that under the current constitutional dispensation, the vibrant watchdog role of the Bar had become less dominant. The Council decided that “the focus should remain on the establishment of the Association as an institution and the improvement of professional standards at the Bar”. The press release said at the annual conference of the Bar held at Ho on October2, 2006, the decision of the Council and modality for engagement of the Bar henceforth in public was reported to members and there was no objection. “The Bar will readily make an input on intricate legal issues on matters relating to the legal profession. In expressing legal opinion on any matter, it will consider carefully the possibility of such matter going to the courts…. As a rule, the Bar will not enter into debate on any issue unless it is adequately informed on the matter.” The GBA said Ghana now enjoyed a democratic dispensation with the level of consciousness of the people remaining high. “The right to free speech now enjoyed by all must be sustained. Lawyers are, therefore, encouraged to participate in public debate if only to enhance the quality of reasoning. The Bar must not kill the participation of the ordinary man by imposing a conclusion to a public debate.”GNA

BUSAC provides 87 million cedis for garages

The Business Sector Advocacy Challenge (BUSAC) Fund has provided more than 87 million cedis for the rehabilitation of a new site for garages at Berekum. Mr Louis Acheampong, an official of the Social Support Foundation, a service provider, through which the money would be expended, announced this at a meeting convened by Pioneer Fitters Association at Berekum. He said the rehabilitation would involve the creation of a congenial working atmosphere at the new garage including the provision of access roads, electricity, water, toilets and bathhouses. Mr Acheampong explained that the assistance was aimed at getting all mechanics at Berekum to be located at the garage in order to streamline their operations. “This will involve the mobilisation and sensitisation of the mechanics through radio discussions to assist in the provision of the basic infrastructure at the new operational area,” he said. The official noted that if the mechanics were groped together at the new garage, it would also facilitate the payment of taxes and the other contributions to supplement the efforts of the District Assembly in the development of the District. Mr Moses Tweneboah, Chairman of the Association, appealed to mechanics still operating in several parts of the town to relocate at the garage so that they could all enjoy any benefit given to the Association. He explained that about four years ago, mechanics in Berekum were ordered to relocate at the new site but most of them refused because of lack of basic amenities. “Some of them have even acquired plots at the new site but have refused to develop them and move there,” he said. He expressed regret that the District Assembly had failed to honour its promise to put the place in good shape for habitation and operation.GNA