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Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Taieb Fassi Fihri praised China’s African policy during a meeting with visiting Chinese Special Envoy on African Affairs Liu Guijin.
The cooperation between Africa and China will benefit both sides and this cooperative ties should not be subject to outside interference, Fihri said.

During their meeting on Tuesday, both sides also exchanged views on bilateral ties and issues of common concern.

Liu said China and Morocco have maintained a long-term friendship and the bilateral relations are proceeding smoothly with fruitful achievements in their cooperation.

China is willing to make joint efforts with Morocco in pushing the bilateral ties of cooperation and friendship to a new height, he added.

Fihri said Morocco has always attached importance to its ties with China and will further step up cooperation with China in various fields.

He also stressed that the recent riots in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region are pure China’s internal affairs, and any country or organization should not interfere in others’ internal affairs under the pretext of religion.

Morocco is the second stop of Liu’s African tour. He has visited Egypt and will continue to visit Senegal, Nigeria and Uganda.

Liu is expected to leave here for Senegalese capital Dakar later on Wednesday.

Zimbabwe’s request for assistance to fight the cholera epidemic has paid off with the World Health Organization responding at the highest level by dispatching a five-member team of health experts from Geneva, according to local media.

The team is expected to give technical and logistical support to the Zimbabwean government using existing structures at a time some Western countries were gearing to politicize the outbreak to abet aggression by claiming structures of assistance in Zimbabwe had collapsed, the state media The Herald reported on Tuesday.

The WHO team, comprising head of delegation Eric Laroche, director of operational platform Dominique Legros, communication officer Paul Garwood, logistician Fred Urlep, water epidemiologist Francesco Checchi, is expected to complement the existing WHO staff already in the country.

Dr Laroche said the WHO team is in Zimbabwe to assist the government through case investigation data management, surveillance and implementation of world guidelines in treating the disease.

“Our team will be in Zimbabwe, as long as it is required, to support the local WHO team control and stick to the guidelines of treating and registering patients among others. We are purely a technical team that will offer technical, logistical and financial support,” he said.

He said the team will help the government source funds required to fight the epidemic. WHO has already set up a National Command Center in Harare.

Zimbabwe Health and Child Welfare Minister David Parirenyatwa welcomed the teams, saying Zimbabwe is looking forward to sustainable measures to control cholera and other communicable diseases.

He said the government expects the experts to characterize the types of cholera in different areas in line with regional trends and offer assistance in improving water and sanitation in the country.

“The team is in the country to buttress what WHO is (already) doing and strengthening my team that is working on the disease. This is a team that is sent anywhere in the world where there is an outbreak and we hope it will deal decisively with the problem of cholera in the country,” he said.

“We hope the information that will be produced will be properly documented and available for the benefit of the country and the region because to me this is a unique outbreak,” he said.

The team, he said, should help in coming up with a proper way of arriving at statistics since it is difficult for stakeholders to agree on figures.

Dr Parirenyatwa said there is need to come up with a point person within the ministry to work with the WHO personnel in coordinating the response to the epidemic.

The WHO team will be on the ground until Zimbabwe has successfully managed to deal with cholera outbreak that has claimed hundreds of lives since August.

Hong Kong stocks rose above the 20,000-mark as soon as the market opened, but the HSI finally failed to stand above the 20,000-point line.

The blue-chip index rose 165.09 points, or 0.83 percent, to 19, 982.79 after trading between 20,063.93 and 19,715.15.

The turnover rose to 83.64 billion HK dollars (10.80 billion U. S. dollars) from Thursday’s 74.04 billion HK dollars (9.56 billion U.S. dollars).

The Hang Seng China Enterprise Index closed at 11,984 points, up 161 points or 1.4 percent. The HSI futures in the spot month closed at 20,024 points, up 225 points or 1.1 percent, and were 41 points higher than the HSI.

Capital remained sufficient and Hong Kong stocks remained strong. Among the constituent stocks of the HSI, 35 were up and 8 were down.

Heavyweight HSBC and China Mobile both stayed in a narrow range and were both flat in the morning session. Buy orders flew in during the afternoon and HSBC closed at 73.25 HK dollars, up nearly 2 percent. China Mobile closed at 77.10 HK dollars, up nearly 1 percent.

Goldman Sachs pointed out that the proposal of repurchasing mini-bonds was reasonable, and the investment bank also expressed its bullish view on the local bank industry.

