Youthful Andre Villas-Boas named as new Chelsea manager

Andre Villas-Boas has been confirmed as Chelsea's new manager.

The former Porto boss has signed a three-year deal and is in London on Wednesday preparing to begin work.

Villas-Boas, 33, is the same age as players Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba and won the Portuguese league, League Cup and Europa League last season.

"Andre was the outstanding candidate for the job. He is one of the most talented young managers in football today," Chelsea said in a statement.

    VILLAS-BOAS' RESUME

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• 1977: Born in Porto 17 October
• 1993: Works as a trainee under Sir Bobby Robson at Porto
• 1994: Achieves Uefa C coaching licence in Scotland
• 2002: Becomes part of Jose Mourinho's staff at Porto
• 2004: Follows Mourinho to Chelsea
• 2008: Moves with Mourinho to Inter Milan
• 2009: Appointed manager of Academica
• 2010: Named Porto boss
• 2011: Wins league, cup and Europa League in first season

"He has already achieved much in a relatively short space of time. His ambition, drive and determination matches that of Chelsea and we are confident Andre's leadership of the team will result in greater successes in major domestic and European competitions.

"Andre will bring his coaching experience back to a club he is already very familiar with, having previously worked here for three years. He has always been highly regarded at Chelsea and everyone here looks forward to welcoming him back and working with him."

Chelsea paid the roughly $21.5 million compensation to release the Portuguese coach from his Porto contract, with Villas-Boas succeeding Carlo Ancelotti, who was sacked after a trophyless season.

Former Chelsea boss John Hollins believes Villas-Boas could prove to be a shrewd acquisition for the west London club, who are yet to realise owner Roman Abramovich's dream of winning the Champions League, and were beaten in the quarter-finals by Manchester United last season.

"He could be fearless," Hollins told BBC Sport. "I think it could be a breath of fresh air, bringing in a fresh approach to this maybe tired football team.

"This guy is as young as some of the players are so he will be on the same wavelength with them, but is it going to be a three or four-year program as opposed to having to win something in his first year? That is the one thing we don't know yet, but he has won three competitions in Portugal just like that, so he could be a whizz-kid.

"It's a gamble but I think it's a calculated gamble. I still don't know if Guus Hiddink will be coming as an adviser to the young man. If he does, that will only strengthen the position."

Former Chelsea winger Pat Nevin agrees with Hollins that the appointment of Villas-Boas is a "calculated gamble".

"There is always a risk with every managerial appointment but he is highly regarded as one of the up and coming young European coaches and has been successful in domestic and European competition," Nevin told BBC Sport. "He is flavour of the moment and Chelsea have seen something in him."

Under Villas-Boas last season, Porto were unbeaten in the league, with 27 wins in 30 matches, becoming only the second Portuguese club to complete a league campaign without losing a game, after Benfica in 1972-73.

A scout for compatriot Jose Mourinho at Porto, Chelsea and Inter Milan, Villas-Boas began his managerial career with Portuguese club Academica in October 2009.

Academica were winless and bottom of the first division at the time but finished the season in 11th place.

They also reached a Portuguese League Cup semi-final before he left to take over at Porto in June 2010.

Villas-Boas, who speaks fluent English, also worked with Sir Bobby Robson during the former England manager's spell in charge of Porto.

Source: BBC Sports

War criminal Omar al-Bashir threatens to shut oil pipelines if deal not reached with South Sudan

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has threatened to shut pipelines carrying South Sudan's oil if a deal on oil is not reached before it secedes in July.

He said either the south could continue to hand over half of its oil revenue to the north, or it could pay for using the north's oil infrastructure.

Mr Bashir warned that if neither was accepted, he would block the pipeline.

Three-quarters of Sudan's oil is in the south, but most pipelines, refineries and the main port are in the north.

Southerners voted for independence in a referendum in January. 

'Three alternatives'

President Bashir made his threat in a speech at a rally in Port Sudan - the main oil export terminal - which was broadcast on national television.

"I give the south three alternatives for the oil," he said.

