ARIWO !

The Great Issues Forum: Varieties of Nonbelief

The Graduate Center, CUNY

Copyright, Blaise APLOGAN, 2010,© Bienvenu sur Babilown

Tout copier/collage de cet article sur un autre site doit en mentionner et l’origine et l’auteur sous peine d’être en infraction.

Image du Jour : Yayi le Dictateur Émergent

Copyright, Blaise APLOGAN, 2010,© Bienvenu sur Babilown

Tout copier/collage de cet article sur un autre site doit en mentionner et l’origine et l’auteur sous peine d’être en infraction.

 

 

IMF Executive Board Concludes 2010 Article IV Consultation with Benin

 

Public Information Notices (PINs) form part of the IMF's efforts to promote transparency of the IMF's views and analysis of economic developments and policies. With the consent of the country (or countries) concerned, PINs are issued after Executive Board discussions of Article IV consultations with member countries, of its surveillance of developments at the regional level, of post-program monitoring, and of ex post assessments of member countries with longer-term program engagements. PINs are also issued after Executive Board discussions of general policy matters, unless otherwise decided by the Executive Board in a particular case.

On June 14, 2010, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation with Benin.¹

Background

Following a period of strengthening growth in Benin, the global economic crisis halved real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in Benin in 2009. Weaker demand for exports, a decline in cotton prices and lower inflows of foreign direct investments reduced real GDP growth to 2.7 percent in 2009, compared with 5 percent in 2008. The deceleration was aggravated by the decline in

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Obasanjo backs Jonathan for 2011

By Kolade Larewaju

ABEOKUTA – FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday said that there was nothing wrong in President Goodluck Jonathan contesting the 2011 Presidential election.

Olusegun Obasanjo

Obasanjo spoke  in Ijebu Igbo, Ogun State, at the reception held in honor of the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Senator Jubril Martins Kuye by founder of  the Omoilu
Foundation, Mr. Buruji Kashamu.

President Obasanjo who spoke after the Senator representing Ogun East, Senator Lekan Mustapha had also called on  Jonathan to contest saying  that he had not found any reason why Jonathan should not be in office  beyond 2011 as President.

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Minority political parties dying slowly - GNA survey reveals

Accra, June 8, GNA - Eighteen months after the last general elections in Ghana (Election 2008) the vitality of minority political parties, including their contribution to national development is rapidly waning, a Ghana News Agency (GNA) survey revealed in Accra on Tuesday.
excluding the New Patriotic Party (NPP), revealed their inactivity. such as office stationery, disconnected telephone lines, and vehicles to operate.
The dormant parties include Convention People's Party (CPP), Peoples National Convention (PNC), Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), New Vision Party (NVP), Democratic Peoples' Party (DPP), and Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP).
"we are in electoral off-period".
Most of the party officials the GNA spoke to said the parties were broke, but that they could not come out openly to say this for the public to ridicule their party.

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Togo: Three Newspapers in Court for Criminal Defamation

Three managing editors of privately-owned newspapers in Lome, the capital of Togo will on June 9, 2010 reappear before a Magistrate Court over criminal charges relating to "false publication" and "criminal defamation".

The journalists, Zeus K. Aziadouvo of Liberté , Jean-Baptiste K. D. Dzilan of Forum de la Semaine and Glakpé K. Olivier of the Journal Le Correcteur have since made two appearances in court after they were arraigned on May 19.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)'s correspondent reported that the trial of the editors followed a complaint filed by the country's Inspector General of Police (IGP) over a May 8 publications that the editors carried in their respective newspapers. The newspapers had blamed two policemen of the motor traffic unit of allegedly causing the deaths of a commercial motor rider and his female passenger, after the rider had committed an offence by jumping a traffic light.

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United Nations Development Programme (New York) Benin: UNDP Helps to Set Up Solar Villages

Until recently, the villages of Hon and Koussoukpa, like many others, (100 kilometers from Cotonou, Benin's economic capital) got their light from oil lamps and candles, suffering all the damage to health and the environment. The darkness also emphasized the sense of danger and rural isolation.

Today, solar energy supplies 308 households in Hon and Koussoukpa. It is easy for residents to light their homes, charge their mobile telephones and even access educational community television .

The project is the result of a partnership between UNDP, the Association béninoise pour l'éveil et le développement, the Global Environment Facility's microfinance programme and Barefoot College, an NGO. UNDP plans to expand the initiative to a number of villages in Benin, creating rural electrification centers using solar energy or renewable energy sources.

In a few days Koussoukpa will enjoy full solar electricity coverage when another 500 hundred households get solar energy. To ensure that the initiative is continued and equipment maintained, training will be provided to students and local tradespeople.

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Togo opposition, top party make a power share deal

Togo's opposition and the ruling party say they've struck a deal to form a power-sharing government after a disputed March election.

The opposition candidate continues to claim he won the vote and is planning street demonstrations to protest the constitutional court's ruling that handed victory to Faure Gnassingbe, son of the country's longtime dictator.

But the opposition party's leader, Gilchrist Olympio, has forged ahead in negotiating a power-sharing agreement with Gnassingbe's party.

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Togolese opposition protests leader’s move to join the govt

AFP/Lome

Thousands of supporters of Togo’s main opposition party demonstrated yesterday in Lome against its leader’s agreement to join the government, which has split the Union of Forces for Change (UFC).

Protestors carried placards condemning as a “killer” the UFC’s president Gilchrist Olympio - who struck a deal this week for the party to take up seven ministerial posts under President Faure Gnassingbe.

They wore T-shirts bearing the image of UFC secretary general Jean-Pierre Fabre, who refuses to recognise Gnassingbe’s re-election in March and has denounced the deal with his government.

Other placards read “Down with the Traitors” and “The Fight Goes On.”

Olympio had said on Thursday that he had signed “on behalf of the UFC, a political agreement to participate in a government of national recovery in the spirit of power-sharing with the ruling RPT (Togolese People’s Rally) party.”

But on Friday, the UFC national bureau said it had not been consulted on the accord and was suspending Olympio, 74, temporarily from its ranks along with the seven new ministers.

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Open source marks a new era for African independence

A growing community across Africa is coding software to suit their own needs.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of 17 African states gaining independence.

Now, a wave of homegrown programmers, developers and software makers claim to be heralding a new era of African independence.

Earlier this month, the Idlelo conference, organised by the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA), brought together the continent's cleverest coding minds at Accra, in Ghana, to discuss new software opportunities in Africa.

Unlike the bigger, foreign developers - who have mainly targeted the urban markets - the coders at this event looked at how to reach the rural, relatively poorer communities of Africa.

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