By Malik Abass Daabu

Ghana has been adjudged the second best country in Africa in terms of press freedom.

The country has been ranked second on only to Namibia on the continent by an international group of journalists – Journalists Without Borders.

The Press Freedom Index measures the extent to which the political atmosphere in countries permits journalists to go about their business without any dangers to their lives.

Ghana is also ranked 29 worldwide on the index.

A lecturer at the School of Communication Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon, Dr. Audrey Gadzekpo says the Journalists Without Borders is a credible organisation.

She told Joy News’ Evans Mensah there was no reason to think the ranking is not a true reflection of the situation on the ground.

She said even those who grumble sometimes about the political environment do admit there is media freedom in the country.

“There are no arbitrary arrests of journalists, there are not imprisonments of journalists, and journalists are able to operate in an atmosphere of freedom,” she noted.

That she said accounts for the situation where journalism is the fastest growing profession in Ghana.

“We also have a very liberalised media environment with lots of newspapers, lots of radio stations, and a multiplicity of television stations, this will not happen if the political environment was hostile to journalists,” Dr. Gadzekpo emphasised.

The Deputy Information and National Orientation Minister, Mr. Frank Agyekum said the ranking was a confirmation of the government’s commitment to allowing the media to operate freely.

He, however, believes there is lot more journalists can do in the pursuance of their careers.

– MyJoyJournal.com

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Some of Ireland’s top lawyers have swapped their wigs for teaching hats on a trip to Ethiopia.

Former Ireland Attorney General Harry Whelehan and ten colleagues hope to change the war-torn country’s legal system through a series of courses on law. The legal eagles will pass on their knowledge, skills and expertise to 70 of the country’s judges, prosecutors and lawyers as part of the first-ever Rule of Law project.

The six-day mission was organised by Connect Ethiopia, an initiative set up by successful Irish businesspeople to encourage links between the two countries. The visitors, led by Connect Ethiopia co-founder and Dublin lawyer Philip Lee, want to help foster a fair, equitable and independent judiciary in the African country ravaged by civil war.

By Wudineh Zenebe | Addis Fortune

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – After 60 years of presence in the country, Shell Ethiopia has totally moved out of the Ethiopian market as of November 14, 2008, after Libya Oil Holding Ltd (OiLibya) finalized the purchase and sale agreement it entered with the former.

OiLibya, a new trademark in the Ethiopian oil market, has thus started operations since Shell Ethiopia’s departure from the market it has operated in for more than half a century.

The official date that Libya Oil Ethiopia Ltd begun operations in Ethiopia, November 14, 2008, the de-branding of Shell Ethiopia as well as the re-branding of its 201 retail outlets across Ethiopia, which would be concluded within six months time also occurred on the same day, sources from OiLibya disclosed.

A subsidiary of the Netherlands based Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Shell Company (Red Sea) Limited and Incorporated, was formed in 1929 in London. In October 1946, it bought depot facilities previously owned by Agip, the Italian based oil giant, and leased land from the government of Ethiopia on the premises of the current Akaki Depot, including some retail outlets in Addis Abeba.

In April 1964, it was renamed Shell Ethiopia Limited. After it bought Agip’s business in Ethiopia in 2000, it exited from the Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) business in 2004. Three years later, it sold some of its assets to Kobil Ethiopia Ltd, including a depot in Addis Abeba and 63 retail sites across the country.

Marking its total exit, it has signed a purchase sale and agreement with OiLibya, which gives the latter 100pc ownership of Shell’s down stream oil products marketing business share in Ethiopia. Its 142 employees have been retained by the new North African entrant.

The last months of Shell Ethiopia’s life had been characterised by the serious confrontation it had with the company’s labour union over service benefit claims the employees demanded. With its demise in the country, the dispute now seems to have come to an end.

OiLibya has entered the scene with hopes for its future business and for the employees it has taken over.

“We are now employees of OiLibya and hope to work in a better environment,” Fanuel Samson, president of the Labour Union told Fortune.

