Pope: condoms can be justified in some cases

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI says in a new book that condoms can be justified for male prostitutes seeking to stop the spread of HIV, a stunning comment for a church criticized for its opposition to condoms and for a pontiff who has blamed them for making the AIDS crisis worse.

The pope made the comments in a book-length interview with a German journalist, "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times," which is being released Tuesday. The Vatican newspaper ran excerpts on Saturday.

Church teaching has long opposed condoms because they are a form of artificial contraception, although it has never released an explicit policy about condoms and HIV. The Vatican has been harshly criticized for its opposition.

Benedict said that condoms are not a moral solution. But he said in some cases, such as for male prostitutes, they could be justified "in the intention of reducing the risk of infection."

Benedict called it "a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way of living sexuality."

He used as an example male prostitutes, for whom contraception is not an issue, as opposed to married couples where one spouse is infected. The Vatican has come under pressure from even some church officials in Africa to condone condom use for monogamous married couples to protect the uninfected spouse from getting infected.

Benedict drew the wrath of the United Nations, European governments and AIDS activisits when he told reporters en route to Africa in 2009 that the AIDS problem on the continent couldn't be resolved by distributing condoms.

"On the contrary, it increases the problem," he said then.

Journalist Peter Seewald, who interviewed Benedict over the course of six days this summer, raised the Africa condom comments and asked Benedict if it wasn't "madness" for the Vatican to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

"There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility," Benedict said.

But he stressed that it wasn't the way to deal with the evil of HIV, and elsewhere in the book reaffirmed church teaching on contraception and abortion, saying: "How many children are killed who might one day have been geniuses, who could have given humanity something new, who could have given us a new Mozart or some new technical discovery?"

He reiterated the church's position that abstinence and marital fidelity is the only sure way to prevent HIV.

Cardinal Elio Sgreccia, the Vatican's longtime top official on bioethics and sexuality, elaborated on the pontiff's comments, stressing that it was imperative to "make certain that this is the only way to save a life." Sgreccia told the Italian news agency ANSA that that is why the pope on the condom issue "dealt with it in the realm of ecceptionality."

The condom question was one that "needed an answer for a long time," Sgreccia was quoted as saying. "If Benedict XVI raised the question of exceptions, this expection must be accepted ... and it must be verified that this is the only way to save life. This must be demonstrated," Sgreccia said.

Christian Weisner, of the pro-reform group We Are Church in the pope's native Germany, said the pope's comments were "surprising, and if that's the case one can be happy about the pope's ability to learn."

William Portier, a Catholic theologian at the University of Dayton, a Marianist school in Ohio, said he had not read the report in the Vatican newspaper, but he said it would be wrong to conclude that the comments mean the pope has made a fundamental, broad change in church teaching on artificial contraception.

"He's not going to do that in an offhand remark to a journalist in an interview," Portier said.

In other comments, Benedict said:

• If a pope is no longer physically, psychologically or spiritually capable of doing his job, then he has the "right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign."

• On Islam, in Europe, he declined to endorse such moves as France's banning the burqa or Switzerland's citizen referendum to forbid topping mosques with minarets.

"Christians are tolerant, and in that respect they also allow others to have their self-image," Benedict replied when asked if Christians should be "glad" about such initiatives. "As for the burqa, I can see no reason for a general ban."

• He was surprised by the scale of clerical sex abuse in his native Germany and acknowledged that the Vatican could have better communicated its response. "One can always wonder whether the pope should not speak more often."

• On Pope Pius XII, the wartime pontiff accused by some Jewish groups of staying publicly silent on the Holocaust: Some historians have asked the Vatican to put Pius' sainthood process on hold until the Holy See opens up its archives from his papacy. But Benedict said an internal "inspection" of those unpublished documents failed to support "negative" allegations against Pius.

"It is perfectly clear that as soon as he protested publicly, the Germans would have ceased to respect" Vatican extraterritoriality of convents and monasteries who were sheltering Jews from the Nazi occupiers in Rome. "The thousands who had found a safe haven ... would have been surely deported," Benedict argued.

