The Dominion - South Africa

African Activists Blast Unconventional Extraction

Tim McSorley — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:28:32 +0000

Tar sands highlighted in lead up to UN climate summit in South Africa

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA—In Durban this week, you're blinded by green. From billboards to uniforms, it's impossible to miss that this South African city is hosting the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

One would think you could not get any further from the northern hinterlands of the Alberta's Athabasca watershed. But in a city filled with palm trees and tens of thousands of delegates engaging in another round of high-level climate negotiations, environmental and community organizers from across Africa, the Middle East and North America came together over northern Alberta's tar sands and similar projects around the world.

“There's a lot of development right now globally around tar sands, oil shale, and other extraction projects,” said Oliver Meth, a Durban environmental activist and one of the organizers of Everyone's Downstream 5 (EDS).

Held for the past four years in Edmonton, Alberta, the annual conference was established to explicitly focus on the Alberta tar sands, both its impact on downstream communities directly affected by the project and its broader ramifications. It has gradually grown, and this year made the leap to a new location in order to build broader links with international communities, especially many African communities which are now seeing tar sands and other unconventional extraction projects beginning in their regions.

Presenters from areas including Congo-Brazzaville, Madgascar, Israel, Uganda and South Africa were all present to share the struggles they are facing against growing threats to human health and the environment, including wildlife, plant life and potable water.

While the diversity of participants pointed to the degree to which people are growing concerned, tar sands and unconventional oil extraction, and the specific issues they present, are relatively new to Africa and to environmental activists across the country. “We need to build more awareness about these projects,” Meth said. “Not everybody talks to each other.”

Clearly there are major differences from community to community, but many people echoed concerns heard in Canada for nearly a decade, as the Alberta tar sands has grown and its environmental impact has become more clear.

“If the extraction of 40 tons of conventional oil has not led us to economic development, it's clear that tar sands, which have led to negative impacts in Canada, and which are our best and only example we can look to, won't do so either,” said Christian Mounzeo, president of Engagement for Peace and Human Rights from Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo.

Since 2008, Italian corporation ENI has been developing a massive energy production undertaking, including palm oil plantations, natural gas and a major tar sands extraction project. Two months ago, the company announced it would be proceeding from the exploratory to extraction phase. But even though not a drop of tar sands crude has been extracted yet, there are already growing concerns, Mounzeo said.

The company has not been forthright on how an environmental impact assessment will be carried out, he said, and communities haven't been provided even the most basic information about the project itself or been involved in public consultations.

“There is a problem of access to information and public participation,” he said.

Such concerns are similar to the concerns expressed by many Indigenous communities in Canada, who have long called for the right to free, prior and informed consent before such major extraction projects take place on their lands, regardless of whether the project focuses on tar sands, conventional oil or mining.

Other activists from across Africa echoed similar concerns. They also discussed questions around government corruption, political instability and how to make trans-national companies—which often benefit from low tax rates, government corruption and the ability to work through a revolving door of subsidiaries—accountable for their actions.

In Uganda, environmental activists have been trying since 2000 to hold oil extraction companies accountable for environmental devastation, human rights abuses and tax evasion along the shores of Lake Albert. It is part of the water system that feeds from Lake Victoria in central Africa into the southern head of the Nile, featuring one of the most environmentally diverse ecosystems in the world.

Bwengue Rajab Yusuf of Nape-Oil Watch Uganda spoke about how a constantly changing corporate presence—from the Toronto Stock Exchange-listed Heritage Oil to Tullow Oil (South Africa) to Total (France) to, most recently, Chinese oil firms—has made it nearly impossible to seek financial compensation for the destruction of agricultural land and wildlife conservation zones. “Who do you pursue?” he asked, pointing out that it becomes even more difficult when confronted with corrupt government officials who refuse to uphold environmental assessment laws or to enforce the protection of wildlife sanctuaries.

As Mouzeno explained it, residents of the Congo and across Africa are up against the “link between oil exploration, conflict, debt, corruption and under-development.”

But if the challenges are shared, so is the willingness to build new, community-based means of resistance. In Uganda, it has taken the form of Sustainability Schools, where they are focusing on building “community resilience” by offering action training and providing research and investigative skills, said Yusuf.

Two members of the Ogoni Solidarity Forum in the Niger Delta spoke of the longstanding community mobilizations against oil development on their land, highlighting the fact that November marks the anniversary of the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Wiwa was a renowned environmental and human rights activist put to death by the Nigerian government in 1995 for his outspoken stances and non-violent campaigns, particularly against Shell.

Sorbarikor Demua told of how Ogoni women often bear the brunt of the oil development of their area, since they harvest the land that is often the most devastated by oil spills and chemical contamination. They also face extreme repercussions at the hands of military and para-military forces sent to punish protesting communities and who use sexual assault and rape as punishment for their activism.

