Briefs
FrontLines - March 2009
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visits a USAID project to provide clean water and sanitation facilities for residents at the Petojo residential area in central Jakarta Feb. 19. Clinton, on her first trip abroad as of State, visited Japan, Korea, and China in addition to Indonesia.
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Clinton Visits USAID Project in Indonesia
Jakarta—Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited a USAID development project and pledged to increase U.S. development aid during her first overseas travel since her appointment by President Barack Obama.
During a Feb. 19 stop in Indonesia, Clinton pledged to boost U.S.-Indonesia cooperation
on climate change, trade, education, regional security, and other issues.
“I bring greetings from President Obama, who has himself said and written about the importance of his time here as a young boy,” Clinton told reporters.
She also announced plans to restart Peace Corps programs in Indonesia that were were suspended
in 1965 when volunteers
were expelled after leftists accused them of espionage.
Polls Show Hard-Line Islamists Losing Ground
Jakarta—Indonesia—the most populous Muslim nation—is abandoning hard-line Muslim parties, according to recent polls cited by the Wall Street Journal Feb. 19.
Only 7 percent of voters—down from 16 percent in 2004—favor the two largest Islamist parties
according to the latest polls for parliamentary elections in April. The elections will be followed
in July by a nationwide presidential vote.
Five years ago, extremist Islamists were attacking hotels, embassies, and nightclubs while some local governments passed Islamic Sharia laws banning alcohol and requiring women to wear headscarves.
Since then, Islamic militants have been arrested and convicted by Indonesian courts. No major attacks have taken place in the past four years and no local governments
have issued Sharia laws since 2006.
Wheat Fungus Spreads in Kenya
Great Rift Valley, Kenya—A new version of a wheat fungus is ravaging crops in Kenya and spreading beyond Africa to threaten one of the world’s principal food crops, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Stem rust, a killer that farmers
thought they had defeated 50 years ago, surfaced here in 1999, jumped the Red Sea to Yemen in 2006, and turned up in Iran last year. Crop scientists say they are powerless to stop its spread and increasingly frustrated in their efforts to find resistant plants.
Nobel Peace laureate Norman Borlaug, the world’s leading authority on the disease, said that once established, stem rust can explode to crisis proportions within a year under certain weather conditions.
“This is a dangerous problem because a good share of the world’s area sown to wheat is susceptible
to it,” Borlaug said. “It has immense destructive potential.”
Last March, the FAO confirmed
that the fungus had spread to Iran and said in a news release that “Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, all major wheat producers, are most threatened by the fungus and should be on high alert.”
Swiss Take $6M from Duvalier Accounts for Haiti Aid
Bern—The Swiss government
said Feb. 12 it will give to aid groups in Haiti some 7 million
Swiss francs ($6 million) seized from bank accounts linked to Haiti’s former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier.
The Duvalier family—ousted after a popular uprising in 1986—failed to prove a legitimate origin of the money and is therefore
not entitled to the assets, the Federal Office of Justice said.
The Swiss Foreign Ministry said it will select which aid organizations
in Haiti will receive the money for social or humanitarian
projects to benefit the Haitian population.
Haiti urgently needs food and drinking water for hundreds of thousands suffering from the impact of four tropical storms and hurricanes last year.
Switzerland banking secrecy rules have been changed, and have led to the return to Nigeria of $730 million linked to the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha.
Africa Holds Summit on Economic Crisis
Addis Ababa—Leaders at the African Union summit Feb. 3 discussed how to ride out the global economic downturn, fearful
of cuts in trade, aid, and development finance.
Leaders warned that the global downturn and record commodities prices could end years of growth in many African countries.
“Unless we act, and act now and decisively, the majority of African states could become failed or failing states over the coming decade,” said Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
African Development Bank President Donald Kaberuka warned that many infrastructure projects risked losing financing due to tightening global credit. Falling oil prices also hit exporters
such as Nigeria.
Africa’s economic growth slowed by around 1.4 percent last year to 5.4 percent, and estimates for this year are at a full point lower, the World Bank said.
Gates Foundation, Corporations Invest $90M for African Farmers
Seattle—The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said Feb. 19 it is investing $48 million
and private corporations are chipping in another $42 million to help small-scale farmers in Africa improve cocoa and cashew harvests.
“We hope to move more than 1.5 million people out of poverty in a relatively short time frame,” said Dr. Rajiv Shah, the foundation’s director of agricultural development.
Among the companies giving cash and in-kind contributions are The Hershey Co., Kraft Foods Inc., Mars Inc., Archer Daniels Midland Co., Cargill Inc., Armajaro, Olam Interna-tional Ltd., and Starbucks Corp.
Cocoa is West Africa’s largest
agricultural export and accounts for 70 percent of the world’s supply.
The Gates Foundation will hire local scientists, agriculture outreach workers, and educators to help the farmers. “We have learned that African farmers will listen to other Africans,” Shah said. “Even corporate sponsors with Western names hire local
people to work on the ground.”
From news reports and other sources.
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