29/03/2020
Anyone caught breaking
Singapore’s social distancing rules could be jailed from Friday, as the city state ramped up its coronavirus defence and announced the introduction of distance learning for schools.
Under updates to its powerful infectious diseases law, anyone who intentionally sits less than 1 metre away from another person in a public place or on a fixed seat demarcated as not to be occupied, or who stands in a queue less than a metre away from another, will be guilty of an offence.
Offenders can be fined up to S$10,000 (US$6,990), jailed for up to six months, or both. The rules, in place until April 30, can be applied to individuals and businesses.
The news was followed later by an announcement from the education ministry that starting from April, schools will start conducting one day of home-based learning for students per week.
Singapore’s new social distancing laws send needed signal, experts say
“The recent spike in imported cases signals a new phase in our nation’s fight against Covid-19. To support further safe distancing, schools will progressively transit to a blended learning model, starting with one day of home-based learning a week,” the ministry said in a statement.
It added schools will remain open for students whose parents are not able to secure alternative childcare arrangements.
Hundreds of thousands of students in Singapore returned to class on Monday after a week of school holidays, despite growing calls for schools to be closed.
Singapore is one of the few jurisdictions in the region that has yet to suspend schools, unlike Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
Education Minister Ong Ye Kung had earlier cited scientific evidence, saying that the pneumonia-like Covid-19 illness does not affect the young as much as adults.
Authorities in the city state, however, have said that suspending schools and closing workplaces are among the next steps to be taken should the situation worsen. Singapore has confirmed 683 cases so far, of which 172 have recovered and two died.
Global condom shortage looms amid virus lockdowns
A global shortage of condoms is looming, the world’s biggest producer said, after a coronavirus lockdown forced it to shut down production.
Malaysia’s Karex makes one in every five condoms globally. It has not produced a single condom from its three Malaysian factories in the past 10 days because of the lockdown imposed by the government to halt the spread of the virus.
That’s already a shortfall of 100 million condoms, normally marketed internationally by brands such as Durex, supplied to state health care systems such as Britain’s NHS or distributed by aid programmes such as the UN Population Fund.
“We are going to see a global shortage of condoms everywhere, which is going to be scary,” Karex Chief Executive Goh Miah Kiat said this week.
“My concern is that for a lot of humanitarian programmes deep down in Africa, the shortage will not just be two weeks or a month. That shortage can run into months.”
The other major condom-producing countries are China, where the coronavirus led to widespread factory shutdowns, and India and Thailand, which are seeing infections spiking only now.
Goh said Karex was in the process of appealing to the government for an exemption to operate under specific conditions. Malaysia is approving other essential goods producers to operate with half of their workforce.
“The good thing is that the demand for condoms is still very strong because like it or not, it’s still an essential to have,” Goh said. “Given that at this point in time people are probably not planning to have children. It’s not the time, with so much uncertainty.”
China to ban most foreign arrivals
China has
banned most foreigners from entering the country in an effort to block the spread of the coronavirus through imported cases.
With several exceptions, including transit visas and foreigners arriving via Hong Kong and Macau with short-term entry permits, entry visas issued to foreigners will be suspended as an “interim measure”, according to a statement late on Thursday by the country’s foreign ministry.
“In view of the rapid spread of the new coronavirus epidemic worldwide, China has decided to temporarily suspend entry of foreigners with currently valid visas and residence permits in China,” the ministry said.
“This is an interim measure that China has to take in order to respond to the current epidemic situation, with reference to the practice of many countries,” it added. “The Chinese side will adjust the above measures according to the epidemic situation through separate announcements.”
Pakistan aid workers lack basic kit
Pakistan’s biggest charity, famous for its emergency services for the poor, is kitting staff out in raincoats and rubber boots in the battle against the coronavirus as it can’t get hold of proper personal protective equipment, the organisation says.
Pakistan has reported the highest number of coronavirus infections in South Asia, with 1,179 cases and nine deaths, but health experts say there is a lack of public awareness about the virus and the cash-strapped government is ill-prepared to tackle it.
The Edhi Foundation has for decades stepped in to help when government services fail communities and it runs the country’s largest ambulance service.
Now it has had to train dozens of staff on how to handle suspected coronavirus patients. But providing them with proper protection is a problem given a nationwide shortage of the equipment.
“We’ve compromised on certain things and use alternatives,” Facial Edhi, head of the Edhi Foundation, said at his office in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, on Thursday.
“Full aprons are in short supply in the market.”
He said he was confident the raincoats would work just as well.
South Korea pleads with residents to stay indoors
Authorities in South Korea pleaded with residents on Friday to stay indoors and avoid large gatherings as new coronavirus cases hovered close to 100 per day.
South Korea reported 91 new infections on Friday, taking the national tally to 9,332, the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said. The country has reported similar daily numbers for the past two weeks, down from a high of over 900 in late February.
The government has sought to convince a restless public that several more weeks of social distancing and self-isolation may be needed to allow health authorities to tamp down the smaller but still steady stream of new cases.
“As the weather is getting nicer, I know many of you may have plans to go outside,” said Yoon Tae-ho, director general for public health policy at the health ministry. “But social distancing cannot be successful when it’s only an individual, it needs to be the whole community.”
Coronavirus: California officials alarmed by rate of infection
Italy reports 662 new deaths, with uptick in new cases
Italy is reporting an uptick in new novel coronavirus infections, after four consecutive days in which new cases had decreased.
The country now has 62,013 active cases, a daily increase of 4,492, the Italian Civil Protection Agency said in its bulletin.
On Wednesday the daily variation was 3,491, on Tuesday 3,612, on Monday 3,780, on Sunday 3,957, and on Saturday a record 4,821.
There are also 662 new fatalities, bringing the total death toll to 8,165, while overall infections, including deaths and recoveries, have risen to 80,539, a daily increase of 8.3 per cent.
Recoveries are up by around 11 per cent to 10,361, while the number of intensive care patients – a closely watched figure given the shortage of hospital beds – has risen by 3.5 per cent, to 3,612.
Russia closes all restaurants nationwide
Russia is temporarily closing restaurants nationwide for a nine-day period starting on Saturday to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Restaurants will still be able to provide delivery services during that time, according to the decree by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, published on his website on Friday.
Russia has reported more than 800 cases of coronavirus, predominantly in Moscow, which has seen at least two virus-related deaths. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has warned that the actual number of cases is probably “significantly more”.
The country has already prohibited regular international flights, and imposed strict quarantine measures for anyone entering the country and anyone who could have been exposed to someone infected with the virus – though has not yet opted to impose lockdown measures like those seen elsewhere.
Coronavirus containment measures spark prison protests across Italy as nation goes into lockdown
First casualty in Kenya
Kenya has recorded its first coronavirus death as a rapid rise in confirmed cases puts Africa’s fragile health systems to the test.
