Gen Sad emissary to visits Bangui

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Bangui (Central African Republic) The secretary-general of the Sahelian-Saharan States’ community (CEN-SAD), Dr. Mahamed Al Madani El A Zhari, arrived on Friday in Bangui to follow-up on the implementation of the peace agreement the Central African government and Abdoulaye Miskine’s rebel movement signed in Syrte, Libya.

Mahamed Al Madani El A Zhari will meet the Central African political stakeholders and the council of elders who are in charge of preparing the inter-Central African political dialogue.

After Central Africa, the CEN-SAD secretary-general will visit Benin to discuss with the president and spokesperson of the Union of democratic forces for rally, Messrs Michel Am Nondroko Djotodja and Abakar Sabone respectively. It can be recalled that the latter was recently arrested by the Benin security forces.

Dr El A Zhari will also visit Togo to meet the former Central African President Angel-Felix Patassé who is in exile there since 15 March 2003.

According to Mahamed Al Madani el A Zhari, CEN-SAD and the guide of the Libyan revolution Colonel Moammar Kadhafi, who is mediating between the rebels and the Central African government, are determined to back the Central African people in the research of a lasting peace.

 

Published by Korir, African Press in Norway

Ghana secures finance from China

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Accra (Ghana) Ghanaian Finance Minister Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu returned home from China on Wednesday with assurance that a US$600 million energy deal to construct a new hydroelectric dam at Bui in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana has been concluded.

The minister, briefing the press at the Kotoka International Airport on his arrival said the Exim Bank in China has already finalised the deal and that engineers of China Hydro, the company contracted to construct the dam, were expected in Ghana in July this year to begin work.

The minister left for China two weeks ago to finalise the agreement, which was brokered by President John Agyekum Kufuor and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, during the Africa-China summit in Beijing last year.

The energy crisis in Ghana, has forced President Kufuor to garner support from Nigeria and Benin to help Ghana revitalise its energy sector to sustain economic development.

The Bui Dam, to be located at 350 kilometres northwest of Accra, is expected to complement the electricity power generated from the main supplier of electricity in Ghana, Akosombo Dam, which was built by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in 1966 and is currently producing below capacity due to low level of water in the Volta River on which the dam is located.

Published by Korir, African Press in Norway, APN,

africanpress@chello.no, tel +47 932 99 739 or +47 6300 2525

Source. DAP/daj/APA

Honey-mooned with lots of cash ….

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Princess Märtha Louise and husband Ari Behn adopted dramatic measures to avoid leaving a paper trail for celebrity gossip weekly Se og Hør.

PHOTO: ROLF M. AAGAARD 

Ari Behn switched banks in order to stop the leaks of information to gossip weekly Se og Hør (See and Hear). In 2002 he and Princess Märtha Louise went on their honeymoon with a suitcase full of cash to keep their spending private.

Behn revealed these tidbits to newspapers Dagens Næringsliv and Dagbladet by email, and also claimed that someone working at the Defense leaked his military examination results to the celebrity magazine.“I have been fully aware for years that my credit card use details were being leaked. So I changed banks in 2004 after various stories and leaks, but I was already aware of the problem in 2002,” Behn said in the email.After Behn’s wedding with Princess Märtha Louise in Augst 2002 the couple left on a several week long honeymoon. Behn confirmed the earlier Dagens Næringsliv story about their traveling with a suitcase full of cash in order not to leave tracks for Se og Hør.

“This led to a series of odd situations around the world where people believed we were a couple on the run. I mean, who buys plane tickets cash and takes the first good flight overseas? But in retrospect of course it makes a good story,” Behn wrote.

Behn was perhaps most concerned that details of the tests given to those during their national military duty appeared to be accessibly to Se og Hør reporters. These include physical tests, IQ tests and interviews. Birgitte Frisch, head of the press and information division for the Defense Staff, was shocked by Behn’s claim.

“It is completely unacceptable that our people have released this type of information. We will try to find out what has happened,” Frisch said.

The focus on Se og Hør’s dubious reporting methods has been in the Norwegian media focus after a former journalist there recently released a highly revealing book about his years there and the methods in use to secure stories.”*

*”/”*Lifted by Korir and published by African Press in Norway, apn, africanpress@chello.no tel +47 932 99 739 or +47 6300 2525.source.aftenpostenENG

JOKE of the DAY

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Many Africans have been travelling abroad to seek greener pastures. Many are nurses who eventually take their husbands with them.