Banks were mostly up as Hang Seng Bank, Bank of East Asia and BOC Hong Kong were up 2 percent, 3 percent and 4 percent respectively.

Local developers retreated on profit-taking. Cheung Kong and Sino Land fell nearly 1 percent and SHK Ppt fell nearly 2 percent. (1 U.S. dollar equals 7.7420 HK dollars)

As the newly elected chair of the United Nations budgetary committee, Swiss UN Ambassador Peter Maurer told reporters on Wednesday that he hopes to depoliticize an arena of the multilateral body that has been engulfed in controversy over a growing peacekeeping budget.

“We are constantly over-politicizing each and every discussion,” he told a handful of reporters at the Swiss UN Mission in Manhattan, New York City.

“I am deeply convinced that this organization would really have a great advantage in being a little bit more professional when it comes to budgeting and spending, and not looking at every dollar … as a major political drama.”

The Fifth Committee of the UN General Assembly, which holds the purse strings to United Nations operations, is currently debating a peacekeeping budget for 2010 and 2011 that currently stands at 8.2 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 12.3 percent from the last period.

Some members of the Fifth Committee, such as the United States and the European Union, would like to see a budget cut of 2.5 percent, while developing countries argue that the cuts would threaten the ability for peacekeeping missions to fulfill their mandate and protect civilians.

Currently, the United Nations has more than 113,000 peacekeepers, including 90,000 military and police personnel, serving in 18 operations in four continents.

“Peacekeeping has grown enormously over the past years,” Maurer said. “I don’t think it’s really outrageous to put some cuts on the table.”

Since putting his name down for the position, Maurer’s task has become more challenging. Restrictions on national budgets, insecurity over official revenue, and a global economic downturn all make collecting dues from UN members much harder.

Meanwhile, the demand for more complex peacekeeping missions and more comprehensive mechanisms for following up in post-conflict societies continue to strain a ballooning budget.

Maurer said he is “irritated” over politicized debates within the Fifth Committee, which are grounded on misleading budgets that add impetus to “artificial” debates.

“Inaccurate budgeting has been an important source of unnecessary conflict at this organization,” he said, “and this is just not very professional.”

The Fifth Committee, which is in charge of administrative and budgetary affairs, is the main committee of the General Assembly and holds elections every two years. Maurer will assume the chair position in September from Antigua and Barbuda UN Ambassador John William.

This is the first time Switzerland will hold the chair of the Fifth Committee, beamed Maurer, who added that his country does not belong to the UN Security Council, the Group of 20 (G20), the European Union or the North Atlantic Trade Agreement.

In the long-term, once budgetary woes are dealt with, Maurer said he will focus on issues of accountability and oversight, “which have been lingering around in the Fifth Committee for quite some time.”

Worldwide spending on information technology (IT) is on pace to decline 6 percent in 2009, market research firm Gartner predicted on Tuesday.

Gartner said it now expects global IT spending to fall to 3.2 trillion U.S. dollars this year from 3.4 trillion dollars in 2008.

Gartner, which in March forecast that 2009 IT spending will decline 3.8 percent, said it lowered the projections because of the economic situation and the rise in the value of the U.S. dollar against most currencies in recent months.

“While the global economic downturn shows signs of easing, this year IT budgets are still being cut and consumers will need a lot more persuading before they can feel confident enough to loosen their purse strings,” Richard Gordon, head of global forecasting at Gartner, said in a statement.

According to Gordon, the projected decline in spending growth for the hardware and software segments in 2009 has almost stabilized, and only minor downward revisions have been made to the latest forecasts.

“However, the full impact of the global recession on the IT services and telecommunications sectors is still emerging, and forecast growth in these areas has been further reduced significantly,” he noted.

At the end of June, research firm Forrester also lowered its forecasts, predicting global IT spending to drop 10.6 percent in 2009 rather than the 3-percent decrease it projected at the beginning of the year. Both Gartner and Forrester are optimistic about a rebound of global IT market in 2010.

Dollar-valued global IT spending is estimated to grow 2.3 percent in 2010, Gartner said.

The wife of former boxing champion Arturo Gatti was accused Sunday of murder following his death in Brazil the previous day.

Police said 23-year-old Amanda Rodrigues, the wife of Arturo Gatti, was taken into custody after contradictions in her interrogation and presented a formal accusation against her. Prosecutors will later decide whether she will be charged.