Kenyan Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said a 66-year-old Kenyan man died on Thursday afternoon despite treatment in an intensive care unit.
Kagwe said the man, who arrived into the country on March 13 from South Africa via Swaziland, was a diabetic. Also on Thursday, three women aged between 30 and 61 tested positive for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, taking the country’s total to 31.
Kenya is the second country in East Africa and the 15th on the continent to confirm a coronavirus-related death. Algeria has the highest death toll in Africa with 25 fatalities, while Egypt has reported 24 and Morocco 11.
About a week ago, the continent of 54 countries had reported fewer than 300 cases. But by Friday Africa had 3,221 confirmed cases and 87 deaths. WHO regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti said on Thursday that the situation in Africa was “evolving very quickly in terms of geographic spread and the increasing number of cases”.
Australian military to enforce quarantine
The Australian military will help enforce the quarantine of travellers returning to the country, with the prime minister unveiling strict new measures and door-to-door checks on Friday to rein in the spread of Covid-19.
With some two-thirds of Australia’s 3,000 Covid-19 cases still linked to overseas travel, Scott Morrison said 14-day home quarantines would now be actively policed with the help of the military.
Thousands of citizens and residents are still arriving in Australia every day and there have been instances of return travellers repeatedly breaking a promise to stay at home.
Morrison said all returnees arriving after midnight Saturday would now be kept in hotels in the city of arrival for the duration of their quarantine.
Those already on Australian soil and under orders to self-quarantine for two weeks will face active checks, he said.
Quarantine measures will be getting “a lot tougher and a lot stricter,” Morrison said, adding the Australian Defence Force would “assist in the compliance with these arrangements.”
Afghanistan to release 10,000 prisoners
Afghanistan will release at least 10,000 prisoners over the age of 55 in an attempt to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, officials said on Thursday.
“The president has issued a decree that several thousand prisoners will be released soon due to coronavirus,” an official in President Ashraf Ghani’s office said.
Those released will not include members of Islamist militant groups the Taliban or Islamic State, and the process will be completed within 10 days, said two government officials.
Afghanistan has reported 91 cases of coronavirus and three deaths. The country’s western Herat province has recorded at least 54 of the 75 total cases reported in the last week.
International aid groups in recent weeks have raised concerns about the possibility of the coronavirus spreading in prisons across Afghanistan.
Source: SCMP
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16/03/2020
- South Africa, Kenya latest to halt arrivals from ‘high-risk’ countries as cases across the continent double over the weekend
- Concerns are growing over whether health care systems in some African nations will be able to cope
Masked volunteers provide soap and water for participants to wash their hands against the new coronavirus at a women’s 5km fun run in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Sunday. Photo: AP
Travel bans and school closures were announced in South Africa and Kenya on Sunday, as concerns grew over the capacity of the continent’s fragile health systems to cope with the spread of the deadly new
coronavirus, with more than a dozen countries reporting their first cases.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster, banning arrivals by foreign nationals from high-risk countries including Italy, Iran, South Korea, Spain, Germany, the United States, Britain and China, effective Wednesday.
“We have cancelled visas to visitors from those countries from today and previously granted visas are hereby revoked,” Ramaphosa said in a televised address on Sunday evening, adding that any foreign national who had visited high-risk countries in the past 20 days would be denied a visa.
South African schools will also be closed from Wednesday until after the Easter weekend. Gatherings of more than 100 people have been banned and mass celebrations for Human Rights Day and other events cancelled. “Never before in the history of our democracy has our country been confronted with such a severe situation,” Ramaphosa said.
In Kenya, where three cases of Covid-19 – the disease caused by the new coronavirus – have now been confirmed, President Uhuru Kenyatta suspended travel from any country with reported infections. Only Kenyan citizens and foreigners with valid residency permits would be allowed entry, provided they proceeded to self-quarantine or a government-designated quarantine facility, he said.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta reports two more cases of coronavirus in the country, bringing its total number of cases to three. Photo: DPA
Kenyatta also suspended learning in all educational institutions with immediate effect. “Some of the measures may cause inconvenience, but I want to assure you they are designed to ensure that we effectively contain the spread of the virus,” he said.
Kenya and South Africa join Ghana, Rwanda and Morocco in implementing travel restrictions or outright bans, while others are closing churches, museums, sporting activities, nightclubs and tourist attractions in a bid to curb the spread of the disease.
The continent was largely spared in the early days of the outbreak but has now recorded more than 300 cases and six deaths. Algeria, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia all reported more new cases over the weekend, which saw numbers of new infections across Africa more than double in just two days.
As numbers rise, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said there are around a dozen countries on the continent without the capacity to do their own testing.
They will have to send samples to countries like South Africa, which itself is struggling to contain the virus, with confirmed cases doubling to 61 on Sunday, a day after 114 of its citizens were repatriated from the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the original epicentre of the outbreak and the first to be placed in lockdown.
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa CDC, warned that the risk of other African countries detecting new cases of Covid-19 remained high. “Our strategy is clear: we want to capacitate the member states, so they can quickly detect and mitigate the effects of the disease in Africa, and, if widespread transmission occurs, prevent severe illness and death,” he said.
The World Health Organisation has already warned that critical gaps remain in the capacity of many African nations to trace, detect and treat the disease. On Friday, the WHO Africa office said it was “striving to help member states fill these gaps” but warned of global shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE) including gloves, masks and hand sanitiser.
Major coronavirus outbreak in Africa ‘just a matter of time’
WHO said its first blanket distribution of PPEs, to 24 African countries, had been completed and another wave of distributions was planned.
“With Covid-19 officially declared a pandemic, all countries in Africa must act,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa. “Every country can still change the course of this pandemic by scaling up their emergency preparedness or response.
“Cases may still be low in Africa and we can keep it that way with robust all-of-government actions to fight the new coronavirus.”
The 55 member states of the African Union have suspended meetings until May, while the six countries that make up the East African Community have suspended all planned meetings until further notice.
Coronavirus delays Nigeria’s US$1.5 billion Chinese-built rail project
In Algeria – one of the worst-hit North African countries, with 48 cases and four deaths, as of Monday morning – all schools and universities have been closed, while Senegal, with 24 cases to date, has closed schools and cancelled its Independence Day festivities on April 4, which this year marks 60 years since its independence from France. Cruise ships have also been banned from docking in Senegal.
On Sunday, Rwanda closed all its places of worship and suspended large gatherings such as weddings and sporting activities. Schools and universities in the central African country are also closed. National airline RwandAir has also suspended flights between the capital Kigali and Mumbai until April 30.
This is in addition to earlier suspensions of its routes with Tel Aviv and the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, which remain in place until further notice.
