Author: Ben Debski

Thousands of people injured in Tuesday’s massive earthquake in the
Caribbean country spent another night waiting for help, many lying on
sidewalks, as their despair turned to anger.

A spokeswoman for
the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said
17 search and rescue teams were deployed in the capital Port-au-Prince,
with six more on their way, but no further teams were needed for now.

“There
are pockets of survival, we shouldn’t give up hope,” spokeswoman
Elisabeth Byrs said. “They are working around the clock.”

No further field hospitals were required but medical teams including surgeons and medicines were badly needed, Byrs said.

At
least 10 percent of housing in the capital was destroyed, making about
300,000 homeless, but in some areas 50 percent of buildings were
destroyed or badly damaged, according to a preliminary assessment by UN
disaster experts.

Under the UN appeal, the World Food Programme
will seek to provide life-saving food rations to two million destitute
people for the next month. A longer-term operation is planned up to
July 15.

“We need high-energy biscuits and ready-to-eat meals as quickly as possible,” WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella said.

The
WFP had reports from partner aid agencies that its warehouses in Haiti
had been looted, but had not been able to reach them yet to verify
whether its stocks were gone, she said.

“In an emergency,
looting is something that is not unusual. Stores have been cleaned out.
People in a desperate situation will do what they can to get food for
their loved ones,” Casella told reporters in Geneva.

The WFP
distributed food to 4,000 people gathered at the prime minister’s
compound in Port-au-Prince on Thursday following an earlier hand-out in
the town of Jacmel.

“We are trying to get the food we do have
our hands on to people. What we have been able to do so far is a drop
in the bucket,” Casella said.

The WFP was also exploring the
possibility of setting up some 200 collective kitchens in
Port-au-Prince to feed the homeless, she said.

Coal-fired power plants produce half of the world’s electric power and are the most challenged with air quality and emissions issues. Due to heightened environmental concerns, many parts of the globe are likely to see an increase in emissions reduction regulations mandating a transition from traditional fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.

While a number of countries within the European Union have had stringent renewable energy source targets for several years, the Obama administration recently acknowledged that carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and other industrial emissions endanger the planet. This moves the United States’ position closer to that of the EU nations that have adopted the Kyoto Protocol’s greenhouse gas limits. With this significant shift in US procedure, minimisation of carbon dioxide emissions is truly a global effort.

These emissions are produced by a variety of products and processes, but of particular concern is the amount of emissions produced in the power generation process. In order to reduce emissions and maintain optimal system performance, many power producers are looking for newer, cleaner energy resources.

The pursuit of alternative energy sources has led to the increased utilisation of biomass, which is any living or recently dead biological matter that can be used as fuel. While it does contain carbon, biomass is still a desirable energy source because it is renewable and its CO2 emissions are subsequently absorbed by its replacement crops, resulting in nearly zero net addition of CO2 to the atmosphere.

The partial or complete substitution of fossil fuels with biomass materials for powering industrial or power-generation boilers has a long history of success. However, converting a plant burning coal to biomass presents several challenges. Biomass fuels have different burning characteristics, often contain high levels of moisture and produce residual ash that can be corrosive and laden with a high percentage of unburned carbon. These factors can negatively impact efficiency, capacity and control of other emissions.

However, these challenges have created opportunities for companies experienced in combustion efficiency improvement. Nalco Mobotec, an air protection company operating as a subsidiary of Nalco Company, developed much of its core technology to meet the needs of Scandinavian countries’ early utilisation of biomass in the power generation process. The company’s patented ROTA™ (Rotating Opposed Fire Air) staged combustion system, along with its ROTAMIX™ chemical application systems, have proven effective in tackling the problems associated with biomass burning.

Boiler systems designed to burn coal or oil rely on a hot flame to complete the combustion process and transfer energy to produce steam. Unfortunately, these high temperatures promote the formation of nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the presence of sufficient oxygen. By staging the combustion process, the amount of oxygen is reduced in the burner region of a boiler and is redirected to a cooler location downstream of the burners. While this reduces NOx formation, it also creates the possibility that combustion will not be complete and not enough heat transfer will occur to generate the quantity of steam expected from the boiler. This challenge is even greater when burning biomass fuels due to lower flame temperatures and the difficulty in burning some components of the material. The ROFA system’s unique high∞energy mixing of the second layer of air with the fuel delivers more complete combustion, more efficient heat transfer and reduces NOx generation.

