Nigeria and its huge potentials is key to success of Africa

Africa: How to Grow African Economy -UK Financial Expert
Source: Daily Independent (Lagos) - www.independentngonline.com
Written by Abel Orukpe
Date: Monday, 01 November 2010

(Lagos) - Former United Kingdom Secretary to the Treasury, Lord Paul Boateng, said Africa economies have the capacity to boom despite the current global meltdown ravaging economies around the globe.

He also said Nigeria and its huge potentials is the key to the success of Africa.

Boateng is participating at the Kuramo conference being organised by the Lagos State government in partnership with the organised private sector to bring together the best brains in all aspects of life to fashion out the best way to moving Africa economies forward.

He spoke with journalists at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos on why the economies of developing countries have continued to dwindle.

According to Boateng, "The good news is that Africa has proved to be remarkably resilient in terms of its economy during this current global downturn and we have every expectation that Africa would come through this difficult process for her world to make a stronger and better place."

He posited that to make the economies of developing countries work, Africans have the responsibility to ensure that their economies are well managed, adding that it is by doing this that African continent can grow and create jobs for its people.

In his words, "The key to that is that all of us recognising the responsibility that we have to ensure that the economy are managed well, that we have effective and sound micro- economic policy and that together we create a continent in which there is growth with jobs

Boateng, the first black cabinet minister in UK contended that the growth of developing economies and job creation go hand -in - hand and that if these aspects are fixed economies of developing countries, where African countries belong will be stronger for it.

"The truth is that both of them go together, growth and jobs and the good news is that Africa should be on track to come out of this recession stronger than it was before".

The former secretary to the treasury, who said he was delighted to be in Lagos, said that the Kuramo conference is a clear sign that the government and people of Lagos recognise the role of this great metropolis in rebuilding and strengthening the African economy.

On the future of Nigerian economy, he said: "Nigeria and its future, Nigeria and its huge potentials are the key to the success of Africa that is why all people of good will look to Nigeria to demonstrate leadership, to demonstrate the strength that historically I believe that it has and to fulfil that it displayed some what 50 years ago when the people of Nigeria won their independent so this is a great conference and we are looking forward very much to do a serious work in order to make sure that the economy of Africa and its people fulfil the potentials that they have."

Hat tip: AllAfrica.com
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'Reversing Brain Drain Is Key To Continent's Development', Says Wole Soyinka In Tunis
Source: Tunisia Online News
Date: 26 October 2010 - excerpt:

Addressing the African Development Bank's (AfDB) "Eminent Speakers" program in Tunis on Friday, Wole Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Literature Prize, said that the reversal of Africa's brain drain is key to the continent's development. ...

Hat tip: allafrica.com/afrora.com

Nigerian weapons haul shows lengths Iran will go to supply Hamas

Map of Niger courtesy of nigeriamasterweb.com article 19 February 2010: Niger President Toppled, Whisked Away
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Nigerian Weapons Haul Shows Lengths Iran Will Go to Supply Hamas
Source: The MidEast News Source - www.themedialine.org
Written by Benjamin Peim
Date: Sunday, 31 October 2010



Gaza-based groups learned in last war that home-made Qassams aren’t effective

The capture in Nigeria late last week of over a dozen containers filled with weapons highlights the lengths to which Iran is taking to supply its Hamas ally in the Gaza Strip, but leaves a question mark over how successful the arms conduit has been, analysts say.

The containers, unloaded in Lagos, the country’s largest port, came from a cargo ship originating in Iran, the company that owned the ship said in a statement. While their ultimate destination has not been confirmed, analysts believe the containers were bound for Gaza, ruled by the Muslim group Hamas.

“It’s getting harder to obtain the weapons so they’re using all types of funny places,” Martin van Creveld, a retired professor of military history at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told The Media Line. “They find a place that is so messy they can get through, and Nigeria apparently wasn’t messy enough.”

As Hamas’ main weapons supplier, Iran’s success in delivering missiles and other arms into Gaza will be a key factor in any future conflict with Israel. In its last confrontation with Hamas 14 months ago, Israel sustained almost no casualties, but if the Islamic group succeeds in obtaining more sophisticated weaponry it could put Israeli cities in rocket-range and jeopardize Israel’s control of the skies.

The shipping company, French-based CMA CGM, said it had been duped by Iranian trader who arranged the shipment. The shipper had listed the materials inside the containers as, “packages of glass wool and pallets of stone," but when Nigerian security service personnel opened the containers, they found rockets, bullets, mortars and other weapons under a thin layer of floor tiles.

In the past, Hamas and Iran have sought to bring weapons into Gaza through smuggling routes that wind along the east coast of Africa from the Sudan, north into Egypt. From there, they arrive in Gaza through tunnels under the border with Egypt. But, these routes have grown more difficult as Israel and Egypt crack down on weapons shipments.

“They [Hamas and Iran] were under heavy pressure by the Egyptians,” Yoram Schweitzer, head of the Terror Project at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, told The Media Line. “These routes are under strict supervision, and there is probably some international political pressure as well.”

Israeli warplanes reportedly bombed a caravan of trucks in Sudan that were transporting weapons to Hamas in January 2009, although Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement. The United States could be monitoring the situation, as well.

“They are aware of American capabilities to intercept arms on the east coast of Africa,” said Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.

Bar said Iran has infrastructure in Nigeria, which makes it a prime spot to turn to for its smuggling operations. “They have more assets there than in Egypt and the security is weaker,” he told The Media Line.

Hamas has its own rocket workshops in Gaza where it manufactures simple, short-range Qassams, which constituted the mainstay of Hamas’ arsenal when it confronted Israel in the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead. Qassams have a range of about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), which limits targets to mostly empty and agricultural land adjacent to the Gaza Strip.

No matter how much Hamas beefs up its inventory of Qassams, short-range rockets like the Qassam won’t significantly improve the group’s fighting capabilities, according to Bar. “The real game changer,” he said, would be surface-to-air missiles that threaten Israeli control of the skies over Gaza.

Without the ability to upgrade its weapons technology in Gaza, Hamas is seeking longer-range and more sophisticated rockets from abroad, analysts said.

“They want to upgrade their capabilities so they can strike further into Israel and possibly strike at our air traffic,” Bar said. “But there is nothing specific in this shipment to change the strategic balance.”

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said October 20 that Israel believes Hamas, in fact, has obtained surface-to-air strike capability. However, van Creveld, of The Hebrew University, told The Media Line it was likely they would only be capable of hitting helicopters. Jets, which are the key to Israel’s control of Gaza skies, are out of range for Hamas fighters for the time being, he said.

While this smuggling attempt failed, Hamas and Iran will continue their efforts to smuggle weapons into Gaza, analysts said.

“This is a permanent agenda they have,” Schweitzer said. “I don’t think this will deter them from trying to procure weapons in other venues in the future.”