Guetna, Ramadan bring rare economic opportunities in Mauritania

Many Mauritanians are finding jobs during this year's date harvesting season, earning additional income from the popular iftar snack.

By Mohamed Yahya Ould Abdel Wedoud for Magharebia in Nouakchott – 10/08/11

In a rare coincidence, Mauritania's date harvesting season, or Guetna, coincides with Ramadan this year, offering new economic opportunities for the nation's unemployed youth.

Mauritanians used to depend on canned dates imported from Tunisia, Morocco and Saudi Arabia in past years. But with Guenta occurring during Ramadan this year, the increased demand created by the holy month is leading to new jobs for Mauritanians.

"Like other young people in rural areas, I have benefited from Guetna season," Mbark Ould Mohamed told Magharebia. "I started my business in trading in dates weeks ago. I transport dates from the oases in the north to capital Nouakchott, where I sell them."

Ould Mohamed said that "there is high popular demand for the dates because of the advent of Ramadan; something that made some unemployed people, mainly holders of university certificates and students, go for trading in dates in view of the profits that can be generated from such a trade."

The benefits of the Guetna season are seen by urban Mauritanians as well. Hundreds of young people in cities now buy dates from rural distributors and then market them in their own way.

"I signed a marketing agreement a few months ago with some owners of oases in remote areas who can't go to cities to market and sell their products of dates because they are busy," Mohamed Val Ould Bekren, a man in his 30s, told Magharebia. "I've hired a lot of young people to work with me in this business. Thank God, we've managed to make considerable profits, and the process is still ongoing."

Mohamed Ould Bahiye, a man in his 50s who works in the tourist sector, told Magharebia that while Mauritanian dates were of a high quality, the country lacked the factories to can and preserve them for longer periods.

"Therefore, the Guetna season is the only period in which these dates can be used. Now that Ramadan doesn't often coincide with Guetna season, Mauritanians resort to imported dates," he said, adding that "it seems that this year is an exception. There is no doubt that the fact that the Guetna season coincided with Ramadan will revive the national economy."

For his part, environmental specialist Bedder Eddine Ould Salem said: "Mauritania has about 7 million date palm trees in the northern and eastern parts of the country. They annually produce hundreds of thousands of tons of different species of dates; something that makes Mauritania's 4 million people self-sufficient, but only during the Guetna season."

"We should also take into consideration that large quantities of these dates are wasted every year because of insects and birds, and also because of the lack of refrigeration and preservation equipment that can preserve dates for longer periods of time," Ould Salem said.

"There are no companies working in the field of date palm trees oases," he added. "Most of the oases are owned by families that inherit them from generation to another away from state control."

The increase in opportunities in the date industry in Mauritania may well assuage the country's unemployment problem for a time.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/08/10/feature-04.

Tunisian protesters demand judicial reform

After ministers facing corruption charges were freed from custody, Tunisians are questioning the effectiveness of the post-revolution justice system.

By Monia Ghanmi for Magharebia in Tunis – 10/08/11

Hundreds of people demonstrated Monday (August 8th) in downtown Tunis to demand an independent judiciary and a break with the former regime.

The protest came after presidential confidante Saida Agrebi was allowed to leave the country and former ministers Bechir Tekkari and Abderrahim Zouari were released from custody.

Tekkari, who served as justice and human rights minister during the regime of ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, was arrested July 11th on accusations of corruption and abuse of power for allegedly forging property deeds of a famous restaurant in Sidi Bouzid. Former transport minister Zouari was arrested on April 13th for corruption in the ministry and for financing the disbanded Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD).

"They are just deceiving us," said Souha Dridi. "Can it be imagined that a man who was a pillar in the former regime and who desperately defended Ben Ali and his family be released under the pretext that he was sick?"

Her colleague Samia Belhadi accused the interim government of procrastinating in reforming the judiciary, allowing criminals to go unpunished.

"We won't be silent about this injustice," she said. "We will defend our right to have an independent judiciary."

These decisions also sparked criticism from political parties that accused the government of intervening in the judiciary to be lenient with officials associated with corruption and abuse of power.

The Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) said that it "came as a surprise to those who know quite well the violations committed by those senior officials".

"Delaying the trial of those who committed crimes against the people and this country casts doubt over the integrity and justice of the Tunisian judiciary in this interim period." The PDP said.

The Ettajdid Movement stressed in a statement the need to remove all obstacles that hinder accountability and punishment "so that it may be an unequivocal message showing the serious break with the regime of despotism and corruption".

However, some parties fear that the decision to release a number of former officials is just the beginning.

Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the Islamist Ennahda Movement, said in a statement that the judiciary in Tunisia was still subject to corruption. He expressed his fears that these developments would serve to put an end to the gains of revolution and would lead to the release of the remaining former regime officials and some of Leila Trabelsi's family.

"Their games have become clear," Mohamad Ali Sallami said. "But we have to calm down. The election is drawing near, and we shouldn't give them any pretext to postpone it. After that, everyone will be relentlessly held to account." Lawyers also debated the judiciary's commitment to try former regime officials.

Lawyer Nacer Aouini doubts the integrity of the judiciary, saying that it is still subject to political pressures because Ben Ali's judges are still in their positions.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Justice Saturday (August 6th) said that the judiciary has been completely independent since the January 14th revolution and that no power, other than conscience and law, is influencing it.

As to Tekkari and Zouari, the ministry said their release would " not affect the course of investigations".

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/08/10/feature-02.

Algeria seeks alternatives to hydrocarbon economy

The Algerian president is the latest to call for the country's diversification from the energy sector.

By Walid Ramzi for Magharebia in Algiers – 10/08/11

The Algerian government is looking to reduce the economy's dependence on the hydrocarbon sector, which represents 98% of the country's currency income.

"Algeria is called upon to exert a great effort to bring its economy out of dependence on oil and to diversify its resources so as not to be a hostage to the fluctuation of oil prices in international markets," President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said at an August 4th meeting on the energy sector.

Economists have long raised concerns over the vulnerability of the Algerian financial system to shocks in the event of a drop in oil prices. Experts warn the dependence could continue in the coming years unless action is taken.

"The danger of the situation in the medium term is continuation of the economy being excessively linked to oil and gas prices in the world market, and the absence of any serious strategy to support economic diversification," economist Mohamed Sellama told Magharebia.

He said that at the end of 2010, the hydrocarbon sector comprised a third of GDP, the equivalent of 98% of total exports and more than 70% budget revenue.

The economist stressed the necessity of adopting other means to develop the Algerian economy, particularly by relying on the knowledge economy. Sellama said Algeria "should quickly prepare for a post-petroleum phase with the acquisition of additional resources from other sectors, particularly agriculture and tourism".

A government report released last year showed that the value of Algeria's hydrocarbon exports during the period between 2000 and 2009 amounted to nearly $400 billion. The report said Algeria produces 1.45 million barrels of oil per day and 152 billion cubic meters of natural gas. It exports about 62 billion cubic meters annually and plans to increase the exports to 85 billion cubic meters per year beginning in 2013.

"The Algerian economy is facing a double jeopardy because of the nature of exports, as hydrocarbons make up 98% of exports and, in addition, half of the exports of non-hydrocarbon products are in fact derived from oil," noted Samir Kateb, a financial affairs journalist.

In the opinion of many citizens, continuing to rely entirely on oil will lead the Algerian economy into an abyss. Businessman Mohamed Amarni, age 45, said, "Despite the government's announcing several measures to raise the level of public expenditure and to increase salaries, they remain insufficient to address the structural imbalances of the Algerian economy."

Amarni said Algerian companies face administrative complexities and a bureaucratic banking system that stood in the way of efforts to improve competitiveness.

"The deteriorating business environment, the instability of the legislation and the rules governing investment weaken the country's attractiveness for investment and discourage foreign investors from launching industrial and service projects that could enhance the domestic economic fabric and support its competitiveness," he added.

Economics student Said Brakni believes that talk about diversifying the Algerian economy "is an old record officials have repeated for several years without anything being achieved on the ground".

For her part, Halima Salhi, a media company employee, believes that solutions exist but the "political will and courage in taking strategic decisions do not exist".