"The north is to continue getting its share, or the north gets fees for every barrel that the south sends to Port Sudan," he added. "If they don't accept either of these, we're going to block the pipeline."

The BBC's James Copnall in the capital, Khartoum, says oil accounts for about 98% of the south's income, so any reduction in the oil flow would be disastrous.

The government of South Sudan has floated the idea of building a new pipeline through Kenya or Uganda, but this would take several years, our correspondent adds.

Talks are continuing between northern and southern Sudan about oil and other vital pre-independence issues, including citizenship and the disputed border region of Abyei.

Last month, the northern army seized control of the disputed region of Abyei, but a deal was reached on Monday which will see it withdraw and be replaced by Ethiopian peacekeepers.

Warning

A new report published by the House of Lords, the UK's upper chamber of parliament, highlights the many issues that will bedevil future Sudanese relations, including oil.

Abdullahi al-Azreg, Sudan's UK ambassador, told the committee preparing the report that Norway had been advising both sides on negotiations for the split.

"They have suggested a kind of financial transitioning in which Sudan - the predecessor state - will have 50% of the oil revenue, but this percentage will diminish to zero over six years," he said.

South Sudan's UK envoy Daniel Peter Othol said the south would consider its options, and that building an alternative pipeline through Kenya could take three years to complete.

"Some of our leaders say: 'We are not going to share the oil if the south becomes independent. We are only going to rent the pipeline,'" he said. 


"Given the conditions attached to the revenue of the oil, the rent of the pipeline could be even higher. We have to see which way is better for the south to benefit from the oil."

The report - The EU and Sudan: on the Brink of Change - says that in the last six years the south has received around $11bn (£6.8bn) from its oil so far, but there is little to show for these revenues.

It also pointed to other obstacles the south will have to overcome - endemic poverty, corruption and the proliferation of weapons.

The report concludes that "the risk that the new country of South Sudan will fail as a state is high, even if the international community maintains the current levels of assistance and support".

The great divide across Sudan is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image (above) shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. Southern Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest.


Source: BBC Africa

How multinationals continue to deprive Africa of needed revenue

By James Chimuka


LUSAKA, ZAMBIA - African nations such as Zambia are often seen as grossly corrupt. Yet it is corporate tax "avoidance" on the part of mining companies that costs the nation hundreds of millions annually, while lining the pockets of middle-men in countries such as Switzerland. And the much-lauded Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) may help - rather than hinder, this reality.


Zambia recently became the 26th country to publish the EITI report, disclosing payments from mining companies for the year 2008. The EITI standard is meant to "facilitate transparency" by assessing net discrepencies between resource rents, for example: royalties and taxes, remitted by multinationals and received by governments.


The primary intention of the EITI report, backed by many of the world's major extractive or resource-seeking multinationals including Shell, Chevron, Vale, BHP Billiton, Anglo-American and others, is to eliminate corruption by shining a light on the flow of revenue. Describing companies as "complicit" in corruption limited to the criminogenic environments in which they are required to operate, the EITI system claims that reduced reputational risk is a tremendous upside for foreign investors and corporate entities.


Eliminating corruption?


Currently, Zambia is one of twenty-four EITI candidate countries, of which more than half are African, including Tanzania, Gabon, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Burkina Faso - among others. Already, five of eleven EITI "compliant" nations are African - many of them surprising choices - think Nigeria, Niger, and Liberia.


According to Clare Short, head of the EITI system and former British secretary of state for international development, a ministry created under then-Prime Minister Tony Blair - who announced the initiative in 2002 as a joint project of the UK and the World Bank - once a country joins EITI, all companies operating within the "host" country must make full disclosures.


The logic goes that, so long as there is disclosure of cash payments within national boundaries, transparency will act as a natural sanction - diminishing the potential for, and realisation of, corruption.


It is a logic that appears to bank on political or "demand-side" corruption, chiefly innate to the developing country's character - with corporations simply "going along" with the system - a kind of "when in Rome" response.