While most African airlines have suspended flights to cities in mainland China, Ethiopian Airlines has continued flying to most of its destinations, describing its China routes as among its most profitable. Nevertheless, chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam last week said coronavirus fears had cut demand by a fifth on most of its routes.
Source: Reuters
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24/02/2020
- An insect-killing fungus has been turned into a mass-produced biopesticide that will face its biggest challenge in East Africa
- Current swarm has put 13m people at risk of famine and this will be the first large-scale test of its effectiveness
Young locusts in Somalia, where the fungus will be used to try to kill them. Photo: AP
Chinese factories are producing thousands of tonnes of a “green zombie fungus” to help fight the swarms of locusts in East Africa.
Metarhizium is a genus of fungi with nearly 50 species – some genetically modified – that is used as a biological insecticide because its roots drill through the insects’ hard exoskeleton and gradually poisons them.
In China it was named lu jiang jun, which means green zombie fungus, because it gradually turns its victims in a green mossy lump.
There are now dozens of factories across the country dedicated to producing its spores and despite the curbs introduced to stop the spread of Covid-19, many of them have resumed operations and are shipping thousands of tonnes to Africa.
Plague fears as massive East Africa locust outbreak spreads
These factories are set up in a similar way to breweries, growing the spores on rice which is kept in carefully controlled conditions to ensure the correct temperature and humidity.
Each plant can produce thousands of tonnes of fungi powder per year, each gram of which contains tens of billions of spores.
“I am sending off a truckload right now. Our stock is running out,” said the marketing manager of a production plant in Jiangxi province. “Some customers need it urgently. They need it to kill the locusts.”
The need is particularly pressing in East Africa at the moment, where abnormally high levels of rainfall during the dry season allowed hundreds of billions of locusts to hatch in recent months.
So far the swarms have devastated crops in countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda and are moving on to neighbouring countries.
Up to 13 million people face the risk of famine in East Africa. Photo: AFP
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned the situation could be the “worst in decades” and the resulting famine may affect 13 million people and cause international food prices to soar.
Last week, Science magazine reported that the Somalian government, working with the FAO, was preparing to a metarhizium species that only kills locusts and grasshoppers in what it described as the largest ever use of biopesticides against the insects.
Scientists do not believe that the fungus will be enough to solve the problem – monitoring the outbreak and targeting their breeding grounds will be more important in the long-run – but if it proves effective it could be an important weapon to target future outbreaks.
It will take time to gauge the effectiveness, partly because each fungus will take several days to take effect and partly because of the sheer scale of the challenge; a single swarm in Kenya was estimated to contain between 100 billion and 200 billion locusts.
By fair means or fowl: how Chinese herdsmen are planning to stop a locust invasion
The locusts have also swept eastward into the Middle East, travelling up to 150km (90 miles) a day, and are moving closer to China now that they have now reached some of its neighbours, including India and Pakistan.
At present China’s agriculture ministry believes some locusts may follow the monsoon into the country but “the chances of them causing damage is very small”.
Most scientists agree the swarms will not have lasting effect on food production but say developing countries can tap into China’s cutting-edge anti-locust technology.
Radar stations have been set up all the way along China’s western and southern borders to detect possible clouds of locusts, while unmanned devices lure the insects into traps to collect data about their species population and size.
A locust being eaten inside out by the metarhizium fungi. Photo: Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Maryland
The data is streamed to the ministry’s programme command, which is responsible for the planning and coordination of the national efforts to prevent an outbreak.
The scientists also said that planes loaded with biological and chemical sprays were standing by.
Today, most locust outbreaks happen in developing countries that do not have advanced monitoring networks and some of them are unable to produce pesticides on a mass scale, according to Li Hu, an associate professor with the China Agricultural University in Beijing.
The Chinese locust treatment technologies were highly advanced, and usually cheaper than competing solutions from the West, he said.
Chinese researchers are now working with colleagues in other countries to help them solve the problem.
One disadvantage of the Chinese research is that it is mostly focused on local species, or the East Asia migratory locust. The desert locusts currently swarming East Africa have different genes and behaviour, and Li warned that some methods that work in China might not work elsewhere.
A giant indoor farm in China is breeding 6 billion cockroaches a year. Here’s why
There were some sightings of the species reported in Yunnan and Tibet in the past, but they did not build up to large colonies, Professor Kang Le, lead scientist of the locust research programme with the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told China Science Daily last week.
The vast west China region of Xinjiang, which shares a border with eight countries, is currently too cold for a locust migration, but once temperatures start to rise in the spring it could see locusts swarming across the border with Afghanistan.
Shi Wangpeng, a senior government locust expert, told China Business Network on Sunday that China should be on high alert because many Afghan farms had already been affected.
“These areas share a long border with us, there are almost no barriers,” he was quoted as saying by the Shanghai-based magazine.
China has a long and bitter history of locust swarms, with more than 840 being recorded in the official records over the past 2,700 years.
One famine, in the year 628 was so devastating that even the Tang dynasty emperor Taizong was reported to have run short of food and resorted to eating the insects to survive.
China has a long and bitter history of locust swarms. Photo: AFP
This, in turn, means that China’s rulers have long been looking for innovative ways to solve the problem
In the past farmers tried remedies such as building huge fires, burying the insects in ditches or trying to kill them with sticks.
In one campaign organised by prime minister Yao Chong in 715, the farms collected 9 million sacks of dead locusts and managed to save a significant proportion of their crops, according to historic text.
In more recent times more sophisticated technologies have been deployed to tackle the menace.
Some researchers have spent decades chasing locust colonies and studying their individual and collective behaviour everywhere from coastal areas to inland deserts, and in 2014 Chinese scientists released the world’s most comprehensive genetic map of locusts.
Researchers have also developed chemical agents that can disorient swarms of locusts and disperse them.
Chinese scientists first became interested in the green zombie’s potential in the 1980s after discovering that South Pacific islanders had been using them to kill insects on coconut trees.
Research by US scientists confirmed its effectiveness in the 1990s and the Chinese started importing the fungus from the United States and Britain.
Their experiments led to the development of newer and deadlier strains and mass production started in the past decade.
Other fungi or bacteria can be used to fight locusts, and some laboratories are working with agricultural technology companies to modify their genes to turn them into more deadly or precise killers.
One genetically engineered species of microsporidia, another type of insect-killing fungus, for instance, can generate three times as many as the spores to those produced by nature species, according to a document from the China Association of Agricultural Science Societies last year.
While it remains to be seen whether the current swarms will reach China, these treatments have been effective in the past and there has not been a locust outbreak in China for a decade.
