coupures 20juin 07 (eng)

Giant dam projects aim to transform African power supplies

By Sarah J. Wachter
Published: June 19, 2007


PARIS: As the world's political leaders debate ways to alleviate poverty in Africa, industrialists are moving ahead with their own designs for pan-African development - including the building of the world's largest hydroelectric dam at a bend in the Congo River, between Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Atlantic Ocean.
Called Grand Inga, this giant dam will cost $80 billion to build and will have twice the installed generating capacity of the current record-holder, the Three Gorges Dam in China. Grand Inga would produce enough electricity to serve all of the more than 500 million Africans who currently go without.
While it remains to be seen whether recent leaps in transmission technology are sufficient to carry electricity over Africa's vast distances and physical barriers like the blistering sands of the Sahara, power-hungry countries as far away as Egypt and Nigeria are interested in Grand Inga's potential supply.
"This is a Marshall Plan for Africa," said Gerald Doucet, secretary general of the World Energy Council, the overseer of the project, which is being developed with Westcor - a consortium of power companies from neighboring countries including Namibia, Angola and South Africa - and with international power and engineering giants, including ABB of Sweden, E.ON of Germany, EDF of France, Union Fenosa of Spain and SNC-Lavalin of Canada.
Grand Inga is one of a growing list of large dams under development or serious discussion in Africa, where private investors and development banks are re-examining the potential of "big hydro" to help counter a worsening power shortage.
The World Bank and its lending arm, the IFC, along with the African Development Bank, private investors, power companies and, increasingly, Chinese hydroelectric concerns are the major players.
The amount of hydropower under construction in Africa jumped 53 percent from 2004 to last year, according to the Hydropower & Dams World Atlas and Industry Guide, an industry reference journal. But environmental watchdogs and other nongovernment organizations say that, unlike oil and gas development, the planning process for hydropower lacks transparency and the number of dams under development in Africa is difficult to pinpoint.
Armed with a wealth of experience in constructing large hydro dams, Chinese companies are signing on to projects in many African countries, often as elements of infrastructure investment packages in oil-producing countries. For example, China plans to build and finance a $1.5 billion, 2,000-megawatt plant in the Mambila Plateau in Nigeria, in a deal that also includes Chinese imports of the country's oil and rights to exploit four oil blocks.
Apart from Chinese projects, the World Bank recently approved a $360 million package of loans and guarantees for Bujagali, a 250-megawatt hydro plant on the Nile at Lake Victoria in Uganda that will cost $799 million to build. Uganda, with the fastest growing population in East Africa, has regular rolling blackouts and only one percent of the rural population has access to electricity.
The World Bank also made a $297 million grant to refurbish two existing hydropower plants on a site near Grand Inga last month, as part of a $500 million package co-financed with the African Development Bank to repair damage and silting that occurred over the past decade, during Congo's civil wars.
"Interest in the importance of hydropower has been slowly re-emerging over the past five years," said Philippe Benoit, Inga project manager at the World Bank.
Large dams became controversial in the 1980s and 1990s as environmental and civil rights organizations focused attention on issues like the damage done to rivers, watersheds and aquatic ecosystems, poorly designed resettlement strategies, failure to share economic benefits with affected communities, weak government controls and corruption.
Compensation claims from past projects linger. For example, 50 years after the Kariba Dam was built on the Zambezi River, in what is now Zambia, 57,000 people who were resettled to make way for the dam are asking the World Bank and other parties for compensation because their new agricultural lands are less productive, according to the International Rivers Network.
To address such issues, industry associations and lending institutions have retooled their evaluation procedures for large hydro dams, and have started to apply new construction guidelines developed by a discussion forum, the World Commission on Dams. The World Bank also takes more account of environmental and social issues in its planning. It has developed a strategy to evaluate water use in all its aspects rather than considering energy production in isolation, and has established a complaints procedure for affected communities.
"Certainly within the Bank there is a trend now towards large hydro, and also internationally," said Daryl Fields, a water researcher at the World Bank. "Industry has stepped up to the plate - they are more confident that people are looking at environmental and social issues more rigorously." But environmental watchdogs, like Environmental Defense and the International Rivers Network, still question whether these new mega-dams will significantly improve electricity supplies to the rural and urban poor in Africa, or whether the power will primarily serve large industrial users and the urban affluent.
"An acceptable balance of funding and timing for energy development in rural versus urban and industrial regions has to be reached," said Terri Hathaway, Africa campaigner for IRN.
Environmentalists also say the huge investments required for giant dams will leave fewer funds available for small-scale power generation. They say micro-hydro and other renewable energy sources would be better options to increase electricity access in remote rural areas, where hooking up to the grid is economically unfeasible.
As a part of an overall funding package to increase power production in Congo, where only about seven percent of the population has access to electricity, the World Bank's money will cover construction of a new transmission line to Kinshasa, rehabilitation and extension of the electricity-distribution network, and delivery of electricity to Kinbanseke, a suburban district about 12 miles, or 20 kilometers, east of Kinshasa with 1.5 million residents.
The World Bank says that it is working with SNEL, the national power utility, to help the company develop more transparent practices and better financial procurement methods, and it is also financing a medical project to help prevent river blindness near the Grand Inga site.
Still, compensation claims stemming from the construction of the existing dams, Inga 1 and 2, have never been paid by the government, said Jacques Bakulu, leader of a local social and civil rights organization, Cepeco.
Two activist groups, Environmental Defense and Bank Information Center, which visited the neighborhood of the Grand Inga site last year, called the local climate "tense." Local organizations say they are not being adequately consulted by the project's partners.
Now the government is beginning a census to determine how many people will need to be resettled. These should include at least 8,000 people from villages near the site, Bakulu said.
It remains to be seen how a country still barely recovering from war can take on such a huge infrastructure project. Corruption continues to plague the new government of President Joseph Kabila, who shifted from heading a transitional administration to an elected one in December, forming what has been billed as the first truly democratic government in the country's history.
Despite the first signs of a return to political normality, peace is still maintained only by the most expensive peacekeeping force operated by the United Nations anywhere in the world.
The country's infrastructure, from its battered electricity system to its battered roads, keeps Congo's people among the poorest in the world.
Planning for Grand Inga is still in the early stages, and no final decision will be made until 2014. The World Energy Council and the World Bank say that they see the project advancing in tandem with government efforts to develop a national energy plan, while assuring that all necessary checks and balances will be in place to enable the project to be undertaken successfully.
"Energy projects are key to the peace process," Doucet said
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Russian court convicts killers of student from Congo
Front page / Russia