"What is required is implementation of solutions, and we want to see results with our own eyes and without deception as soon as possible," she said.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/08/10/feature-01.

Exotic quantum crystal discovered

Kiel, Germany (SPX)
Aug 11, 2011

Nature knows two opposite types of solids: one that emerges upon compression from a liquid and a second that appears if the pressure on a liquid is reduced.

While the former is typical for substances in our everyday life the latter occurs for example in a dense quantum liquid of electrons (such as in metals) or ions (in exotic white dwarf or neutron stars).

Now it has been shown that there exists yet a third form of matter that inherits both of these properties. This unusual behavior has been predicted to exist in crystals of excitons - hydrogen atom-like bound states of electrons and holes - in a semiconductor quantum well placed in a strong electric field.

A team from Kiel University (Germany) consisting of Dr. Jens Bonning, Privatdozent Alexei Filinov and Prof. Michael Bonitz has performed extensive accurate computer simulations that shed light on the mysterious properties of this material.

The results appear in the current issue of Physical Review B. There the authors present a simple explanation for the coexistence of the two seemingly contradicting melting behaviors.

The secret lies in the character of the forces acting between two excitons: at low pressure excitons repel each other via a dipole force and form a quantum liquid.

Upon compression this fluid freezes into an exciton crystal. Further compression brings two excitons so close together that the quantum wave nature of their constituents (electrons and holes) starts to weaken the forces.

As a consequence, further compression leads to an increasing overlap of the exciton quantum waves that is no longer balanced by the inter-exciton repulsion, and the crystal melts again.

The researchers have made precise predictions where to search for this exotic crystal of excitons (particularly well suited are zinc selenide or gallium arsenide quantum wells) - it is now up to the experimentalists to find this new state of matter.

Source: Space Mart.
Link: http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Exotic_quantum_crystal_discovered_999.html.

NASA selects Virgin Galactic for Suborbital Flights

Los Angeles CA (SPX)
Aug 11, 2011

Virgin Galactic has been selected by NASA to provide flight opportunities for engineers, technologists and scientific researchers to fly technology payloads into space.

This arrangement marks the first time that NASA has contracted with a commercial partner to provide flights into space on a suborbital spacecraft, and represents another important endorsement of the value of regular commercial space access for a wide range of science and educational applications.

The announcement came from NASA's Flight Opportunities Program, funded by NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist and managed out of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, CA.

Through this program, NASA has already arranged the flight of several innovative scientific payloads on low-altitude rockets. With selection of Virgin Galactic as a flight provider, NASA will soon be able to offer the research community access to space itself.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo is the only crewed suborbital vehicle in flight testing, and the only such vehicle based on a spacecraft that has already sent humans into space, the X Prize-winning SpaceShipOne.

Virgin Galactic offers a significantly larger cabin than any other company taking deposits today, allowing for unique technology demonstrations and research.

"The Flight Opportunities program is an efficient research program that leverages investment in private vehicles to drive new discoveries for researchers and real benefits for taxpayers," said George Whitesides, President and CEO of Virgin Galactic.

"NASA leadership, the Office of the Chief Technologist and Congress deserve credit for supporting this worthy program. We look forward to providing a high-quality, cost-effective research platform for researchers and scientists over the coming years."

With several flight providers selected, NASA will now be able to begin the process of offering these flight opportunities to the research community, which has already expressed very strong interest in such a novel environment.

Proposals are being invited from the research community by NASA and are expected to span a wide variety of disciplines. NASA's Flight Opportunities Program will be responsible for selecting those which go forward for flight.

These research flights mark an important milestone for Virgin Galactic. Although generally referred to as a space tourism company-Virgin Galactic has already collected more than $55 million in deposits from 445 future tourist astronauts-providing access to space to researchers and their experiments is viewed by Virgin Galactic as both a future mission segment and a significant business opportunity.

To best serve NASA and the research community, Virgin Galactic assembled an expert team of partners to provide payload integration and flight services. This team includes: Southwest Research Institute of Texas; NanoRacks, LLC of Texas; SatWest, LLC of New Mexico and Spaceflight Services of Washington.

