World Bank vice president for Africa resigns ?

World Bank vice president for Africa resigns ?

?

The Vice-President for Africa, World Bank, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, has resigned from the Bretton Woods institution, after five years of meritorious service. Her resignation takes effect from the first week of May.

The World Bank President, Mr. Robert Zoelick, who made this known in a letter, said Ezekwesili would be back to Nigeria after ?five years of important and successful service to the bank and Africa?.

Zoelick said he had to delay the exit of Ezekwesili, who was a two-time minister when former President Olusegun Obasanjo held sway, by one year, to enable her implement the new strategy, ?Africa?s Future and World Bank support to It,? that ?she did so much to develop?.

Ezekwesili will be succeeded by Makhtar Diop, a Senegalese national, who has been the Country Director for Brazil since 2009. Diop is expected to resume on May 5.

Zoelick gave no reason for her resignation but extolled her virtue.
Although Ezekwesili had completed a four-year tenure last year, and was already hoping to return to her family in Nigeria, she was asked to stay another year by Zoellick, who eulogised her contributions as the Bank?s leading official on Africa since 2007.

New role

Ezekwesili will be returning to Nigeria to play a role in engaging African leaders and governments towards the attainment and sustenance of good governance as well as provision of sound policy tools and agenda for the development of the continent.
She? is known to have actively supported African countries in pursuing core development goals and often praised for her personal zeal and knowledge in advancing a series of policy options for the continent?s leadership, causing even the Economist magazine to recently review its previous doomsday prediction on Africa, and declare that Africa is indeed rising based on the upward growth rate on the continent.

Zoellick himself while recalling that the former Nigerian minister ?joined the Bank in 2007,? disclosed that ?last year, I asked her to extend another year, delaying her return home, to begin implementation of the new strategy, ?Africa?s Future and World Bank support to it? that she did so much to develop?.

Commendations

In flowing praise, Zoellick said that, ?under Oby?s leadership, our Africa team employed innovation, knowledge, partnership and financial services to strengthen results across Africa and to improve the prospects for Africa?s economic performance?.

According to the World Bank boss,that Ezekwesili?s ?close attention to the needs of our clients, engagement with African leadership and with regional institutions - such as the African Union, EAC and ECOWAS - as well as with the UN and other partners, has helped us to leverage our effectiveness across Africa.?

He said the Nigerian public reform technocrat ?has done excellent work mobilising private sector engagement and better connecting Africa?s development to that of other regions, particularly through South-South partnerships?.

The statement said Ezekwesili built a strong team across the range of the Bank?s work: infrastructure and human development; agricultural production and productivity; private sector development; economic reforms to overcome poverty; and governance and accountability.

Zoellick said that this reflected her experience and background, and then called the former Solid Minerals Minister in Nigeria and Senior Special Assistant on Due Process ?a relentless campaigner for transparency and against corruption?.

She was credited for the new World Bank strategy for Africa and its implementation plan, which she developed and for which Zoellick observed now offers ?a strong legacy,? for the global lending and financing agency.

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NP/Ehimen/Williams /Cokey

Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5767725923

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Nigeria labor announces suspension of fuel strike (AP)

LAGOS, Nigeria ? Unions suspended their nationwide strike on Monday, hours after Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan partially reinstated subsidies to keep gasoline prices low and deployed soldiers in the streets to halt widening demonstrations.

Union leaders described their decision as a victory for labor, allowing its leaders to guide the country's policy on fuel subsidies in the future while having gas prices drop to about $2.27 a gallon (60 cents a liter).

However, many protesters joined the demonstrations with hopes of seeing gas return to its previous price of about $1.70 per gallon (45 cents per liter), while also speaking out against a culture of government corruption in Africa's most populous nation. Deploying soldiers to the streets stopped demonstrators from gathering on Monday. At one point soldiers fired over the heads of marchers. But Jonathan may still have to deal with populist rage that swept the country in recent days, and the use of the military in a nation with a history of military coups stoked immediate controversy.

"This is a clear case of intolerance and shutting of the democratic space against the people of Nigeria which must be condemned by all democracy-loving people around the world," read a statement from the Save Nigeria Group, which has organized massive demonstrations in Lagos.