Nalco Mobotec currently has multiple biomass conversions in place or in development around the world, focusing on an immediately available approach of converting coal∞fired plants, rather than building brand new alternative energy facilities. In 2005, a biomass conversion including the installation of ROTA and ROTAMIX was carried out on a 240 MW, tangentially-fired boiler in Helsingborg, Sweden at Västhamnsverket Power Plant.

The conversion from coal to biomass was performed gradually by utilising a co-firing process, wherein biomass fuel and a base fuel such as coal combust concurrently. In 1998, a co-firing project was performed using only 15 percent biomass. After a positive experience, the biomass share was increased to 30 percent in 2000, 70 percent in 2004 and 100 percent as of 2006. Throughout the conversion process, various types of biomass such as wood residue, bark and straw were directly co-fired with coal. Because biomass contains high levels of alkali and chloride components, the ROTAMIX system was installed to reduce the risk of fouling and corrosion. After the plant had been fully converted to biomass, all emissions standards were met and steam production was maintained at the optimal pre-conversion levels.

Nalco Mobotec’s programmes are quickly becoming the standard for power plants and coal-burning industrial facilities seeking to reduce the environmental impact of their operations in a practical, cost-effective manner. In an effort to maintain their industry-leading status in the arena of air emission reduction, Nalco created the Nalco Air Protection Center of Innovation to focus on additional air pollution reduction solutions, including an effort to develop advanced CO2 reduction. This endeavour is a combination of the combustion modelling, design, engineering and emission management capabilities of Nalco Mobotec and its parent company’s experience in chemistry and its application – a powerful set of capabilities that may lead to the continued development of proprietary emission control programmes.

While many technologies under discussion today are too costly, years away from being commercial or not reliable for continuous, sustainable use, Nalco Mobotec has engineered solutions that require minimal modification of existing furnaces and associated systems and can be implemented for a fraction of the cost of installing new equipment. Furthermore, these offerings take advantage of a variety of lower-cost or less-polluting fuels while in many cases increasing production capacity and efficiency.

About Nalco
Nalco Company is a global leader providing essential expertise to over 70,000 customers to meet their water, energy and air quality goals in a sustainable manner—benefiting not only the customer, but the planet, the economy and society. It’s committed to sustaining its solutions with the after-sale service of its over 7,000 engineers and technicians around the globe who visit customer sites each day. This legion of highly trained people is backed by technical service resources that include experts in many technology areas and sophisticated remote monitoring capabilities that serve as a backup to the customer’s efforts to maintain efficiency and quality of their operations.
 
The company has received numerous awards including the US Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for Nalco’s 3D TRASAR technology for cooling water treatment. In 2008, more than 5,000 customer locations in the United States, Canada and Europe used 3D TRASAR technology for their cooling systems, saving an estimated 63 billion gallons of water.

Nalco’s successful commitment to sustainability was recognised in 2008 with its addition to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. This World index is based on a thorough analysis of corporate economic, environmental and social performance, assessing issues such as corporate governance, risk management, branding, climate change mitigation, supply chain standards and labour practices. That commitment is now extended to air protection with the addition of Nalco Mobotec.

Further information: www.nalco.com

Indian entrepreneur Ravinder Singh waxes lyrical about the advantages of doing business in a country that attracted little attention until al Qaeda’s Yemen∞based wing said it was behind a botched December 25 attempt to blow up a US airliner.

“I’m amazed at the quality of Yemeni manpower,” said Singh, who set up a steel plant in the southern port of Aden in 2005. “I’ve worked in India for more than 30 years in several places, but I’ve never seen manpower with the commitment of Yemenis.”

This might seem an unusual tribute in a land where UN agencies estimate that only 54 percent of adults are literate and only 55 percent of children go to school. Most Yemeni men spend half the day chewing qat, a mild amphetamine-like drug.

But Singh, whose plant’s yearly output of 100,000 tonnes of steel covers a sixth of Yemen’s demand, described his workers as intelligent, with “virgin minds” that were easy to train.

