Russia's President Vladimir Putin (l) greets Angola's President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos before their talks in Moscow, Tuesday. (Reuters Photo)

MOSCOW, Nov. 1--Russia and Angola signed agreements for oil and diamond extraction in the African state as Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow, according to AFP.
“We have talked about widening our commercial and economic relations--in the diamond extraction sector, energy, mining, oil and gas, transport and communications,“ Putin said after the meeting.
Ahead of the talks, dos Santos said, “We didn’t come here to seek help. Angola has great economic potential and can offer something in exchange for cooperation.“
Russian executives hailed agreements signed on the sidelines of the meeting.
“Our company made a breakthrough today,“ Vagit Alekperov, CEO of Lukoil, Russia’s biggest oil producer, was quoted by ITAR-TASS as saying after signing a memorandum of understanding for exploring and developing fields in Angola.
Lukoil signed the memorandum with Angolan state oil company Sonangol for four fields in the provinces of Lower Congo, Upper Kwanza, Kassanje and Etosha.
Russia’s diamond monopoly Alrosa, state gas monopoly Gazprom and oil firm Zarubezhneft also signed agreements with Angolan companies.
Russia’s state-owned Vneshtorgbank has set up a subsidiary in Angola called VTB-Africa to provide credit for Russian firms investing in the southern African country, a Kremlin official said.
In 2005, Angola was the second fastest growing economy in the world, with a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 20.6 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), after Azerbaijan.
Moscow was a significant supplier of military equipment to the Angolan regime of dos Santos, which has been in power since 1979, during the country’s 27-year civil war, which ended in 2002.

South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has created a wealthy black elite but has been decried for leaving millions of people behind; advocates say it has helped redress the economic wrongs of apartheid but critics argue it is deeply flawed.
According to Reuters, BEE policy was supposed to bring the black majority into the mainstream economy but as opponents grow more vocal, there are signs the government may be ready for a rethink.
Through BEE, the state is pushing companies to meet quotas on black ownership, employment and procurement to increase the majority’s share in the white-dominated economy. Often, however, lucrative deals have gone to a few businessmen with ties to the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
“There is concern that ... masses of black people are not benefiting like the ANC would like to see them benefiting,“ said Prince Mashele, a policy researcher at the Institute for Security Studies.
“It is a fundamental question that the ANC broadly is grappling with.“
The ANC long saw opposition to black economic empowerment as an attempt by whites to retain old privileges, but the party now seems to be listening as workers grow more disgruntled over stark income gaps.
A July government study showed there was a dramatic increase last year in strikes by laborers who felt they had been left behind in a booming economy where companies and their directors were enjoying hefty windfalls.
“Top management are earning millions, while the workers struggle to make a decent living,“ powerful trade union COSATU said in a statement in March in support of pay-related strikes.
“While management continue to reap the benefits of workers’ sweat, the standard of living of workers has continued to drop.“
The ANC has yet to even hint at any possible changes to the BEE policy, and analysts say it is difficult to regulate since compliance is voluntary for firms, but there are signs of a sea change in government thinking.
In August, the ANC said it was drafting a code of conduct to address complaints that the system benefited people with links to the ruling party. It has also sought to include more ordinary South Africans in the scheme by putting more emphasis on small businesses and employment and gender quotas.
But 12 years after the first all-race poll marked the end of apartheid, South Africa still has some of the biggest income gaps in the world, largely drawn along racial lines.
Africa’s biggest economy last year grew by 4.9 percent--the fastest growth in over two decades--driven in large part by the thriving black middle class.
This group, defined in South Africa as people who earn at least 154,000 rand ($20,630) per annum, has grown by 368 percent between 1998 and 2004, mainly due to BEE.
Analysts say this is helping to drive overall growth but the numbers benefiting are small and the productive side of the economy lags the demand side.
Economic success--and its visible signs in ostentatious consumption--have deepened the anger of those who feel left behind. And attracted the attention of the political elite.
In July, President Thabo Mbeki rounded on the country’s nouveau riche in a speech which analysts said gave perhaps the strongest indication of ANC concerns about BEE shortcomings.
“We nevertheless share a fundamental objective to defeat the tendency in our society towards the deification of personal wealth as the distinguishing feature of the new citizen of the new South Africa,“ Mbeki said.
There are some BEE deals that have won widespread praise.
In 2003, state-owned telecoms firm Telkom sold nearly 140 million shares in an initial public offering (IPO). It sold the shares at a discount to attract low income earners.
“I’ve got a sense of security to know I’ve got shares, when days are dark I can now cash them in,“ said one 31-year-old Telkom shareholder.
“I still maintain BEE benefited a few ... I can’t really claim BEE benefited a lot of people,“ he added.
But there are also examples of large pay-offs for the few--and these fuel criticism of the government’s economic policies.
A recent report by trade union Solidarity said one CEO last year raked in 111 million rand ($14.9 million). That compares to a minimum wage of roughly 14,400 rand a year for millions of South Africa’s 45 million people, or even less for casual laborers like maids and farm workers.
This does not sit well with Mbeki, especially as he nears the end of his final term in 2009.

