Archive for May 12th, 2008
source: Sunday Standard
by Sunday Standard Reporter
11.05.2008 2:05:02 P
The Citizen Empowerment and Development Agency (CEDA), leapt to the defence of government stance clamouring for the public sector to aggressively support local businesses but warned that the country has to take a much more bold move to ensure that a meaningful economic citizen empowerment exercise takes place.
Thapelo Matsheka, chief executive officer of CEDA, said they take government’s directive “positively” but for a meaningful citizen empowerment to take place, the private sector also needs to play its role.
“We think that for citizen empowerment to take place, it will take both public and private sector’s involvement in their procurement exercises. Right now, a lot of decisions (in big companies) are still being done from South Africa in terms of procurement,” he said.
“For this course to move forward, we need a [continue reading]
source: Diamond Intelligence Briefs
12 May 2008
The government of Botswana has embarked upon a substantial number of important infrastructure and investment projects and initiatives in an effort to reshape the nation’s economy. As part of these projects is the creation of special hubs for diamonds, education, health, transport and the medical field.
“For the nation to derive maximum benefit from these important projects and initiatives, government and the private sector must work together to achieve a solid public private partnership and increased highly effective collaboration. These initiatives require massive injection of skills and capital by the private sector and I urge the Botswana business sector to position itself to take part in these initiatives and thereby derive maximum advantage from them,” urges Seretse Khama, President of Botswana.
“Investment into these various fields, including agriculture, has the potential of [continue reading]
source: allAfrica
AfricaFocus (Washington, DC)
ANALYSIS
11 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Washington, DC
“Attempts to take matters outside of the United Nations (UN), such as at G7/8 meetings or at the World Economic Forum, have not been inclusive or democratic. The UN, with all its weaknesses, is still the only multilateral intergovernmental democratic institution the world has, and UNCTAD [United Nations Conference on Trade and Development] is part of that machinery…. Unfortunately, UNCTAD seems to have been further compromised in Accra.” – Yash Tandon, Executive Director, South Centre
The 12th ministerial session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, held in Accra, Ghana, from April 20-25, went virtually unnoticed by the international press, yet another indication of the declining prominence of the organization in international debates. Yet, argues analyst Yash Tandon, strengthening UNCTAD remains vital to counterbalancing the dominance of Northern countries and enhancing the negotiating power of the global South in trade negotiations.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains editorial reflections from [continue reading]
source: Mmegi
WANETSHA MOSINYI
Staff Writer
KASANE: In a mission to drive its strategy, the Botswana Innovation Hub (BIH) has identified diamond clusters as the first target area.
The Coordinator the Hub, Marianne Nganunu, said on Tuesday at the Paste 08 Seminar here that BIH was ready to partner with the mining industry in search of technologies for making the industry environmentally friendly, or green mining.BIH had also roped in the services of a Finnish consulting firm to help it become a world-class Hub.
Because Botswana had invested in fibre-optic networks within the country and in international high capacity systems through an undersea cable network to connect Africa with the rest of the world, the next target for the Hub would the Telecommunications cluster.
“The Innovation Hub will be connected to the national backbone and will provide customers with state-of-the-art telecommunication services locally and internationally,” Nganunu said.
The Botswana Innovation Hub is one of several initiatives of the Khama
Administration introduced soon after the [continue reading]
source: Bloomberg.com
By Yoshifumi Takemoto
May 12 (Bloomberg) — Japan, lagging behind China in securing minerals and energy from Africa, will help develop resources in Botswana, said Ryoichi Matsuyama, the new Japanese ambassador to the world’s largest diamond producer.
“Botswana is Japan’s last chance in Africa to engage in resource diplomacy, where China has a lead,” said Matsuyama, who will become Japan’s first envoy to the nation at the end of May.
China has diplomats in 48 African nations, double that of Japan, as the world’s most populous nation works to tap into the [continue reading]
source: Sunday Standard
by Sunday Standard Reporter
11.05.2008 1:35:30 P
Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) was this week battling to contain a copyright scandal following reports that their newly launched mobile phone company – Be Mobile – has paid close to P2 million for brand and brand advertising material that may have been stolen from Russia’s leading Cellular phone service provider, VimpelCom, operating under the multi billion dollar Beeline brand.
BTC Public Relations Manager, James Molosankwe, on Saturday maintained that “we dismiss the allegations as unfounded and damaging. The BTC mobile brand is exceptional, unique, fresh and one of its kind. However, of late, we have been made aware of some similarities in the use of some elements in the teasers campaign.”
Sunday Standard investigations have turned up information suggesting that the BTC –Be mobile- brand and brand advertising creatives may have been plagiarized from that of the Russian mobile phone company VimpelCom’s Beeline branding and brand advertising.
VimpelCom was the first Russian company to list on the New York Stock Exchange and their [continue reading]
source: Mmegi
GUMARE: President Ian Khama has re-ordered his 4Ds, putting more emphasis on Discipline among the country’s young.
He was addressing BDP Youth Wing’s Congress in Gumare on May Day.
Present at the congress were Vice President Lt Gen Mompati Merafhe, BDP Chairman Daniel Kwelagobe, Secretary General Jacob Nkate, members of the Central Committee, and Chairman of the BDP Youth Wing, Kefentse Mzwinila.
The President said: “Since this is my first public assignment as the leader of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), I have decided to use this opportunity to address all the young people of this country through this statement. I will also share with you some of the ideas I have that should further improve opportunities for our youth.