Source: SCMP
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19/02/2020
- Forty countries will be able to diagnose the disease, and the Africa CDC is training health workers
- Until two weeks ago, there were only two laboratories on the continent that could test for the virus, in Senegal and South Africa
A scientist researches the coronavirus at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar, Senegal, which until two weeks ago was one of just two labs in Africa that could test for the disease. Photo: AFP
Forty countries in Africa will be able to test for the
deadly new coronavirus
by the end of the week, the WHO said, after Egypt confirmed the first case on the continent last week.
The World Health Organisation said many of those nations had been sending samples elsewhere for testing and waiting several days for results.
“Now they can do it themselves, within 24 to 48 hours,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a media briefing on Tuesday.
Until about two weeks ago, there were only two laboratories in the continent of 54 countries – in Senegal and South Africa – with the reagents needed to test for the virus. That meant dozens of nations that had quarantined suspected patients were sending samples to South Africa or Senegal to be tested.
The WHO earlier this week sent reagent kits for coronavirus diagnosis to more than 20 countries in Africa to step up diagnosis of the virus, which causes a disease now known as Covid-19. The global health body said more countries in Africa were expected to receive testing kits this week.
In addition, the WHO last week sent testing kits to Cameroon, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia.
Coronavirus: WHO urges caution over study showing ‘decline’ in new Covid-19 cases in China
Tedros said some countries in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, were using systems developed to test for the deadly Ebola virus to now test for the coronavirus.
“This is a great example of how investing in health systems can pay dividends for health security,” Tedros said.
Several countries, including Ethiopia and South Sudan, were prioritising surveillance and monitoring at ports of entry, he said. “We’re also working with partners in some of the most fragile contexts, from Syria to the Central African Republic, to prepare countries for the arrival of the virus,” he said.
The WHO and Egyptian health officials on Friday confirmed that a 33-year-old foreigner had tested positive for the coronavirus. Egypt’s health ministry said the patient had tested positive for the virus without any symptoms, raising concern that there could be undetected cases on the continent, as countries scramble to equip labs to test for the disease.
The asymptomatic patient in Egypt was identified through contact screening of an index case who travelled to Cairo on a business trip from January 21 to February 4 and tested positive for the virus on February 11 in China, the WHO regional office said.
The new virus strain has killed more than 2,000 people and infected over 74,000 since the outbreak began in central China in December. It has spread to more than 20 countries.
Screening measures have been stepped up across Africa, including quarantining all passengers arriving from Chinese cities, amid fears that poorer countries with weaker health systems may struggle to cope if the virus spreads on the continent. More than a dozen countries still do not have the capacity to test for the pneumonia-like illness.
There are concerns that Africa’s close links with China put it at high risk for the spread of the new virus. Africa has become home to millions of Chinese since Beijing started looking to the continent for raw materials for its industries and markets for its products. China has been Africa’s largest trading partner since 2009, after it overtook the United States, with two-way trade standing at US$108 billion last year, according to China’s commerce ministry.
Africa CDC director John Nkengasong said it had been “investing in preparedness and response to the disease”. Photo: Reuters
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said it was working closely with the WHO and other partners to ensure that Egypt had the diagnostic tools it needed, and that the right actions were taken to contain the spread of the virus.
“We anticipated that the Covid-19 outbreak would inevitably impact Africa. That is why the Africa CDC has been working actively with African Union member states and partners in the past four weeks and investing in preparedness and response to the disease,” he said.
“[Last week in Dakar, Senegal] we conducted training and supplied test kits to 16 African laboratories, including from Egypt. Egypt also received additional test kits from the WHO,” Nkengasong said.
The Africa CDC would train 40 health workers from nine countries, including Egypt, in Nairobi this week, he said, on “enhancing detection and investigation of Covid-19 at points of entry”.
The Chinese medical workers on the front line of the coronavirus fight in Wuhan
On Monday, Ethiopia, home to one of the continent’s busiest airports, said it had received equipment and reagents for virus detection and control. “We are working hard day and night with the government to improve the critical measures needed to ensure that the country is ready to effectively respond to an outbreak of Covid-19,” said Boureima Hama Sambo, the WHO representative in Ethiopia.
despite pressure for it to suspend services to the country. Many countries on the continent have restricted travel to and from mainland China, while six out of eight African airlines with Chinese routes have halted flights until the virus is contained, including EgyptAir.
Egypt has suspended all flights to and from the mainland until the end of the month and has evacuated more than 300 Egyptians from Wuhan, the epicentre of the epidemic.
Source: SCMP
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25/10/2019
NAIROBI, Oct.25 (Xinhua) — China is seeking to promote cooperation with Kenya in the development of the technology arena and digital economy.
Guo Ce, economic and commercial counselor of the Chinese embassy in Kenya, said on Thursday that China which is Kenya’s largest trading partner is also seeking cooperation with Kenya in terms of capacity building by outcome-sharing in the technological arena for mutual benefit.
“For instance, China has such wonderful information technology (IT) companies as TECNO and Huawei in Kenya, providing local users with easy access to the Internet and thus increasing the welfare of its people,” Guo said during the symposium on China-Kenya cooperation and development of digital economy on Thursday.
By the end of 2018, the number of Chinese netizens has reached 829 million, and the number of mobile Internet users has reached 871 million, with the e-commerce transaction volume amounting to 4.4 trillion US dollars.
In Kenya, the value of the ICT sector, driven by growth in the digital economy, expanded by 12.9% in 2018. And as of December 2018, the total number of active data/Internet subscriptions in Kenya stood at 45.7 million of which 47.9 percent were on broadband. The number of Internet users in Kenya accounts for 83.0% of its population.
Zhao Hui, secretary general of China Federation of Internet Societies (CFIS), said during the symposium that China has always attached great importance to the extensive and friendly cooperation in cyberspace with Kenya and other African countries.
Zhao said that Kenya, as the largest economy in east Africa, has achieved remarkable results in the development of the digital economy.
“It is undoubted that there will be great opportunities for China and Kenya to carry out in-depth cooperation in the digital economy,” she added.
CFIS expects to build up a communicating platform for companies from China and Kenya to promote the continuous improvement of China-Kenya digital industrialization through the symposium, Zhao said.
Peng Lihui, secretary general of China Electronics Chamber of Commerce (CECC), invited Kenyan organizations to join the Global Digital Economy Alliance (D50), which was initiated by CECC and 50 national industrial organizations and leading enterprises.
In the symposium, Jacqueline Sigu, manager of county programme and small and medium enterprises development at Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry , said that the Kenyan government has already developed a blueprint for the digital economy, which will accelerate Kenya’s ambition to automate government and private sector business operations, while noting that the high cost of infrastructure remains a big challenge.
She said that China is an ideal partner for Kenya in the ICT sector because it is a world leader in digital innovations. “Kenya’s business community could borrow lessons from China that can adapt to meet local conditions,” she said.
She revealed that Kenya will leverage on close ties with China to solidify its status as eastern Africa’s regional ICT hub.