VIENNA, Austria,
Nov. 1--Delegates from trade unions worldwide gathered in Vienna on Wednesday to launch a new global labor federation aimed at ensuring workers’ rights are not forgotten in the rush toward economic globalization, AP reported.
Organizers hope the consolidation will strengthen trade unions in countries where their existence is weak or under threat while promoting more effective measures against practices of multinational companies considered harmful to workers.
One of the world’s largest trade union movements, the World Confederation of Labor (WCL), dissolved itself on Tuesday and is to be regrouped under the new body.
A second organization, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), was expected to take similar action.
Tother, the WCL and ICFTU represent more than 180 million workers worldwide.
The new ITUC, which was formed on Wednesday at the start of a three-day congress in the Austrian capital, will also incorporate a dozen national trade unions without any international affiliation, such as the French CGT or the Argentinean CTA. The giant will ultimately embrace 190 million unionists worldwide.
Staying away from the ITUC however will be the Communist-affiliated World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), which after the WCL and ICFTU is the third largest trade union group in the world.
With 145 syndicates and 42 million workers, the WFTU said it was defending “a class line“ and criticized the ICFTU for making “compromises and concessions.“
But ICTFU general-secretary Guy Rider, who is expected to head the new organization, said its creation was a “historic“ event after decades of strife among trade unions.
“(The ITUC will) build world trade union strategies to counter those (strategies) of capitalism,“ he said, adding that globalization had led “over twenty years to a major fall in revenue, to the detriment of salaries and for the benefit of capital.“
The ITUC will have to “confront multinational companies“ and “support trade unionism where it is weak and oppressed,“ Ryder said.
“Trade unionism is weakening under pressure from neo-liberal globalization,“ according to WCL Secretary-General Willy Thys, and is losing ground both in former European strongholds such as Britain and Germany and in the United States where its membership has been halved in 15 years.
Trade unionism is also under threat in Central America, Africa and in parts of Asia.
To strengthen its influence, the ITUC hopes to build closer ties with “civil society“ groups, such as non-governmental organizations, and to take part in anti-globalization forums and organize worldwide mobilizations.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Nov. 1--Bangladesh’s Chittagong port is the world’s most dangerous with more than 30 pirate attacks reported in the first nine months of this year, AP quoted an international maritime watchdog as saying Wednesday.
However, the number of sea attacks worldwide decreased to 174 between January and September, compared to 205 in the same period last year, thanks to stricter law enforcement, the International Maritime Bureau said in its quarterly report.
Ships were boarded in 113 cases and 11 ships were hijacked, with six crews killed, 20 kidnapped and 163 taken hostage, the bureau said through its piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur.
“Although the number of attacks overall have reduced, there is a worry that in some key hot spots the situation has deteriorated,“ it said in the report.
“Bangladesh recorded 33 incidents--22 actual and 11 attempted--most of which took place in and around the port of Chittagong, resulting in it being accorded the title of the world’s most dangerous port,“ it said.
Bangladesh recently conducted a joint coast guard and navy operation involving 17 vessels and 3,000 troops to capture pirates in the Bay of Bengal, which led to the deaths of two pirates, the report said.
Overall, Indonesia remained the world’s No. 1 piracy hot spot with more attacks recorded in its waters than anywhere else in the world, the bureau said. Still, the number dropped to 40 in the January-September period compared to 61 attacks in 2005.
The report also singled out Nigeria where attacks were marked by violence with large number of pirates carrying guns and knives. Even though only nine cases--six actual and three attempted--were reported, it said 17 crew members had been kidnapped and held hostage for ransom.
The bureau said the attacks were “symptomatic of a large rise in the number of incidents against foreign oil workers“ and political unrest in Nigeria.
The bureau welcomed British-based global shipping insurer Lloyd’s move in August to drop the busy Malacca Straits--which carries half the world’s oil and more than a third of its commerce--from its list of dangerous waterways.
Only eight cases were reported in the first nine months of this year, compared to 18 for the whole of 2005, but it urged ships to maintain a strict watch when transiting the straits.

