The body has however warned that the pace and extent of the recovery is not yet well established.

“The more-than-doubling of copper prices since the beginning of the year, along with some improvement in other sectors, will underpin somewhat higher GDP growth in 2009 than previously forecast and strengthen the balance of payments. The improved outlook is already being reflected in the appreciation of the Kwacha since May of this year. The recent exchange rate appreciation should, over time, help rein in inflation, as should the expected deceleration in food price increases given the bumper harvest,” the IMF which ended its visit in Lusaka at the weekend said.

The mission also noted that the shortfall in revenue in 2009 has resulted in the government accessing financing from the Bank of Zambia, supported by the increased access to IMF resources, in order to meet its capital spending targets.

The mission which was in the country to review economic developments in 2009 and the government’s plans for the 2010 budget, also noted that depending on revenue performance in the second half of the year, additional recourse to such financing may be necessary to achieve and preserve proper execution of budgeted spending.

“The authorities and the mission agreed on a framework for the 2010 budget which maintains the focus on increased spending on priority capital projects and social sectors, while remaining consistent with macroeconomic stability,” said the mission’s statement.

It further stated that the authorities and the mission had a preliminary discussion on the IMF’s recent allocation to Zambia of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) in an amount equivalent to about US$600 million, which, in the first instance, would expand Zambia’s international reserves and provide a stronger foundation for exchange rate stability going forward.

“The mission will return to Lusaka in mid-October to conduct the discussions for the 2009 Article IV consultation and the third review of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) arrangement. This will provide an opportunity to revise, if necessary, the targets of the economic programme for end-2009 and to set targets for 2010. At that time, the mission will re-assess whether Zambia would need further financial assistance from the international community,” concluded the mission statement.

Zambia was categorised as hard hit by the recent global economic crisis, with the collapse in copper prices in the second half of 2008 putting pressure on the mining sector that resulted in significant job losses. Moreover, the reduced inflows of foreign exchange, along with withdrawals by portfolio investors, led to a sharp depreciation of the exchange rate in the first months of 2009. This, in turn, led to a sharp contraction in imports and a shortfall in import-related government revenue relative to budgeted levels, according to the IMF, adding that as some donor support was also delayed, execution of spending proved to be challenging.

A total of seven undersea fibre optic cables, with an aggregate capacity of 10.94 terabytes (10,940 gigabytes), have landing stations along the entire coast line around Africa .

A panel of five telecom experts at the ongoing Telecom World Africa 2009 in Cape Town , South Africa , noted on Wednesday that even though the submarine fibre optic technology promised faster speed communication at affordable rates for Africans, there is a danger most of it will remain redundant due to low demand.

They each pointed out that the consumption of fibre optics technology was more in data and internet communication than in voice, saying that the high level of illiteracy, low access to computers, power supply bottlenecks and the inability of carriers to pay for fibre optics raised concerns about how much of fibre optics would be consumed on the continent.

Submarine fibre optic cables landing in Africa include SAT-3, 120 gigabytes, Main-one, 1.92 terabytes, Glo-one, 640 gigabytes, East African Submarine Cable System (EASSY), 1.3 terabytes, South Asia Telecom Cable (SEACOM), 1.2 terabytes, The Eastern African Marine Systems (TEAMS), 640 gigabytes, and the largest of them all, West Africa Cable System (WACS), 5.12 terabytes.

TEAMS, for instance, is being constructed at $82 million; EASSY, $235 million; Main One, $240 million, SEACOM, $600 million, whiles WACS, SAT-3 and GLO1 are equally multi-million dollar projects.

On the West Coast of Africa, SAT-3 (14,000km), WACS (14,000km) and Main one (14,000 km) connect Europe to South Africa, stretching from Portugal, with several landing stations along the western coast of Africa down to the south; Glo1 (9,500km) connects United Kingdom to Nigeria, landing in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal and Ghana.

To the East of Africa there is EASSY, which connects South Africa to Sudan , with several landing stations along the eastern coast; SEACOM (15,000km) connects France to India , with at least seven landing stations in Africa, from South Africa through the eastern coast to Egypt in the north.

