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Angola: African Union to Set Up Statistics Institute




Angola Press Agency (Luanda)

April 2, 2007
Posted to the web April 2, 2007

Ababa

The African Union (AU) will soon create an African Statistics Institute, whose level and headquarters are still to be defined.

According to the document of the Economic Commission for Africa (of the United Nations Economic and Social Council), made available to ANGOP this Monday in Addis-Ababa, the initiative results from the "growing pressure" of the international community and of the continent's need concerning "warrantable, updated and quality Statistics".


The intention that should be approved by the respective Governments and Heads of State is part of the draft resolution of the 40th session of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, being held since this Monday in the Ethiopian capital.

Problems relating to Statistics in Africa have been discussed various times by African officials and the last meeting on the issue happened in the Angolan capital, Luanda, in December 2006.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200704021297.html

Asean's financial swap agreement to be upgraded to multilateral pact


Asean Plus 3 finance and central bank officials have agreed to upgrade the region's financial swap agreement into a multilateral pact, aimed mainly to maximise the benefits of the growing reserves in the region.

Finance Permanent Secretary Suparut Kawatkul also said that the countries also agreed to establish the infrastructure fund within 2 years, to pool surplus reserves and invest them in much-needed infrastructure projects in the region.

"This will increase inter-dependence among the countries, said Suparut in Chiang Mai. He said through the fund, the reserves would be shifted back from US treasury bonds and assets elsewhere.

The Nation

http://nationmultimedia.com/breakingnew ... d=30031089

Remember the United "states" from 1781-1788 was states that shared money and where defended from the central government. This central government had little power to force anything on these states. After 1789 the central government became much more powerful. So there is some history for yeah.


So when you think about it almost sounds like the whole world is forming after our model of things.

Uzbekistan ratifies protocol on integration of OCAC in EurAsEC



03.04.2007, 13.42



TASHKENT, April 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Uzbekistan ratified a protocol on the integration of the Organisation of Central Asian Cooperation (OCAC) in the Eurasian Economic Community, the Uzbek presidential press service told Itar-Tass. The protocol was signed in Minsk on June 23, 2006.

“President Islam Karimov signed the law on protocol ratification after the approval in both houses of parliament, the law was published in official media outlets on Tuesday, and therefore entered into force,” the press service emphasized.

The law contains reservation clauses on the non-application in Uzbekistan of the documents specified in the addenda.

This concerns the use of water and energy resources of the Naryn-Syrdarya chain of water reservoirs in 1998 and 1999, as well as the activities of the Central Asian Bank of Cooperation and Development, as its affiliated bank “Tashkent” ceased to exist back in 2003.

The reservation clauses were introduced under Article 24 of the law on international treaties of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

The leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan founded the Organisation of Central Asian Cooperation in Almaty in February 2002. The organisation became the successor of the Central Asian Economic Community created in 1994.

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.htm ... &PageNum=0

Looky here the central Asian union is forming.

ASEAN aims to follow EU example, says RP envoy
MANILA, Philippines -- What eventually became the European Union was the first dialogue partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and this year being the 30th anniversary of the partnership, the relationship invites the question: Can ASEAN follow in EU's footsteps?
This was the main point pondered by a Filipino-led ASEAN delegation that met last month with various EU institutions headquartered in Belgium, as well as in Germany, the latter being the current holder of the EU presidency.

The tour served as an opportunity for the high-level panel to gather "insights, inspiration and perspectives" from the EU that could be applied to ASEAN's own pursuit of regional integration, according to former Philippine Ambassador Rosario Manalo.

For Manalo, chair of the task force drafting the ASEAN Charter, the willingness of each ASEAN member-state to "surrender a certain degree of sovereignty" is the key, if not the hardest step, to becoming a cohesive bloc approximating that which binds 27 European countries today.

This means the 10 ASEAN countries may have to yield to a "supranational body" which, by agreement among the members, would set a common regional policy on matters ranging from economic activity, migration, labor to energy, transportation, etc.

The national laws of each ASEAN state should then be in harmony with the policies set by the super body. In today's Europe, that entity is the European Commission, Manalo said.

ASEAN groups the Philippines, Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The fact that an ASEAN state still classifies workers coming from fellow ASEAN countries as either legal or illegal is one example of sovereignty being invoked on the issue of migration, she explained.

This would show "how far we (ASEAN) still are" from the EU, whose migration policy has given rise to the "citizen of Europe" who can work relatively anywhere in the union without being discriminated against for being a migrant worker, she said.