Rodrigues, who denies any involvement in her husband’s death, was the first to find the slain boxer’s body early Saturday inside the vacation apartment they were renting at the Porto de Galinhas resort in northeastern Brazil, police said.

Police said Rodrigues, a Brazilian, could not explain how she spent nearly 10 hours inside the residence without noticing that Gatti was already dead.

The former junior welterweight champion was apparently strangled with the strap of a purse, which was found at the scene with blood stains, said Milena Saraiva, a spokeswoman for the Pernambuco state civil police. The couple’s 1-year-old son, who was unhurt, was handed to Rodrigues’ sister, Saraiva added.

Rodrigues told police she had a fight with Gatti after dinner Friday night and Gatti was drunk. She said that a third party likely committed the crime after he went to the apartment by himself. Witnesses had reported to police that the couple fought and that Gatti was drunk.

Authorities were told the couple was extremely jealous of each other and that Gatti constantly complained about her clothing when she traveled to Brazil, Saraiva said.

The 37-year-old Gatti, whose epic trilogy with Micky Ward branded him one of the most exciting fighters of his generation, retired in 2007 with a career record of 40-9 and 31 knockouts.

The Somali authorities at the Kenya-Somali border town of Bulo Hawa said on Saturday that efforts are under way to secure the release of the foreign relief workers abducted overnight from northern Kenya.

The Islamist appointed Governor Sheikh Aden Mohamed Barre said that the foreigners, whose nationalities are still not established, were seized by militiamen over the border in the Kenyan town of Mandera late on Friday evening.

“We are making every effort at our disposal to first locate and secure the safe and peace release of the hostages,” the governor told Xinhua by phone.

Barre said that the initial information they have is that the hostages had been taken out of the Gedo region at the border with Kenya towards Baidoa and that local forces are pursing the hostage takers.

The abducted foreigners, who were reported to be from the United States, Pakistan and Zimbabwe, are staff of the humanitarian Organization Action Against Hunger (ACF).

The Islamist official also said that authorities on the two sides of the border have been cooperating on security matters and have good neighborly relations, adding that the hostage taking is not part of the administration and would fight it.

He said that local officials are meeting over the incident and are also in close contact with authorities on the other side of the mutual border.

Hostages were twice previously taken from the Kenyan border towns by Somali militia groups but were later released after intervention of local clan elders and authorities in the Somali side of the border.

On a chilly morning last week, a large crowd gathered in front of the National Agricultural Exhibition Center in Beijing to watch 40 students from a Henan martial arts academy perform traditional Chinese boxing and sword-dancing routines.

But the performers had not come to Beijing to entertain. They were looking for jobs.

Led by Party chief Xu Guangchun, in Beijing to attend the National People’s Congress (NPC), Henan was showcasing its talents: construction workers and security guards trained by masters from Shaolin Temple, China’s martial arts Mecca.

The reason for the first-ever exhibition was lost on no one. Some 2.5 million workers from Henan are among the 20 million who have lost their jobs in China’s coastal areas due to the global economic slowdown.

The layoffs come at a particularly bad time for China, as a record 6.1 million college students prepare to graduate and join the army of jobseekers.

Like Xu, the nearly 3,000 NPC deputies and the 2,237 delegates to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) have one thing on their minds: jobs. Proposals on employment account for about a third of all the proposals CPPCC members have put forward.

In his report to the NPC on Thursday, Premier Wen Jiabao promised to add 9 million new jobs this year and keep the urban registered jobless rate below 4.6 percent.

The registered urban jobless rate stood at 4.2 percent at the end of 2008, rising from 4 percent in 2007. However, that figure did not include the 20 million migrant workers who lost their jobs last year.

Many experts have warned that the employment issue will be a hard nut to crack - perhaps even harder than securing an 8 percent GDP growth during the global downturn.

“There are various means of raising the GDP, such as building infrastructure. But how many permanent jobs can railway and road projects create? Probably not many,” said He Keng, a member of NPC’s Standing Committee. Small businesses far outnumber colossal infrastructure projects and can create many more jobs, he said.

“I know the central government is very concerned with employment and has taken many measures. But if local governments focus only on GDP, without paying attention to employment, they will miss the mark,” He added.

Cai Fang, another member of the NPC Standing Committee, also warned of the danger of a “jobless recovery”. He said the government’s US$586-billion stimulus package and its plan to bolster 10 major industries will not necessarily solve the employment crisis.

“Most of the industries that will get government support are not labor-intensive. The central government’s incentives seem more attentive to big companies than small ones, which are the mainstay of employment,” Cai said.