He thinks Yemen is ripe for a spurt of industrial growth, an outlook at odds with widespread economic gloom focused on the country’s dwindling oil production and collapsing water supply.

Singh, who works for the Yemeni-Saudi Arab Iron and Steel Corp, is overseeing a $1.6bn expansion of the Aden plant to boost capacity to 1.5 million tonnes a year within a decade.

The company is building 150 factory sheds and housing units for investors who, Singh is convinced, will flock to the plant which now employs 400 Yemenis, a number he plans to increase.

The factory is near the road leading to Lahej province, scene of many separatist protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government in the north, but this doesn’t bother Singh.

Nor is he worried about al Qaeda’s appeal for young Yemenis. “I have met hundreds of them. They want to work, they want to participate,” he said.

Population Pressure
The southern Arabian peninsula country could certainly do with an economic success story – and more jobs for its young population of 23 million, which is set to double in 20 years. Already 45 percent of Yemenis live on less then $2 a day.

Some investors are deterred by the weakness of government authority in many areas. Diplomats say other obstacles to investment include rampant corruption and cronyism, with top jobs often assigned on the basis of loyalty not competence.

Despite Yemen’s meagre resources, funds are available for infrastructure and other projects. Donors pledged $4.7bn in 2006, but the bulk of the money has yet to be spent.

“Many projects get delayed because you find few resources or competent people in ministries,” said a diplomat working for an international organisation in Sanaa. “Often you have to hire expatriate staff to realise a project.”

For better or worse, Yemen is one of the few countries in the world without a McDonald’s or Burger King restaurant – but it is at least trying to draw foreign investors to the Aden free trade zone, where Singh’s steel plant is located.

For years the zone has offered tax∞free profits, no limits on ownership and cheap land to investors, who have committed about $800m so far, according to its manager Abdul-Galil al-Shaibi.

“We have been moving fast but in my view not fast enough,” Shaibi said, adding that the zone hoped to double investments within five years with the help of Yemenis living abroad.

“We have cheap labour…The process is to interest Yemenis in their country, to develop it so others will come,” he said.

Air of Decay
Aden, once one of the world’s biggest ports, is home to much of Yemen’s oil and gas industry, but the city’s drab residential blocks and potholed roads testify to years of neglect.

The port authority building, with its English signboards and wooden stairways, has changed little since British rule, which ended in 1967 and gave way to a Soviet-backed republic.

Many southerners say they were better off before their former socialist state joined the north in 1990, only to fight and lose a war for secession four years later. Since then, they complain, northerners have grabbed most jobs and resources. Yet there are small signs of new economic activity.

Dubai port operator DP World is expanding the container port, hoping Aden will become a regional hub for ships sailing to or from the Suez Canal – despite the threat from piracy in the Gulf of Aden. It has up to 700 staff and is seeking more.

“We’re working with a local university to help us evaluate and assess staff,” said John Fewer, a DP World adviser in Aden.

Yemen is also in talks with investors to modernise the ailing Aden oil refinery, although experts say this will be daunting job requiring billions of dollars. The refinery was built in the British era and damaged during the 1994 civil war.

Preparatory work for a sugar refinery to be built by Saudi investors has just started, Shaibi said. Some other plans for the free zone are unlikely to see the light of the day, such as construction of a new airport. The existing terminal handles only a few flights a day.

The top oil exporter said this month it would set up commercial and appeal courts in the main cities as part of a $2bn reform to modernise courts and train judges who apply the kingdom’s austere version of Sunni Islam.

The move coincides with a crackdown on trading violations on the Arab’s biggest bourse by slapping heavy fines on major banks or withdrawing licenses for financial firms.

The United States last month also removed its key regional ally from a list of alleged intellectual property violators, citing a better law enforcement environment.

Overhauling the judiciary and improving education are key reforms King Abdullah has tried since taking office in 2005 to create a modern state and combat Islamist militancy.

But the monarch has to balance the views of conservative princes and clerics, who helped the Al Saud family to found the kingdom in 1930s. Many oppose big changes.

“The set up of commercial and other specialised courts will make our legal system very efficient,” said Saudi commercial lawyer Majed Garoub.