Another EU principle Manalo cited as relevant to ASEAN involves "Prospering Thy Neighbor," or adopting measures aimed at narrowing the gap between the poorest and richest member countries.

The EU has put up a system of funding, like money pooled from each member-country's VAT (value-added tax) collections and proceeds from agricultural activities covered by common EU policies, which may be tapped by less developed members, she said.

"This is not yet being done here, but it should be," she said in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, which joined the Task Force on the ASEAN Charter (TFAC) in Nuremberg in March on the sidelines of the 16th EU-ASEAN foreign ministers meeting.

( www.inquirer.net )
http://www.asianjournal.com/?c=186&a=19326

Africa: Pan African Unity - Can the Continent Match the Bid?





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Fahamu (Oxford)

OPINION
April 5, 2007
Posted to the web April 5, 2007

Gichinga Ndirangu


The idea of a United States of Africa is the visionary outcome of a Pan African Unity. Gichinga Ndirangu presents the case for a United States of Africa and points out some of the major stumbling blocks that need to be overcome before Nkrumah's dream of a united Africa becomes a reality.

At the upcoming African Union summit in Accra, Ghana, a proposal seeking to establish a continental union government will be debated. Accra is a symbolic, if not significant host for this debate. It was here that Ghana's founding father, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, first pitched for Pan African unity in his famous exhortation that Ghana's independence counted for less unless, and until, the entire continent was liberated. It was Nkrumah's view that in the absence of forging a common united front, Africa would remain shackled to neo-colonialism.


It was the period preceding the re-launch of the African Union in 2002 which witnessed renewed debate on Pan African unity. Libyan strongman, Muammar Gaddafi, then an intractable opponent of western imperialism, challenged African leaders to unite across common purpose and chart their destiny unshackled by the West. Gaddafi rooted for increased trade amongst Africans, the creation of common continental institutions including a federal government and the free flow of persons across borders. At its relaunch in Durban, the African Union took the sails out of Libya, reaffirming its commitment to the Pan African vision without unveiling a specific roadmap. The leadership of some of the continent's key leaders - South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo, Algeria's Bouteflika and Senegal's Sane Wade - initiated instead the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), which was seen as an attempt to develop a policy framework towards a unified vision on Africa's development and bolster, in part, Pan Africanism. NEPAD's vision was, however, restricted, being more intent on resource mobilization than on its vision for Africa's social and political cohesion. Conversely, this year's proposal for a union government revisits the attempts to consolidate Pan African political, social and economic integration and establishes important benchmarks in laying out a renewed vision for continental unity.

The hope, though not assured, across Africa, is that this year's debate will move the pan-African vision of Nkrumah beyond its fifty-year stagnation. There is no doubt that this is a debate whose time has come, not least because the union government proposal finally reaffirms the quest for uniting Africa's people across a common thread of shared values and joint purpose. Within the debate, there are many critical voices that claim to welcome the idea of African unity but caution that the hour for Pan African federalism has yet to come. In addition, Afro-pessimists within the ranks of the African Union are driven by the zeal to consolidate national sovereignty and regional hegemony rather than an outright rejection of the Pan African vision.

While hopes are high, consensus on this proposal will take time and effort given the disparity in positions as well as the high demands that will be placed upon each State to realize a union government. The AU proposal wants the union government created as a transitional arrangement preceding full political integration under the banner of the 'United States of Africa'. This transitional arrangement implies that realizing the actual Pan Africa vision calls for more work, consultation and buy-in. Even then, the transitional vision is bold in its intent and envisions the establishment of parliamentary and judicial systems, common continental financial institutions and standardized monetary policies and procedures, among others. It is these preliminary propositions that Africa's leaders will be called upon to give thought and focus to at the June summit in Accra.

After many years of internecine conflict within and between states, the need to harness Africa's potential around a unity of purpose is a necessary and overarching imperative. At the heart of it, the proposal for a union government must be directed towards Africa's transformation through creative and well-thought out strategies that advance integration and not the isolation or balkanization of any country or region.

The proposal should be used to catalyze developmental policies and programmes that are people-centred and rooted in the finest of African traditions, culture and values. The ideal of a people-centered and united Africa is one that must be welcome and advanced. It is also a prerequisite in an increasingly globalized world that has demonstrated the value in consolidating shared interests that drive policy formulation and implementation.