LA PAZ, Bolivia, Nov. 1--President Evo Morales said his government can’t afford to nationalize Bolivia’s mining industry for now but restated his desire to eventually recover control of the nation’s mineral wealth, AP said.
The announcement on Tuesday by Bolivia’s first indigenous president represented a retreat from Morales’ recent declarations that he would nationalize the industry, which ranks second behind natural gas as the country’s top source of export income.
The change in plans did not dim Morales’ oft-expressed faith that mineral wealth buried beneath Bolivian soil represents “the solution to the social and economic problems“ of South America’s poorest country.
“Bolivia is not poor,“ Morales said. “Bolivia has many riches, but they are poorly distributed. Now is the time to recover those riches and better distribute them in Bolivian society.“
Over the weekend, the government succeeded in obtaining 11th-hour deals with foreign energy companies allowing them to continue operating in Bolivia under Morales’ May 1 oil and gas nationalization.
On Tuesday the president said he’d work to revamp the mining industry just as soon as he hammers out final details of the energy contracts.
Morales hopes ultimately to see the state benefit more from mineral exports, which have increased dramatically this year. Bolivia shipped some US$485 million (382 million euros) of mostly zinc, silver, gold, and tin during the first half of 2006--on pace to easily top last year’s total mineral exports of US$536 million (420 million euros).
Investment by international companies in Bolivia’s mines more than tripled between 2003 and 2005, jumping from about US$20 million (16 million euros) to US$66 million (52 million euros), according to Bolivia’s Mining Ministry.
Morales said the government plans to “totally consolidate“ the hydrocarbons nationalization this year and has “a complete package waiting“ for the mining industry.
Bolivia’s mining industry “needs to be reactivated, with the presence of the state, with the presence of the state-employed and independent miners, with new investments,“ presidential spokesman Alex Contreras said.
The reforms will begin with a major expansion of Comibol’s operations at Huanuni, where on Tuesday afternoon Mining Minister Guillermo Dalence was still negotiating an agreement between independent miners’ cooperatives and state-employed miners.
The proposal would grant some 4,000 independent miners salaried jobs at the mine, where they would work alongside their state-employed counterparts.

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Nov. 1--Indonesia’s president appealed to foreign investors Wednesday to pump US$22 billion (euro17.3 billion) per year into the country’s dilapidated roads, power plants and ports, saying the vast capital injection is needed to tackle widespread poverty and unemployment, reported AP.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made the remarks at the opening of the three-day Indonesian Infrastructure Conference 2006, attended by 1,060 foreign and domestic capitalists from more than 30 countries.
“Of all the challenges that we face, infrastructure development stands very much at the top of the list,“ he said. It will help “to avoid rising inequality and social conflict.“
Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous country, is pitching 111 infrastructure projects, the largest being a US$1.5 billion (euro1.2 billion) fiber optic network and two coal-fired power plants worth nearly US$2.48 billion (euro1.9 billion).
Jakarta hopes to attract money for dozens of ports, toll roads, water processing facilities, electricity plants and transportation routes neglected for decades under the rule of former dictator Suharto.
In all, more than US$19 billion (euro14.9 billion) in infrastructure works will be on the table over the next three days. The county needs US$22 billion of investment annually to reverse the trend “during the crisis years,“ Yudhoyono said.
With foreign direct investment having fallen 44 percent in the first nine months of this year, Yudhoyono sought to shake off the nation’s poor reputation as a place of investment.
“Our anti-corruption campaign is advancing by the day, reminding our officials, former officials and ordinary citizens that no one is above the law,“ he said.
Indonesia needs to spend more than US$70 billion (euro55 billion) on basic infrastructure over the next five years just to keep “society functioning,“ Asia development Bank Vice President C. Lawrence Greenwood wrote in a letter published in the Jakarta Post newspaper Wednesday.
Indonesia has a poverty rate of 17.7 percent, or 39 million out of 220 million people, while unemployment stands at 10.4 percent, or 10.5 million people.