Kenya conservation breaking news – Another Chinese nabbed with 100 KG of blood ivory

ANOTHER CHINESE NATIONAL NABBED WITH 100 KG OF BLOOD IVORY

Airline security in conjunction with customs and police deployed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi have last night arrested yet another Chinese national, transiting in Nairobi with blood ivory in his baggage. This latest find is again attributed to the increasingly alert officers at the airport who now routinely screen even bags loaded from one flight to the next, often using sniffer dogs to discover the loot.

It appears that he was coming into Nairobi on a connecting flight from the Congo DR, where he must have bought the ivory, hoping he would get it home undetected and make a fortune with the contraband.

He was produced in court today, Friday, where charges of illegal possession of ivory were read to him before he was remanded in jail awaiting a full hearing of his case. Other charges may be added but several suspects have previously pleaded guilty, forfeited their loot and given lenient sentences before being deported.

Eastern African airport and sea ports have over the past few months recorded increased attempts to smuggle rhino horn, game trophies and in particular ivory out of the region to the Far East, where the revived economy is thought to be largely responsible in fueling demand for ivory and rhino horn and has driven poaching to a never before seen scale across Southern, Eastern and Western Africa.

The officials in Nairobi must be congratulated for their latest seizure and arrest and hopefully this will be a warning for all future wannabe smugglers, not to use Nairobi as a transit point.

Sudan news update – Bashir threatens renewed war

KHARTOUM’S REGIME THREATENS RENEWED WAR

Stung by an internal revolt last week leading to the sacking of his national security advisor, Khartoum’s regime leader Bashir, true to his colours finally shown in public again, threatened to go back to war to keep the disputed oil state of Abyei under Northern domination. This was learned overnight from a source in Juba responding to an enquiry by this correspondent. Offering more insight into the workings of the regime in Khartoum the same source then added that that Bashir’s own position in the regime was weakening following the nearly 100 percent vote for independence in the South and that he was being blamed by hardliners for the ‘defeat’. It was suggested that both Darfur, where open conflict still rages on, and the remaining Southern states of Abyei, Blue Nile and South Kordofan will be the most likely areas in the coming months where the regime will try to make a stand. While cautious of a direct military intervention, considering for instance the international involvement in Libya at present, they might once again use proxy militias, like the Janjaweed in Darfur, to wage terror on the population and keep hold of the oil reserves found in Abyei.

Meanwhile is the leadership in the South pursuing diplomatic options in enlisting the support of regional countries in Eastern Africa but also of the international community with one senior source openly saying: ‘we are seeing how the situation in Libya has brought NATO into play. Their no fly zone has helped the liberation movement to face a more level situation on the battlefield. Should Khartoum really try to go back to war, we expect something similar to happen here. We trust the international community to do the right thing this time, not like in Darfur where it took too long or here in the South were we had to fight our own battles and Khartoum bombed our villages. If Khartoum does not respect the rights of the people of Abyei in the referendum, if they deny freedom from slavery for our brothers and sisters from South Kordofan and Blue Nile, they are miscalculating very badly.’

In recent weeks a wave of Khartoum sponsored attacks by their proxy militias were taking place in some parts of South Sudan, ably defeated though by the SPLA and her allies, ahead of Independence Day which will take place on the 09^th of July with the main celebrations to be held in Juba.

Watch this space for more updates on the march to independence by Africa’s youngest emerging country.

Tanzania conservation news – MP blames ‘foreigners only’ for anti highway opposition

IT IS ONLY THE FOREIGNERS WHO ARE AGAINST THE HIGHWAY – OH REALLY

The member of parliament for Ngorongoro, one Ole Telele, raised a storm of heated arguments yesterday in Dar es Salaam during a WWF – World Wide Fund for Nature – sponsored dialogue over the pro’s and con’s of the proposed highway across the Serengeti. Clearly stung by growing criticism about the road, the MP ‘let fly’ in a series of utterances heaping blame on what he called ‘foreigners’ being opposed to the highway project. This however did not go down well with representatives of the Tanzanian tourism industry, several of whom took the member of parliament to task with facts and figures, promptly belying his argument that no locals were against the road project and the entire campaign was foreign sponsored.

Serious concern about the impact of the road on the migration of the great herds and the breeding grounds of recently re-introduced Eastern Black rhinos was raised by top tourism stakeholder representatives from TATO – the Tanzania Association of Tour Operators and also the Tourism Confederation of Tanzania, the sectoral apex body for the entire industry. They all repeated what has often been said before, that the road was likely to damage the long term future of the safari sector and called upon government to agree to an alternative route around the southern end of the Serengeti to avoid cutting off the main migration route and risking the great herds of wildebeest and zebras to dwindle into insignificance.

When closing the one day workshop the organizers acknowledged that emotions were running high over the plans and called for more dialogue between government, conservationists and the tourism private sector in order to reach a consensus and solution.

Watch this space.

Uganda news update – Libyan owned UTL suffers defeat in court

LIBYAN OWNED UTL IN DIRE STRAITS

One of the frozen assets owned by Gadaffi Libya, Uganda Telecom, has suffered a severe blow in court yesterday, when the Commercial Court delivered judgment on a pending suit brought by telecoms giant MTN against UTL over ‘interconnection fees’.

Once one of Uganda’s most promising companies, after being privatized from the former Uganda Post and Telecommunication Corporation, UTL made swift inroads into the market then dominated by MTN, and was the first to introduce a country wide 3G mobile internet network alongside their GSM communications.

However, when Gadaffi’s Libya bought into the company, amongst promises of added capital injections and turning UTL into the leading telecoms company, things began to change. The introduction of hapless Libyan appointed managers left locals stunned, and when no further money was availed to expand and further modernize the company’s network, customers became frustrated and migrated to new arrivals on the scene like Orange or returned to re-join the Airtel network which had taken over Celtel/Zain.

The court order yesterday most notably settled UTL’s call links to Southern Sudan, where in agreement with a Juba based telecoms company they permit the use of Uganda’s +256 international access code, to ensure calls would not need to route via Sudan’s +249 access code entering the country in Khartoum, where monitoring and call tapping is a happy occupation of the regime’s security agents.

Court rejected UTL’s argument that there were ‘international’ calls and upheld MTN’s argument that the use of Uganda’s international prefix clearly indicated they were local calls, with subsequently much higher interconnection fees becoming due.

UTL now has to immediately pay almost 10 billion Uganda Shillings to MTN unless they would risk a nearly 20 percent interest penalty, and with Libyan shares frozen and Libya’s financial assets unavailable, the erstwhile deep pockets of Gadaffi will no longer be able to come to UTL’s assistance.

A source overnight suggested that this could financially severely impact on UTL’s operations and the coming weeks will tell just how well they will cope. Meanwhile though, visitors to the country have plenty of choices left to hook up to a local network, with MTN, Orange, Airtel and Warid offering the widest options for voice calls while Orange, MTN and Airtel in addition offer 3+G mobile internet connections through attractively prices USB modems to allow foreign visitors to stay in touch with family, friends and business.

In a related development is the case for the winding up of RwandaTel coming up in a Kigali court shortly, where Libya’s telecom interest has suffered a crushing setback when an official receiver was installed by court last week, indicating that the company is heading for an officially ordered winding up, rendering Gadaffi’s multi million US Dollar investments worthless.