In what Fanuel referred to as unexpected good news, OiLibya has already pledged a 15pc salary increment for the employees as of January 2009.

“The superseding principle is that people on the ground are best placed to develop our business,” Manar E. Sall, Corporate Planning Manager of OiLibya said during the Oil Fair held on November 14, 2008.

The state-owned OiLibya, previously called Tamoil Africa, operates gasoline stations in African nations, including Egypt and Burkina Faso, and plans to build two pipelines on the continent, one between Kenya and Uganda and another to supply five countries with oil products from a Ugandan refinery.

With the largest oil reserve in Africa within in its territories, Libya expanded exploration with the support of international companies, including BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA after the US ended almost two decades of sanctions in 2004.

Managed by the Libyan Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund that manages Libya’s assets in other countries, including Libya Oil Holding and Tamoil SA, which owns three refineries in Europe and more than 3,000 filling stations on the continent, the North African giant has now expanded its business to Ethiopia.

Following the agreement it signed with Shell Ethiopia in July, the company has discussed its future business with Girma Birru, minister of Trade and Industry (MoTI), Alemayehu Tegenu, minister of Mines and Energy, and Yigzaw Mekonnen, general manager of the Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise (EPE).

As a new company in the Ethiopian business environment, it has also registered at the MoTI.

OiLibya has held further discussions with state-owned Ethiopian Airlines and the private construction company, Salini Costratori – the major customers of its predecessor.

“The change of ownership in shares does not bring any change in terms and conditions of employment to all staff, as well as to ongoing supply contracts or other business relations entered with business partners at large,” stated Bahru Temesgen, External Affairs manager of OiLibya.

The Ethiopian oil market, which had for years been dominated by the foreign based Total, Mobil, Agip and Shell, has recently been penetrated by the Kenyan Kobil and the Sudanese Nile Oil, and now the Libyan OiLibya.

With the exception of Total, all the earliest oil companies – Agip, Mobil and recently Shell – have left the market.

Following a decision in October 2004, by the Ethiopian Council of Ministers to allow both local and foreign companies to operate in the retail of oil, two local companies – National Oil Company (NOC) and Yetebaberut Beherawi Petroleum (YBP) entered the market in November 2005 and May 2006, respectively.

By Dave Harcourt

Ashenafi Chote, of the Wolaytta district south of Addis Ababa, says that he regrets converting his land from food crops to caster seeds for biodiesel. He is now dependent on Food Aid and can no longer generate income from his land. CastorThe company that got him into this situation admit they have been unable to pay him, as agreed, because a loan they expected hasn’t come through!

The realisation that the cost of biofuel crops grown in temperate climates is too high to support a viable biodiesel industry has lead Europe to look elsewhere for cheaper raw materials. Africa, with its appropriate climate, soil fertility, and low labour costs can produce oil for biodiesel much more cheaply than Europe. Biofuels have been supported as a development path by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and other agencies of the United Nations (UN), with the proviso that projects are properly implemented to avoid any impact on food production or the environment. Unfortunately, unscrupulous companies can quite easily take advantage of desperate small farmers and naive governments, to drive unfair contracts.

As someone living in South Africa, with some experience of working in poor rural areas, the stories of wealth and benefits for small scale farmers entering the biofuels sector make little sense to me. The shear scale of the world’s biodiesel demand result in numbers which just don’t make sense. Ashenafi Chote, who opened this story normally produced 100 kg of maize, which indicates that he is farming, at most, 0.4 ha. With normal yields this would produce about 160 litres of biodiesel which would allow a medium sized MPV to travel some 2,500 km. Therefore, 10 farmers are needed to keep the MPV on the road for a year. If farmers are expected to only change a third of their land to castor, this means 3 million farmers are needed to produce just 1 % of the UKs biodiesel consumption. The logistics of it are just impossible, imagine millions of farmers wanting to deliver their crop and collect their few dollars at harvest time. So I believe all these projects are actually designed around large scale commercial production with the small farmer component used to put a “good spin” on the project.

