Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 18 December 2003 — Page 8

Page 8 • The Muncie Times • December 18, 2003

RAIL TUNNEL MAY LINK AFRICA TO EUROPE By Gabriel Packard Dec. 15 (IPS/GIN) - Morocco and Spain have agreed to build an undersea rail tunnel linking them and connecting Africa to Europe, say statements from the two country's transport ministries. It would be 24 miles long and would follow the same design as the Channel Tunnel, which links England to France, by having two parallel tunnels. Seventeen miles of the tunnel would go under the Gibraltar Straights - where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean - from near the Moroccan city of Tangier to near the Spanish town of Tarifa. This route is not the shortest between the two countries, but here the sea is only about 985 feet deep. The two countries have set aside three years for geological surveys and say the tunneling could begin in 2008. Three possible routes are being investigated, and the Spanish ministry of transport says it has already built an experimental 1,800feet tunnel. The two countries have been discussing the idea of a tunnel since the late 1980s.

CAPE TOWN SQUARE WILL HONOR ANTIAPARTHEID NOBEL WINNERS By Gabriel Packard Dec. 15 (IPS/GIN) - An area of Cape Town has been named Nobel Square and will honor South Africa's four men who have won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work against apartheid. Nobel Square is located in the popular tourist destination Waterfront and

AFRICAN BRIEFS

will feature statues of former South African presidents Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk (who shared the prize in 1993 for overseeing the end of the apartheid regime). Archbishop Desmond Tutu (who won it in 1984), and the former African National Congress president, the late Albert Luthuli (who became the first South African to win it in 1960). The larger-than-life statues will be unveiled next year on National Reconciliation Day, December 16. Mandela, de Klerk, Tutu and Luthuli’s daughter Albertina attended a ceremony Sunday at which the regional premier Marthinus van Schalkwk said the square was intended to promote "reflection and contemplation." Speaking at the event, Mandela suggested that South Africans should mark the occasion in a low-key way. "Gather with a few people from different backgrounds and share a cup of tea."

BURKINA FASO HOLDS ‘MISS LARGE LADY’ BEAUTY PAGEANT By Gabriel Packard Dec. 15 (IPS/GIN) - A 258-pound woman won the title of Burkina Faso's Miss Pog-Bedre, or Miss Large Lady, in a beauty pageant last weekend. C a r i n e Riragendanwa, 27, beat 12 other plus-sized beauties in the competition, in which each had to model traditional African dress and a swim suit, and also speak for five minutes on a topic of interest or concern, such as AIDS. The competition was held in the capital Ouagadougou and was partly organized by the ministry for the promotion of women.

It ran at the same time as the Miss World event in China and aimed to "overturn Western criteria used to select our beauty queens which place slender figures above everything else," said organizer Fatour Djiguiemde. In Burkina Faso, men tend to prefer fat women to thin ones. The same is true in other countries in the region, such as Niger and Mali. Riragendanwa won a motor bike, African dresses, gold jewelry, and free hair styling and clothes for a year. 215-CARAT DIAMOND FOUND IN LESOTHO MINE By Gabriel Packard Dec. 15 (IPS/GIN) - A 215-carat diamond and two other large ones have been found in a Lesotho mine and were sold this month for $5.6 million. The other two weighed 95 carats and 124 carats. All three stones were discovered November in the Let’eng Diamond Mine, nearly two miles below ground in the northern region of Mokhotlong. Lesotho government owns 24 percent of Let’eng Diamonds Ltd, which has leased and operated the mine since 1999. The firm forecasts it will mine a total of 70,000 carats this year. The biggest diamond ever found in Lesotho was 610 carats, and was named Lesotho Brown. Eight of the ten largest diamonds ever discovered were found in Africa. The largest - 3,106carats - was called Cullinan and was found in South Africa in 1905. It was more than three times bigger than the second largest, found in 1893 also in South Africa: the 995-carat Excelsior.

CANADA CHANGES PATENT ACT: CHEAPER DRUGS FOR AFRICA By Gabriel Packard Dec. 15 (IPS/GIN) - Canada has changed its Patent Act to make it easier for Canadian drug companies to export medicine to developing countries in Africa and around the world, says the country’s High Commissioner to Zambia, David Stockwell. These legislative changes, in accordance with a World Trade Organization (WTO) declaration, would also mean that if there is more demand for a drug than the patent holder can supply, government may force the patent-holding firm to allow their products to be manufactured under licence by other companies. Stockwell said that these changes make Canada the first nation to act on the WTO’s Declaration on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement and Public Health, also called the Doha Declaration. WTO members passed this declaration in November 2001 at the Organization's Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar. It aims to give developing countries access to generic drugs, which are much cheaper than those manufactured by the pharmaceutical companies that hold the patents. Norway and Switzerland also say they have drafted legislation to implement the Doha Declaration.

LIBERIAN DISARMAMENT PLAN ‘TOO POPULAR’ By Gabriel Packard Dec. 15 (IPS/GIN) -A

plan to disarm Liberian militia men by paying them $300 each for giving up their guns has become a victim of its own success - more fighters turned up than were planned for and the program has had to halt for a month. More than 9,000 showed up to claim their money at a United Nations military base. But the rehabilitation camp attached to it was only designed to house 1,000 people. For three days, the fighters clashed demanded money for their weapons and clashed with UN soldiers. Eventually they agreed to settle for an initial payment of $75 and to return for the rest. The original plan was to give $150 when the fighters gave up their weapons. They must undergo a three-week demobilization program, after which they would be payed a further $150 when they returned home. A UN spokesman says that 900 men were taken in to the camp and no more will be allowed in until January 20. More than two decades of Liberian civil war officially ended in August this year when then-president Charles Taylor went into exile amid international pressure and enclosing rebel troops. However, armed conflicts continue and there are still an estimated 40,000 rebel fighters at large. Lisa Vives Executive Director Global Information Network 146 West 29th Street Suite 7E New York, NY 10001 www. globalinfo. org 212-244-3123 (voice) 212-244-3522 (fax)