Four man were convicted of killing a student from Congo and were sentenced to prison.
The St.Petersburg City Court handed down the sentences following a guilty verdict by a jury in the 2005 slaying of Roland Epassak. The court ruled the attackers were driven by "extremist" motives.
Epassak's killing came amid a wave of attacks on dark-skinned foreigners and immigrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus region in recent years, many of them in St. Petersburg. His death prompted African students and local residents to protest against hate crimes.
Tuesday's verdict followed a repeat trial which came after a jury's decision last July to acquit the four man, which was appealed by prosecutors.
Also on Tuesday, a court in Moscow sentenced three members of a Russian neo-Nazi group to prison sentences ranging from four to six-and-half years for lethally stabbing a man heading to a rock concert, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
So far this year, 31 people were killed and another 203 wounded in apparent hate crimes, according to the Sova analytical center that monitors hate crimes.
Rights groups say authorities do little or nothing to combat xenophobia, often prosecuting hate crimes as simple hooliganism

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Uganda: Govt, DR Congo Hold Security Meeting

The Monitor (Kampala)
20 June 2007
Posted to the web 19 June 2007
Felix Basiime
Mbarara
THE leadership of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo forces last week met in Kasese district to discuss matters pertaining to the security situation of the two countries.
Military delegates from FARDC and UPDF at divisional levels met at Margherita Hotel on June 15, according to a press release by the 2nd Division army spokesman Tabaro Kiconco.
Hudson Mukasa, the UPDF 2nd Division Commander led the Ugandan delegation and chaired the meeting while the DRC side was led by Delphin Kahimbi, Deputy Commander of 8th Military Region of FARDC.
The meeting centered on steps and measures that can be put in place at operational levels to create a solid base that constitutes a permanent solution to insecurity, socio-economic and political problems. , This follows earlier recommendations made in pacts and protocols at strategic levels within the Great Lakes Region.
Col Kahimbi said the DRC was in final stages of stepping up offensives against negative forces which have turned eastern DRC into their home.
Brig. Gen. Mukasa said, "We express the commitment of the UPDF to article 3 (3) of the protocol on non aggression and mutual defence in the Great Lakes Region".
The article states that member states shall assume primary responsibility for permitting the use of their territories as a base for any form of aggression or subversion against another member. The meeting comes in the wake of worries by both sides that rebel groups like the Allied Defence Forces were penetrating the eastern DRC which poses a security threat.
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Congo-Kinshasa: CPJ Calls for Reopening of Radio Station Closed for 'Bad French'

Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
19 June 2007
Posted to the web 19 June 2007
Intelligence agents in the Democratic Republic of Congo shut down a privately owned radio station for "intoxicating the population" and "broadcasting in bad French." It was the sixth Congolese broadcaster this year to be raided by security forces over its coverage.
Radio Canal Satellite remained off the air today after a raid last Saturday by three agents of the Congolese National Intelligence Agency (ANR), according to the local press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED) and news reports.
"The world's jails would be full if bad French were a crime," said Joel Simon, CPJ's executive director. "Clearly Congolese authorities are making it up as they go along and using any pretext to shut down independent broadcasters. We call on authorities to allow Radio Canal Satellite back on the air immediately."
The agents confiscated equipment after the station's staff fled the studios fearing arrest, local journalists told CPJ. They said Canal Satellite's director, Yves Beya, had received several phone threats.
Gustave Amuri, the ANR deputy chief in Tshikapa, 405 miles (650 km) southeast of the capital Kinshasa, later accused the station of "operating without ANR documents," "intoxicating the population," and "broadcasting in bad French," according to local media.
Local journalists said Amuri cited three things in the broadcast he objected to, including a report about a pay dispute between Congolese workers and Lebanese employers in Kinshasa.
The country's press laws do not grant ANR any authority in media regulation.
Last month, CPJ named the DRC one of the world's worst backsliders on press freedom ( http://www.cpj.org/backsliders/index.html ).
CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.cpj.org
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DRC budget approval crucial for development
June 20, 2007, 06:30
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has convened a special sitting of Parliament to speed up the adoption of its first national budget since the new government was inaugurated late last year.

The $2.5 billion budget has to be adopted by both the National Assembly and the Senate before it can be signed into law by Joseph Kabila, the president. It is understood that a delay in the budgetary process could have a negative impact on the government's five year reconstruction and development programme.

The 2007 national budget was tabled in the at the end of last month. It is the first budget of the democratically elected government, and it is expected to kick start the government's five-year reconstruction and development programme. It is hoped that foreign investors will also play a critical role in rebuilding the country's economy.

Threats of war
Sporadic incidents of violence and increasing threats of war in the eastern region of the DRC, is having a negative impact on the security situation in the country. The $2.5 billion budget is mainly drawn from the country's national resources and only 40% comes from foreign donors.

Though the government has been in place for almost six months, it has not yet met the expectations of the nation. 80% of unemployed people in this country are patiently waiting for job opportunities to overcome poverty. The slow budgetary process is also delaying the reconstruction of roads, schools and hospitals.

Speed up process
Mukendi Lubilanji, the DRC director of public relations and information, says that there has been a delay in getting the budget adopted by the two houses of Parliament.

"One of the reasons for the delay is the time taken by the government to get into contact with fund backers, part of the budget comes from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank."

The special parliamentary sitting has been convened to speed up the budgetary process so as to have it adopted by the National Assembly and the Senate by the end of next month.

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Congo-Kinshasa: Bemba Left of His Own Will, Not Through Coercion



East African (Nairobi)
DOCUMENT
19 June 2007
Posted to the web 19 June 2007
Nairobi
The following is a statement from the DRC embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
WE HAVE read with great interest "Democracy suffers as Kabila pushes Bemba out," by Fred Oluoch (The EastAfrican, April 23-27). We wish to clarify a number of issues.
President Joseph Kabila did not push Jean-Pierre Bemba out as suggested by the article's heading. The departure of Mr Bemba was a result of his own decision.
Mr Bemba had written, as senator, to the Speaker of the Provision Office of the Senate to be authorised to go for treatment in Portugal. Independent to the confrontations of March 22-23, the Senate had allowed Mr Bemba 60 days' leave of absence (and not 50 as mentioned in the article).
On the allegations that after Mr Bemba left for Portugal there would be no effective opposition in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we wish to remind everyone that currently, there are more that 200 political parties in the country, including several opposition parties.
The legendary leader of opposition, Etienne Tshisekedi wa Mulumba, is still there so are Arthur Zaidi Ng'oma and Azarias Ruberwa.
It is not true that President Joseph Kabila was determined to bring the opposition leader, Mr Bemba, to justice. In all countries governed by the rule of law, there is a separation of powers, notably, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.
The outcome of the suit against Mr Bemba rests with the Public Prosecutor and not the president. So, Mr Bemba has to respond to charges of treason and insurgency.
It is true that the opposition party MLC has boycotted parliament, for the time being. However, this should be considered a democratic reaction as it can happen in any parliament all over the world, not just DRC.
It could be right that the Republican Guards of President Kabila were harassing and intimidating the MLC members and supporters. In that case, it would be one of those cases of indiscipline that are bound to happen in big cities like Kinshasa, with 10 million people.
As to the conditions the MLC gave for its return to parliament - that President Kabila withdraw the Republican Guards from Bemba's headquarters and reopen the television station owned by Bemba - we wish to state that these two premises are not occupied by the Republican Guards, they are guarded by the National Police, following the March incidents.
In the article, it is alleged that last November, President Kabila decreed that Mr Bemba and Azarias Ruberwa integrate their militia into the army immediately after which the government was to offer 15 policemen to guard them.
The president did not decree this; the truth is that this was a consensus political decision taken by all the parties present at the inter-Congolese talks in Sun City, South Africa.
In one of the paragraphs of this article, it is written, "... Kabila will try to win some acceptance in the west through Prime Minister Gizenga, a veteran politician who observers say is too old to threaten the President."
This is false since Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga is a longtime ally of President Joseph Kabila and his family.
Please note these clarifications.
Embassy of the Democratic Republic of Congo
Dar-es-Salaam,
Tanzania
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Congo-Kinshasa: Tshikapa Prison - a Mortuary