But the EITI theory is vastly different from the reality and has more to do with corporate and "first world" country supply-side corruption. Zambia's first report, for instance, revealed that mining companies remitted $463 million in payments to the government in 2008. The EITI report claims "significant discrepencies" noting a net total of "unresolved discrepencies" of $66 million.

In that same year - 2008, much of Zambia's exported copper, almost half of which was earmarked for Switzerland, never arrived at its destination - disappearing into thin air. Moreover, the pricing structure for Swiss copper - remarkably similar to Zambia's exported copper - was six times higher than the funds Zambia received, facilitating a potential loss of some $11.4bn. This is especially interesting when taking into account that Zambia's entire GDP for 2008 was $14.3bn.


Glencore's lucrative policies


This type of corporate corruption - known as transfer mispricing, made headlines recently when a leaked report authored by Grant Thornton at the request of the Zambia Revenue Agency (ZRA) unpacked how the Glencore-controlled lucrative Mopani Copper Mines (MCM) - a company which declared no profits, was cheating the country's tax base of copper revenue.


The auditors disclosed that MCM tried "resisting the pilot audit at every stage", rendering them unable to access crucial data in many instances. MCM's chief executive, Emmanuel Mutati, claimed that the audit was not accurate, precisely because data was inaccurate. Yet Glencore, the world's largest commodity trader, controlling 50 per cent of the global copper market, is confident that MCM will be "exonerated".


In all probability, Glencore will be saying that transfer pricing is perfectly legal and central to trade. But the nature of "arms-length transfer pricing" within the current deregulated global financial architecture, enables multinationals (conducting as much as 60 per cent of global trade within - rather than between - corporations) to "self-regulate" pricing.


So, though pricing, in theory, is determined according to "market values", in reality, the "corporate veil" facilitates tremendous mispricing when subsidiaries of the same company trade with one another - the means through which Glencore allegedly purchased grade +1 copper well below market prices, with MCM allegedly preferring - all too often, the lowest price offered by a Glencore subsidiary, described by the audit as an act likely for buyers, not sellers, who would experience diminished profits.


Glencore International AG, based in Switzerland, the world's leading secrecy jurisdiction, handpicked by Glencore founder and notorious commodity trader Marc Rich, further enables the company to take further advantage of little or no taxation.


Tax havens such as Switzerland are essential to resource-seeking corporations operating in Africa: more than 85 per cent of asset portfolios for sub-Saharan Africa passes through tax havens. In Zambia, MCM's structure - like that of Vedanta and others, keenly utilises tax havens as vehicles for shell companies able to access legal and financial opacity tools including banking secrecy, thin capitalisation, little or no taxation, zero disclosure of company accounts, use of nominees, and - best of all - high-level client confidentiality, all of which is entirely legal.


Mining and tax havens


Thus, however illicit, by outsourcing the commercialised sovereignty of tax havens, transfer mispricing, when realised through tax avoidance, is legal within select jurisdictions. The financial geography of MCM is located almost entirely in tax havens: though a Zambian company, it is 73 per cent owned by Carlisa Investments (a British Virgin Islands company, 82 per cent owned by Bermuda-based Glencore Finance, which is 100 per cent owned by Glencore International AG). MCM's mining partner, holding 18 per cent of Carlisa, is another mining entity active globally and in Zambia - First Quantum.


And while the extractive industry is being promoted rather aggressively as the primary vehicle to kickstart Zambia's real economy, mining companies generate just 2.2 per cent of revenue collected by Zambian authorities, with the bigger percentage of tax derived from withheld taxes paid by workers. The result? Just 4.4 per cent of actual taxes remitted from the already minute sum paid by mining houses comprises corporate tax. This is a particularly nifty boutique tax product called Total Tax Contribution, created by auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which helps corporations avoid taxation.


Zambia's government acknowledged that the country missed cashing in on the 2004-2008 commodity boom, when copper prices more than tripled. But companies like MCM don't have to pay the new royalty rates of three per cent - as 20 year stability clauses from secretive development agreements issued soon after privatisation provided the company with arguably the world's lowest royalty rate at 0.6 per cent. This agreement will remain in force until the year 2020. Worse still, had these agreements not been leaked, it would never have come to light that corporate tax rates were effectively zero, thanks to deferments and royalties.