Liz Kisyanga, digital marketing manager of StarTimes Kenya, said that Chinese firms can play a big role in the provision of affordable internet and smart-phones in Kenya.
“More players in the digital economy space will result in more innovation and the ultimate beneficiary will be the Kenyan consumer,” Kisyanga said Kenya can partner with Chinese firms to rollout Internet services in the rural and remote areas that are typical underserved by technological service providers.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in blueprint, China alert, China Electronics Chamber of Commerce (CECC), China Federation of Internet Societies (CFIS), development, digital economy, enhance ties, information technology (IT) companies, Infrastructure, Internet, Kenya, Kenya National Chamber of Commerce, Kenyan government, Nairobi, smartphones, StarTimes Kenya, Uncategorized |
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08/09/2019
- International watchdog to vote on whether to extend restrictions to southern African countries that are the biggest exporters
- If passed, China may find it hard to buy elephants from Africa
An elephant is hoisted into Chongqing zoo in southwestern China, on loan from another Chinese zoo. Photo: Reuters
China, one of the leading buyers of African elephants, could face difficulty in acquiring the mammals if a widening of a ban on their sale to zoos is ratified next week by the global regulator of wildlife trade.
A motion further restricting the sale of live elephants was on Sunday supported by 46 countries at the committee stage of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) in Geneva. It will go to a final vote on August 28.
The sale of elephants from West, Central and East Africa is already banned – but there is a lower level of protection for them in southern African countries such as South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, which are the top three exporters of wild elephants to overseas zoos, according to Cites.
Keeping elephants caught from the wild in zoos is considered cruel by conservation and animal rights groups.
Conservationists criticised Zimbabwe’s capture of 35 baby elephants that were exported to a Chinese zoo in February. There was also uproar from activists in 2015 when a video filmed in a Chinese zoo showed two dozen elephants bought from Zimbabwe exhibiting signs of distress.
Zimbabwe was among 18 countries that opposed the potential ban at the committee stage, along with the United States – another leading buyer of elephants from Africa. China was one of 19 countries that abstained, while the European Union’s 28 countries did not vote.
If the motion is passed, China and the US – both known to be buying elephants from Africa and keeping them in so-called captive facilities or zoos – may find it hard to source the animals from the continent. Zimbabwe has come under
global scrutiny
for its capture and sale of elephants to captive facilities including zoos and safari parks in China and the US.
Peter Knights, founder and chief executive of WildAid, an environmental organisation in San Francisco, explained that Cites still allowed the movement of live elephants for on-site conservation efforts such as moving the animals back into the wild or to a national park where they had been depleted.
“This is not primarily a conservation issue but more about animal welfare,” he said. “As highly social, intelligent animals, African elephants do not usually do well in captivity, requiring very large areas, and often developing behavioural problems in captivity and not usually reproducing successfully – indicating far from ideal housing.”
According to Humane Society International, which promotes animal welfare, Zimbabwe has sold more than 100 baby elephants to zoos in China since 2012, with a further 35 reportedly awaiting export.
On Monday, 55 elephant specialists protested to the US wildlife management agency about plans for the country’s zoos to import juvenile elephants caught in the wild from Zimbabwe. They asked the agency to prohibit imports of wild-caught elephants for captivity in US facilities.
“We are vehemently opposed to the proposed imports,” the experts wrote in a letter to the agency. “Young elephants are dependent on their mothers and other family members to acquire necessary social and behavioural skills. Male calves only leave their natal families at 12 to 15 years old and females remain for life. Disruption of this bond is physically and psychologically traumatic for both the calves and remaining herds and the negative effects can be severe and lifelong.”
The letter said that eSwatini, formerly Swaziland, had sold a total of 11 wild elephants to two American zoos in 2003, and a further 18 to three US zoos in 2016.
‘Hundreds’ of elephants are being poached each year in Botswana
Concerns about keeping elephants in zoos come at a time when the animals remain under threat in Africa from poachers who kill them for ivory.
Southern African countries such as Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia are pushing to reopen the trade in ivory. Zambia is seeking to have the classification of its elephants downgraded to allow commercial trade in registered raw ivory with approved trading partners.
Other countries, including Kenya, Nigeria and Gabon, are seeking the highest possible levels of protection for all of Africa’s elephants.
Two previous attempts at regulating the ivory trade failed to curb poaching, which has caused elephant numbers to dwindle over the past two decades. A 2016 study estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 elephants were being killed every year, with about 400,000 remaining in total.
Knights, of WildAid, said that between 1975 and 1989 – the first period in which the ivory trade was regulated – half of Africa’s elephants were lost. During the second attempt at regulation between 2008 and 2017, participating countries claimed to have addressed the problem but poaching increased.
“It is clear that we cannot control ivory trade and that legal trade stimulates poaching and demand for ivory, rather than substituting for it as some countries suggest. The price fell by two-thirds when China banned domestic sales,” Knights said, adding that demand for ivory came primarily from Asia.
“Most seized shipments are en route to China. It has banned all sales and is making a great effort to crack down on illegal trade.”
Source: SCMP
Posted in affect, africa, African countries, African elephants, ban, Botswana, buy, China alert, Chongqing zoo, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), elephants, eSwatini, European Union, Gabon, Geneva, hoisted, Humane Society International, International watchdog, ivory, Ivory trade, Kenya, mammals, Namibia, Nigeria, poaching, safari parks, sale, San Francisco, South Africa, southern, Swaziland, Uncategorized, US, US-China relationship, vote, West, Central and East Africa, wild, WildAid, Zimbabwe, zoos |
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30/08/2019
BEIJING, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) — Chinese President Xi Jinping’s special envoy Yang Jiechi will pay official visits to Kenya, Nigeria and Sierra Leone early next month, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang said Friday.
Yang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, will exchange views with officials of the three countries respectively on promoting bilateral ties as well as international and regional issues of common concern, Geng said.
Yang will make the visits at the invitation of the three countries’ governments, Geng said.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in Chinese President Xi Jinping, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, Kenya, Nigeria, official visits, Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Sierra Leone, special envoy, Uncategorized, Yang Jiechi |
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17/08/2019
- Beijing has lent billions of dollars to countries on the continent to build railways, highways and airports but critics say the borrowings are unsustainable
- Chinese officials say the projects will pay off in the long run and host nations are well aware of their limits and needs
Illustration: Lau Kakuen
When Clement Mouamba went to Beijing last year, he had two main tasks.
The prime minister of the Republic of Congo needed to find out exactly how much his country owed to China, a number the struggling, oil-rich central African nation had until then not been able to provide the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to qualify for a bailout. He also needed to convince Beijing to restructure its debt to ensure sustainability.