I informed the nation that my strategy will entail the 4D principle of Democracy, Development, Dignity and Discipline. I presented them in that order to [continue reading]
source: allAfrica
Business Day (Johannesburg)
12 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Dumisani Muleya And Foreign Staff
Johannesburg
ZIMBABWEANS are braced for the arrival of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Harare today, after the opposition leader was guaranteed that he would not be arrested on his return.
Tsvangirai is expected to start campaigning across the country this week after he agreed at the weekend to contest the presidential runoff against President Robert Mugabe, with conditions.
His conditions include an immediate end to post-election violence, that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) send peacekeepers to Zimbabwe, and that election and United Nations human rights monitors be present for the [continue reading]
source: Sunday Standard
by PhiLLIMON MOLAODI
11.05.2008 2:12:14 P
The Management of the newly launched Diamond Trading Company Botswana (DTCB) said this week that the historic first-ever sale of aggregated diamond mix to take place in the country was a success. In an interview with The Sunday Standard, DTCB management team, represented by Head of Sales and Marketing, Toby Frears, and Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Manager, Kago Mmopi, said the first sale, which ended this past Monday, surpassed their expectations.
“Putting up a new sale is in itself an enormous exercise. It involves a lot of things, ranging from security, catering, insurance and other logistics. You should also know that there are a lot of stakeholders involved. Apart from sight-holders, we also had officers from government,” explained Frears.
What was more intriguing about this particular sale, he said, was that there were also new people involved in the actual, which commenced last week Tuesday and ended this past Monday.
“I had a team of Key Accounts Managers, Boitumelo Nyanga and Mbuya Ntabe – who are citizens and [continue reading]
source: allAfrica
Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
11 May 2008
Posted to the web 12 May 2008
Maputo
Strong growth in Africa’s gross domestic product is expected to continue in 2008 and 2009, according to Louis Kasekende, the chief economist at the African Development Bank (ADB).
He was speaking in Maputo at the launch on Sunday of the seventh edition of the “African Economic Outlook”, a report on the health of the continent’s economy compiled by the ADB, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The launch was one of the preparatory events prior to the ADB Group’s annual meetings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in the Mozambican capital.
Kasekende put Africa’s overall growth rate at 5.7 per cent in 2007, and predicted that it would rise to 5.9 per cent this year, a rate that would remain steady in 2009.
It was particularly encouraging that growth in 31 African countries is expected to be higher than five per cent this [continue reading]
source: Sunday Standard
by Kgomotso Kgwagaripane
11.05.2008 2:07:55 P
The Chief Executive Officer of the Botswana Tourism Board, Myra Sekgororoane, has led a Botswana Tourism delegation and 42 tour operators to attend the three day INDABA fair, in Durban, South Africa, which started yesterday.
The fair will end on the 13th of May 2008.
INDABA is the largest tourism marketing event on the African calendar and one of the top three ‘must visit’ events of its kind on the global calendar. Ranging from accommodation providers to tour operators and safari companies, the fair will showcase the widest variety of Southern Africa’s best tourism products over the three day period. Indaba also attracts international visitors and media from across the world.
With the 2010 Soccer World Cup just around the corner, a lot of attention is focused on [continue reading]
source: IOL
Jani Meyer
May 11 2008 at 03:48PM
Nine Southern African countries have pooled their tourism expertise to promote the region as a brand for the 2010 World Cup, with the launch of transfrontier conservation areas at Tourism Indaba 2008 in Durban.
Boundless Southern Africa, the 2010 brand was on Saturday officially launched by Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Rejoice Mabudaffasi.
Mabudafhasi said the vision was for “it to become an authentically Southern African brand where the nine countries are united through a passion for nature, culture and community. Hence, the regional identity and character that define this single brand most completely is the reverence for the deep authentic character of our cultural and natural heritage . . . ”
Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be working together to promote the region as [continue reading]
source: Sunday Standard
by Gowenius Toka
11.05.2008 1:36:59 P
The cost of living has gone up by 30% since the last salaries review which took place in 2004, and there are fears that if Government were to top up the recently awarded 15% salary hike, Botswana’s economy would go down on its knees as a result of multiple dimensional effects of excess demand. Sunday Standard has established.
Analysts, responding to Public Service Unions’ protest against Government’s refusal to allow them a 30% hike of wages, have expressed skepticism and concern that such action would amount to miserable visitation on the unemployed and the rural poor.
Dr Imogen Mogotsi, Head of Department at the University of Botswana, said, “Given that Botswana’s inflation is not just domestically induced, any further increase carries the potential to heighten inflation to a point where it [continue reading]
source: Mmegi
RYDER GABATHUSE
Staff Writer
FRANCISTOWN: Except for a few incidents that caught the attention of the locals and the international community, the Centre for Illegal Immigrants here has been a relatively quiet place.
It was only about two years back or so when hell broke lose at the centre when some asylum seekers engaged in a protest claiming that the authorities were not granting them their wish.
A day after the incident, a Burundian asylum seeker was shot and killed for causing mayhem and failing to obey instructions to back off. He was shot and later died of bullet wounds after jumping the fence into a nogo area.
Situated off town in the Gerald Estate, the detention centre or holding centre as it is also known has now become one of the most frequented places in town. Although there is no statistics supporting this view, this multi-million facility has now become the most visited place by [continue reading]
source: News24
11/05/2008 21:03 – (SA)
Johannesburg – The African National Congress (ANC) and its alliance partners called on Sunday for an end to all violence and harassment of civilians in Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the March 29 elections.
The meeting, attended by senior members of the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), was organised to forge a better working relationship between the partners.
The alliance said in a statement after their two-day meeting in Midrand, outside Johannesburg: “We call for an end to all violence and harassment of the civilian population.
“We urge the leadership and the people of Zimbabwe assisted by SADC (Southern African Development Community) to [continue reading]
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