In the book, Benedict also offers insights into his private life, saying he enjoys watching TV at home in the evenings with his secretaries and the four women who take care of his apartment, preferring the evening news and an Italian TV show from decades ago "Don Camillo and Peppone" about a parish priest and his bumbling assistant.

He said he always wears his white cassock, never a sweater, and wears an old Junghans watch that was left to him by his sister when she died. When he prays, he said, he prays to the Lord as well as the saints and considers himself good friends with Sts. Augustine, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas

Makola Razed Down

Daily Guide

Shop owners at Makola Number Two Market in Accra could not contain the trauma of seeing their investments in ruins following a fire outbreak in the market on Thursday evening.

The Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) was once again tested on its readiness as it was overwhelmed by the fire for several hours, while onlookers wondered if the personnel were really primed for the assignment.

The fire, which started at about 6:45pm, intimidated the firemen with their tenders until about midnight when it was finally brought under control. It left in its trail destroyed goods worth several millions of Ghana cedis.

Residents in the neighbourhood wondered why a nearby fire station, the Accra Central Fire Station, could not manage the fire.

The intensity of the fire could be determined by the pockets of smouldering fire dotting the place as firemen moved around to put them out, with soldiers and policemen on standby to contain any act of lawlessness when such situations arise.

A fireman told DAILY GUIDE that they had been working all night to bring the situation under control, an indication of how serious the fire was.

The place had been thrown into a state of mourning and market women and men wept uncontrollably over the loss of their wares and capital, with victims claiming that they had cash in their shops.

A female trader said amidst tears that her cash of $20,000 which was hidden in her stall got burnt completely.

The main gates to the market were said to be locked up at the time of the fire outbreak, making it difficult for fire tenders to gain access to fight the fire, a deficiency which prompted questions about such a modern market without an emergency access.

It took several hours for fire personnel to break through the market gates but their inability to access fire hydrants exacerbated the situation. About three traders were said to have collapsed upon hearing the news of the disaster.

Eyewitnesses gave contradictory statements about how the fire started. While some said a power outage triggered the inferno, others claimed it was due to electrical faults.

At about 10:04am yesterday, President John Evans Atta Mills arrived at the scene to assess the extent of damage.

The President, who was visibly shaken by the turn of events, assured the victims of government’s assistance to get them back into business. He would order an investigation into the disaster, he assured them.

“This fire outbreak is a bother to all of us so I came to assure you that we will investigate to know what exactly happened,” the President stated.

“But I am appealing to the National Disaster Management Organisation, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, and the Regional Co-ordinating Council to assist you.

“We, as a government, will not turn our back on you. I know that most of you are wailing and weeping because you have lost your capital completely. So we will do whatever we can to help you,” he promised.

Nii Armah Ashittey, Greater Accra Regional Minister, advised the traders to observe basic safety rules to prevent disasters such as what had happened.

He said the Regional Co-ordinating Council would collaborate with all stakeholders to ensure that the market was rebuilt.

Nii Tackie Commey, MP for Odododiodioo, also assured victims of the government’s support to get them back into business.

He appealed for fire hydrants and access routes in the various markets to forestall such eventualities.

The original Makola Market was also razed by a mysterious fire outbreak many years ago and the displaced market women were transferred to the location which got burnt last Thursday.

The market was constructed with funds from the Social Security and National Insurance Trust, a national pension fund for Ghanaian workers not in the security services.

Major markets have been scenes of fire outbreaks in the past few months. The Kumasi Central Market has had its share of the mysterious fires twice or so. The Kantamanto Market in the Central Business District of Accra and the Takoradi Market have also not been spared.

However, there was no report of lives lost in the Thursday incident

Ghana Stocks May Jump 40% as Oil Spurs World's Highest Growth, Exotix Says

Ghana’s main stock index, the best performer in Africa this quarter, may soar another 40 percent this year as the start of oil production spurs the world’s fastest pace of economic growth, Exotix Ltd. said.