MCM is the largest copper mining operation in Zambia - and Glencore certainly stands to benefit from locking down the copper market, not simply because copper underwires the modern world, but also because it is fundamental to renewable energy. In fact, shortages are estimated to drive up the price of copper from it current historic high at $9,000 per tonne, to that of about $11,000 by 2013, elevated in large parts by the demands of emerging nations such as China, the world's largest consumer.


Solutions to company operations


Thus, catching revenue leakage through EITI - off the mark by billions - is impossible because it does not focus on what multinationals ought to have paid, only what they have paid, and it never investigates the means through which corporations were able to circumvent taxation.


There are several reasons for this: EITI allows inconsistent standards, limited to national boundaries, despite the international nature of multinational economic activity. And the EITI system, for instance, provides national governments with choices that fragment the legitimacy and accuracy of conclusions - even insofar as they attempt to track cash payments, including whether reporting is mandatory, whether auditing is required, what should be published and the accounting policies used, materiality levels, et cetera.


Aggregated templates used by multinationals - and even the EITI system, prevent scrutiny, for example, of where problems are arising, where they are replicated, how they are realised - whether it has been identified, if problems are being sorted out, and how. The EITI system would easily allow another subsidiary of the same mining company, based in another jurisdiction, to make a corrupt payment to a politician in Zambia. It would allow a company within Zambia, created for shell purposes, to be paid for "services rendered", diminishing tax. Thin capitalisaton would allow for one subsidiary of the same parent company to make high interest loans to the host country subsidiary, diminishing taxable profits. The possibilities are endless - and often utilised.


Of course, there are many solutions, namely that of corporate country-by-country reporting (CbC), created by Richard Murphy, a founder of the Tax Justice Network. This would involve real natural sanctions prohibiting companies from artificially using tax havens (by disclosing the lack of substantial economic activities in these jurisdictions) while also limiting the scope of transfer mispricing.


Elements of CbC include the names of each country in which the multinational operates; the names of all companies trading in each country in which the company operates; the financial performance in each country in which it operates; sales between third parties and other group companies; purchases split between third parties and intra-group transactions; labour costs and employee numbers; financing costs; pre-tax profits; deferred taxation liabilities for the country at the start and close of each accounting period; the actual payments to the government; the tax charge for the split between current and deferred tax and so on.


It is a method inspired by a system already in place in the US. Certainly, critics will claim that transfer mispricing is always possible, but the difference between CbC and EITI, is that with the former, it is exceedingly difficult, whereas with the latter, it is highly probable.


World Bank's push


So why does the EITI allow for so many potential faultlines, vacuums and opt-outs? Like Chile, Zambia historically was one of the world's leading copper producers, extracting and exporting some 700,000 tonnes annually during its "golden peak". Currently, Zambia has hit the 800,000 mark, pegged to exploit more than 1 million tonnes per annum in the next year or so.


Way back when Zambia's copper industry was being privatised, the World Bank pushed for the lowest possible tax and royalty rates, providing companies with the type of secretive development agreements mentioned above. The Bank claimed that the limited intervention of the Zambian government rendered the process the most successful in the region.


Describing Zambia's new system imposed by the "arm-twisting of the World Bank", a 1996 New York Times piece stated: "All exchange controls, tariff barriers and food subsidies have been dropped in the shock-treatment switch-over to rampant capitalism … Virtually everything the state owned is for sale."


For African citizens, the World Bank, perceived as the source of devastating structural adjustment programmes created conditions still haunting countries like Zambia. Until mid-1995, the Bank itself refused to acknowledge the "C-word" - corruption, claiming such to be political and beyond the Bank's mandate.


This was despite the reality that 60 per cent of every dollar provided in external loans left the continent through illicit flight.


