The News Review:

- Daily Times – Leading News Resource of Pakistan
- FEATURE-Foodfuel shock can “wreck the exchequer” in Africa
- Hunger drives Senegalese youths to the cities
- SAHEL: Backgrounder on the Sahel West Africa’s poorest region
- A boy named Mamadou
- FIFA opens investigation into Liberia stadium tragedy

Daily Times – Leading News Resource of Pakistan
Daily Times – Jun 2, 2008
That is terrible for Senegal and Africa as well as for America’s credibilitySenegal a country whose population is 90 percent Muslim is one of the Islamic world’s most peaceful and democratic countries. This tranquillity has been helped by the elaborate ‘rituals of respect’ that have developed between the secular state and the Sufi orders and the excellent relations between the country’s Muslim majority and the Catholic minority at all levels of society. The secular state and religious groups have cooperated on AIDS prevention to the extent AIDS affects only about 1 percent of the population compared to more than 20 percent in some African countries. The secular state supported by feminist groups and some trans-national non-governmental organisations banned female genital mutilation in 1999 without triggering massive Muslim protests. Mistakenly viewed by some as an example of French laicit?which might be characterised as ‘freedom of the state from religion’ Senegal although once a French colony has crafted a very different model of “equal respect and equal support for all religions”.

FEATURE-Foodfuel shock can “wreck the exchequer” in Africa
Reuters AlertNet – Jun 2, 2008
Except for cases where prices are government-fixed for example for fuel products Segura says "it’s basically almost impossible to make sure that the lower burden in taxes gets effectively translated into lower prices for consumers". "For a very small price effect you are destabilising the budget to a colossal degree" Segura said. This was the problem in Senegal where the estimated cost of the government measures without correction would be close to $400 million and the state now had a large backlog of unpaid bills to private suppliers. Consumers in Senegal and other West African states have been complaining they have not felt any real easing of prices. This may be in part because food importers and traders themselves say they have had their margins squeezed by the government measures and so cannot reduce prices further. "I’d filled my stores before the decision to lift duties on the products we’d imported. So I can’t sell them at lower prices as the government demands" said Sophiath Massou Yessoufou a rice seller at Cotonou’s Dantokpa market in Benin… "For a very small price effect you are destabilising the budget to a colossal degree" Segura said. This was the problem in Senegal where the estimated cost of the government measures without correction would be close to $400 million and the state now had a large backlog of unpaid bills to private suppliers. Consumers in Senegal and other West African states have been complaining they have not felt any real easing of prices. This may be in part because food importers and traders themselves say they have had their margins squeezed by the government measures and so cannot reduce prices further. "I’d filled my stores before the decision to lift duties on the products we’d imported. So I can’t sell them at lower prices as the government demands" said Sophiath Massou Yessoufou a rice seller at Cotonou’s Dantokpa market in Benin. POOREST DON’T BENEFIT Segura argues that indiscriminate fuel and food subsidies may not in fact help the poorest Africans but rather the more well-to-do who drive cars and have air conditioning at home.

Hunger drives Senegalese youths to the cities
Independent Online – Jun 2, 2008
“There are 55 houses in this village. In each one of them five to six youngsters have recently left for (the Senegalese capital) Dakar or Mbour (a fishing town in the west) because of the food troubles” Fall who heads to village Tabi Fall in the west African nation said. “We didn’t harvest anything last year. If we had a well we could have grown things during the dry season and nobody would have left” the seventy-something chief said in his house made of zinc and straw… If we had a well we could have grown things during the dry season and nobody would have left” the seventy-something chief said in his house made of zinc and straw. In Senegal most of the agriculture depends on rain and only a minute part of arable land is irrigated. The poor west African nation has been hit hard by the rising food prices and the astronomical petrol prices. In Tabi Fall in the savanna zone the countryside is arid. You can see the bones protruding from the skin of the cattle goats and sheep scrounging in the dry bushes. “There is no cattle feed.

SAHEL: Backgrounder on the Sahel West Africa’s poorest region
Reuters AlertNet – Jun 2, 2008
The Sahel belt varies from several hundred to a thousand kilometers in width covering an area of just over three million sqkm. In West Africa the Sahel is also a geopolitical entity. In 1973 the Permanent Interstates Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) was formed by Burkina Faso Cape Verde Chad Gambia Guinea Bissau Mali Mauritania Niger and Senegal to group countries that were then becoming interdependent. Between them the CILSS members cover 5. 7 million sqkm of land. Sahel-like terrain and climate is also found in non-CILSS members in West Africa particularly the north of Togo Benin Nigeria and Ghana. Who lives in the Sahel? CILSS countries alone are home to around 58 million people the majority of them subsistence farmers sharing similar cultures and livelihoods even while their religions languages and customs vary widely… Annual rainfall is often now coming in short intense bursts that destroy crops and seeds and even wash away whole villages as happened throughout the Sahel in 2007 but particularly in Ghana Burkina Faso Mali Niger and Chad. Scientists believe the region is likely to become much more flood prone.   Another social problem is working-age adults are increasingly leaving the countryside and migrating to urban areas – such as Bamako in Mali Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and Dakar in Senegal – causing new urban sanitation hunger and crime problems. The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that increasing temperatures will lead to more epidemics such as dengue and cholera. However one positive outcome for the Sahel is that the IPCC predicts that large parts of the region will become unsuitable for malaria transmission by 2050. In the medium and long-term the scale of the forecasted climatic problems in the Sahel coupled with the region’s huge population growth indicate that humanitarian aid alone cannot meet the needs of the affected people – particularly as the Sahel is likely to be competing for emergency funds with increasingly frequent climate-related natural disasters across Africa and Asia. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) in 2007 asked donors from the developed world – which it says have focused on climate change mitigation projects at the expense of helping countries already affected by climate change – to provide US$85 billion for adaptation projects in developing countries around the world.

A boy named Mamadou
Globe and Mail – Jun 2, 2008
Seydou and I left feeling just a little bit hopeful although as we walked away a tiny filthy 7-year-old pulled on my shirt saying “Please I’d like to go home too. ” I turned to Seydou agonized and he gently led me on reminding me that the problem is huge and reporting on it was really the only way I had to try to address it. A couple of days later before I left Senegal Seydou and I checked in with Ms. Mbow: Mamadou had shown up (clean) for his first meeting and he was enrolled in their program. Somehow seeing Mamadou off the street helped lessen the sting when I thought of all those other children. But then a couple of weeks later I asked Seydou to check in on Mamadou again – and when he got back to me I was reminded that it’s never this easy. Mamadou moved to l’Empire but he had a difficult time adjusting.

FIFA opens investigation into Liberia stadium tragedy
International Herald Tribune – Jun 2, 2008
Doe Stadium in Monrovia three and a half hours before Sunday's qualifying match” world football's governing body said in a statement. “FIFA is currently investigating the circumstances together with the match commissioner and the Liberian Football Federation. Further information will be provided when the situation has been ascertained. ” The stadium is scheduled to host another World Cup qualifier on June 15 against Senegal.