TEAMS is 4,500km long and links Kenya with the United Arab Emirates, with possible landing stations in Rwanda, Southern Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi.

Price per megabyte per month of bandwidth (capacity) differs from one cable to the other; on SAT-3, for instance, a megabyte of capacity costs between $4,500 and $12,000 per month, 50 times higher than similar fibre optics capacity in the United States of America .

Meanwhile it is projected, for instance, that data costs, which now averaged between $5,000 and $7,000 per megabit of bandwidth on satellite, would be reduced drastically to $500 per megabit on fibre optics, which would be more affordable in Africa .

Ms. Lucy Quist, Head of Operations of Millicom International Cellular, operators of Tigo, said there was need for operators to create demand for the use of fibre optics, saying that convergence technologies such voice over internet protocol (VOIP) and Value Added Service (VAS) on handsets were some of the ways demand could be created.

She also urged operators to collaborate with African governments to raise the level of literacy on the continent to empower a greater proportion of the African population to be able to use modern technology extensively.

Dr. Angus Hay, Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of Neotel, said even though convergence was a step in the right direction, consumption on mobile handsets would not make much impact, adding that the supply of affordable computers to a greater number of Africans was the way forward.

“African governments also have to consider licensing more carriers to buy more of the fibre optic and spread the technology further inland,” he said.

Panellist also called for broadband internet connectivity across the length and breadth of African states to create the interest of African peoples in the internet.

Mr. Sarat Dutt Lallah, Chief Executive Officer of Mauritius Telecoms, urged African telecom operators to continue to focus on the basics; providing voice and SMS services to the majority of their customers, saying that there was no need for Africans to be carried away by modern telecommunications technology at this time.

“African telecom operators must continue to focus on the basics whiles we all make a gradual effort to bring along the 300 million illiterate people on the continent with the rest of us,” he said.

Mr. Ernest Ndukwe, Director General of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), said security was another challenge facing African countries with regard to the submarine fibre optic cables, adding that protection of the cable path from saboteurs needed to be given much consideration.

He said he was, however, confident that by the time all the submarine cables would go live in Africa , there would be use for them on the continent.

Currently, 50 per cent of SAT-3, 40 gigabytes of TEAMS and only four per cent of SEACOM have gone live; Glo-1 will go live later this year; Main-one is due in May 2010 and WACS is due in 2011.

Meanwhile, business processes outsourcing (BPO) companies in Ghana believe that huge redundant capacity of fibre optics cable would boost the country’s chances at winning more outsourcing jobs around the world.

Hojatoleslam Behrooz Biranvand the Chief of the Party of Guardianship Supporters in Lorestan said: “Velayat-e Faghih (Guardianship of the Jurist by the Supreme Leader) is a gift donated to the people and the Islamic rule by Allah”. He also stated that the most important objective of the party is “to be the militants of the Guardianship” and as well as “applying all efforts in bringing together and uniting the Islamic people in order to set the right conditions for the return of Imam Ghaem (refers to Imam Mehdi the 12th Shi’a Imam who according to the Shi’a was born in 868 AD, was hidden by God at the age of five and is still alive but has been in occultation, awaiting the time that God has decreed for his return).” He also announced that soon representatives of the party will be formed.

Shahrokhi, the political advisor of the Hezb Hamian Velayat (Party of Guardianship Supporters) in the province of Lorestan, said “The system of the Islamic Republic of Iran is a Guardianship (Velayati) system which in the absence of Imam Zaman (Imam Mahdi) is lead by the Supreme Leader (Velayat Faghih)”. While he emphasized on “the necessity to guard and protect the position of the Velayat Faghih”, he stated that “whomever is placed in the position of the Velayat Faghih, has been assigned by God and obiding the orders of the Velayat is obligatory to all muslims”.

“We have now come to the equilibrium stage. Now we are in the process of planning for the fall demand and looking to start building our stocks,” the official added.