But he cautioned it might take more than five years to see the full impact of reform as the kingdom needs to train thousands of judges and faces a shortage of 10,000 lawyers able to deal with more specialised cases.

“We will improve little by little,” said Garoub, who runs a well-establish law firm in the commercial hub of Jeddah.

Foreign investors
The Gulf Arab state needs to attract foreign investors to prepare for the day when its vast oil resources – more than a fifth of global reserves – run dry and to create jobs for its mostly young population of 18 million nationals.

With the kingdom rolling out a $400bn investment programme and opening up its bourse, industrial firms and banks have been coming, but weak legal standards still deter some.

“Concerns about contact enforcement and legal consistency are among the main issues for foreign investors,” said Paul Gamble, head of research at Saudi bank Jadwa Investment.

“The deficiencies of the current local system mean that high-profile commercial disputes are being heard in foreign courts,” he added.

Several struggling family firms have filed multi-billion lawsuits abroad as they have little trust in Saudi courts and law enforcement.

“Effective enforcement of the judgement can take years,” the US Department of Commerce said on its website.

Despite being the biggest Arab economy and a member of the G20 group of the world’s biggest economies, Saudi Arabia lacks codification of judicial verdicts to act as precedent for cases.

In 1992 the kingdom issued a “basic law” to act as a constitution and it confirms Islamic law as the basis of its legal system.

Only some regulations come via the kingdom’s appointed quasi-parliament, the Shura Assembly.

Much is left vague, to custom, royal decrees or religious edicts which are non-binding but have influence in the tribal society. Saudi Arabia is only country where women are banned from driving even though there is no law explicitly stating that.

The lack of rulings based on precedent gives judges wide powers. Rulings for the same charge can differ from region to region and human rights activists say criminal trials are often not fair and lawyers are denied timely access to files.

“Many judges do not accept that lawyers or witnesses are part of the process to find the truth in court. (A judge) thinks his understanding of the case is enough,” said a Western diplomat.

Most judges graduate from the Imam Mohamed Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, a bastion of the kingdom’s austere version of Islam called Wahhabism, said columnist Abdullah al-Alami.

“More specialised judicial training centres in collaboration with international legal training institutes need to be established,” Alami said.

“There will probably be resistance to emerging secular law, but I’m convinced that the judicial reforms will take place sooner or later.”

To bring changes, King Abdullah removed the hardline head of the Supreme Court, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan, last year.

The government is also sending judges abroad to train in modern court procedures but activists are not holding their breath.

“They should send the young judges abroad, not just the old ones who will not change,” said Ibrahim al-Mugaiteeb, head of the independent First Human Rights Society.

“There is movement but we will have to wait 15-20 years to see real changes until 60-70 percent of judges of the old regime are retired.”

Senior World Bank economist Ricardo Gazel said higher oil prices should help the oil-producing nation recover some of its foreign exchange reserves, which dropped by a third in 2009.

“Angola’s economy is expected to perform much better in 2010 compared to 2009. Preliminary data suggests that oil revenues have improved especially compared to same period in 2009,” Gazel said in his monthly World Bank report.

Oil prices more than doubled in the last year to around $80 per barrel. Oil accounts for over half of Angola’s GDP, 80 percent of government revenues and 90 percent of export revenues.

After emerging from a civil war in 2002 to rival Nigeria as Africa’s biggest oil producer, Angola plans to pump 1.9 million barrels per day in 2010, up from 1.82 million in 2009, according to its 2010 budget.

New loans from the IMF and China should also help bolster the economic recovery, Gazel said, after a slump in oil prices in 2008 and 2009 ended several years of double-digit expansion.

The government predicts the economy will expand 8.6 percent this year, up from 1.3 percent in 2009.

The African nation signed three new credit lines with China at the end of 2009 worth $10 billion, according to the World Bank report. Gazel said Chinese loans to Angola since the end of the civil war in 2002 were now at around $14.5 billion.

“But there may be other loans that haven’t been disclosed,” he said.

Most of these loans are being repaid in oil. Angola has overtaken Saudi Arabia and Iran to become China’s biggest supplier.

Gazel added that strong economic growth and the devaluation of the kwanza currency , down 19.5 percent last year, should continue to fuel inflation.

