University of Ghana officials to hunt down Kofi Annan’s hecklers

Some students of the hall during a recent hall week celebration Authorities at the University of Ghana are angry at what they term unruly behaviour of students of the Commonwealth Hall who are alleged to have heckled former UN boss, Kofi Annan, during their last graduation ceremony, two weeks ago. The students heckled the former UN Secretary General, who is also Chancellor of the University, and chanted songs in his face. He suffered this along with his guests. Other parents and guests of graduands also suffered a similar ordeal from the Commonwealth Hall students. Authorities say the students’ behavior tarnished the image of the university and those found to have done so will be punished appropriately. Stella Amoah, Acting Director of Public Affairs at the university, tells Joy News they are humiliated by the occurrence and will punish all those found to have taken part. “We have had a lot of student misbehaviour in the past. Sometimes it is considered as frivolous or even out of mischief but not this one. This time, they carried their acts too far and caused a great deal of embarrassment to the motto of the university. The students came out in a very shamelessly bold attitude in the full glare of the Chancellor, His Excellency Kofi Annan to disgrace the university,” she said. “Investigations are going to be carried out and once we find who the culprits are, the university will deal with them in the way that [follows our disciplinary processes].” The University of Ghana which prides itself as Ghana’s premier tertiary institution has, over the years, had to deal with several cases of misbehavior by students. Cases of examination malpractices have been handled swiftly and the university has vowed to tackle the latest incident with the same approach. Perhaps the Commonwealth Hall students, also known as the Vandals, have the university’s biggest headache in its exercise of discipline. The mainly men hall of residence has a shrine which a few rowdy students chant war songs at. The songs, a mainly their own rendition of popular gospel songs, are sung amid loud claps and feat thumps. Source: Joy News/Ghana

Uganda toughens stance as oil bullies close in

As Uganda prepares to start commercial drilling of its oil, pressure has started setting in causing concern that the mineral may turn out to be a curse rather than a blessing like in many oil producing African countries.

President Yoweri Museveni, while delivering the State of the Nation Address at Parliament this week, said some foreigners were pushing the government to export the crude oil to the Kenyan seaport of Mombasa, where it would be refined and sold to regional and international markets.
The foreigners, who he did not name, argue that building a refinery in Uganda would be very expensive, opting for construction of an oil pipeline that will link the oil fields to the Mombasa refinery. “Some people think Africa is a playing place where you go and play games. NRM (Uganda’s ruling party) is not part of that league,” he said.

“Government is focusing on the development of a refinery to produce a wide range of petroleum products for transportation, power supply and domestic use,” he added. What is known is that the government has been locked up in negotiations with Tullow, an Irish company exploring for oil in western Uganda, on whether to set up a refinery or export the crude.

The heated negotiations have resulted into a disagreement with the oil firm threatening to postpone the oil project indefinitely, the state owned New Vision daily said on Wednesday. After seeking advice from oil producing Iran, the government has stuck to its earlier position of constructing a refinery.

According to Museveni, the government is upgrading its earlier plan of setting up a mini-refinery to setting up a larger one in view of the increasing discoveries. So far, the discovered reserves in the Albertine Graben is about 600 million barrels of oil, an amount considered viable for commercial production.

After signing a cooperation agreement in mid-May, the Iranian government agreed to fund the entire value chain of Uganda’s oil production. It has also promised to jointly fund the construction of an oil refinery and train Ugandans in relevant fields of petroleum.

While Uganda is still considering the Iranian position, the United States has said it is ready to support Uganda’s nascent oil and gas sector with anything including the key environmental issues that are crucial to the efficient management of oil and gas.

When Uganda starts to fully exploit its oil resources, its economic situation with Kenya is likely to change since Kenya has been the main supply route for its petroleum products. Analysts say the production of cheap energy using the oil resource is likely to make Uganda a destination for manufacturers.

Currently Uganda is facing an energy crisis which has forced some manufacturers to relocate to other countries in the region. Kenya would also lose tax revenue from petroleum products destined for Uganda. Road transport companies and import and export firms would also lose business.

Tamoil, a Libyan company constructing the extension of an oil pipeline from western Kenya to the Ugandan capital Kampala, has also expressed concern whether it should go ahead with the project now that Uganda is going to produce its own oil.

President Museveni, however, says Uganda will negotiate with Kenya to have a possibility of constructing the pipeline in such away that it can be used to import and export oil products.

Is the International Criminal Court unfair to Africa?

Posted by: Barry Malone

African countries often complain about getting a bad press. They say there’s much more to the continent than war and poverty and starvation. Then there’s the huge coverage given to the International Criminal Court and the fact that all four cases the body is now considering come from Africa.

But what’s strange about the complaints is that the world’s poorest continent is the most heavily represented in the ICC, with 30 member countries. In the March 2009 elections for ICC judges, 12 out of the 19 candidates were Africans nominated by African governments. And Fatou Bensouda, the court’s Deputy Prosecutor, is from Gambia.

Of the four files before the court, the cases on Democractic Republic of Congo, Uganda and the Central African Republic were referred to the court by those very governments. The controversial fourth case, the indictment of Sudanese PresidentOmar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes, was put before the court by the United Nations Security Council.

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for the leader of the huge oil-exporting country to face charges of war crimes during almost six years of fighting in Sudan’s violent Darfur region — but he has refused to deal with the court.

It was that case, heavily opposed on the continent, that brought the 30 African ICC members together in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for an unprecedented meeting last week after calls from some countries that the Africans should withdraw en masse.

That didn’t happen and diplomats told me only Libya, Senegal, Djibouti and the Comoros islands had seriously lobbied the meeting for a total withdrawal. Reporters were kept well outside the conference room and security seemed tighter than usual but, even from a distance we could hear some very angry exchanges coming from inside. And the frustration written all over the faces of delegates as the meeting stretched into the night seemed to indicate there were serious disagreements on the issue.

But, in the end, they told us nothing and simply said they would make recommendations to their heads of state. Most African countries want the indictment against Bashir deferred for one year and the African Union says it will compromise peace efforts in Darfur. The 53-member organisation is also calling for a one-year deferral.

“The pursuit of peace can be deadly impacted upon if players, including a head of state, are denied even the fundamental presumption of innocence,” AU Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamara told delegates before the meeting began.

His boss, AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping, has repeatedly accused the ICC of having an unhealthy fixation on African leaders and says it should look elsewhere, too.

So is the African Union right? Is the ICC unfair to Africa and could the warrant for Bashir compromise peace efforts in Darfur? Or is the fact that every case before the court comes from Africa simply a true reflection of the continent’s problems?