It has yet to factor illicit flight in accounting models. Had this been done, sub-Saharan Africa would be unpacked as a global net creditor - as the Bank itself disclosed in a report many years back.


As Treasure Islands author Nick Shaxson reveals in his book, though looted wealth is transformed to private wealth, the empty hole in the public purse is transformed to a public debt. He cites the example of Africans "bearing" the public debts by describing the case of a pretty Angolan girl, forced to bear an infection rotting a hole the size of a golfball in her cheek, because she could not access public healthcare.


Meanwhile, EITI's other backer, the UK, is host to more than half of the world's tax havens: three as British Crown Dependencies (such as Jersey - the corporate hub from which Glencore recently launched an IPO), seven as British Overseas Territories (including world famous hubs such as the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, and Bermuda - where Zambia's multinationals have incorporated and maintained subsidiary entities), and 21 as members of the Commonwealth.


The City of London, a ring-fenced financial district, is one of the world's leading tax havens, previously described by the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) as "head office" to some of the world's major tax havens.


Put simply, whether or not we choose to acknowledge it, these actors - including the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) - comprising the world's most powerful nations and its leading donors, may be seen as benefitting from the impoverishment of African regions.


Capital losses


Each year, Africa loses a minimum of $148bn - almost four times the sum of foreign aid it receives, to capital flight - of which 60 per cent is due to corporate mispricing. Clearly, the solution toward enabling African countries to recover their lost revenue and become economically independent, is to block revenue leakages, rather than provide further loans and grants characterised by conditionalities that undermine development.


Yet, even as 60 per cent of non-grant revenue is generated by resource rents, constituting a main source of income for African nations, many of them "rent-seeking" and dependent on resources for their tax base, the OECD has not implemented CbC, preferring the "arms-length system" created by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) - itself operating from a tax haven, founded and financed by the world's leading accounting firms - such as PwC - and all of whom compete with another to create the best tax avoidance products for corporations.


Nick Shaxson said this to me in a recent email:


"The role of the OECD is particularly strange in this respect. It jealously guards some of the main mechanisms and models for transparency and information exchange with respect to international financial flows, and with respect to international tax. And yet these models all, in important ways, significantly disadvantage developing countries.


It is a disadvantage, locked into the EITI system, designed to present an illusion of accountability where none exists.


So, while EITI may be good news for the companies involved in Zambia, casting them in a clean light, the same cannot really be said for the country's citizens who are being shortchanged.


Short recently claimed that the EITI model, still evolving, would be complemented by such measures. But intimated along with this statement is the notion that EITI itself will not lead this charge. So much for transparency."

Prelude to a clash of cultures: UN and West use South Africa to push gay agenda

Obama administration behind UN push

The United Nations endorsed the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people for the first time ever Friday, passing a resolution hailed as historic by the U.S. and other backers and decried by some African and Muslim countries.

The declaration was cautiously worded, expressing "grave concern" about abuses because of sexual orientation and commissioning a global report on discrimination against gays.

But activists called it an important shift on an issue that has divided the global body for decades, and they credited the Obama administration's push for gay rights at home and abroad.

"This represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement.

Following tense negotiations, members of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council narrowly voted in favor of the declaration put forward by South Africa, with 23 votes in favor and 19 against.

Backers included the U.S., the European Union, Brazil and other Latin American countries. Those against included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Pakistan. China, Burkina Faso and Zambia abstained, Kyrgyzstan didn't vote and Libya was suspended from the rights body earlier.

The resolution expressed "grave concern at acts of violence and discrimination, in all regions of the world, committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation and gender identity."

More important, activists said, it also established a formal U.N. process to document human rights abuses against gays, including discriminatory laws and acts of violence. According to Amnesty International, consensual same-sex relations are illegal in 76 countries worldwide, while harassment and discrimination are common in many more.

"Today's resolution breaks the silence that has been maintained for far too long," said John Fisher of the gay rights advocacy group ARC International.

The White House in a statement strongly backed the declaration.

"This marks a significant milestone in the long struggle for equality, and the beginning of a universal recognition that (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) persons are endowed with the same inalienable rights — and entitled to the same protections — as all human beings."