“Price pressures are likely to remain strong in 2010 due to stronger economic growth and the lag effect of the kwanza devaluation,” he said.

“However, if tight fiscal and monetary policies remain in place, they could help in keeping prices under control.”

Inflation slowed to 13.66 percent year-on-year in February from 13.83 percent in January, according to the National Statistics Institute. The government has targeted average annual inflation of 13 percent in 2010.

“We don’t trust the election or the candidates,” Samir Salahuddin, a mechanic in the northern city of Kirkuk, said.

“I am now searching for kerosene to warm my family during the night, yet we live in a country rich with oil.”

Election campaigning has started with party workers putting up election advertisements across Baghdad. As in last year’s provincial election, fierce competition is likely to turn cities into forests of banners and posters.

But Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, perched atop an oilfield and ravaged by years of bombings and militia battles, is a symbol for many of political incompetence and corruption which have sapped voter enthusiasm and led to mismanagement of Iraq’s vast oil wealth.

“I hear people say that Sadr City is rich, but I do not see the wealth,” Raziqa Fokus, a widow and mother of five, said.

“Why do my children not look rich? Why do the streets look like this?”

“I will not take part in the election because I did not see anything tangible from the government,” she added, while heading out to throw a sack of garbage into the street. Another resident complained that rubbish usually remains uncollected for months.

Iraqi and US officials hope the March 7 parliamentary election will solidify the country’s young democracy and draw former insurgents and militias into the political process – just as US troops prepare to withdraw.

Sectarian warfare unleashed by the 2003 US invasion has faded, but tensions between once-dominant Sunnis and majority Shi’ites are high.

This has been stoked by the Shi’ite-led government’s rhetoric against Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath party and moves to ban candidates accused of Baathist ties.

In Sadr City, one of several Iraqi slums full of unemployed young men ripe for recruitment by insurgent, militia or criminal groups, ragged boys play in stagnant pools of water and the smell of raw sewage and garbage wafts through the air.

An ugly web of crisscrossing wires forms part of an informal electricity grid hooked up to diesel generators to compensate for Iraq’s patchy national network that still provides far less than 24 hours of power per day.

“I’m just an employee. Corruption, a lack of coordination and haphazard decisions at the electricity ministry are to blame,” said an electrical engineer who declined to be named.

Government says much achieved
Jinan Abdul-Jabbar, a lawmaker and member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition, disputed accusations of poor government performance. Security, on which Maliki is expected to base his campaign, has improved dramatically.

“There were priorities and people understand that – security first then the services,” she said. “I believe that despite the challenges that faced the government, it managed to achieve a lot.”

Rebuilding is a tall order after decades of war and sanctions. But the world’s 11th largest oil producer is trying to revamp its crude oil sector with a series of deals set to vault it into the top three.

Iraq hopes an increase in production capacity to 12 million barrels per day (bpd) from 2.5 million bpd within six or seven years will bring the cash needed for development.

And many may vote along religious, political and tribal lines, and not on the perceived competence of candidates, Baghdad University analyst Saad al-Hadithi said.

In the 2005 elections, religious leaders urged Shi’ites to vote for Shi’ite Islamist parties while Sunnis largely boycotted the polls, helping to fuel the insurgency.

“I believe a lack of services has no big effect in Iraq … It’s affiliations to this or that side. There are political pressures that control the Iraqi voter,” Hadithi said.

“I am right back to square one,” he said.

Jamal Basala once employed 20 people on his fishing trawler. Today, his access to the sea restricted by Israel, he employs four. He used to earn $5,000 a month. Today, he accepts assistance from aid agencies and can’t afford his son’s university fees. “I suffer depression,” he said.

Mahmoud al-Hindi, a civil engineering graduate, once hoped for a career in a respected field. Today, more than a year since he graduated, Gaza’s decaying economy has yet to provide him with his first job. “You find all the roads closed in your face,” he said. “We have lost hope.”

The late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat pledged to turn Gaza into Singapore on the Mediterranean. Today, four years of sanctions have turned it into something quite different.

The blockade, tightened as Hamas Islamists hostile to Israel rose to power, has devastated the economy and with it hopes for a better future for Gaza’s 1.5 million residents.