Local governments are expected to map out their own stimulus plans, complementing the central government’s package. Cai called on local governments to focus on the service sector, particularly small firms.

Meanwhile, China’s labor minister Yin Weimin promised that his ministry will “make all efforts” to address the country’s tough employment picture this year.

Yin told China Youth Daily the ministry has planned a handful of measures to stimulate employment, including tax cuts and subsidies for small employers, favorable loans for individuals starting up new businesses, and training programs for job seekers and would-be self-employers.

Policy makers are already looking past the current crisis.

“Normally, a crisis like this leads to a new period of growth, which demands more and better workers. If our country can manage to position its labor forces correctly now, we will be ready to take advantage of new opportunities when they arrive,” said Cai, the NPC Standing Committee member.

While the debate rages in Beijing, millions of unemployed migrant workers face bleak prospects at home. Many have started small groceries or poultry farms in their hometowns, hoping to weather the economic storm.

At least, these workers have homes to return to and in many cases, plots of land to till. For the estimated 6.1 million students who will graduate college this spring, the prospects are even bleaker.

Colleges have advised their graduates to lower their income expectations and consider job offers in second-tier cities or even rural areas. Job services are warning clients to think twice before switching jobs, lest they find themselves at the bottom of the employment heap.

“I think it will take a while before the government’s employment policies take effect. The economy is not good, and we have to wait for employers to recover,” said Hu Jie, who holds an MBA from Peking University’s Resource College. She graduated last summer and just landed a job as an accountant after a half year’s search. About one-third of her classmates now have jobs, Hu said.

“My classmates started looking for jobs six months before graduation. I’ve heard the graduates this year have to start a full year ahead,” she said. “Hopefully in the future things won’t be so tough so that students can spend more time learning.”

It doesn’t take a wildlife expert to spot the difference between this white Bengal tiger cub and the rest of her family. For six-month-old Fareeda missed out when they were handing out the stripes. That makes her an extreme rarity - and a major attraction at the South African conservation centre where she was born.

Fareeda’s mother Geena and father Shiva are kept at Cango Wildlife Ranch, near Cape Town, as part of a breeding programme to keep their species alive.

Last Christmas Day, Geena had three cubs - Fareeda, her brother Shahir and sister Sitarah. Keepers immediately noted Fareeda’s lack of markings but had to wait to see if she developed them later.

“Some cubs develop stripes in their first few months but after six months it’s clear that Fareeda is truly one of the rarest of her kind,” said keeper Odette Claassen, 52.

“When she was born Fareeda had noticeably pale colour. It did cause a stir of excitement amongst the staff. But we knew there was the possibility of the cub’s very light black and ginger stripes darkening over time.”

The white Bengal tiger used to be common in the wilds of India, but now exists only in captivity after falling victim to disease and poaching.

Apart from Fareeda, the only other stripeless examples are in the U.S., descended from a single male captured in the 1950s.

“She has a lovely nature and loves playing with her brothers and sisters, although she has nipped me a few times when she wants a feed,” added Miss Claassen.

“White Bengal tigers are not albino - they have distinctive blue eyes, and they used to be found in Northern India before they died out.

“My hope is that one day Fareeda and her kind can be returned to their native habitat.

“That is why it is so important to educate people about tigers and keep the breeding programmes going.”

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called for the release of young French academic Clotilde Reiss arrested last week in Iran on a charge of spying, local source said on Wednesday.

Kouchner said Reiss was a victim of political tensions between Iran and the West.

He said France’s ambassador to Iran Bernard Poletti was trying to meet Reiss. “He should be able to visit her today (Wednesday) at the prison but as it is a holiday, it is possible that we will be disappointed.” Kouchner added.

Speaking to France Info radio, Kouchner said he had talked with his Iranian counterpart Manoucher Mottaki about the issue through a phone call.

According to French officials, Clotilde Reiss, a 23 year-old lecturer at Ispahan university in central Iran, was arrested at Tehran airport on July 1 on her way back to France. Iranian authorities accused her of espionage and took her to Tehran’s Evin prison.

Iranian authorities said Reiss had taken photos of a demonstration against newly re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and sent them over the internet.

“But she was not in the demonstration,” said Kouchner. “She took photos with her mobile phone like hundreds of thousands of other people.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy had demanded the release of Reiss, dismissing the accusations of spying as “pure fantasy.”