“We have a plan to import diesel, but this is not finalized, we still have to wait to see how much our refineries can produce for the domestic market,” he said.

Criminal prosecutions against the Monitor are on the rise against the backdrop of mounting national tensions in the lead-up to general elections in 2011 reports further said.

This month, President Yoweri Museveni, who is expected to seek re-election, private broadcasters against inciting public discontent with the government.

David Kalinaki, managing editor of the Daily Monitor, and Henry Ochieng, editor of the Sunday Monitor, are both charged with forgery after the paper ran a reproduction of a leaked presidential memorandum. The Monitor had acknowledged some errors in the reproduction of the document and published a correction on 4 August 4.

The editors are free on a bail of 500,000 shillings (US$245) each, pending trial on 7 October, the newspaper reported.

In a separate case, in the northern city of Gulu, Magistrate Michael Okonya rejected a petition by Monitor reporter Moses Akena, who was charged with libel on 10 August, to suspend his trial pending the outcome of a constitutional challenge of criminal libel statutes before Uganda’s Supreme Court.

In his ruling, the magistrate amended the charges against Mr Akena to publishing false news – an offense the Supreme Court repealed in a 2004 decision, according to the defense lawyer, who further said the defense will appeal the ruling with a formal complaint to the Chief Magistrate of Gulu.

“We are alarmed by the growing crackdown on independent and critical reporting in general, and on Monitor in particular ahead of the elections,” said CPJ Africa Programme Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “We hope the Supreme Court strikes down criminal defamation laws, which would bring Uganda further in line with the practice of most democratic countries.”

Another Monitor staff, photojournalist Stephen Otage, is battling charges of “criminal trespass,” after his arrest while taking photographs of Inspector General of Government Faith Mwonda outside a courthouse on 21 July.

Ms Mwonda brought a criminal libel lawsuit against four Monitor journalists who raised questions about her salary in 2007. These four brought the Supreme Court challenge to the libel law, which has not yet been decided. In the meantime, Ms Mwonda’s lawsuit has been suspended pending the outcome, unlike in Mr Akena’s case.

The APF is a AU/NEPAD Secretariat/OECD led initiative, aiming at strengthening partnership efforts towards Africa’s development. Its upcoming special session will focus on Africa’s concerns and expectations in the negotiations on a new post-Kyoto agreement on climate change.

In his welcoming remarks, the UN Under Secretary General and ECA’s Executive Secretary Mr. Abdoulie Janneh stressed the need for Africa to address Climate change as a development priority and to strongly advocate its positions in the post-Kyoto agreement negotiations process.

Although Africa is the least responsible for climate change, the continent is being hit hard by its impact on all sectors including agriculture, water, energy and health. Discussions highlighted the fact that climate change affects economic growth and poverty reduction and therefore diminishes the prospects for achieving sustainable development in countries that are already constrained by a serious lack of adequate resources to address their development needs.

The objective of the special session is to mobilize a broad support for Africa’s position on climate change to ensure that its concerns are reflected in the outcomes of the fifteenth Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change to take in December this year in Copenhagen.

Adapting to climate change and mitigating its impact as well as financing are key challenges to be addressed by African countries. The African Partnership Forum special session is expected to generate a joint statement reflecting these concerns in the international agenda.

Radio Star is a privately-owned radio station in Bukavu, the capital of the eastern province of Sud Kivu.

JED said it regrets the fact that the journalist was buried the day after his death and without an autopsy to determine the exact nature of the murder, which would have been a good start to identifying the perpetrators as well as the motive behind the attack.

According to information obtained by JED, Chirambiza was walking home with a friend from a wedding at around 12:00 a.m. (local time), when the two were attacked by eight plainclothed people some 5 km from the journalist’s home. While Chirambiza’s friend was able to escape, Chirambiza was pursued by the attackers and stabbed in the chest. He died after being rushed to hospital by persons who heard his agonising cries.

JED expressed profound consternation over the murder, which brings the total of journalists killed in mysterious circumstances in Bukavu to three: two Radio Okapi journalists, Serge Maheshe and Didace Namujimbo, were killed on 13 June 2007 and 24 November 2008, respectively.