These partner organizations bring extensive experience flying scientific experiments on high performance jet aircraft, suborbital and orbital rockets, and the International Space Station. Researchers flying experiments onboard SpaceShipTwo will be able to work with these companies directly when desired to allow for the quickest paths to flight.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/NASA_selects_Virgin_Galactic_for_Suborbital_Flights_999.html.

Israeli protests over rising costs of living enter fourth week

JERUSALEM (BNO NEWS) — Protests against the rising costs of living in Israel continued in several cities across the country on Wednesday as the housing protest movement enters its four week.

Protesters in the city of Holon near Tel Aviv burned tires and blocked roads after city inspectors ordered them to dismantle their tent compound within 24 hours. Most of the people occupying the tents are homeless, according to the Haaretz newspaper.

Approximately 250 people marched in Jerusalem to protest against the state of public transportation in the city, while the Arab community joined the nationwide protests in the northern city of Haifa for the first time. At least 200 protesters from the Wadi Nisnas neighborhood marched chanting the usual slogan – “the people want social justice” – but in Arabic.

This was the first protest organized by Haifa’s Arab community, which constitutes ten percent of the city’s population. The first rally involving both Jews and Arabs since the beginning of the protests took place in central Nazareth last week.

Raja Za’atra, who organized Wadi Nisnas’s tent city, said the protest also seeks to highlight the specific problems facing the Arab sector. “The banks won’t give mortgages to people who want to buy an apartment,” he told Haaretz. “In the case of the Arab population, the supply is limited and the prices keep rising.”

Protests also took place in the southern city of Be’er Sheva and other parts of the country. In addition, activists in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa also protested against unfair employment conditions. More protests are scheduled to take place across Israel on Thursday and Saturday.

Hundreds of thousands protested on Saturday night against surging real-estate prices and the housing shortage in the country as thousands of Israelis continue to sleep in tent camps across the country since mid July.

The Israeli parliament on August 3 passed a controversial housing bill aimed at resolving the country’s current housing shortage, despite the objection of activists. The bill, which was passed by a vote of 57 to 45, will slash red tape for construction by setting up national committees to approve new housing projects.

The chairman of the National Students Union, Itzik Shmuli, said that all groups in the housing campaign opposed the government’s approval of the housing law, which “defied the public and choked the chance for trust and dialogue,” he said.

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Source: WireUpdate.
Link: http://wireupdate.com/wires/19374/israeli-protests-over-rising-costs-of-living-enter-fourth-week/.

NASA's Mars rover reaches new grounds

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) — NASA on Wednesday announced that its Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has reached the planet’s Endeavor crater to study rocks never seen before.

On Monday, the golf cart-sized rover relayed its arrival at a location named Spirit Point on the crater’s rim, after a journey of almost three years. Opportunity was able to drive approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) after climbing out of the Victoria crater, NASA said.

Endeavor crater is more than 25 times wider than Victoria crater, being 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. At Endeavor, scientists expect to see much older rocks and terrains than those examined by Opportunity during its first seven years on Mars.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter first detected clay minerals that may have formed in an early warmer and wetter period, making Endeavor an intriguing destination.

“NASA is continuing to write remarkable chapters in our nation’s story of exploration with discoveries on Mars and trips to an array of challenging new destinations,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “Opportunity’s findings and data from the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory will play a key role in making possible future human missions to Mars and other places where humans have not yet been,” he added.

Matthew Golombek, Mars Exploration Rover science team member at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said the exploration will allow sampling of a rock type the rovers had not seen before. “Clay minerals form in wet conditions so we may learn about a potentially habitable environment that appears to have been very different from those responsible for the rocks comprising the plains.”

NASA launched the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity in the summer of 2003. Both completed their three-month prime missions in April 2004 and continued years of extended operations. They made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. 


In search for evidence that water persisted on the Martian surface for a long period of time, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched on August 12, 2005. Other Mars missions have shown water flowed across the surface in the planet’s history, but scientists have not determined if water remained long enough to provide a habitat for life.

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Source: WireUpdate.
Link: http://wireupdate.com/wires/19375/nasas-mars-rover-reaches-new-grounds/.