Exotix, the London-based brokerage that gets a quarter of its revenue from African securities and three quarters from frontier markets, said buy orders for Ghanaian stocks are up more than 50 percent from the start of the year, even after a 9.8 percent rally since March 31 drove valuations above the average for emerging markets. The country’s All-Share Index has a further 20 to 40 percent “upside” in 2010, according to Ashley Bendell, New-York-based frontier and emerging market equity broker at Exotix.

The west African nation’s equity market has been the most volatile globally. It soared 58 percent in 2008, beating all 93 national equity gauges tracked by Bloomberg, after its discovery of oil in 2007 and as crude jumped to a record $147.27 a barrel. The measure plunged 47 percent last year, the world’s worst slump, when crude tumbled to as little as $32.70 a barrel and Ghana’s currency depreciation triggered 20 percent inflation and a $1 billion International Monetary Fund bailout.

“The oil find has without a doubt brought a lot of interest,” Bendell said in an interview in Johannesburg.

Templeton Asset Management Ltd.’s Mark Mobius said in his blog on June 24 that he’s looking at Ghana along with South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, Botswana, Morocco and Tunisia for investment.

Too Small

Ghana’s index is rising as the IMF predicts a surge in economic growth to 20.1 percent in 2011, triple the average 6.5 percent for developing nations. The cocoa and gold exporter is scheduled to start pumping oil in the fourth quarter of this year. Oil has gained 75 percent since the beginning of last year to $78 a barrel.

The market remains too small to allow larger fund managers to buy and sell stocks, said Bryan Collings, who manages $1 billion in London-based Hexam Capital Partners LLP’s Global Emerging Markets fund. He has no holdings in Ghana and favors China and Brazil.

“I don’t think Ghana’s all that brilliant, the market isn’t liquid and there are often concerns about getting money in and out,” Collings said. “For us, it’s key to stay relatively liquid.”

Banks, Oil Stocks

The market value of shares listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange is $12.8 billion, according to data from the bourse, a fraction of South Africa’s All Share Index at $590 billion, based on Bloomberg data. Average trading volume is about 650,000 shares a day, compared with an average 215 million in South Africa.

The lower trading volume in Ghana means it can take months to carry out orders for share trades, Bendell at Exotix said. Ghana’s pension-reform program may help boost trading by allowing private brokers to manage company retirement plans for the first time, he said.

Ghana Commercial Bank Ltd., the country’s biggest lender with 157 branches, and Ghana Oil Co., which runs a network of filling stations in the West African nation, may be among the biggest gainers, Bendell said. Ghana Commercial’s stock has doubled this year, while Ghana Oil has rallied 59 percent.

Tullow Oil Plc, which owns a 34.7 percent stake in the Jubilee field off Ghana’s western coast, said production will start at 120,000 barrels a day. The field, with as much as 1.8 billion barrels, will make Ghana one of the world’s top 50 oil producers, according to Tullow. Shares in Tullow jumped 98 percent last year and are down 18 percent this year.

Gold, Cocoa

Ghana’s stock rally this quarter has lifted valuations to 15.1 times estimated earnings from 9 times on March 31, Bloomberg data show. Valuations on the MSCI Emerging Market Index have fallen in the same period to 11.5 times expected earnings from 13.

“The stock-market valuations are relatively attractive versus sub-Saharan and emerging-market peers, given the country’s growth outlook and political stability,” Bendell said. “There’s a lot of focus on how government will spend its oil income.”

Inflation has slowed from a five-year peak of 20.7 percent in June 2009 to 10.7 percent last month, the 11th consecutive monthly decline. The rate is the lowest since December 2007. The central bank reduced its benchmark interest rate to 15 percent in April and has cut a total of 3.5 percentage points since November.

Nigerian Mend rebels claim Exxon kidnapping

Nigeria's Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of seven oil workers in a raid on an ExxonMobil facility on Sunday and has threatened a major attack.

Mend made a press statement confirming that the attack on the ExxonMobil Ibeno oil facility in Akwa Ibom state was carried out by its fighters. The group also claimed the Nigerian military has fired rockets at one of its camps.