Israeli restrictions on Gaza’s crossings were tightened when Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006, again a few months later when Gaza militants captured an Israeli soldier and further still when the Islamist group took full control in 2007.

Palestinian businessmen and economists count the costs in tens of thousands of lost jobs and the destruction of Gaza’s industry. Harder to quantify is the shattered hopes of young Palestinians who would leave if only they could get out.

Businessmen who saw profit and prosperity in peace with Israel now question the concept. They believe Israel’s policy has targeted them, not the Hamas group whose rule has grown only stronger as Gaza has decayed.

“Economic warfare”
Hamas is as uncompromising as ever. Classified as a terrorist group by the US and the EU, it will not yield to Western demands that it recognise Israel and renounce violence.

To Israel, Gaza is an “enemy entity”.

Yet even states sympathetic to Israel’s security concerns have criticised the embargo – pressure that contributed to a decision in June to ease some aspects of the policy.

Previously banned consumer goods and raw materials have started crossing into Gaza recently. Israel says it will let in everything other than weapons or materials that could be used to make them.

Critics point at manifold flaws in the new policy.

The quantities Israel has pledged to let in fall far short of Gaza’s ordinary needs, before taking into account the additional requirements of an economy yet to rebuild from the military offensive Israel launched against Hamas 18 months ago with the declared aim of curbing cross-border rocket attacks.

Equally important, there is no mention of exports.

“Our concern is that Gaza residents have a right not just to consume, but also to produce, export and travel,” said Sari Bashi, director of Gisha, an Israeli human rights group. “The policy of economic warfare continues.”

The quantities entering Gaza have risen. In the week ending July 24, 979 truckloads went in – a 40 percent increase on the figure a month before, Bashi said. But that is still only 40 percent of what used to enter Gaza before Hamas took control.

“Gaza needs a Marshall Plan,” said Palestinian economist Omar Shaban, referring to the US aid plan that jumpstarted Europe’s economy after World War Two. “The term ‘economy’ no longer applies here.”

Unemployment has soared. The level is currently around 40 percent, compared to around 30 percent in 2007, according to the World Bank. UNRWA – which cares for Palestinian refugees – says 80 percent of the population now depends on its food aid, up from 40 percent a few years ago.

Inhibiting recovery, Israel’s banned list includes building materials such as cement and steel – among other “dual use” goods it says could be used for military purposes.

Such materials will be allowed in, Israel says, but only for projects under international supervision.

Both are already available to Hamas and anyone else who can afford the services of smugglers who can supply anything you need through tunnels from Egypt.

“Creating monsters”
Typifying a new layer of industry based on making the most from what is available, rubble recycling has been one of Gaza’s few active sectors. Chunks of concrete, collected from the rubble of buildings, are delivered by donkey cart to plants which turn it back into bricks.

The blockade has been felt across all sectors, from food production to furniture. Industries have had to adapt or die.

Fishermen who are only allowed to sail up to three nautical miles from shore have abandoned large trawlers for smaller skiffs. Beyond the three mile mark, they risk running into the Israeli navy, which enforces the rule with Egyptian help.

Jamal Basala’s trawler, built at a cost of $80,000 in 1992, hasn’t been to sea in four years. Today, sitting on a beach in Rafah, the boat provides Basala with shade while he repairs fishing nets. “Today it’s smaller boats, smaller nets, catching fewer fish,” said Basala, interrupted by the sound of two warning shots fired by a warship on the horizon.

Wadih El Wadiah, the snack food manufacturer, has also been forced to adapt. He has turned the bomb-damaged remnants of a biscuit factory into a vegetable pickling plant. His business, like Basala’s, has gone backwards.

Wadiah has started receiving packaging materials from Israel recently. His wish list includes new machinery and access once again to the West Bank market where he used to sell most of his output. “As they have let products in, they must let them out for this crisis to end,” he said.

As businessmen in Gaza count the costs of the blockade, many have concluded that Israel has deliberately sought to destroy their livelihoods.

The policy has cost Israel what Palestinian friends it had in Gaza, said Amr Hamad, executive manager of the Palestine Federation of Industries. “We are losing the layer of legitimate businessmen who were the last layer of believers in peace,” he said. “Israel is losing friends and creating monsters.”

