Tanzania, Nigeria's Dangote reach natural gas supply deal

DAR ES SALAAM: Tanzania and Nigeria's Dangote Cement have reached a deal on the supply of natural gas to the firm's manufacturing plant in the East African country after negotiations stalled over prices, Tanzanian President John Magufuli said on Saturday.

The $500 million cement factory in the southeastern Tanzanian town of Mtwara, set up last year with an annual capacity of 3 million tonnes, runs on expensive diesel generators and has sought government support to reduce costs.

But the negotiations had stalled with the state-run Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC) saying the company was seeking "at-the-well prices".

After meeting Aliko Dangote, the company's chairman who is Africa's richest man, Magufuli blamed unspecified middlemen of interfering with supply plans and said the issue has now been resolved with gas supplies to be sold at a "reasonable" tariff.

"They (Dangote Cement) will now buy natural gas directly from the state-run TPDC instead of going through middlemen," Magufuli told journalists after the meeting.

He did not give details on the new tariff.

Dangote, Africa's biggest cement producer, has an annual production capacity of 43.6 million tonnes and targets output of between 74 million and 77 million tonnes by the end of 2019 and 100 million tonnes of capacity by 2020.

The company plans to roll out plants across Africa. In Tanzania, Dangote is seeking to double the country's annual output of cement to 6 million tonnes.

The country announced in February that it had discovered an additional 2.17 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of possible natural gas deposits in an onshore field, raising its total estimated recoverable natural gas reserves to more than 57 tcf.

REUTERS

Nigerian activist held in solitary in Japan, prompting calls for her release

  

TOKYO - A prominent Nigerian asylum seeker and activist is being held in solitary at a Tokyo detention centre, a case that has highlighted a growing crackdown on foreigners living in Japan without visas and prompted demands for her release.

Elizabeth Aruoriwo Obueza was detained two weeks ago after authorities turned down an appeal against her asylum rejection, Obueza and her lawyer told Reuters.

Obueza, 48, campaigns for asylum seekers and the 4,700 people on "provisional release" from immigration detention - a status that lets foreigners out from detention but bars them from working and travelling freely.

Obueza's arrest is part of a wider campaign by the Justice Ministry, which in September 2015 said it would take steps to reduce the 60,000 foreigners living in Japan without visas.

People on provisional release, many of whom have lived in Japan for decades, have been among those targeted, activists and lawyers say.

"Elizabeth was targeted and detained for being an activist," said immigration lawyer Shoichi Ibusuki. "I want her released immediately."

The crackdown on people like Obueza comes even as people on provisional release, despite being legally unable to work, power Japan's construction and manufacturing sectors as companies scramble to find workers in the worst labour shortage in decades.

"Elizabeth is held in solitary because she's an activist and immigration officials don't want her causing trouble," said Mitsuru Miyasako, head of the Provisional Release Association in Japan, a group representing refugees and immigrants.

"Locking someone up alone in a tiny room is to ruin them psychologically."

Naoaki Torisu, a senior Justice Ministry official overseeing immigration detention, declined to comment on Obueza's situation, saying he could not discuss individual cases.

Obueza, an evangelical Christian, said she fled Nigeria for Japan in 1991 to escape female genital mutilation and applied for asylum in 2011.

Obueza told Reuters she was locked up for more than 22 hours a day. Typically, detainees at the Tokyo Immigration Bureau, where she is held, are locked up for 18 hours a day, according to the Justice Ministry.

"I want to help people," Obueza told Reuters from across a security divide in a small meeting room at the detention centre. "Give me the right to help people - don't put me in here."

During her previous 10-month arrest in 2011 at a different centre, Obueza organised detainees to write a petition to immigration authorities calling for better medical care, Miyasako said.

For more than a decade, Obueza has visited immigration detention centres across Japan, helping detainees navigate the asylum system and find legal help, said rights groups, lawyers and former detainees.

"She has supported so many people as an activist and that's a nuisance for the immigration authorities," said Miyasako, who has worked with Obueza, adding that she had helped hundreds.

Former detainees and people on provisional release visit her in detention every day, sometimes waiting for hours, he said.

Solitary cells, usually for detainees who are ill, unruly or have tried to harm themselves, are about five square metres, detainees say.