The offshore factory raid was the latest in a string of incidents in recent months in the Niger Delta - the heart of the country's huge oil industry.

“Certainly Mend wants us to see this as part of a renewed campaign by a united movement,” says William Hartley, manager of Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre. “In part, the attacks at the moment are an attempt to re-establish Mend effectively as an active brand. But what we are now talking about in terms of Mend is nowhere near what we used to consider to be Mend last year, which was a coordinated movement operating across the Delta.”

Last year, the government introduced a programme whereby rebels could swap arms for education programmes. All the major field commanders of Delta rebel groups are still committed to it, but there have been some problems in implementing the system efficiently.

“Foot soldiers have experienced considerable delays in getting what they had been promised," says Hartley. "This inevitably results in disaffection and creates a constituency of people who are susceptible to being re-recruited by the militant organisations.”

Furious Ryanair passengers protest in plane

BRUSSELS (AFP) – More than 100 angry Ryanair passengers sat in a dark cabin without food or water for four hours Wednesday, refusing to leave their plane after it was diverted to Belgium, authorities and passengers said.

The passengers, mostly French tourists who were supposed to land near Paris after returning from holidays in Morocco, refused to come out of the aircraft even after the crew had left it at the Liege airport in southern Belgium.

Reda Yahiyaoui, a business owner who was travelling with his wife, a two-month-old baby and a three-year-old, said the passengers had no water and the toilets in the plane were locked.

"The pilot left and he even left the cockpit door open," he said.

After several hours of negotiations with furious passengers, officials convinced them to leave the plane and wait inside the airport for buses that would take them to their original destination, a firefighter told AFP.

"The negotiation was so difficult that we weren't sure they would come out," the firefighter said by telephone.

"People are obviously outraged. I'm just trying to look out for their well-being," he said.

Passengers on the plane told AFP that the flight had left Fes, Morocco, three hours late at 7:15 pm local time on Tuesday but had been unable to land in Beauvais, France, because by that time the airport there had closed.

The plane landed in Liege at around 11:30 pm and passengers only agreed to come out after 3:30 am the next morning.

"This is unacceptable," Mylene Netange, who runs a network on social responsibility for business leaders, told AFP.

"The plane didn't land in Beauvais but in Liege without warning us. Consequently, we refused to leave the plane," she said.

A Ryanair spokesperson was not immediately reachable for comment.