The resolution calls for a panel discussion next spring with "constructive, informed and transparent dialogue on the issue of discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against" gays, lesbians and transgender people.

The prospect of having their laws scrutinized in this way went too far for many of the council's 47-member states.

"We are seriously concerned at the attempt to introduce to the United Nations some notions that have no legal foundation," said Zamir Akram, Pakistan's envoy to the U.N. in Geneva, speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Nigeria claimed the proposal went against the wishes of most Africans. A diplomat from the northwest African state of Mauritania called the resolution "an attempt to replace the natural rights of a human being with an unnatural right."

Boris Dittrich of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch said it was important for the U.S. and Western Europe to persuade South Africa to take the lead on the resolution so that other non-Western countries would be less able to claim the West was imposing its values.

At the same time, he noted that the U.N. has no enforcement mechanism to back up the resolution. "It's up to civil society to name and shame those governments that continue abuses," Dittrich said.

The Obama administration has been pushing for gay rights both domestically and internationally.

In March, the U.S. issued a nonbinding declaration in favor of gay rights that gained the support of more than 80 countries at the U.N. In addition, Congress recently repealed the ban on gays openly serving in the military, and the Obama administration said it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the U.S. law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

The vote in Geneva came at a momentous time for the gay rights debate in the U.S. Activists across the political spectrum were on edge Friday as New York legislators considered a bill that would make the state the sixth — and by far the biggest — to allow same-sex marriage.

Asked what good the U.N. resolution would do for gays and lesbians in countries that opposed the resolution, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel Baer said it was a signal "that there are many people in the international community who stand with them and who support them, and that change will come."

"It's a historic method of tyranny to make you feel that you are alone," he said. "One of the things that this resolution does for people everywhere, particularly LGBT people everywhere, is remind them that they are not alone."

Source: Associated Press

China extending military reach

The DF-21 could be used to hit targets hundreds of miles away

A maritime arms race is under way in the South China Sea. Beijing is rapidly developing a host of military capabilities that will enable it to project power well beyond its own shores.

It is already the dominant regional naval power and many of its new systems could one day threaten US naval dominance as well.

No wonder then that so many of its neighbours are worried; particularly those like Vietnam and the Philippines who are engaged in long-running maritime disputes with Beijing.

According to Dr Andrew Erickson, a China expert at the US Naval War College: "China does not want to start a war, but rather seeks to wield its growing military might to 'win without fighting' by deterring actions that it views as detrimental to its core national interests."

Three weapons systems are emblematic of China's broadening strategic horizons.

China's first aircraft carrier will begin sea trials later this year. Late last year, the first pictures were leaked of the prototype of Beijing's new "stealth" fighter. And US military experts believe that China has begun to deploy the world's first long-range ballistic missile capable of hitting a moving ship at sea.

Dr Erickson says China's capabilities thus far have been focused on developing a regional anti-access or area denial strategy to prevent Taiwan from declaring independence.

In part this strategy rests upon developing credible weapons systems to hold US carrier battle groups at risk should Washington elect to intervene.

The 'carrier killer'

China deploys a formidable array of missiles and other weapons that range far out from its own shores.
Of these, the DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile is unique; a land-based system that could potentially target US carrier battle groups that have long been the corner-stone of Washington's maritime might.

The DF-21D (known in the West as the CSS-5) is fired from a wheeled transporter vehicle and has a range in excess of 1,500km. It is armed with a manoeuvrable warhead that gives the Chinese military the ability to strike ships in the western Pacific Ocean.

American officials and the director-general of Taiwan's National Security Bureau say that China has already begun to deploy the DF-21D.

It is easy to see why China would want such a missile. It is all about limiting the pre-eminent naval power in the region, the US, from intervening in any future crisis involving Taiwan.

Home of the Flying Shark

Ever since the Pacific campaign of World War II, aircraft carriers have been the dominant means of projecting naval power.