Not limited to political union, the proposal for a union government will also delve into the concepts and realities of potential economic integration. Colonialism bequeathed on most African states economic inequality and social inequity which have stifled the integration of Africa's economies to the world market. Intra-African trade has been constrained by weak policy and institutional support at national and regional levels and internal structural limitations, which have narrowed the scope of exploiting the continent's economic opportunities to the fullest extent. While economic integration has been a key but elusive priority for Africa's leadership since the onset of political independence, what has been lacking is the handiwork to take this goal beyond the realm of conjecture and optimism. In 1963, the Organisation of African Unity unveiled a proposal to establish a continental African common market that was expected to coalesce into a Pan-Africa community straddling the economic, social and political spheres. Both the Lagos Plan of Action and the 1991 Abuja Treaty that established the African Economic Community (AEC) spoke to the need for such an African economic union. While this level of ambition has not matured to its full intent, the African Union has continued to look upon the various Regional Economic Communities (RECs) as essential building blocs in the quest for continental economic union.
Yet within the current arrangement, there is growing concern that Africa is spreading herself thin and wide in negotiating multiple trade arrangements, which stand to undermine her own development priorities. The common view is that there is limited scope to fully harness the potential of regional integration granted that new concessions are being exerted by Africa's trading partners.

The African Union views deepening regional economic integration as an important pillar in Africa's structural transformation. Given the complexity of regional integration in Africa, there is widespread concern that the undue emphasis on trade liberalisation in the ongoing negotiations with the European Union (EU) and other trading power houses could scuttle rather than consolidate economic integration.


The truth is that trade and trade liberalisation are not an end in themselves but a means to help the continent respond to its development challenges. The ongoing trade negotiations between African countries and the EU have shown the complexity of consolidating economic ties amongst African countries which are already pressured into negotiating with the EU under new configurations outside their natural and traditional economic groupings. The regions currently negotiating with the EU have been severely disrupted by overlapping membership to different negotiating configurations. As a result, there is a risk of countries undertaking trade commitments with the EU to the detriment of their traditional trading partners with whom they may have different agreements at the regional level.

In today's new global economic dispensation, there are few alternatives to economic integration as a strategy in promoting sustainable socio-economic development. It is obvious that only by closing ranks within the framework of continental level initiatives like the African Economic Community and the African Union can Africa avoid further marginalization.

The union proposal acknowledges that African governments have made determined efforts towards consolidating regional economic blocs with the active support of the AU. But the history of consolidating continental unity is limited by many factors including the lack of political will, limited awareness among a large segment of Africa's population and increased dependence on external assistance.

The African Union must, therefore, work towards providing an appropriate framework, which strengthens partnership between national governments, peoples' representatives, civil society and other stakeholders towards promoting the continent's economic and social development.

A union government will, on the one hand, secure the continent's interests while, on the other, assert its due role in global affairs and build on the continent's collective capacity to influence world affairs from a position of unity and strength. But, the current proposal could halt in its tracks if debate is merely confined to the hallowed halls of the African Union without active buy-in from Africa's people. Since 2002, the AU has renewed momentum towards more effective and accountable governance structures. The next frontier in consolidating continental unity must involve making concerted efforts at the national level to develop institutions and processes that will advance the desired new continental architecture and which are rooted in peoples' popular participation. The debate must include the voices and perspectives of a wide range of Africa's people through the involvement of key institutions such as national and regional parliaments, civil society organizations and the media. This participation will broaden and deepen the debate that is, ultimately, about the people of Africa

* Gichinga Ndirangu is a consultant with the African Union Monitor.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
http://allafrica.com/stories/200704051004.html?page=2

Oil Fuels SouthAm Integration

Caracas, Apr 5 (Prensa Latina) As the Coal and Steel Alliance in 1951 opened the way to the European Union, oil and gas are currently analyzed as promoters of a planned South American Community of Nations.


The regional integrationist proposal will prove how ripe conditions are at an Energy Summit to be run in Venezuela on April 16-17..



The event was preceded by another experts meeting in Caracas last March on the design, implementation and monitoring of energy public policies, in charge of preparing the presidents agenda.



The aim is to evaluate effective mechanisms of regional energy integration and propose action plans and implementation of specific policies and projects.



Heads of State must review proposals in development like PETROSUR and the Great Gas Pipeline of the South, and analyze other options like bio-fuel and alternative energy sources.



According to the agenda, the summit will start in the Venezuelan island of Margarita on April 16, with a ministers meeting..



Heads of State are expected to meet on the same island on April 17, to define a regional consensus for effective energy integration.



