The News Review:

- Controversial British firm wins Pentagon security deal in Iraq
- Rape as a weapon of war It persists in Africa where HIV/AIDS takes a…
- AP Exclusive: US agency agrees to lend millions to companies with…
- MTC Group celebrates MTC Touch’s 1 year Anniversary
- Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper – Europe/Worl…

Controversial British firm wins Pentagon security deal in Iraq
Times Online – Jun 26, 2005
Spicer’s company was first chosen for the co-ordination role in a one-year deal signed last year. The selection sparked protests from American companies that were passed over, with Dyncorp, a defence and security contractor, questioning the decision in a formal complaint to the Government Accountability Office, the audit arm of the American government. It is understood the Dyncorp complaint referred to the Sandline affair, in which a company where Spicer was a director sold arms to Sierra Leone in apparent breach of a UN embargo. Spicer later caused a political furore by saying he had done so with the approval of the British government.

Rape as a weapon of war It persists in Africa where HIV/AIDS takes a…
San Francisco Chronicle – Jun 26, 2005
relief official said last week, the New York Times reported. Sexual violence in parts of Africa, he said, “persists virtually unchallenged. Rape as a weaponof war in Rwanda has practically stopped now, and is much less frequent in Sierra Leone and in Liberia, but it continues on a wide scale in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Sudan. A high proportion of those are women raped and infected during that country’s bloodshed in 1994. In the Congo, where more than 3 million people have been displaced by war,fighters have raped more than 40,000 women and girls over the past six years, according to Amnesty International. In Uganda, soldiers from the Lord’s Resistance Army use rape and mutilation of women in their struggle to replace a secular government in the country.

AP Exclusive: US agency agrees to lend millions to companies with…
San Diego Union Tribune – Jun 26, 2005
AMF, which changed its name last year to Adastra Minerals, said it did nothing wrong. Boulle’s OPIC financing is not complete. The money would fund Sierra Rutile Ltd. , which is preparing to reopen a mine in Sierra Leone with millions of dollars’ worth of rutile, an ore used to produce titanium oxide for use in pigments. Walter Kansteiner III, a member of Sierra Rutile’s board of directors, said the U. criticism was unwarranted.

MTC Group celebrates MTC Touch’s 1 year Anniversary
Al-Bawaba – Jun 26, 2005
MTC bought 85% of Celtel for US$2. 84 billion, with a commitment to buy the remaining 15 per cent over the next two years for US$ 520 million. Celtel covers 13 countries – Uganda, Tanzania, Niger, Malawi, Chad, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Sudan and Kenya. The companys motto is Making life better. ConclusionMTC has completed its first phase of its 3X3X3 strategy which entails becoming a global operator with more than 20 million customers by 2011. MTC will continue to expand internationally through acquisitions, partnerships and green-field opportunities. In complement to increasing value for our shareholders, MTCs objectives are to support the local community, offering employment and creating business opportunities wherever we operate.

Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper – Europe/Worl…
Gulf Times – Jun 26, 2005
It is a tale repeated endlessly across a continent that has sunk deeper into poverty despite significant mineral wealth. The statistics are frightening. According to the UNâs latest Human Development Report, Luxembourg was the worldâs wealthiest country in 2002 with a per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of $61,190 â 118 times more than the $520 per person in the west African nation of Sierra Leone. The same report says that sub-Saharan Africaâs per capita GDP was $1,790 in 2002 versus $2,658 in south Asia and over $7,000 in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. A recent study found that the number of poor people in Africa almost doubled between 1981 and 2001 and the continent is home to virtually all of the planetâs âultra-poorâ who live on less than half a dollar a day. The study, by the University of Cape Town, said about 46% of the continentâs inhabitants survive on less than $1 a day. It also found that 21% eke out an existence on less than 50.