United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa)
18 June 2007
Posted to the web 18 June 2007
Veronika Hilber
When an interdisciplinary MONUC team from Kananga toured Tshikapa prison from May 23 to May 26 2007, they were witnesses to its disastrous and inhuman conditions. The detainees, convicted or accused, are condemned to death. They die of hunger.
According to the article 17 of the DRC constitution, an accused must be considered innocent until found guilty. In Tshikapa, two thirds of the prison population are accused, but without being judged, they are condemned to death.
The Congolese state doesn't have a budget to feed its prisoners, with the exception of Makala prison in Kinshasa. For this reason, prisoners everywhere in the DRC depend on the good will of people to eat.
In Tshikapa, one would have good reason to believe that there are no compassionate citizens. In this lively diamond city, the prison authorities, the town hall and civil society, including the churches, a sort of paralysis persists in relation to the problem.
Only one local NGO, ACAS, brings food two times per month. Nevertheless, to eat two times per month is better than not eating at all. By consequence, most prisoners in Tshikapa resemble skeletons. There are those that cannot manage to walk anymore, they must be carried.
The prisoners spend the day in a room too small for their numbers, as they are not allowed walk in the prison courtyard for fear of escapees, because the wall is in a bad state of repair.
In the courtyard, the septic tank is uncovered and emits unpleasant odours. For the 159 convicts , there are only three toilets. The jail doesn't have a cistern, and the convicts are obliged to take the yellow water of the Kasaï river to drink and wash in. Most prisoners remain naked, having sold their shirts in order to buy something to eat.
On the night of May 25, 2007, an accused died, having only spent one month in the prison. The reason of his death, carefully marked in a column in the prison register, was malnutrition.
The guard went then once again to the town hall to look for a sheet for the funeral. In Tshikapa, this has become routine.
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Three for the DRC
By Andrew K. Burger
17 Jun 2007 at 11:25 AM GMT-04:00
PRETORIA, South Africa (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Anvil Mining Ltd. [TSX:AVM; ASX:AVM], El Niño Ventures Inc. [TSX-V:ELN; OTCBB:ELNOF] and Tiger Resources [ASX:TGS] are ramping up their exploration programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo as political factions and the broader population tries to find a path to peaceful coexistence after the country’s first, and at times violently contested, free presidential election in 48 years.
El Niño Ventures on June 14 reported to shareholders that its Copper Mountain exploration program is underway following being granted four research permits by the DRC’s Cadastre Miner.