The Margarita Summit agenda includes the analysis of actions "to implement strategic projects for the peoples social and economic welfare," in the context of the South American Community of Nations.



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PL-22

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID ... 1AC7111%7D)&language=EN

Most thoughtful observers of the contemporary American polity are astonished that the highly partisan fight over the future of Iraq has almost entirely obscured the larger problem of which the Iraqi theater is but one front: the truly global conflict against Islamofascist ideologues and their enablers that is best described as the War for the Free World.

If the ominous nature of this wider struggle to the death -- and the potentially grave implications for our society should we fail to wage it successfully -- are being lost on too many Americans, practically none of them is paying attention to yet another, in some ways even more insidious, threat to our country: the assault on our sovereignty by the "transnational progressives."

This term was coined by one of the most thoughtful defenders of American sovereignty -- that somewhat intangible, yet indispensable ingredient in a nation of the people, by the people and for the people -- Hudson Institute scholar John Fonte. In October 2002, he wrote a seminal essay in Orbis titled, "Liberal democracy vs. transnational progressivism: The future of the ideological civil war within the West." In it, he warned of the emergence of "a new challenge to liberal democracy and its traditional home, the liberal democratic nation-state."

Mr. Fonte depicts the latter as a form of government Americans take for granted: "self-governing representative systems comprised of individual citizens who enjoy freedom and equality under law and together form a people within a democratic nation-state." In our case, constitutional arrangements provide inherent "individual rights, democratic representation [with some form of majority rule] and national citizenship."

As Mr. Fonte trenchantly observed, the challenge is coming "in the form of a new transnational hybrid regime that is post-liberal democratic, and in the context of the American republic, post-Constitutional and post-American." He notes that "this alternative ideology [of] 'transnational progressivism' ... constitutes a universal and modern worldview that challenges in theory and practice both the liberal democratic nation-state in general and the American regime in particular."

Three examples of the agenda being pursued at the moment by what John O'Sullivan deprecatingly calls the "Transies" illustrate the progress of their assault on American sovereignty:

The Bush administration has launched some two-dozen "working groups" to develop a Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) with Canada and Mexico. Loosely modeled after the Transies' favorite supranational organization -- the European Union -- and evolving in much the same way (namely, under the rubric of an economic common market agreement, in this case North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement [NAFT]), the SPP's architects are busily crafting sweeping new rules to develop a North American Union (NAU).

Such rules are intended to govern trinational trade, transportation, immigration, social security, education and virtually every other aspect of life in North America. There are new institutions being proposed, too, such as a North American Tribunal with authority to trump rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.

If Congress persists in paying no attention to the emerging SPP/NAU -- which seems likely, given that most in the Democratic leadership are sympathetic to transnational progressivism, if not rabid Transies themselves -- it will soon find itself effectively out of a job.

Think that unimaginable? Consider this fact: By some estimates, as much as 85 percent of the rules, regulations and laws that govern everyday life in the U.K. have never been considered, let alone enacted, by the British Parliament. Instead, they have been handed down as edicts by the unelected, unaccountable Transies who run the European Union from Brussels.

According to the respected on-line service STRATFOR, a longstanding objective of the transnational progressives, U.S. ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), is now just a matter of time. Already, parochial business interests, U.S. Navy lawyers and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have embraced the Transies' bid to compel the United States to submit to a treaty Ronald Reagan rightly rejected, one that would make decisions affecting use of the international sea-beds and the waters above them the exclusive purview of an international organization. Apparently, the decisive argument will be that only transnational bureaucrats will be able to contend with the implications of the melting Arctic ice caps induced by global warming.

Al Gore's hobby horse is also breathing new life into the ultimate Transie project: the imposition of international taxation ("globotaxes") to finance the various causes and institutions favored by transnational progressives.

Under the rubric of taxing carbon emissions (and/or airline travel, energy flows, international commerce, arms sales and currency transactions) untold billions -- perhaps even trillions -- of dollars can be raised to pay for U.N. agencies and their activities. Though the Bush administration has professed opposition to such ideas, it has done nothing to discourage them. Such passivity may permit the final nail to be applied to the coffin of a nation-state founded on the proposition of "no taxation without representation."

At a splendid retreat held over the weekend in Santa Barbara by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, one of the Transies' nemeses, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, shed helpful light on why even Republican politicians seem so unfazed by the sacrifice of our sovereignty. He observed that, under our Constitution, it is we the people who are the sovereigns, not our government. Unless we are insistent that the latter not surrender the powers we voluntarily confer on it to the Transies' unrepresentative supranational bureaucracies, however, we will inexorably find ourselves neither sovereign, secure nor free.