American carrier battle groups incorporate large flight-decks with a diverse array of aircraft for a variety of missions. Each carrier is accompanied and protected by several other warships and submarines.

China too is now entering the carrier race, albeit from a standing start. An old Soviet-era carrier - the Varyag - was purchased from Ukraine and has been extensively refitted.

China's first carrier will operate the new J-15 Flying Shark strike fighter, based on another Russian design, the Sukhoi SU-33 jet.

According to the respected industry journal Aviation Week & Space Technology, China may well have acquired an SU-33 prototype from Ukraine as well.

The carrier is reported to be due to begin sea trials in the summer. Once operational it would give the Chinese Navy a significant new capability in its continuing disputes with its maritime neighbours.

But Western experts note that this carrier will largely serve a training role. Carrier operations require significant expertise which can only be built up over time. The vessel is unlikely to deploy the wide range of aircraft available to the commander of a US Naval carrier air group.

Nonetheless, Dr Erickson says China will use the carrier to "project a bit of power, confer prestige on a rising great power, and master basic procedures".

Great ambitions

China's land-based aviation is also advancing steadily. Traditionally it has mostly fielded large numbers of locally-produced copies of Soviet-era jets.

However the unveiling of the Chengdu J-20 is believed to bring China into the restricted ranks of those countries able to build a fifth-generation radar-evading or "stealth" fighter.

Its maiden flight, last January, came only hours before a visit by the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates to Beijing, a coincidence which many analysts saw as a deliberate signal by China.

Douglas Barrie, from the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, says China's J-20 cannot match the US equivalents.

But he added: "The aircraft does mark China's ambitions in terms of developing its air combat capability, and of its defence aerospace industrial base."

Questions though still surround the project.

"Whether the J-20 is an actual fighter prototype or a technology demonstrator, remains to become clear, and this will in part determine how quickly China introduces such a capability into service," Mr Barrie said.

"An introduction into service, perhaps around the turn of the decade, would seem reasonable."

That said, what would be the strategic significance of the J-20, given that by then the US will field hundreds of fifth generation fighters?

Mr Barrie argues that the introduction of significant numbers of J-20-based fighters would "pose an increased challenge to other regional powers, and to US forces in Asia Pacific".

But across the board experts are cautious about all of China's apparent great leaps forward in terms of military hardware.

US commanders are watching developments closely. China is putting down markers for the future. But in the near-term it still must look on jealously at America's maritime power.


Source: BBC Defense News

Nigeria's pastors 'as rich as oil barons'

Nigeria's pastors run multi-million dollar businesses which rival that of oil tycoons, a Nigerian blogger who has researched the issue has told the BBC.

David Oyedepo owns this $30M Gulfstream jet

                                                                 

Mfonobong Nsehe, who blogs for Forbes business magazine, says pastors own businesses from hotels to fast-food chains.

"Preaching is big business. It's almost as profitable as the oil business," he said.

The joint wealth of five pastors was at least $200m, he said.

Mr Nsehe said the richest of them, Bishop David Oyedepo (pictured above) of the Living Faith World Outreach Ministry, was worth about $150m.

Bishop Oyedepo owned a publishing company, university, an elite private school, four jets and homes in London and the United States, according to Mr Nsehe.

'Private jets'

The Nigerian blogger said Bishop Oyedepo was followed on the rich list by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome of the Believers' Loveworld Ministries. He was worth between $30 and $50m.

"Oyakhilome's diversified interests include newspapers, magazines, a local television station, a record label, satellite TV, hotels and extensive real estate," Mr Nsehe said.

He said three of the other richest pastors were:

• Temitope Joshua Matthew of the Synagogue Church Of All Nations (worth between $10m and $15m);
• Matthew Ashimolowo of Kingsway International Christian Centre (worth between $6 million and $10 million) and
• Chris Okotie of the Household of God Church (worth between $3 million and $10 million).

Mr Nsehe said representatives of all the clergymen, except Pastor Ashimolowo, confirmed ownership of the assets he had listed on his blog.