The IMF had put talks for further loans on hold until Mouamba’s administration could say exactly how much it had to repay to the country’s external creditors, including China – the republic’s single largest bilateral lender – and oil multinationals such as Glencore and Trafigura.
The country, which heavily depends on oil revenue, turned to China and private oil majors for funding to run the government when in 2014 oil prices fell from a high of US$100 per barrel to as low as US$30.
The Republic of Congo has since restructured its borrowings from China, which holds about a third, or US$2.5 billion, of the Congolese debt, by extending the repayment period by an additional 15 years.
A number of other African countries struggling to service their loans from Beijing have also pursued concessions. Ethiopia has had part of its Chinese debt written off and terms relaxed for the US$3.3 billion loan it took to build its railway, while Zambia is seeking similar adjustments for its borrowings used to build airports and highways.
Critics say countries on the continent are being burdened with unrealistic levels of debt for inviable infrastructure backed and built by China without adequate transparency and scrutiny.
The biggest concern is that several African countries will be left with huge debts and grandiose infrastructure that they cannot maintain and run profitably. I liken it to borrowing money to buy a Tesla when you don’t have adequate access to electricity: Obert Hodzi of the University of Helsinki in Finland
But Chinese observers say the West must take some of the blame for the countries’ debt problems and that the support China offers will benefit the host countries in the long run.
In the early 1990s, when China began to embrace Africa again after years of isolation from the outside world, the aspiring manufacturer was at a serious disadvantage in the race for raw materials and markets for its industrial goods.
The former colonial powers of the West had already sewn up deals for many of the continent’s most lucrative and readily exploitable reserves, from fossil fuels to minerals.
China needed new strategies to convince African governments to allow it access raw materials for its industries and markets for its products to a largely unfamiliar partner.
China also wanted to challenge the dominance of the US in global trade and politics so it courted allies in Africa to help it push for political legitimacy in international institutions.
A Kenya Railways freight train leaves the port station on the Mombasa-Nairobi railway in Mombasa, Kenya, a huge project backed by China. Photo: Bloomberg
At the time, many African leaders were under fire to liberalise their economies. China’s approach was to promise not to meddle in individual country’s internal affairs and assure African countries that they could get billions in exchange for future delivery of minerals through resource-backed deals.
Beijing sold its policies that it had no conditions attached to its development finance. In the drive to drum up business, China promised affordable loans for African countries to build roads, bridges, highways, airports and power dams.
Is Kenya’s Chinese-built railway a massive white elephant?
But Beijing also pursued tied finance, ensuring that countries borrowing from China used Chinese contractors to implement the projects rather than open them up to outside bids.
In addition, many of the deals were built on weak financial, technical and environmental conditions, with Chinese state firms conducting the technical feasibility, environmental impact assessment and financial viability studies for free for projects that they also build.
For example, in Kenya, the China Road and Bridge Corporation conducted a free feasibility study that was used in the construction of the railway.
The same company was handed the contract to implement the project and is operating both the passenger and cargo train service for a fee.
Chinese companies were responsible for the construction of a rail line between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. Photo: AFP
In contrast, the World Bank and its partner institution, the IMF, demand that such studies be done by an independent consultant and not by the company that implements the project.
According to data compiled by the China-Africa Research Initiative, at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Beijing has advanced loans worth US$143 billion to African countries since 2000, levels that some critics say are unsustainable for the borrowers.
China meets resistance over Kenya coal plant, in test of its African ambitions
For many of China’s new African partners, these arrangements – from easy lending terms, to non-competitive bidding and opaque contract details – have led to new problems – problems that corrupt or poorly managed governments now share substantial responsibility.
Some critics, both in the West and in host countries, suggest there is a “debt-trap strategy” at the heart of Beijing’s push for international business and influence, but there is no evidence that China deliberately pushes other countries into debt to seize their assets or gain sway.
However, the drive for overseas contracts and big business has led some countries into difficulties with new debts, and there are question marks over the viability of many of the projects the money is funding.
Obert Hodzi, an international relations expert at the University of Helsinki in Finland, said the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway and the Mombasa-Nairobi railway were good examples of huge projects that were financed by easy borrowing terms from China but were not sustainable and that had in turn forced the African partners to seek further Chinese help.
“The biggest concern is that several African countries will be left with huge debts and grandiose infrastructure that they cannot maintain and run profitably,” Hodzi said. “I liken it to borrowing money to buy a Tesla when you don’t have adequate access to electricity.”
Ken Opalo, a Kenyan scholar at Georgetown University in Washington, said the key issue was the inability of African countries to design projects that were actually needed for the local economies.
A road is not just a means of transport but an economic belt or corridor that will catalyse the development of the whole region: Huang Xueqing, spokeswoman for the Chinese embassy in Nairobi
“Most African countries have been willing to accept projects designed, financed, and implemented by Chinese firms,” Opalo said.
“It would be better to decouple the feasibility studies and design phases of projects from the financing. That way African governments can ensure that they are truly getting value for money.”
But Chinese officials said Beijing had invested in infrastructure largely at the request of the host countries, adding that it could take time to yield returns on the projects.
Huang Xueqing, spokeswoman for the Chinese embassy in Nairobi, said the projects were valid assets with value that would grow in time.
“So, in the long run, it is beneficial to the host countries. Just like when young people buy a house with a mortgage, they may take some debts, but they have a place to live in and have their own assets,” Huang said.
“Underdeveloped infrastructure is the bottleneck that has been holding back Africa’s development. Up to today, many African countries, although in the same continent, are not connected with direct flights, railways or even roads. You have to fly to Paris or Zurich in order to get to some African countries.
“A road is not just a means of transport but an economic belt or corridor that will catalyse the development of the whole region.”
Huang said Beijing had advised the countries to act within their means and not to overstretch themselves when they considered projects that might not be in line with local conditions.
“When making investment decisions, the Chinese side, along with the recipient countries, carry out rigorous feasibility studies and evaluations. We do things according to our ability,” she said.
China’s leadership has also said it is paying close attention to the fiscal and financial difficulties faced by some African countries.
“As a good friend and good brother … the Chinese side is willing to lend a helping hand when needed by the African people to help them overcome temporary difficulties,” State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in January while on a trip to Ethiopia, adding that the debt situation in Africa is also a legacy issue.
China must allay any debt-trap fears in its dealings with Africa
“The African debt issue does not come up today, still less is it caused by the Chinese side. The African people know who are the initiators of African debt.”
The West should take a lot of the blame for worsening debt problems in some African countries, according to Li Anshan, from Peking University’s Centre for African Studies.
He cited the cases of Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, two countries that have had close relations with the West for many years but remain ravaged by war and poverty despite immense natural resources.
“China-Africa relations have been going on for quite some time. Is there any African country which has got poorer because of its deal with China?” Li said.
