Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 1 April 2004 — Page 6

Page 6 • The Muncie Times • April 1, 2004

AFRICIAN BRIEFS

AIRLINES Six African Ambassadors to the United Nations traveled to Israel for a one week fact finding mission. They met with government officials as well as business leaders and are touring the country.

Pictured prior to departure for Israel are the six permanent representatives to the United Nations Rwandese Republic, Cote dflvoire, the Republic of Uganda, Ghana, Benin and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Also shown are the wives of two of the ambassadors and liana Artman, executive vice president of the America h Israel Friendship League and Michael Landau, chairman of the Westside COJO. SOUTH AFRICAN SCIENTIST WINS $1.4 MILLION RELIGIOUS PRIZE A African cosmologist who studies the relationship between science and faith was on Wednesday named the winner of a religious research prize worth $1.4 million and said to be the world's highest value annual prize given to an individual. George Ellis was named as the winner of this year's Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research of Discoveries about Spiritual Realities, which organizers always set at a higher monetary value than the Nobel Prizes. Ellis works for the

University of Cape Town as a professor of applied mathematics. His specialties are general relativity and theoretical cosmology. He collaborated with the world's most renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking to co-author the standard reference work, “The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time.” “The way in which science and religion by and large complement each other is becoming ever clearer,” he is quoted as saying, “as are the natures of various points of tension between them and some possible resolutions of those tensions.” In addition in his academic pursuits, Lllis worked as an aihocate for homeless blacks during apartheid. He says that he will donate part of the prize money to education and poverty relief projects in South Africa. Ellis will be receive the award from Britain's Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth's husband, at a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London on May 5. The Templeton Prize, as it's known was founded in 1973 by investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton. JAPAN LOOKS TO UGANDA FOR VANILLA SUPPLIES Japan is in looking to import huge quantities of Uganda vanilla because its existing vanilla supplier, Madagascar, has been hit by a cyclone which damaged crops. Each year, Japan imports about 115 tons of vanilla at a cost $2.6 million. It sent a delegation

last week to meet with the Uganda Exports Promotions Board and had sent sample of Ugandan vanilla for testing at laboratories in Japan. "We are looking for an alternative supplier of vanilla," said Mr. Kouichi Morimoto, who manages the commodities division of Japanese firm K. Kobayashi and Co. ltd. "Now that Madagascar is having problems, our target is Uganda." Madagascar is the world's biggest producer of vanilla. But a tropical cyclone hit the African island nation twice earlier this month and damaged crops as well as ^litig at least 74, leaving a further 200,000 homeless. The storm and ction to Ci East. J|j Vanilla earns about $10 milli Ugandan KENYA TERROR WARNING COST 14,000 JOBS, CLOSED HOTELS LOST REVENUE By Gabriel Packard Terror waning and travel bans against Kenya have cost the country nearly 14,000 jobs and caused a 60 percent downturn in tourism, a drop in exports, and more than $200 million in lost national revenue, finds a study by Kenyafs Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The study, reported in the Kenyan newspaper The East African Standard, found that the tourism industry was worst hit and that as well as the job losses; as many as 35 hotels have shut as a result of the

warnings. Data quoted from the Kenya Tourism Board says that before the travel bans, tourist arrivals were increasing by 22 percent, but after the bans they fell by 42 percent. Following intelligence reports that there was an "imminent threat" of terrorist attacks on western aircraft in Kenya, several countries imposed travel bans on Kenya in May 2003. These countries included Britain, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary and the US. These bans ranged from advising citizens to avoid visiting Kenya to halting all direct flights to and from there. Britain was one of the countries which banned all flights, and the Kenyan study found that this ban alone cost the economy $186 million. Moll countries have now lifted their bans. But on Friday, the I US State Department (renewed travel advisories against visiting Kenya, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan and Tanzania. The advisories will remain in effect until September 13. U. S. TRAINING AFRICAN TROOPS As part of the US led "war on terror," American forces are training local soldiers in the west African countries of Mali and Mauritania, which the US views as potential hideouts for terrorists. The US Army’s 10th Special Forces Group has been giving basic training to about 120 Malian troops

since November 2003, the Associated Press quotes an anonymous army official as saying. Malifs government will decide how the troops are then deployed, he said. Meanwhile, US marines are getting ready to serve missions in Chad and Niger. These deployments are some of the latest extensions of President George Bush's campaign to fight terrorism in west Africa and the Middle East. US European Command General Charles F. Wald told journalists on Monday that the A1 Qaeda network, thought to be behind the 9/11 attacks is present in Africa, and that America "can't wait for the problem to get larger." UGANDA BANS SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES Uganda has banned smoking in the presence of children and in public places including bars and busy streets. “You may not smoke in rooms where there are children even if it is your home, in crowded streets, bars, hospitals, churches, synagogues and if there are people in your office, you will have to go to the verandah,”! said Minister for Water, Lands and Environment Kahinda Otafire on Saturday. “If you are caught, you will be fined or face jail sentences,” he added, saying that first time offenders could be fined 2,000 shillings ($1) and establishment owners 50,000 shillings ($26). “We are enforcing a court order,” he added. continue on page 8. t ■ jB