Covering over 350 square miles, the Copper Mountain project is located 3 kilometres west of a new discovery by Anvil Mining and 4 kilometres west of Tiger Resources’ Kipoi project.
“Our Copper Mountain Project in the DRC is located in the middle of two new discoveries by Anvil Mining and Tiger Resources,” Jean Luc Roy, El Nino’s president, stated in a media release.
“The geological trend of these two new discoveries runs right through our Copper Mountain Project and we are fast tracking our efforts to outline a new copper deposit by flying airborne geophysics and our first drilling campaign is slated for the fall 2007. El Niño Ventures joins these companies in the DRC for what is considered by most experts in the industry as the new era for copper in the DRC.”
Anvil Strikes
Willing to bank on relative stability and a favorable investment climate in the DRC, top tier mining companies such as BHP Billiton, Gecamines, Phelps Dodge and First Quantum Minerals are now developing copper projects in the DRC’s Copper Belt, an area that since the 1940s and ‘50s has been one of the largest copper and base metals producing regions in the world.
That’s a profile that places the acquisition of the three research permits right in line with El Nino’s portfolio strategy.
“This addition to our portfolio of exploration projects puts El Niño at the forefront of base metals exploration. Our Bathurst New Brunswick project with our partner, Xstrata Zinc, is starting its second year with plans to diamond drill more than 25,000 metres this year. This project, combined with our entry in the DRC, provides the company with a robust portfolio of exploration projects and we will work these projects effectively for our shareholders over the next few years,” Roy stated.
Anvil Mining on June 14 announced that it for US$1 million it had acquired an American style option to purchase two exploration licences adjacent to Gecamines’ Nambulwa exploitation permit area, for which Anvil has an amodiation/lease agreement. The prospect is located north of Anvil’s Kinsevere copper-cobalt project site.
The option’s term extends for three month period from June 12 to September 10, 2007. Anvil will acquire full ownership and title to the exploration licences free from all encumbrances and third party interests if it chooses to exercise at any time during the option’s term, according to company information.
Anvil in Production
Anvil and joint venture partner Mining Company of Katanga last month began producing copper-cobalt ingots at Kinsevere. Commissioning of a Heavy Media Separation plant and Electric Arc Furnace was announced on June 11 with the first copper concentrates were produced on June 9. The plant has a designed capacity of 500 thousand tones of ore per year or 1,370 tonnes per day.
Kinsevere’s copper concentrates will contain approximately 25% copper and will be sold locally until the Electric Arc Furnace has been completed, according to Anvil.
In addition to Kinsevere, Anvil Mining in the DRC has a majority interest in and operates the Dikulushi open pit copper-silver mine, ball mill and flotation plant with an estimated annual copper production of 20,000 tonnes copper and 1.8 million ounces silver and where underground mining is expected to commence late this year.
The company also operates and has an 80% interest in the Mutoshi coarse rejects tailings mine and Heavy Media Separation Plant, which is produced 16,500 tonnes of copper in 2006 from 28-30% oxide concentrate.
Tiger Hunts for Copper & Cobalt at Kipoi
Tiger Resources on June 8 announced assay results for five diamond drill holes to further test the extent and quality of mineralization at the Kipoi Central deposit. All the cores showed significant copper mineralization and one returned a high grade cobalt intersect of 39.6 metres at 1.54% Co and confirmed continuity of high-grade cobalt mineralization over a minimum 150 metres of strike open in all directions, according to a company media release.
The Kipoi Project, in which Tiger has a 51% interest, holds five known copper deposits hosted in a 12-kilometre segment of Upper Roan sediments. Drilling programmes have been conducted on four of the five and previously significant intervals of copper mineralisation from each over an aggregate distance of 1.5 kilometres.
Tiger launched a resource drilling programme at Kipoi Central last December of 2006 and another at Kipoi North in April this year.
“Diamond drilling results from the Kipoi Central deposit have so far delineated continuous high-grade copper oxide/sulphide mineralisation over a strike length of 550m and a zone of high-grade Cobalt mineralisation over a strike length of at least 150m,” management stated in a media release.
Kipoi Geology
Company geologists have identified high-grade cobalt mineralisation near the northern end of the Kipoi Central pit in a hanging wall of faulted contact between pyroclastic volcanic rocks and siliciclastic sedimentary rocks of the Mwashia Series.
“The contact zone strikes north/northeast-south/southwest and dips steeply to the southeast. It is marked by intense brecciation and has so far been tested over a distance of about 150 metres,” according to Tiger management. “Mapping and core logging suggest that it may be continue for at least 600m from its currently known location in the pit.”
According to Tiger, both cobalt and copper mineralisation show strong correlations to a geologic structure that is being used as a direct targeting tool for the company’s current drilling.
“While cobalt mineralisation is closely associated with the footwall zone of the Upper R4, copper mineralisation is widely dispersed over the Upper R4 sediments, which increases the prospectivity of this rock sequence in the Project area,” management reported.
Prospecting Plans
Tiger by the end of July expects to add an additional two drilling rigs at Kipoi, adding to the two already up and running there.
Two diamond rigs are completing resource drilling at Kipoi Central and Kipoi North. “Timing of the release of a resource estimate is yet to be determined as new zones of Copper/Cobalt mineralisation are being discovered at both deposits,” management stated.
A reverse circulation, RC, rig will be used to test for the strike continuation of mineralisation previously delineated at the Judeira and Kileba deposits, while an Aircore rig will be used to further explore and test anomalies generated as a result of detailed soil sampling previously undertaken to identify new zones of copper/cobalt mineralisation that may exist in between the known deposits
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