Gyude Moore, a former Liberian minister of public works whose department oversaw construction and maintenance of various public infrastructure funded and built by China, said it would be difficult to imagine that China would knowingly ensnare its partners in debt.
“China attempts to differentiate itself from Western donors by limiting non loan-related conditionality. China also practices non-interference, so how a country manages its resources, treats its people or deploy its finances were considered ‘internal’,” he said.
“So, Chinese loans are negotiated faster and place less emphasis on public financial management.”
Moore, now a visiting fellow at the Centre for Global Development, said there were trade-offs in such situations.
China focuses on sustainable projects to dismiss fears of African debt trap
“If the loans are going to be fast – the due diligence will not be as rigorous. Chinese project selection mixes political with economic considerations. So, while a project may not make as much economic sense, it may pay political dividends,” he said.
He said non-transparent processes would invite abuse, be they Chinese, Western or African.
Other observers say the question of opacity is more directly related to China’s own economic system.
Howard French, author of China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa, said China has very limited transparency and public accountability in its own domestic processes.
The Mombasa railway station is seen in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2018. Photo: Xinhua
“So it would be unusual to expect that China would introduce greater transparency and accountability in its dealings with African countries than it is used to at home – that is, unless African governments insist on it,” French said.
“And this is where African governance comes in. African states should insist on contract transparency but often don’t do so because that offers leaders plentiful opportunities for graft.”
David Shinn, professor of international relations at George Washington University in Washington, agreed that China’s lack of loan transparency was a huge problem and increased the risk of corruption on both the African and Chinese sides. But he also said that in some cases, African governments might have negotiated poorly.
“This is, however, the responsibility of the African government. I don’t think China is purposely trying to encourage African debts in order to gain leverage,” Shinn said.
“In fact, China is becoming more careful about its lending because it is concerned it has made too much credit available to some African countries.”
China ‘ready to talk’ about trade deal with East Africa bloc
Huang Hongxiang, director of China House, a Nairobi-based consultancy that helps Chinese in Africa integrate better, agreed, saying the Chinese government needs to communicate more about projects in Africa but African countries also have a bigger part to play in ensuring better deals.
“On commercial viability, accountability, transparency and governance, I believe the responsibility does not lie with China, the US or the West but in the hands of African countries,” he said.
Wherever the fault lies, one thing is clear when money is wasted on ill-designed projects that have little to no economic return, according to Opalo.
“The lack of planning and transparency creates default risks … [and] African taxpayers will be left holding the bag.”
This article is the third in a series examining the local impact of Chinese investment and infrastructure projects in Africa. Read part one here and part two
The next report will examine whether African countries can speak with one voice in relations with China.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, africa, airports, bailout, Beijing, borrowings, bottleneck, build, cargo train service, Centre for Global Development, China House, China Road and Bridge Corporation, China-Africa relations, China-Africa Research Initiative, China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants are Building a New Empire in Africa, Chinese embassy, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, Chinese infrastructure loans, coal plant, Construction, continent, Contract, debt-trap express, direct flights, Djibouti, due diligence, East Africa bloc, economic belt or corridor, Ethiopia, Fee, Finland, freight train, George Washington University, Georgetown University, Glencore, good friend and good brother, Highways, IMF, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Johns Hopkins University, Kenya, Kenya Railways, lent, Liberian minister of public works, Mombasa, Mombasa railway station, Mombasa-Nairobi railway, Nairobi, oil revenue, Paris, passenger train service, planning, Prime minister, project, railways, Republic of Congo, roads, same continent, School of Advanced International Studies, situations, State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, sustainable projects, taxpayers, trade-offs, Trafigura, Transparency, Transport, Uncategorized, Underdeveloped infrastructure, University of Helsinki, unsustainable, Wang Yi, Washington, West, Western donors, white elephant, World Bank, Zambia, Zurich |
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14/07/2019
- Court revokes licence for coal-fired power plant in Kenyan town whose Unesco World Heritage status is at stake
- Beijing’s efforts to cut emissions domestically coincide with coal-financing ventures overseas
A proposed coal-fired power plant in Kenya involving four Chinese companies has provoked protests. Photo: Handout
This article is part of a series in which the South China Morning Post examines the local impact of Chinese investment and infrastructure projects in Africa.
There are a few places in the world that have held onto their traditions. One is the island of Lamu, close to Kenya’s northern coast, which is an epicentre of Swahili culture in East Africa and home to its oldest and best-preserved history.
Nowhere combines the culture’s architecture and heritage like Lamu Old Town, where there are two streets, few cars and dozens of mosques and churches. Donkeys and wooden carts are the main modes of transport.
The town is a Unesco World Heritage Site with multibillion-dollar tourism and fishing industries. But it risks losing its global allure after Unesco’s World Heritage Committee warned that a US$2 billion coal-fired power plant planned in the area threatened its heritage site status.
Four Chinese companies are involved in the project. The United States also supported it, with its envoy to Kenya, Kyle McCarter, saying the country needed cheaper power and American energy firm GE promising to inject US$400 million for a 20 per cent stake in Amu Power, the operating company. The Kenyan government has said the plant would enable the country to have a diversified source of electricity.
Lamu Old Town’s Unesco status helps to support its tourism and fishing industries. Photo: Handout
However, the project’s future is uncertain after a Kenyan court, the National Environment Tribunal, ordered on June 26 that a fresh environmental impact assessment be carried out. The tribunal, which oversees decisions made by the National Environment Management Authority, also revoked the licence issued by the authority to Amu Power.
A lack of public consultation to date, as well as the environmental risks, were cited by the court, whose ruling is binding on the government. Unesco has urged Amu Power to proceed with the impact assessment, which in turn could have an impact on perceptions of Beijing’s signature transcontinental infrastructure strategy, the
.
Two days after the court’s verdict, Wu Peng, the Chinese ambassador to Kenya, met groups opposed to the building of the coal plant, days after they had been dispersed by police when they tried to protest at the embassy. Wu acknowledged the need to develop a different approach to hear the public’s views.
Anti-coal campaigners have been demanding China back out. Of the plant’s estimated US$2 billion cost, US$1.2 billion is coming from the Industrial Commercial Bank of China.
The three Chinese companies – Sichuan Electric Power Design and Consulting, China Huadian, and Sichuan No 3 Power Construction – teamed up with Kenya’s Centum Investments and Gulf Energy in a venture to form Amu Power. Another Chinese firm, Power Construction (PowerChina), was contracted to build the plant, which is expected to generate 1,050 megawatts of electricity.
The Chinese embassy in Nairobi said it had asked the Chinese investors to wait for Kenya’s decision on whether it should go ahead.
“Our position is that the Kenyan people are the final decision makers in this project and the Chinese government respects that,” embassy spokeswoman Huang Xueqing said.
