ARIWO !

ECOWAS ministers of defence, security meet in Abuja (

Tuesday, 16 March 2010

March 16, 2010 -- Ministers of Defence and Security in ECOWAS member state s will meet in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, for two days starting Tuesday to review and adopt the Plan of Action for the Impleme ntation of the ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), Their Ammunition and Other Related Materials as well as the Database to Manage the Exemption Process, an ECOWAS statement said. The Plan of Action is the framework for the coordinated implementation of the ECOWAS Convention for both the ECOWAS Commission and member states.   ... Read More

Statement at the Conclusion of an IMF Mission to Benin

Press Release No. 10/116
March 26, 2010

A mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) led by Joannes Mongardini, visited Cotonou during March 11-26, 2010. The mission held discussions on a program that could be supported by the IMF under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF), and conducted the 2010 Article IV consultation discussions.¹ The mission met with the President of the Republic, His Excellency Dr. Thomas Boni Yayi, the Senior Minister for Prospective, Development, Evaluation of Public Policy, and the Coordination of Government Action, Mr. Pascal I. Koupaki, Minister of Economy and Finance, Mr. Idriss L. Daouda, and other senior officials. It also held fruitful discussions with representatives of civil society, labor unions, donors, and the private sector.

At the end of the mission, Mr. Mongardini issued the following statement:

“The global economic crisis had a negative impact on Benin in 2009. Notwithstanding the authorities' countercyclical fiscal policies, real GDP growth slowed to 2.7 percent, compared with 5.0 percent in 2008. Inflation came down to an average 2.2 percent, reflecting lower food and fuel prices. Government revenues stagnated mostly because of lower trade activity. A strong fiscal adjustment effort in the second half of 2009 to align expenditures with available financing limited large expenditure overruns. However, domestically financed capital expenditures doubled, and the wage bill increased by 24 percent compared with 2008. These developments widened the overall fiscal deficit (excluding grants) to 7.0 percent of GDP, which was financed through additional budget support from the international community and domestic borrowing. On the external sector, cotton exports declined significantly reflecting lower international prices and workers’ remittances fell. As a result, the current account deficit, excluding grants, widened to 9.3 percent of GDP, compared with 7.0 percent in 2008. While the banking sector experienced some liquidity pressures in the first half of the year, as deposit growth decelerated, it overall weathered the crisis relatively well, and prudential ratios improved.”...

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Lionel Loueke : Staying true to his African roots

Full story: The Washington Post

Cotonou, an Atlantic port, is the largest city in the West African nation of Benin. It was there in the early '90s that a teenager named Lionel Loueke borrowed his brother's guitar and started playing in local dance bands. It wasn't easy. There were no accessible music schools or stores, so everything had to be learned by trial and error and by ear, usually from second-generation audio cassettes. And when one of his guitar strings broke, Loueke replaced it with a bicycle brake cable.

That early struggle was the beginning of a journey that brings Loueke's jazz trio to Blues Alley Monday night. It was a path that took him to schools in the Ivory Coast, Paris, Boston and California, won him jobs in bands led by Terence Blanchard and Herbie Hancock, and landed the guitarist a contract with Blue Note Records. Last December, Loueke got word that he'd received an unrestricted $50,000 United States Artists fellowship for the 'caliber and impact' of his work.

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Copyright, Blaise APLOGAN, 2010,© Bienvenu sur Babilown

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