The Nigeria Labor Congress and the Trade Union Congress told journalists on Monday in Nigeria's capital Abuja they applauded the government's recent promise to explore corruption in the country's oil sector. They described the six-day strike a success.

"We are sure that no government or institution will take Nigerians for granted again," said Abdulwaheed Omar, the president of the Nigeria Labor Congress.

But while Jonathan offered an olive branch to unions with the gas price relief, he used military power to make sure no one protested against the government Monday. In a rare display of military might, soldiers took over major highways and road junctions throughout Lagos, home to 15 million people, and Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city.

In an early Monday morning address aired on state-run television, Jonathan warned that provocateurs were using the gas-price protest to cause instability.

"It has become clear to government and all well-meaning Nigerians that other interests beyond the implementation of the deregulation policy have hijacked the protest. ... These same interests seek to promote discord, anarchy and insecurity to the detriment of public peace," Jonathan said.

Labor organizers had urged workers to stay home on Monday after Jonathan appealed to them over the possibility of insecurity in the country. At the Lagos headquarters of the Nigeria Labor Congress, some 50 protesters gathered anyway. Lawyer Bamidele Aturu led the crowd in chants and cheers, comparing the president to military rulers of the past who used soldiers to suppress dissent.

"It's very clear the revolution has begun!" Aturu shouted. However, those gathered looked warily at passing pickup trucks filled with soldiers.

On Monday, hundreds of people started marching toward Lagos' Ojota neighborhood, where tens of thousands of protesters had gathered in recent days. However, soldiers had already taken positions there overnight, waving away would-be demonstrators. Two military armored personnel carriers were parked near an empty stage.

The crowd passed soldiers who slung their assault rifles over their shoulders, allowing them to pass. But as they drew closer to Ojota, around 20 soldiers arrived in two pickup trucks to cut them off, bayonets affixed to their assault rifles. They told the protesters to go back and some of them began to turn around.

Soldiers fired into the air and tear gassed the crowd to disperse it, leaving protesters running through the stinging gas as gunshots echoed down the highway.

Meanwhile, authorities also targeted some foreign media outlets in Lagos. Officers of the State Security Service, Nigeria's secret police, raided an office compound Monday used by the BBC and CNN, witnesses said. Marilyn Ogar, a secret police spokeswoman, said she had no information about the raid.

The strike began Jan. 9, paralyzing the nation of more than 160 million people. Tens of thousands of people protested in cities across Nigeria. At least 10 people were killed. Red Cross volunteers have treated more than 600 people injured in protests since the strike began, officials said.

Though an oil workers association threatened to cut Nigeria's production of 2.4 million barrels of crude a day, they held off on shutdown onshore and offshore oil fields. Such a shutdown could have shaken oil futures, as Nigeria is the fifth-largest crude supplier to the U.S.

An offshore rig being run for a Chevron Corp. subsidiary near Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta caught fire and officials tried to account for all the workers there, the oil company said. Chevron spokesman Scott Walker said the fire started early Monday morning. There was no indication that the fire was related to Nigeria's unrest.

___

Associated Press writers Bashir Adigun and Lekan Oyekanmi in Abuja, Nigeria; Ibrahim Garba in Kano, Nigeria; and Yinka Ibukun in Lagos contributed to this report.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120116/ap_on_bi_ge/af_nigeria_fuel_subsidy

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Audio: Cruise captain pleaded not to reboard ship (AP)

ROME ? Five more bodies were pulled Tuesday out of the crippled cruise ship off Tuscany, and a shocking audio emerged in which the ship's captain was heard making excuses as the Italian coast guard repeatedly ordered him to return and oversee the ship's evacuation.

Prosecutors have accused Capt. Francesco Schettino of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship before all passengers were evacuated during the grounding of the Costa Concordia cruise ship Friday night.

The death toll nearly doubled to 11 on Tuesday when divers located five more bodies, all of them adults wearing life jackets, in the rear of the ship near an emergency evacuation point, according to Italian Coast Guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro. He said they were thought to have been passengers.