Two posts on EcoWorldly Biofuels War: The New Scramble for Africa by Western Big Money Profiteers and Are Biofuels Another Inconvenient Truth? have given different but related views on the potential and implications of first generation biofuels. Scanning the news its clear that the publicity and optimism at the start of these projects is what everyone, especially biofuel companies and governments promote. They are slower to report the problems that often arise.

So back to Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Government has encouraged biofuel projects as a means of reducing the drain on the economy of importing increasingly expensive crude oil. As a result several Jatropha and Castor Oil projects have been established. In early June 2006 Melis Teka, coordinator of biofuel development in the Ministry of Mines and Energy, told Reuters

There is no shortage of agriculture land in Ethiopia for food production. We have up to 23 million hectares which could be developed both for crops and biofuel. Biofuel plants are being developed on arid and barren land not suitable for food production.

At the end of March 2008 the Ethiopian Review reported that Global Energy Ethiopia (GEE), who operated one of the Government supported projects, expected their first batch of 28 000 tons of castor seeds in August/September 2008. The castor, equivalent to 12 000 tons of oil, would actually be grown by 25,000 families contracted by GEE and would have a value of around US$ 10 million.

Ashenafi Chote was one of the farmers contracted by GEE. He as well as the other farmers have not been paid for their production because, as Agence France-Presse  reports, GEE has been unable to raise the loan it was expecting to use to buy the castor. Ashenafi Chote is now in a very dangerous situation as he planted all his land with castor. He now has neither the food he normally grew for his family, nor the small income he generated by selling his excess production. GEE defends itself by saying it “did not allow” farmers to plant more than a third of their land to castor. However, it was GEE’s promises that moved farmers to invest everything in castor, from which they have to date gained no benefit. GEE’s actions show little understanding of poor people and the lives they struggle to live

A final interesting point is that planting a non food crop like castor or Jatropha (both contain toxins and are inedible) benefits the biodiesel refiner as it means that there is no market competition for the farmer’s production. For the farmer it limits their options, but more importantly, the crops can’t be eaten if the refiner doesn’t deliver as is the case in the above story.

My personal concern is that this is the type of project problem that will be repeated many times before the dust settles and Africa actually benefit from this opportunity.

By BASHIR ADIGUN

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — MTV launched its first-ever music award program for Africa on Saturday, with acts from across the world’s poorest continent nominated for prizes in the Nigerian capital.

Nigerian singer D’banj won the artist of the year award, while his compatriot, Naeto C, took the laurels for the best new African act, it was announced at the ceremony in Abuja.

Winners were selected by fans sending text messages, said Alison Reid, a spokeswoman for MTV Networks Africa.

Africa has long featured a vibrant music scene, but artists have had difficulties breaking into overseas markets. Famous African artists include Senegal’s Youssou N’dour, Nigerian legend Fela Kuti and South African impresario Miriam Makeba, who died this month.

MTV hopes the awards can offer the artists more exposure and celebrate the continent’s artistry.

Performers from South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Gabon and others also were nominated. Songs by D’banj and Naeto C, both male, are all but ubiquitous on the radio in Nigeria, Africa’s most-populous nation of 140 million people.

African music is highly varied, reflecting myriad tastes in the vast continent. Included across the many genres are call-and-response chanting and heavy drumming, drawing on pre-colonial modes of communication among villages.

Since independence movements swept the continent in the 1960s, African music also has increasingly been open to outside influence, incorporating salsa rhythms, rock beats and, increasingly, hip hop and R&B styles.

Many of the new Nigerian acts nominated Saturday feature heavy beats pioneered by American rappers and hip-hop artists. The lyrics often reflect the desire of many Nigerians to escape poverty and corrupt governance.

MTV’s regional music channel MTV Base now reaches almost 50 million African viewers in 48 countries through a network of pay-per-view services and partnerships with domestic channels.