Despite committing to cutting China’s reliance on coal, Beijing is still funding several coal-powered plants around the world. Both China and Kenya signed the
on climate change in 2016, promising to cut carbon emissions.
China may be providing a market for its coal by outsourcing its fossil fuel use to other countries, according to 350.org, which campaigns to prevent climate change and works to end use of fossil fuels.
Yossi Cadan, a senior campaigner for the organisation, said many people looked to China to be the new world leader in addressing climate change, given its government’s ambitious initiative to reduce emissions domestically. US President Donald Trump, by contrast, made the controversial decision to
Activists and Lamu residents have protested about the coal plant. Photo: Handout
“While China seems determined to meet its Paris climate agreement targets at home, it undermines those efforts to reduce global emissions by simultaneously investing in coal projects across the world,” Cadan said.
According to Cadan, cancellations and delays of coal projects in China left a desperate Chinese coal industry looking elsewhere, assisted by Chinese financial institutions.
He argued that if China was serious about being a global leader in reducing emissions and tackling the climate crisis, it must apply the same restrictions it was
to coal financing outside China.
Analysts said that if the Lamu coal project were to be abandoned, other Chinese-funded coal power projects in Africa would come under the spotlight.
China is funding eight coal-powered projects in Africa, including Egypt’s Hamrawein plant, which has an estimated cost of US$4.2 billion and is expected to generate six gigawatts of power.
Omar Elmawi, campaign coordinator at deCOALonize, was among the campaigners who met ambassador Wu two weeks ago.
“Other African countries could take a cue from [the Kenyan situation],” he said. “Already key financial institutions are coming up with policies that are either cutting back on or refusing to fund new coal plant projects. This will add to the pressure on China to abandon coal projects.”
Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at Greenpeace’s air pollution unit, said the Lamu case could spur the Chinese government to adapt its criteria for supporting overseas energy projects. This could include requiring coal-fired power projects overseas to meet more stringent emissions standards.
“Currently, essentially all of the overseas coal-fired power projects with involvement from Chinese banks and firms plan to use much weaker emissions control technology than is allowed in China, leading to much worse air quality impacts and public health impacts – which was the case in Lamu,” Myllyvirta said.
“It’s hard to see how [a weaker emissions standard] fits with the Chinese leadership’s objectives of greening the belt and road, and projecting a positive, technologically advanced image of China overseas.”
Source: SCMP
Posted in African ambitions, air pollution unit, Amu Power, Beijing, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Centum Investments and Gulf Energy, China alert, China Huadian, Chinese Ambassador to Kenya, churches, climate change, coal plant, coal-fired power plant, deCOALonize, East Africa, Egypt, Greenpeace, Hamrawein plant, Industrial Commercial Bank of Chin, Kenya, Lamu Old Town, mosques, Nairobi, National Environment Management Authority, Paris climate agreement, Power Construction (PowerChina), resistance, Sichuan Electric Power Design and Consulting, Sichuan No 3 Power Construction, Swahili culture, test, Uncategorized, Unesco World Heritage status, US President Donald Trump |
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22/05/2019
NAIROBI, May 21 (Xinhua) — China and Kenya have deepened mutual political trust and expanded cooperation over the years, pushing their relations to the level of a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership, Chinese Ambassador to Kenya Wu Peng said on Tuesday.
Wu said increased cooperation has seen China’s non-financial direct investment in Kenya record double-fold increase to about 520 million U.S. dollars in 2018.
“Now we have over 400 Chinese companies in Kenya, creating thousands of jobs for local community,” Wu said.
“Both sides enjoy frequent exchanges in education, science and culture. The China-Africa Joint Research Center and China-Kenya Joint Laboratory for Crop Molecular Biology have been operating smoothly in Kenya,” Wu said during the sixth press club meeting in Nairobi.
Since 2015, he said, China has provided over 67,000 training opportunities for Kenyans.
“Currently, over 2,400 Kenyan students are studying in China. In 2018, over 81,000 Chinese tourists traveled to Kenya for leisure and adventure,” he said.
Wu observed that China’s funding to Kenya and other developing countries is aimed at development.
“China always attaches high importance to debt sustainability. Before making decisions, Chinese companies and banks, even the third party, go through rigorous feasibility studies, evaluation, and review of a country’s credit rating,”said Wu, who used the occasion to discuss some hot topics about the China-Kenya partnership.
Huge infrastructural projects like the standard gauge railway (SGR) may take long to yield returns, but they are solid and valid assets, whose value will grow in time, he stressed.
The SGR, according to Wu, is a flagship project that showcases the fast speed and high quality of China-Kenya cooperation.
The building of Mombasa-Nairobi SGR has driven the Kenya’s economic growth by 1.5 percent and created 46,000 jobs for local residents.
He said the train shortened the Nairobi-Mombasa trip from over 10 hours to five hours. Since its launch in May 2017, with an average booking rate of 99 percent, over 2.77 million passengers have traveled by the SGR, and around 4.2 million tonnes of goods have been transported, said Wu.
In the first full year of operation, SGR earned nearly 10.33 billion Kenyan shillings (about 103 million dollars, which is very close to the operation cost of 120 million dollars a year, he said, adding that for an infrastructural project of SGR’s magnitude, it is not easy to achieve near break-even in one year.
China and Kenya are currently discussing the construction of the Mombasa Special Economic Zone and the Naivasha Industrial Park, said the ambassador.
“With the development of the industrial chain from railway transportation, port economy to industrial parks, we have every reason to believe that SGR will benefit Kenya’s efforts towards industrialization, and strongly boost Kenya’s GDP growth significantly.”
He noted that China does not pursue a policy of trade surplus with Kenya, adding it is paying great attention to Kenya’s desire to expand exports.
“We understand how important agricultural exports are to Kenya. Consequently, we have been working hard to expand China’s imports for Kenya’s agricultural produce,” said Wu.
Last year, China and Kenya signed an agreement on export of stevia to China. An agreement on the export of frozen avocados was also signed, which makes Kenya the first African country to export avocados to China, he added.
He said the two countries are working to seal the deal on export of fresh avocados, as well as working on other horticultural products.
Christopher Chika, head of Asia and Australasia affairs at Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Kenya will continue to engage with China as long as the relationship is beneficial.
“Our relationship is based on mutual respect and equality. China plays a great role in stabilizing Africa and we shall work with the Chinese nationally, regionally and internationally,” Chika said.
Source: Xinhua
Posted in China alert, China-Africa Joint Research Center, China-Kenya Joint Laboratory for Crop Molecular Biolog, Chinese Ambassador to Kenya, Christopher Chika, deep roots, developed, head of Asia and Australasia affairs, Kenya, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mombasa Special Economic Zone, Mombasa-Nairobi SGR, Naivasha Industrial Park, relations, Uncategorized, Wu Peng |
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 