By Frank J Gaffney Jr.
The Washington Times
http://www.aina.org/news/20070405085944.htm

10/04/2007 19:05 ADDIS ABABA, April 10 (AFP)
Mauritania readmitted to African Union
The African Union on Tuesday readmitted Mauritania to the pan-African organisation from which it was suspended after a coup in 2005, an AU spokesman told AFP.

"Mauritania is readmitted to the AU with full rights," said Assane Ba at AU headquarters.

In a statement, the AU Peace and Security Council said it had decided "to lift the suspension measure taken against Mauritania" on August 4, 2005 when the military overturned the regime of Maaouiya Ould Taya.

The decision came less than two weeks after Mauritania's constitutional council officially confirmed Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi as the country's first democratically elected president since independence.

Ould Abdallahi is a 69-year-old former political prisoner and ex-government minister who won 52.85 percent of the votes in a second round presidential run-off against Ahmed Ould Daddah last month.

Ba said that observers had judged the election "free and transparent".

The AU council lifted sanctions imposed on Mauritania after the August 2005 coup and thanked the members of the country's military council for having stood by their pledge of democractic rule, he added.

In the statement, the AU council noted "with satisfaction" the country's developments since the coup d'etat and "the smooth conduct of the process of democratic transition, which culminated in the presidential elections of 11 and 25 March 2007 and marked the return to constitutional order."

The council urged Ould Abdallahi "to spare no effort to consolidate the gains of the transition, strengthen the rule of law and good governance, deepen the democratic process and take all appropriate measures to reinforce national unity and cohesion," the AU statement said.

Ould Abdallahi is the first democratically elected president in Mauritania, a largely desert country in north-west Africa, since independence in 1960.

Previous presidents have seized power by force, and have been re-elected in the first round of elections marred by fraud.

The AU called on member states and foreign donors "to provide all the necessary support to the newly elected authorities," the statement said.

In addition, AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare should "support the efforts of the newly elected authorities," added the statement.

http://www.africasia.com/services/news/ ... vbpgig.php


Lanka calls for South Asian Union and common currency


President Mahinda Rajapaksa reaches out to shake hands with Nepalese Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, as Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz looks on, during the inaugural session of the 14th SAARC Summit in New Delhi, India yesterday. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup

President Mahinda Rajapaksa told the heads of South Asian countries yesterday that he strongly believed that SAARC must become a union like the EU and it was high time SAARC members adopted a single currency


Addressing the 14th SAARC summit held in New Delhi yesterday, Mr. Rajapaksa also endorsed the proposal to establish a South Asian University, which he said, should be a centre of excellence which will work towards promoting a common identity and a sense of togetherness within the SAARC region.


The President who expressed concern that SAARC has yet to realise its enormous potential said, “We badly need to be creation oriented rather than dependent on rhetoric. Therefore, all what we have endorsed over the years must, without further delay, be transformed into action.”


He said that the recent air attack at Katunayake by the LTTE must attract the attention of all to the fact that the south Asian region as a whole is not safe from barbaric terrorist groups. “I wish to appeal, therefore, to this august forum to work jointly on a counter terrorism strategy for our entire region to defeat terrorism.”


Speaking of terrorisrn, no country could sustain itself and flourish without addressing the need to maintain security and no country could afford to limit their resolve to the eradication of terrorism to a mere subset of national security. Terrorism anywhere is terrorism and is a global menace. Unless we act collectively as a region, trans-border terrorist groups will find safe havens in other parts of the region. Modern day terrorists operate in a multi-dimensional fashion. They operate politically, militarily, financially and ideologically.


Therefore our effort to curb this menace should also be multi pronged and sustained and far reaching and must include their sources of sustenance. We need to implement the provisions of the International Agreements on terrorism related matters with zest and enthusiasm, The recent air attack at Katunayake by the LTTE must attract attention of all us to the fact that our region as a whole is not safe from barbaric terrorist groups. I wish to appeal therefore to this august forum to work jointly on a counter terrorism strategy for our entire region, to defeat terrorism.


My government has placed great emphasis on eradicating terrorism and making Sri Lanka a safe place for our people. It is not lost on us, however, that terrorism, whilst needs to be suppressed, is also has to be grappled with, on a political platform.

http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/04/04/front/03.asp