"These pastors are flamboyant. You see them with private jets and expensive cars. This extravagance sends out the wrong message to their followers," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

He said the pastors acquired their wealth from various sources, including their congregations.

"We have Nigerians who are desperate, looking for solutions to their problems. They go to church for salvation, redemption and healing and pastors sometimes take advantage of them," Mr Nsehe said.

Source: BBC Africa

Herman Cain says Obama 'was raised in Kenya'

Obama and Cain (r) - AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Jim Cole 

Republican Presidential candidate and Tea Party favorite, Herman Cain says President Obama 'was raised in Kenya. 

In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg for Bloomberg View,  Cain, pandering to the tone deaf fringe that forms the base of his support, stated that President Obama "was raised in Kenya" and that's why "he's out of the mainstream." 


Memo to Herman for starters.... Barack Obama's father was Kenyan, but the president never lived in Kenya. Rather, he (the president) lived in Indonesia from ages 6 to 10 before returning to Hawaii, where he was born. 


Cain explained that his family had been in America since the slavery era and implied that Obama's Kenyan father had influenced his outlook, as had his academic career. 


In reading the Bloomberg View piece, Cain's ignorance and possible prejudice (born out of sheer intellectual laziness) towards African immigrants who are not descendants of slaves (he actually uses the latter to 'validate' the veracity of his citizenship and consequently his candidacy), may be the most telling tales of his make-up.


Here are some excerpts from the interview:


"Most of the ancestors that I can trace were born here in the United States of America," [Cain] said, hitting those last four words with a hammer. "And then it goes back to slavery. And I'm sure my ancestors go all the way back to Africa, but I feel more of an affinity for America than I do for Africa. I'm a black man in America." ...

"Barack Obama is more of an international," Cain said. "I think he's out of the mainstream and always has been. Look, he was raised in Kenya, his mother was white from Kansas and her family had an influence on him, it's true, but his dad was Kenyan, and when he was going to school he got a lot of fellowships, scholarships, he stayed in the academic environment for a long time. He spent most of his career as an intellectual."

When Goldberg told Cain that Obama hadn't grown up in Kenya, but Indonesia, Cain responded, "Yeah, Indonesia." Cain, a Tea Party favorite who has said his popularity proves the group isn't racist, argued that his candidacy would eliminate race as an issue in the 2012 campaign.

"This isn’t why I’m running, but my candidacy would take race off the table. Right now, every time someone criticizes Barack Obama, they try to play the race card, the White House, all his supporters, they try to play the race card."

Seems Cain didn't realize that his candidacy has indeed brought race to the table, given that he has to continually prove to the fringe elements in his party that he is a different kind of black man, one that would not threaten the 'heritage' of their (his supporter's) ancestors. 


The critical point that Herman however misses, due to his limited worldview and lack of requisite insight, is that most black people are in-fact conservative, the African immigrants in particular.


That Barack Obama may have followed his father's footsteps, with regard to academic pursuits, is in fact a good thing. If there were enough father's in the inner city to set the right tone and precedent for their children, then we would have less black males walking around with sagging pants and looking to other avenues, besides the most sure one (education), to advance their lives, in an increasingly competitive world.


Yes Herman, unlike you, I am proud to be called an African-American. I am an African immigrant that has imbibed the best of this great country into my being. I have set the tone for my children, from both a cultural, spiritual and educational perspective and that is why, they will be able to hold their heads high, in any quarters, with a true sense of belonging in this country (long after I have gone back to where I was born, much like Barack's father).


But again, unlike you Herman, while you carry the weight of a debilitating inferiority complex around with you, they will be self assured in both their American heritage and that of their ancestors.... yes Herman, that African heritage that actually made you who you are today, even though you may not know it.


And what do you think the true American heritage entails by the way, Herman? Yep, you guessed it. A unique concoction of the cultures of Europe, Africa and the Americas. While only one of those cultures dictated the tenor of the heritage, in the early going, it has become what it has become.... a melting pot of the best the world has to offer.


Embrace it or leave it!





Source: Bloomberg View