The News Review:

- BBC Monitoring Weekly Prospects (Sub-Saharan Africa) for 26 Nov – 5…
- Transpost Ministry Fulfils Imo Regulation.
- COTE D’IVOIRE: Business as usual for core cocoa sector even after…
- LIBERIA: Disarmament finally ends nearly a month behind schedule
- 17 Soldiers Graduate From Engineering Regiment.

BBC Monitoring Weekly Prospects (Sub-Saharan Africa) for 26 Nov – 5…
Free with registration – Asia Africa Intelligence Wire – AccessMyLibrary.com – Nov 24, 2004
BBC Monitoring Weekly Prospects (Sub-Saharan Africa) for 26 Nov – 5 Dec 2004. | Asia Africa Intelligence Wire (November, 2004).

Transpost Ministry Fulfils Imo Regulation.
Free with registration – Asia Africa Intelligence Wire – AccessMyLibrary.com – Nov 24, 2004
Transpost Ministry Fulfils Imo Regulation. | Asia Africa Intelligence Wire (November, 2004). Prince Alex Harding and Philip Lukulay, Executive Director Sierra Leone Maritime Administration have re.

COTE D’IVOIRE: Business as usual for core cocoa sector even after…
IRINnews.org – Nov 24, 2004
But now things are more or less back to their pre-November state. The markets have calmed and a tonne of cocoa beans was selling for 870 pounds (US$ 1,640) on the LIFFE futures exchange in London on Tuesday. Cocoa war chestWith the impact on the cocoa industry limited, some analysts see Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa in the same light as Sierra Leone’s diamonds or Liberia’s timber — commodity exports that helped finance long-running conflicts, despite the imposition of UN trade sanctions. No-one has seriously suggested slapping a ban on Ivorian cocoa exports, but such a move is unlikely given the country’s predominant position in world cocoa markets. When northern rebels tried and failed to topple President Laurent Gbagbo in 2002, local media reported that the president’s advisors raided a cocoa price stabilisation fund to buy arms. The Abidjan press also reported that Gbagbo received a 10 billion CFA (US$ 20 million) gift from Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa barons to strengthen his war chest. Now with the country split in two, most of the lucrative cocoa belt lies in the southern half, controlled by Gbagbo.

LIBERIA: Disarmament finally ends nearly a month behind schedule
IRINnews.org – Nov 24, 2004
“Even in Grand Kru where we had some problems getting to before the deadline. ” Jean Marie Guehenno, the head of UN peacekeeping operations in New York, said during a visit to Liberia earlier this week that over 100,000 former combatants in Liberia’s 14-year civil war had reported for disarmament – more than twice as many as the UN originally anticipated. The completion of disarmament in Lofa County was vital to allow the return of tens of thousands of Liberia refugees, currently sheltering just across the border in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Lofa, which had been a stronghold of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement for the past five years, is a rich agricultural and diamond mining area which was regarded as Liberia’s food basket prior to civil war erupting in 1989. Although the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, kicked off its repatriation programme for some 300,000 refugees at the beginning of October, officials have repeatedly said they will not send people back to areas that are unsafe and awash with weapons. To date, only seven out of 15 counties in Liberia have been declared safe for the return of the refugees who fled abroad and about 300,000 more people who were internally displaced within the country. The seven-month disarmament programme was due to have ended on 31 October, but as the deadline passed, the UN’s special envoy to Liberia, Jacques Klein said the operation would continue in certain areas of the densely forested West African country.

17 Soldiers Graduate From Engineering Regiment.
Free with registration – Asia Africa Intelligence Wire – AccessMyLibrary.com – Nov 24, 2004
17 Soldiers Graduate From Engineering Regiment. | Asia Africa Intelligence Wire (November, 2004).