In this issue:

VaxGen HIV Vaccine Fails

Mbeki to Address French National Assembly

U.S. State Department Denounces Bounty for Kidnapping Charles Taylor

U.S. Embassy in Khartoum Closes Over 'Terrorist Threat'

South African Cabinet Approves Massive Public Works Program

Cote d'Ivoire Headed Toward Permanent Division

Uganda in Talks To Extend Rail Lines to Sudan

From Volume 2, Issue Number 46 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Nov. 18, 2003
Africa News Digest

VaxGen HIV Vaccine Fails

VaxGen's vaccine against HIV has clearly failed in tests in Thailand, the Brisbane-based company announced Nov. 12. It had reported the failure of its North American trial in February. Meanwhile, the number of people infected with HIV will increase from more than 42 million to more than 87 million by the end of this decade, a BBC News story asserted, also Nov. 12. The story recalls that the AIDS epidemic is taking hold in India, Russia, and China. Together, they make up half of the world's population. The epidemic is already raging in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has most of the existing 42 million cases, with infection rates above 30% in some countries.

"Now that VaxGen's vaccine has failed," writes Associated Press reporter Paul Elias in a Nov. 13 story, "attention has turned to the two dozen other experimental vaccines now being tested on 12,000 human volunteers in experiments around the world. But none of those are as advanced as VaxGen's two failed experiments and any successful candidate is years away."

Mbeki to Address French National Assembly

South African President Thabo Mbeki will be addressing the French National Assembly during his state visit to France, Nov. 17-19. As EIW reported earlier this year, President Mbeki played a leadership role in both all-Africa leadership organizations, and in the Non-Aligned Movement, in opposing the Iraq war, in collaboration with the unified position developed by France, Russia, and Germany.

U.S. State Department Denounces Bounty for Kidnapping Charles Taylor

The U.S. State Department has denounced the Cheneyac Bush Administration offer of a bounty of $2 million for the kidnapping of former Liberian President Charles Taylor from Nigeria, where he has been given asylum (see last week's Digest); now, some in Congress want to squeeze Nigeria to release him, even if it means the resumption of war in Liberia. State Department spokeswoman Susan Pittman said Nov. 12 that "We strongly oppose any violent or other illegal actions against Nigerian authorities aimed at obtaining custody of Charles Taylor," and that the State Department would keep the $2 million bounty money. The bounty was allotted as part of the $87 billion Iraq-Afghanistan emergency funding act.

Before Taylor was forced out of the Presidency of Liberia, Northbridge Services (UK) had offered to snatch him for the same sum of $2 million, according to the Vanguard newspaper of (Lagos) Nov. 12.

With the State Department balking, the Cheneyacs, i.e., the anti-Islam neo-cons in Congress, and the Executive Branch, especially the NSC, State Department office under John Bolton, and the Defense Department, are planning a follow-up move in Congress, to cut off possibly tens of millions of dollars of annual aid to Nigeria unless it surrenders Taylor. A provision to that effect is included in the Senate's version of the foreign operations appropriations bill, now in conference committee of the two houses. Senate supporters claim to have some bipartisan backing in the House, according to the Financial Times Nov. 11. The State Department opposes this also.

An adviser to Nigerian President Obasanjo, Femi Fani-Kayode, pointed out that, "If you take [Taylor] out in any way, harass him, or remove him from here, you jeopardize the peace process," according to the FT.

A committee chairwoman in the West African (ECOWAS) parliament, Hawa Yakubu Ogede, a Ghanaian, made the point clearer to the press in Abuja Nov. 11: that trying Taylor at this time would likely cause his loyalists to take up arms again. Taylor, she said, was not the only evil President to ever appear in West Africa, the Daily Trust (Abuja) reported.

Dr. Emmanuel Kwesi Anning, described as a "senior security expert at African Security Dialogue and Research," warned that putting Taylor on trial now would threaten the entire West African political process, according to the Ghanaian Chronicle (Accra) Nov. 11.

The Presidents of Nigeria, Ghana (as chairman of ECOWAS), and South Africa escorted Taylor to Nigeria in August.

U.S. Embassy in Khartoum Closes Over 'Terrorist Threat'

The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum announced it would suspend operations for one week, due to a "specific" threat again American interests in the Sudanese capital. "The U.S. embassy will suspend normal operations as of November 12," the Embassy said in a statement, noting it would also be closed on Nov. 11 for the Veterans' Day holiday in the United States. "This action is the result of a credible and specific threat to U.S. interests in Khartoum," it said, without elaborating. The mission also advised U.S. nationals to be cautious and avoid gatherings of foreigners. "We urge all U.S. citizens in Sudan to exercise extra caution and to avoid gatherings of foreigners that may attract outside attention," said the Embassy's statement, again without elaborating. "The Embassy hopes to be able to resume normal operations next week," it added, specifying that the Sudanese Foreign Ministry had been informed of its decision. "The U.S. Embassy wishes to express its appreciation for the strategic support provided by the Sudanese authorities in confronting the present threat," the statement added.

Recently, the U.S. closed its Embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia, just prior to a massive bombings in Riyadh.

See this week's InDepth for what's behind the Sudan "peace" negotiations.

South African Cabinet Approves Massive Public Works Program

In an address to the National Council of Provinces Nov. 12, South African President Thabo Mbeki announced that his Cabinet had approved a business plan for the promised public-works program that is to create 1 million jobs. He said the plan would be implemented in phases.

Mbeki said the program "will draw significant numbers of the unemployed into productive employment, so that workers gain skills while they are gainfully employed and increase their capacity to earn an income once they leave the program."

Workers in the program will "upgrade rural and municipal roads, municipal pipelines, storm-water drains and paving, fencing of roads, community water supply and sanitation, the maintenance of government buildings, housing, schools, and clinics, rail and port infrastructure, and electrification infrastructure," according to Business Day Nov. 12.

The government first announced the program at the Growth and Development Summit in Johannesburg on June 7, responding to the pressure of the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

Cote d'Ivoire Headed Toward Permanent Division

Cote d'Ivoire is headed toward permanent division into two parts. In the latest move, a three-hour, regional heads-of-state summit in Accra, Ghana Nov. 11, was intended to induce the two sides to take steps to bridge the political gap; it failed.

The recent background is that rebels appointed to Cabinet positions left their posts on Sept. 23, and headed north to rebel territory, charging that President Gbagbo was not allowing them any authority. Gbagbo's Prime Minister Seydou Diarra agreed, an indication that the charge was very possibly true.

In response to the failed Nov. 11 summit, the Deputy Secretary General of the New Forces (combined rebel movements), Louis Dakoury Tabley, said on Nov. 12 that "Those who talk of secession are right, from now on, because we cannot expect anything further from these [Marcoussis] accords." He was speaking at the conclusion of a forum in the rebel capital, Bouake, on Nov. 8-12, on making the impoverished, rebel-held zone more economically self-sufficient.

As an afterthought, on Nov. 13, the rebels issued a call, asking the international community to "invite" Gbagbo to step down and accept exile. They do not expect it to happen.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in a report to the Security Council on Nov. 11, said that the peace process is in "serious difficulty." The Security Council discussed the report in closed session the same day, but issued no statement.

Uganda in Talks To Extend Rail Lines to Sudan

The government of Uganda is beginning talks with Sudan to extend rail lines from Uganda into Sudan.

EIR notes that Uganda is the hub of the developing U.S. control over the region, and the U.S.-driven "peace process" in Sudan is bringing that country under increasing U.S. influence.

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