“JED demands that Bukavu provincial authorities take seriously the investigation into the murder, instead of simply attributing it to the general insecurity that reigns in Sud Kivu. If not, they risk supporting the impunity of those who openly attack journalists and media outlets because of their work,” the organisation said in a statement today.

The law, passed earlier this month, also strengthens inheritance rights for women and children born out of wedlock.

The head of a Muslim women’s association says only a minority of Malian women – “the intellectuals” as she put it – supports the law.

Several other protests have taken place in other parts of the country.

The law was adopted by the Malian parliament at the beginning of August, and has yet to be signed into force by the president.

One of the most contentious issues in the new legislation is that women are no longer required to obey their husbands.

Hadja Sapiato Dembele of the National Union of Muslim Women’s Associations said the law goes against Islamic principles.

“We have to stick to the Koran,” Ms Dembele told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme. “A man must protect his wife, a wife must obey her husband.”

“It’s a tiny minority of women here that wants this new law – the intellectuals. The poor and illiterate women of this country – the real Muslims – are against it,” she added.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), responsible for attacks that have wrought havoc on the OPEC member’s oil operations, said it would resume its campaign of violence on Sept. 15.

MEND, a loose coalition of militant groups, denounced the hundreds of rebels that have participated in President Umaru Yar’Adua’s 60-day amnesty programme, which aims to stem unrest in the Niger Delta.

“The ongoing amnesty programme by the government of Nigeria seems to have achieved separating those who still have the zeal to fight for our freedom from those who were in it for the money,” the group said in a statement.

MEND, which declared a 60-day ceasefire in July to allow for peace talks, said it has suspended negotiations with the government.

Hundreds of Nigerian militants earlier on Saturday surrendered their weapons, mortar bombs and gunboats during a public ceremony in the Bayelsa state capital Yenagoa.

The handover by dozens of militant groups was the largest collection of weapons and ammunition since President Umaru Yar’Adua’s 60-day amnesty programme began two weeks ago.

A CHANCE FOR PEACE

“We give up our weapons so that we give peace a chance and for all oil companies and other multinationals to come into our region to develop the place,” said Erepamutei Olotu, known as General Ogunbos, during a public handing-over ceremony.

Attacks on pipelines and industry facilities along with the kidnapping of oil workers since early 2006 have cost the world’s eighth-biggest oil exporter billions of dollars a year in lost revenues and added to volatility in global energy prices.

At the ceremony, former militant leader Ebikabowei Victor Ben, known as Boyloaf, gave a senior government official his flak jacket emblazoned with the logo of Nigeria’s most prominent militant group — the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

“As chairman of MEND in Bayelsa state, I hand over this jacket as a proclamation that we have disarmed and stand by our word. We expect the president to stand by his word and develop the Niger Delta,” Ben told a crowd of hundreds that included former militants, government officials and security officers.

Ben was among 25 former militant leaders that surrendered more than 500 weapons, dozens of rocket launchers and mortar bombs and 14 gunboats, which were on display at the ceremony.

Ben, whose group handed over the bulk of the weapons collected on Saturday, has warned that failure to develop the Niger Delta would lead to a resumption of violence.

Sceptics question whether the amnesty scheme will buy anything more than a short-term lull in the violence, saying the government has done little to create employment or training opportunities for those who do hand over their guns.

MEND has said a replacement to take over Boyloaf’s command had already been put in place, somewhat undermining the point of his departure, and other key commanders in the creeks of the delta have shown no such willingness to take part.

No mention has been made of other hardliners like Ateke Tom, Farah Dagogo or Government Tompolo — against whom the military launched its biggest campaign for years just months ago — joining the amnesty programme.

A previous attempt at disarmament under Yar’Adua’s predecessor Olusegun Obasanjo in 2004 broke down as factions argued over the money paid for their weapons. Thousands of guns were handed over but the subsequent five years were among the most violent in the history of the Niger Delta.