Unfortunately, these men can’t find decent jobs and find themselves doing the rat race or funny jobs just to make ends meet.

So one of them finds a job as a zoo attendant. But as there are not many wild animals in UK zoos, the institution decides to hire people and have them pretend to be zoo animals - dressed in real animal skins so as to keep zoo attendance figures up.

Our African friend happily takes up one of the jobs dresses up in a monkey skin doing all sorts of acrobatics swinging from tree to tree.  

As he is busy entertaining people, he accidentally falls in a lions den. The lion roars so loudly that
the “Monkey” shouts MAMAA WEE!! NISAIDIENI!! NAFA LEO! Then the lion approaches the ALMOST DEAD “monkey” and says ‘Wacha KASHESHE mimi mwenzako…

For the resident the event on that day ticket sales almost doubled!! bcoz pple thought it waz a
unique thing to see a monkey chat wid a lion.  Yet till now, nobody knew that those animals were well and trully HOME BOYS! Have a Nice Day!

By Eugene Garuka

Published by African Press in Norway, apn, africanpress@chello.no, tel +47 932 99 739 or +47 6300 2525

Norway: More excrement from Gilde disgusts meat-eaters

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 Jonny and Unni Johansson display their tainted meat.PHOTO: Jonas Haarr Friestad/Aftenbladet*”A Rogaland couple purchased stewing mutton from major meat producer Gilde that contained traces of excrement.

Five packages of mutton earmarked for the traditional Norwegian dish “fĂĄrikĂĄl”, a stew of lamb and cabbage, were purchased by Unni and Jonny Johansson in the end of September and put away in their freezer. In mid-November they used one of the packages and fell ill afterwards, newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad reports.

“After a few days I developed severe stomach pains,” Jonny Johansson told the newspaper. He was hospitalized with a stomach infection.

On Dec. 13 the couple took a new package out of the freezer and noticed black particles, and the contents stank. They delivered all of the remaining packages to Norway’s Food Safety Authority for analysis.

The FSA reply confirmed that the suspicious particles from the opened package was livestock excrement.

Producer Nortura BA in Førde deeply regrets the incident. Nortura is the company formed by the merger of Norway’s dominant meat and poultry firms, Gilde and Prior respectively.

“Excrement in mutton is disgusting. We have no trouble apologizing and will do what we can to make up for the damages. Those who have suffered this will receive compensation,” Nortura communication director Nina Sundqvist told the newspaper.

She admitted that there had been a production error and that internal controls revealed that their technology was not good enough.”*

*”/”*Lifted by Korir and published by African Press in Norway, apn, africanpress@chello.no, tel +47 932 99 739 or +47 6300 2525. source.aftenpostenENG

Norwegian sausage contained animal foot. Family swears never to eat hot dogs again

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*”Eight-year Maiken Kroghdal got a nasty shock that has put her family off eating hot dogs for life. 

 

The animal foot that the Kroghdal’s pulled out of Maiken’s hot dog.

PHOTO: Private

 

 

“Maiken had nearly finished her hot dog when she saw something gray in the meat she showed me. We dug out this gray thing that was surrounded by meat. It turned out to be a foot with a claw, probably a rat foot since it was about a centimeter (0.4 inch) long,” Maiken’s father, Rolf Kroghdal told Aftenposten.no.

The sausage was part of their Wednesday dinner, and purchased at a local Trondheim supermarket. The producer of the hot dog is Nortura, formerly known as Gilde, Norway’s leading meat product maker and the company shaken by a series of scandals last year, including a wave of E. coli poisonings and animal excrement found in products.

But Nortura does not believe this can be their fault.

“It is unlikely that the foot of an animal can be in a sausage because the sausage is ground to a pulp. So it is, practically speaking, impossible,” Nortura communications director Nina Sundqvist told newspaper Adresseavisen’s web site.

Nortura is skeptical enough about the possibility to report the find to police in order to try and achieve a full investigation.

Kroghdal has no doubt that the claw must have come into the hot dog during production.

“It is absolutely certain that the foot was in the middle of the hot dog. In the picture you can see the meat remains on the foot,” Kroghdal said.

He added that the family will never eat hot dogs for dinner again.

“This is one of the most nauseating things I have ever experienced. We will never eat ground meat again,” he said.”*

By Solrun Dregelid and Jonathan Tisdall

*”/”*Lifted and published by African Press in Norway, apn, africanpress@chello.no, tel +47 932 99 739 or +47 6300 2525.aftenpostenENG