The London talks galvanised global support for Yemen and its government recognised the urgent need for economic and political reforms to help fight al Qaeda which risks threatening regional stability, according to a draft conference statement.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the meeting after a Yemen-based al Qaeda affiliate said it was behind a failed December 25 bid to blow up a US-bound plane with 300 people aboard.

Have the talks enough momentum to achieve a Yemen solution?
The botched Christmas bomb attack was a wake-up call to the US, its Western and Sunni Arab allies that Yemen’s lawlessness has reached an alarming level that could no longer be ignored in the oil-producing region.

It drove home how al Qaeda could threaten western interests from Yemen, compounding security challenges already posed by lawless Somalia just across the Gulf of Aden.

“This is a step in the right direction but a global solution and broader approach will have to follow. It is a very complicated situation,” London-based Yemen expert Khairallah Khairallah said.

“But it is the first time that all these countries are really concerned about Yemen, that it could turn into another Afghanistan or Somalia,” he said, adding: “They cannot face a state failure that can lead to worsening instability in the region and beyond.”

What differentiates this new approach to radicalism?
The meeting underlined a broader approach to tackling radicalisation in Yemen by targeting reforms, infrastructure, corruption, building institutions and most importantly addressing poverty, a breeding ground for militancy.

“The meeting is only a foundation and a starting point for all the major powers to work together but it is quite an important step really,” London-based Yemen expert Henry Thompson told reporters.

“This meeting has shown a greater level of international involvement, a much greater level of engagement from Yemen’s immediate neighbours on how to provide aid and how to foresee the implementation of this aid,” Thompson said.

What is the timeframe for fighting radicalism in Yemen?
Nobody expects a quick fix in a country beset by a Shi’ite Muslim insurgency in the north, separatism in the south, growing al Qaeda militancy, a weak state, corruption and a dire economy with 42 percent of Yemen’s 23 million people living on $2 a day.

Donors say it would take a while to gear up and provide assistance mainly because they would need to set up the mechanisms to oversee the distribution of funds.

One clear outcome of the meeting is that donors all agree that just pumping in more unregulated money or providing more military assistance as they did in the past was not enough. Any more aid will be closely scrutinised and conditioned with the Yemeni government enacting reforms.

“It’s more about trying to show international support, create unity, get a common sense of what is needed and what people’s capacity to contribute is, and then build a game plan from there,” said one US official, who declined to be named.

“Yemen is not a failed state but it’s an incredibly fragile state,” British Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis said.

“We want to get in there early to offer assistance and to prevent Yemen becoming a failed state,” he said.

Watched by heavily armed riot police, some 3,000 demonstrators marched towards the offices of the state-run Ivorian Radio and Television (RTI) broadcaster. Protestors chanted slogans calling for Gbagbo to give opposition parties equal access to the state media and hurry up with the polls.

Political tensions are rising in the top cocoa grower as Ivory Coast approaches the campaign period for an election meant to end years of stalemate following a 2002-3 war that split the country in two, leaving the north in the hands of rebels.

Opposition presidential candidates Henri Konan Bedie and Alassane Ouattara have complained of being marginalised by the national press, saying state broadcasters or pro-Gbagbo private media are giving the incumbent an unfair advantage.

“Equal access to state media is guaranteed to all by the law,” said a statement read out by opposition youth leader Karamoko Yayoro. “We condemn the stranglehold of the media … (exercised) by the candidate Laurent Gbagbo’s clan.”

Despite widespread fears of violence and a police roadblock preventing protestors marching onto RTI’s offices, the demonstration remained peaceful throughout.

The vote has been repeatedly postponed since 2005 but is currently scheduled for around early March. The opposition accuses Gbagbo of deliberately holding back the process to extend his mandate, a charge he denies.

After years of political instability and limbo, many Ivorians are desperate to draw a line under a crisis that has paralysed the economy and scared off investors in what was once West Africa’s economic powerhouse.

“We are in a situation of total hopelessness,” said protester Pascal Noe, 28, unemployed. “Gbagbo has brought us war and nothing else. We want out of this crisis.”

But efforts by military rulers to hand power back to civilians in both Guinea and Niger offer the best chance at progress in the vast zone, which is rich in mineral resources but notorious for coups and rebellions, Said Djinnit told reporters.