Ghana On The Wrong Path With Recent Chinese Loans

Courtesy of GhanaWeb

Ghana is obviously on the wrong path with the signing of recent billions of dollars in Chinese loans. While some economic observers hailed it as a major financial lifeline to a country on a continent that is unable to attract such a magnitude of financial support from the international financial centers like Washington, London, and Paris, and their Bretton Woods Institutions, Beijing is fast becoming a reliable alternative to the traditional lenders.
However, an unimpeachable source, who was a member of the delegation that negotiated the deal, is unhappy with some of the elements of the deal. According to him, China, as a result of its fast-paced development, is seeking ways to dispose some of its rickety old trains, built over three decades ago, to make way for the connection of its fast trains across the entire Chinese mainland. As part of the deal, Ghana is to receive these old coaches and tracks which will amount to unspecified billions of dollars.
This reliable source believes the dollar amount for which these coaches are being offered to Ghana could buy the newer or advanced versions of coaches within the European market, a market which is also seeking ways to dispose newer versions of such coaches in order to adopt newer technologies the Chinese have unveiled in the rail market. His fear is that these trains have outlived their usefulness in the Chinese economy and are worth a “scrap” in a couple of years or a few years. “These trains will not only unnecessarily tie the Ghana Railway Corporation to the Chinese manufacturers for parts that may not be available anywhere else, but considering the maintenance culture in Ghana, these trains will become white elephants in a couple of years,” he fumed.
One wonders loudly why Ghanaian leadership never does any critical analysis before jumping on board to sign agreements that have repercussions for the future of the country. According to a member of the delegation that went to China to sign this loan deal amidst pomp and pageantry, any attempt to dissuade the team from some of the elements of the contract was seen by some members of the team who lacked know-how on technical matters as an attempt to stall the progress of government business.
In 2005, Bob Geldof, an Irish Singer, writer and a political activist, brought together celebrities to global audiences in a campaign that culminated in anti-poverty gigs around the world—London, New York, Paris, Los Angeles, among others.
Ghana, a small West African country with a population just under 25 million people, received debt forgiveness of US$4 billion, halving her debt. But in a span of three years, by the time its previous administration—the National Patriotic Party (NPP)—was leaving office, the debts have mounted back to what they were before the debt forgiveness in 2005.
Today, Ghana’s debt has passed the single digit of the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century. It is now in the double digits without the necessary accompanying economic developments and their reflections in the lives of its citizens. Ghanaian, whether NPP or NDC (the National Democratic Congress, the current Ghanaian administration), must learn to hold their governments accountable for financial transactions in the name of corporate Ghana for which their children and grandchildren will pay the price.
The Ghana government must adopt some level of prudence in the management of loans it contracts from countries like China. A loan is not a freebie. Besides, Bob Geldof may not be strong enough by 2015, a decade after the 2005 anti-poverty campaign, to initiate debt forgiveness for the poor. China is not a Father Christmas and may not subscribe to debt forgiveness, so Ghana should thread carefully!
As we continue to fill political and technical positions with square pegs in round holes we are likely to be descending fast into the abyss of economic doldrums. A simple developmental economic analysis can tell members to the team that buying scrap trains creates a dependency situation. It is like buying a 12 year old car rather than a three year old car.
Let me use the car recent recall of Toyota cars for faulty brakes. How many Ghanaians are able to return their Toyota cars to the manufacturers for a benefit that had accrued mainly to users of Toyota cars in North America, Europe, and elsewhere? So for convenience sake, Ghanaians continue to pay for death traps.
Without in depth analysis, one is tempted to think it is a good deal for Ghana. As usual the non strategic thinking o four leaders whether it is NPP or NDC becomes the core issue. All of a sudden the Chinese are getting foothold in our economy. They have factories in Ghana and are still involved in retail trade of the goods they manufacture in Ghana? …What kind of suicidal industrial or commercial policy do we have as a nation? So the Chinese export hoods to Ghana and now we import their literally “100 years old rail cars” which sooner than later will be unreliable and need spare parts. Since we have bought these rail cars under loan we are now the new owners. So Ghana will have to buy spare parts from China earlier than if we had bought brand new trains. We are creating jobs for the Chinese. Would it not be icing on the cake if the Chinese were asked to transfer that technology of repairs to Ghana with Kwame Nkrumah University of Technology (TEK) Mechanical, Civil and Materials Engineering departments to set up shops with Suame Magazine workers to produce these parts? Can we imagine the amount of JOBS we will create for our citizens? What about spin off industries!!!! Think, Ghana Think.
Carl Miller
Center for Global Watch
London

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Chinese workers build 15-story hotel in just six days

As the United States and China battle over the finer points of currency manipulation at the G-20 summit, American negotiators may want to take note of this startling testimonial to the productivity of Chinese workers: A construction crew in the south-central Chinese city of Changsha has completed a 15-story hotel in just six days. If nothing else, this remarkable achievement will stoke further complaints from American economic pundits that China's economy is far more accomplished than ours in tending to such basics as construction.

Meanwhile, it's easy to imagine the disorientation of Changsha residents who'd gone away, or who just hadn't recently ventured into the downtown neighborhood of the new Ark Hotel: "Honey, I don't remember a hotel there, do you?"

The work crew erected the hotel -- a soundproofed, thermal-insulated structure reportedly built to withstand a magnitude 9 earthquake -- with all prefabricated materials. In other words, a crew of off-site factory workers built the sections, and their on-site counterparts arranged them on the foundation for the Ark project.


Despite the frenetic pace of construction, no workers were injured -- and thanks to the prefab nature of the process, the builders wasted very few construction materials. Below is a time-lapse video that shows the hotel being built from the ground up in less than a week: