The exploitation of Africa’s natural resources in this manner breaches the 1992 International Convention on Biological Diversity which protects the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from the use of genetic resources, according to Arthur Nogueira, a senior official with the convention’s secretariat in Canada.How nations are losing out* Canadian company Option Biotech has patented seeds of Congo’s Aframomum stipulatum for an anti-impotence drug called Bioviagra. Should Uganda share in the profits that will be generated if [it did not invest in the development]?”Another company mentioned in the report is the German company Bayer. It says that Bayer acquired a strain of bacteria from Lake Ruiru in Kenya, from which it has developed a drug that helps diabetes sufferers.The patented drug is usually sold under the name of Precose or Glucobay and has generated at least $380m (£218m) in sales And yet Kenya has received nothing in return. Bayer spokeswoman Christina Sehnert confirmed the product had been developed from the Kenyan bacteria but said that the drug was a product of biotechnology She said “You are not using the original. He said the drug had not made any profits for the company, although it had raised $20m (£11.5m) in funding for research.”If you pick up a natural substance from the street, does that mean it belongs to the country in which you found it? [Our researcher] just happened to be in Uganda,” he said. “The issue is not about where the source was but the work that has been done to develop it.

Imagine what we could discover with two years of research.”Among the companies named is the British firm SR Pharma, which it says holds patents for a mycobacterium collected in Uganda during the 1970s and used to develop a treatment for chronic viral infections, including HIV.SR Pharma’s final director Melvyn Davies confirmed his company had neither offered the product or financial compensation to Uganda. “We have identified a number of cases that require a lot of explanation. The problem is that we have a world [where companies] are used to taking whatever they want from wherever and thinking they are doing it for the good of mankind.”Mariam Mayet, of the South Africa-based African Centre for Biodiversity, co-authors of the report, said: “There is a total disregard and disrespect for Africa’s resources Our findings were made after just one month of research. White House spokesman Scott McClellan rejected the call to shut the camp, saying the military treats all detainees humanely and “these are dangerous terrorists that we’re talking about.”.

Dozens of Western multinationals have made millions of pounds in profits from exploiting African bio-resources taken from some of the poorest nations on earth, with not a penny offered in return. Pharmaceutical firms are accused of breaching the United Nations convention on biodiversity, which states that nations have sovereignty over their own natural resources, by scouring continents for samples of unique materials, from plants to bacteria.
A ground-breaking report identifies numerous materials, taken from Africa to Western laboratories, which have developed and patented products worth hundreds of millions of pounds – from a trailing plant beloved of gardeners across Europe to a natural cure for impotence and a microbe used in fading designer jeans.In some cases companies accept that their product is based on a traditional source and yet there is no evidence the companies have compensated countries from which they took them.”It’s a new form of colonial pillaging,” said Beth Burrows, of the US-based Edmonds Institute, the environmental group that published the report. Somalia is one of the poorest African nations and campaigners are deeply concerned that the drought in the south of the country, which has already struck neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Tanzania and Burundi, will hit the nation, disrupted by wars, particularly hard.The price of containers used to transport water has rocketed to more than a day’s wages for most Somalis, said Brendan Cox, an Oxfam spokesman. A water canister that used to cost at least 1p now costs 70p in a region where residents live on pennies a day.The latest UN report on Somalia said 1.7 million people – 710,000 of them experiencing acute food shortages – needed food assistance of some kind in addition to the 410,000 refugees who depend on food aid.. The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says the United States should close the prison at Guantanamo Bay for terror suspects as soon as possible, backing a key conclusion of a UN-appointed independent panel.

Increasingly large numbers of people are dying from dehydration on 40-mile treks to fetch water in scorching temperatures of up to 40C.
“The situation will get worse unless swift action is taken,” said Mohamed Elmi, Oxfam’s regional programme manager. The impoverished people of Somalia are being forced to surviv e on three containers of water a day for drinking, cooking and washing, Oxfam has said. The military claims it was acting on credible evidence of a terrorist threat, but most observers read the incident as a none-too-subtle attempt to intimidate judges.Although Mr Besigye is Museveni’s most credible opponent to date, it is highly unlikely that he will win. Many expect Mr Museveni’s people to ensure a victory at any cost and fear the weeks and months that will follow the poll.”Museveni will cheat the election,” said Justin as he leaned on his motorbike next to one of Kampala’s potholed roads “He cheated last time Besigye is my man, but he cannot win.”. “Why don’t they want to give the state a chance to prove its cases? Why are they always looking as if they are always siding with the offenders?” he asked of Mr Besigye’s case.The general’s verbal assault follows a physical assault on the judiciary in November. A 30-strong branch of the security forces, popularly known as the Black Mamba Urban Hit Squad, wearing tight black T-shirts and bandanas, raced into the grounds of the High Court carrying an assortment of automatic weapons.

“All the past governments collapsed because they failed to control the army,” he told a rally in Entebbe, on the shores of Lake Victoria, last month. “We have managed to tame it.” A fortnight ago a senior general criticised the judiciary on a live radio broadcast. The army is ever-present, and not just in the north where for 20 years it has failed to defeat the rebel Lords Resistance Army in a war that has the dubious distinction of being Africa’s longest-running conflict.Mr Museveni likes to remind voters that only he can control the army. Three weeks later he was arrested and charged with treason and rape His supporters rioted in the streets of Kampala. The arrest did not go down well with Western governments who provide half Uganda’s budget and who have long f?d Mr Museveni as one of the new breed of democratic African leaders In response to the arrest Britain and others cut aid.