Prior to the discovery of the five bodies, the coast guard had raised the number of missing to 25 passengers and four crew. Italian officials gave the breakdown as: 14 Germans, six Italians, four French, two Americans, one Hungarian, one Indian and one Peruvian.

But there was still confusion over the numbers, and the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin listed 12 Germans as confirmed missing.

The Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 people when it hit a reef off the Tuscan island of Giglio when Schettino made an unauthorized deviation from the cruise ship's programmed course, apparently as a favor to his chief waiter, who hailed from the island.

Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated. However, a recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco that emerged Tuesday indicates he fled before all passengers were off ? and then resisted De Falco's repeated orders to return.

"You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?" De Falco shouted in the audio tape.

Schettino resisted, saying the ship was tipping and that it was dark. At the time, he was in a lifeboat and said he was coordinating the rescue from there.

De Falco shouted back: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"

"You go aboard. It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship,' now I am in charge," De Falco shouted.

Schettino was finally heard agreeing to reboard on the tape. But the coast guard has said he never went back, and had police arrest him on land.

The 52-year-old Schettino, described by the Italian media as a genial, tanned ship's officer, has worked for 11 years for the ship's owner and was made captain in 2006.

Schettino hails from Meta di Sorrento, in the Naples area, which produces many of Italy's ferry and cruise boat captains. He attended the Nino Bixio merchant marine school near Sorrento.

A judge is to decide Tuesday if Schettino should stay jailed, as requested by prosecutors. He could face up to 12 years in prison on the abandoning ship charge alone.

Earlier Tuesday, Italian naval divers exploded holes in the hull of the grounded cruise ship, trying to speed up the search for the missing while seas were still calm. Navy spokesman Alessandro Busonero told Sky TV 24 the holes would help divers enter the wreck more easily.

"We are rushing against time," he said.

The divers set four microcharges above and below the surface of the water, Busonero said. Television footage showed one hole above the waterline less than two meters (6 feet) in diameter.

"The hope is that the ship is empty and that the people are somewhere else, or if they are inside that they found a safe place to await rescue," Coast Guard spokesman Filippo Marini told Sky TV 24.

Mediterranean waters in the area were relatively calm Tuesday with waves of just 12 inches (30 centimeters) but they were expected to reach nearly 6 feet (1.8 meters) Wednesday, according to meteorological forecasts.

A Dutch shipwreck salvage firm, meanwhile, said it would take its engineers and divers two to four weeks to extract the 500,000 gallons of fuel aboard the ship. The safe removal of the fuel has become a priority second only to finding the missing, as the wreckage site lies in a maritime sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales.

Smit, a Rotterdam, Netherlands-based salvage company, said no fuel had leaked from any of the ship's tanks and that the tanks appeared intact. While there is a risk the ship could shift in larger waves, to date it has been relatively stable perched on top of rocks near Giglio's port.

Smit's operations manager, Kees van Essen, said the company was confident the fuel could safely be extracted using pumps and valves to vacuum the oil out to waiting tanks.

"But there are always environmental risks in these types of operations," he told reporters.

Preliminary phases of the fuel extraction could begin as early as Wednesday if approved by Italian officials, the company said.

The company said any discussion about the fate of the ship ? whether it is removed in one piece or broken up ? would be decided by Italian ship operator Costa Crociere and its insurance companies.

The Miami-based Carnival Corp., which owns the Italian operator, estimated that preliminary losses from having the Concordia out of operation at least through 2012 would be between $85 million and $95 million, along with other costs. The company's share price slumped more than 16 percent Monday.

It was not yet clear if the ship ? which was completed in 2006 ? would ever be able to return to service.

Carnival said its deductible on damage to the ship was approximately $30 million. In addition, the company faces a deductible of $10 million for third-party personal injury liability claims.

Carnival said other costs related to the grounding can't yet be determined.

___

Barry contributed from Milan.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120117/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_italy_cruise_aground

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Real Estate Investing Strategy Tips Revealed | EzinePR.com ...

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Pam Behan: Kardashian Tell All Book

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