“There are governments trying, struggling to improve governance and the well-being of the people. And this has been a source of hope for me,” said Djinnit, the UN’s special representative to West Africa since 2008.

“On the other hand, we see that the poverty is still with the region, the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger, and the sense of frustration that governments are not up to the challenges of their responsibilities is growing,” he said.

Coups, corruption, insurgencies, piracy and kidnappings in West Africa are a worry for investors and Western nations that depend on the region for a growing share of their oil, minerals and agricultural commodities.

The US estimates a quarter of its oil will come from West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea by 2015, and has bumped up training operations for West African militaries to help them combat piracy, drugs smuggling and terrorist operations.

But the tumult will not stop until responsible governments are in place in West Africa to address endemic poverty that has lingered since the end of colonial rule and that has tempted many to engage in crime and rebellion.

“We cannot delink the issue of extremism from the issue of harmony in society and especially poverty. There is a sense of neglect and marginalization that can facilitate people to go to extremes,” he said.

“The core of the responsibility is with the governments.”

Djinnit said he was hopeful elections in Guinea, the world’s top producer of aluminium ore bauxite, and later in Niger, could mark some progress towards stability and potentially cement fragile gains made in countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia, which are recovering from brutal civil wars from the 1990s.

“The biggest achievement we could have in the region at this point would be stabilising Guinea,” he said.

Tribal divisions, lack of security outside towns, inexperienced government, corruption and signs that the semi-autonomous authority in the south has shown signs of repression have raised fears that an independent south Sudan may not end the problems faced by its people.

“The post-independence period – when the common denominator of self-determination is gone – could be marked by significant infighting and increased conflict on tribal lines,” Zachary Vertin from the International Crisis Group think-tank said.

Sudan watchers fear that without the unifying goal of an independent south to fight for, discontent may grow over the government’s poor provision of basic services, corruption and bad behaviour by the south’s ill-trained army.

Delayed and reluctant implementation of the 2005 peace deal between north and south, which promised democratic transformation, power and wealth sharing, elections and the prized referendum, has led many southerners to say they will vote to separate on January 9, 2011.  

The former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which fought the Islamic northern government over ideology, religion, ethnicity and oil and which dominates the south’s government, was kept busy ensuring the deal was implemented, leaving unresolved tensions under south Sudan’s surface.

Ethnic disunity was highlighted in 2009 when 2,500 lives were lost in inter-tribal violence. Many of the dead were women and children killed in ruthless, apparently highly organised attacks on large villages.

Southerners have accused Khartoum of arming rival tribal groups – as they did during the war – but have been unable to provide conclusive proof. Some believe rivalries among southern politicians and a security vacuum outside urban centres are to blame.

“Political jockeying is likely to intensify as elections and the referendum approach,” Vertin told reporters. “A high degree of cooperation is necessary if they are to forge a new and viable state.”

It has been a bloody process to disarm a people bristling with weapons after decades of civil war which has claimed two million lives and driven four million from their homes.

“Many communities have doubts about the (army’s) capacity to protect disarmed communities,” a report by the independent US Institute of Peace said. “Disarmament efforts have often been perceived as biased … and asymmetrical.”

The massive army, whose salaries the south has struggled to pay, has seen infighting and is accused of human rights abuses.

“In general (it) is not a united army, but rather a collection of former militias and ethnic groups, and a constant balancing act is needed to keep them together,” a report by the non-governmental Dutch organisation IKV Pax Christi said.

Foreigners, especially tens of thousands of east Africans who form a vital part of the nascent economy, complain of rough treatment with five Kenyans shot in December 2009. Most northern Sudanese have left the south after attacks on their businesses since 2005.

Some political parties have complained of harassment. A splinter group led by former SPLM Foreign Minister Lam Akol are petitioning the constitutional court after saying the south Sudan government has arrested their leaders and shut them down.

And journalists have sometimes faced harassment they say contravenes press freedoms enshrined in the constitution. Many worry about a proposed media law’s tough licensing requirements.

“Certainly, licensing would be used to control or refuse renewal to independent media outlets that are seen to be either critical of government or posing threats to vested interests,” said Hakim Moi of the Association of Media in South Sudan.