In 2014, a Sri Lankan man died in a solitary cell at the same centre, highlighting problems with medical care.

Isolation has not stopped Obueza from fighting for detainees' rights.

"When I go outside my room, I go around the windows and talk to the others," Obueza said. "I advise them."

Obueza said of the immigration officials who locked her up: "You might think you arrested me, but I think God wants me here to help some other people."

Italian police bust Nigerian smuggling and prostitution ring

VATICAN CITY -  Police in Italy have arrested 11 Nigerians for allegedly trafficking young women and girls from Nigeria to exploit them as sex slaves.

Police Officer Antonio Salvago in the southern Italian city of Catania said on Monday that the victims underwent a voodoo rite, popularly known as 'juju' in Nigeria to bind them to their debts after they promised to pay up to 40,000 euros ($43,000) for a journey they thought would bring them to a better life in Europe.
Salvago says the rite made them obey their smugglers and pimps.

The victims, all under age 25 and some as young as 16, traveled through Libya before crossing the Mediterranean by boat with thousands of other migrants.

Catania Chief Prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro says the investigation shows that illegal immigration breeds more serious crimes of exploitation and forced prostitution.




AP

African elephants 'suffer worst decline in 25 years'

 The number of African elephants has dropped by around 111,000 in the past decade, a new report released Sunday at the Johannesburg conference on the wildlife trade said, blaming the plummeting figures on poaching.
The revelation, the worst drop in 25 years, came amid disagreement on the second day of the global meet over the best way to improve the plight of Africa's elephants, targeted for their tusks.
With Namibia and Zimbabwe, wanting to be allowed to sell ivory stockpiles accrued from natural deaths to fund community elephant conservation initiatives, Zimbabwe's Environment Minister Oppah Muchinguri rejected the "imperialistic policies" of opposing countries, branding them a "clear infringement on the sovereign rights of nations".
Both Namibia and Zimbabwe boast healthy elephant populations and their desire to sell the stockpiles is supported by South Africa.
"We need to be considerate as we make these decisions," Muchinguri told a news conference.
"CITES should be there to facilitate us to succeed in our conservation programmes rather than these imperialistic policies," she added, saying she was speaking on behalf of the southern African region that is home to three-quarters of the savannah jumbo population.
A booming illegal wildlife trade has put huge pressure on an existing treaty signed by more than 180 countries -- the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Thousands of conservationists and government officials are in Johannesburg for the 12-day gathering, seeking to hammer out new international trade regulations to protect a vast array of different species, with several proposals on whether to tighten or ease controls on the ivory trade on the agenda.
"We have been keeping this ivory for nine years and we're hoping this moratorium will be lifted so that we are able to sell this ivory or to produce jewellery, artefacts for the benefit of our people," Muchinguri said.
"We have our sovereign right and we know best what to do, how to utilise our natural resources... we should not be punished, we should be rewarded (for good conservation practices)," she added.
Based on 275 estimates from across the continent, the report released on Sunday by the IUCN conservation group put Africa's total elephant population at around 415,000, a decline of around 111,000 over the past decade.

It is the first time in 25 years that the group's African Elephant Status Report has reported a continental decline in numbers, with the IUCN attributing the losses in large part to a sharp rise in poaching.
"The surge in poaching for ivory that began approximately a decade ago -- the worst that Africa has experienced since the 1970s and 1980s -- has been the main driver of the decline," said IUCN.
IUCN chief Inger Andersen said the numbers showed "the truly alarming plight of the majestic elephant".
"It is shocking but not surprising that poaching has taken such a dramatic toll on this iconic species," she said.
Sue Lieberman, vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said the IUCN report was "yet another set of data clearly indicating that governments must take all necessary actions to address the crisis, including closing their domestic elephant ivory markets".
"It is now up to the CITES parties to carry that momentum forward (and) support the majority of African elephant range countries who are calling for closure of domestic markets," she said.
"Closing domestic markets will close off opportunities to launder illegal ivory."
Stephen Mwansa, permanent secretary in Zambia's Tourism Ministry, however, earlier castigated the proposal to ban domestic trade in ivory.
"How do you come and start regulating the domestic market? That will be extra-territorial," said Mwansa.
"That's arrogance of the highest order. It's tantamount to neo-colonialism and that we can't accept it," he told reporters on Saturday.
In 1989 CITES banned international trade in ivory by listing all African elephant populations in its appendix 1.
In 1997 and 2000, however, elephant populations in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe were downgraded to a less endangered species status -- to allow two sales of ivory stockpiles to Japan and China in 1999 and 2008.

AFP

Rangers emerge league champions in Nigeria

Rangers International FC of Enugu have emerged as champions of the Nigerian Professional League for the 2015-2016 season on Sunday after the Flying Antelopes defeated Ikorodu United 2-1 in Lagos.

The last time Rangers won the league title was in 1984, meaning the club ended a long 32-years wait to win its first title after successes in 1974, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1982 and 1984. Closest challengers Rivers United, Ifeanyi Ubah, Wikki Tourist and former champions Enyimba failed to match the Coal City consistency across the season despite losing nine matches and drawing nine, Rangers still won 17 games in 36 matches. 

Rangers league succes is a victory for perseverance and patience. The team has come close in so many occasions and would return to the continent next season to represent Nigeria in the CAF Champions League.

Moroccan woman takes late husband's bowels on flight to Austria

Basel Austrian airport officials made the "strangest find of the past year" after discovering a man's intestines being taken through customs by a female passenger.

The Moroccan woman was taking her late husband's bowels to Austria to test whether they revealed any signs of poisoning, according to a report Sunday by local newspaper Kleine Zeitung, and confirmed by an official at the Finance Ministry, which is responsible for imports.

She was carrying his remains in a plastic box under her clothing at Graz airport.
According to the newspaper, the woman's husband had died in a Morocco hospital, and she was convinced that he had been poisoned.

A criminal investigation into the incident would not be "relevant," a police spokesman said.

DPA

Buhari asks UN to help free abducted Chibok girls

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has invited the United Nations to help negotiations to exchange the kidnapped schoolgirls from Chibok for detained leaders of Boko Haram, a government statement said on Thursday.

Buhari's government has been criticized for failing to free the Chibok girls by parents of the abducted students, community leaders and human rights activists. Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of people, but the mass abduction of 276 schoolgirls in April 2014 brought international condemnation of Nigeria's home-grown Islamic extremist group. Dozens of the girls escaped, but 217 remain missing.

Buhari's request for UN intermediaries is a "show of commitment" made to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday on the sidelines of the annual UN. gathering of world leaders in New York, said a statement from presidential adviser Femi Adesina.

Buhari told Ban that his government is "willing to bend over backwards" to win the girls' freedom but finding credible Boko Haram leaders for negotiations has been difficult, especially because of the current leadership struggle among the extremists.

Longtime Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau's faction in August posted a video showing about 50 Chibok girls and offering a prisoner swap. An unidentified fighter in the video suggests the government deal with a journalist trusted by the extremists. That was an apparent reference to Dubai-based Nigerian journalist Ahmad Salkida, who was subsequently detained by Nigerian intelligence agents and released. He was accused of knowing the whereabouts of the girls, which he denied.

Last week, Information Minister Lai Mohammed said the government had nearly secured the girls' release three times but negotiations collapsed.

One activist with the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, Washington-based Nigerian Emmanuel Ogebe, said the United Nations is not a suitable intermediary since it has been a victim of Boko Haram attacks. He suggested a better choice would be France, which has helped negotiate the release of Boko Haram kidnap victims in neighboring Cameroon.

Boko Haram attacked the UN's Nigeria headquarters in Abuja, the capital, in August 2011 with a car bomb that detonated in the reception area, killing at least 21 people. Last month, the extremists launched a rocket attack on a humanitarian convoy under military escort in northeast Nigeria, wounding three people including a UNICEF worker. That caused a halt to UN aid to dangerous-to-reach areas outside Maiduguri, the biggest city in northeast Nigeria and birthplace of Boko Haram.

Most girls kidnapped by Boko Haram have been forced to marry fighters and are pregnant or have babies, according to some people freed in the past year as the military has recaptured territory.

The government has isolated the only one of the Chibok group to escape this year, saying she is receiving medical care and counseling. However, Human Rights Watch has asked whether Amina Ali Nkeki is now a detainee.

AP