Recently, women protested the impacts of oil development and the lack of resources for the Ogoni people by going naked. As Demual's colleague Celestine Akpobari stated, it is actions by women such as this that show the desperation and the extent to which they must go to ensure compensation for the destruction of their land.

Taking place for two days and involving 200 delegates just before a major international conference, Meth believes that EDS is necessary as part of the counterbalance to the bureaucratic, government-focused negotiation happening at the opulent Durban International Conference Centre.

A conference like EDS, he said, “gives us a chance to speak in peoples' own language and terms, in a way they understand best.” The government delegates and representatives of major international non-governmental organizations on the inside at COP17 are often far removed from the realities on the ground, he said, meaning different venues are needed to make concrete, on-the-ground change.

“We shouldn't be concerned or be bothered about COP17, but [we need to] challenge it for excluding communities that are being most affected,” he said, citing the example that there are representatives of the major South African utilities company ESKOM at the table, but that Indigenous communities are not officially represented.

And while some may question the impact of smaller events like EDS over the next week, many major delegations have already stated that they do not foresee any agreement to follow up on the Kyoto Protocol until 2020. If the major delegations are so effective, then, as Meth asks, “They have met so many times; why are we not making more headway?”

Tim McSorley is an editor with the Media Co-op. He is part of a six-person media delegation covering COP17 and parallel community-led conferences. You can find more of the Media Co-op's COP17 coverage at http://mediacoop.ca/durban.

Christian Mounzeo

Celestine AkpoBari and Sorbarikor Demual

World Cup Knock-Out

Moira Peters — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:49:19 +0000

South Africa to score big public debt in 2010

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki wrote in his country’s 2004 bid to host the 2010 World Cup: “We want to ensure that one day, historians will reflect upon the 2010 World Cup as a moment when Africa stood tall and resolutely turned the tide on poverty and conflict.” Contrary to Mbeki’s professed aim of unity and economic development, it seems the legacy of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa will be limited to a handful of multinational and national corporations making massive profits on the backs of a reserve army of labour and through the generation of massive public debt.

VANCOUVER—While Canadian protesters throughout the 2010 Winter Olympic Games organized around the call, “Homes, Not Games!”, the same slogan could be shouted at the opposite end of the world, where this year South Africa will also be hosting a sport mega-event: the 2010 soccer World Cup.

In South Africa, over 13 per cent of the population lives in makeshift housing. In 2008—the year the food, energy, and financial crises simultaneously rocked the country—the rates of makeshift housing rose.

Twenty-nine per cent of the population of South Africa cannot afford to pay for water and almost eight per cent of households use bucket toilets, an apartheid leftover that successive democratic national governments have both pledged and failed to eradicate as an issue of immediate concern. According to Eddie Cottle, Coordinator of the Campaign for Decent Work Toward and Beyond 2010 in South Africa, the amount of South African public money being spent by the government on World Cup preparations “is equivalent to the amount the state spent on housing delivery over a ten-year period.”

Around the globe, the rhetoric employed by government leaders to exalt the potential of sport mega-events bears striking similarities. On October 30, 2009, British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell announced at the Olympic Torch Relay Celebration that “the Olympics bring us together.” In South Africa, the government has announced that the World Cup is an unprecedented “unique opportunity” to build “unity and pride amongst South Africans.” Not only do South African government leaders present the World Cup as an opportunity to unite South Africans but also to unite and develop the African continent as a whole and “celebrate Africa’s humanity.”

UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon stated the South African World Cup is a “time to present a different story of the African continent, a story of peace, democracy and investment.” His statement was met by a unanimous resolution passed in the UN General Assembly to endorse the World Cup in South Africa as a “platform for social development and peace across the African continent.”

Are these mega-sporting events really opportunities to bridge divides and build unity amongst citizens within and across nations?

For a country like South Africa, which is not only adjusting to globalization, but also dealing with massive socio-economic inequalities and ideological differences around issues of gender, race, class, and culture produced by the combined legacy of colonialism and apartheid, what impact can South Africa expect from hosting the World Cup?

As Cottle points out, the costs of sport mega-event infrastructure, such as stadia, are substantially higher in countries of the Global South than countries of the Global North, where the infrastructure to host these events is already in place. On its World Cup in 1994, the US spent less than US $30 million (US $50 million today). France spent less than US $500 million in 1998, and South Korea spent US $2 billion in 2002. The South African government will be spending at least US $4.1 billion by the end of the World Cup. Since 2004, when South Africa won the bid to host the World Cup, the cost to the South African public of building the stadia (and the necessary electricity, communications, roads, parking, water and sanitation infrastructure) to host the event—the most expensive item in the public’s World Cup expenditure—increased by over 750 per cent from the original budget.

Danny Jordaan, CEO of the South African World Cup Local Organizing Committee, claims the benefits of spending this $4.1 billion in public money will trickle down to South Africans through job creation and the development of public infrastructure.

While World Cup construction has created 22,000 jobs, 70-80 per cent of these jobs are subcontracted positions typically lasting three months. Building and Wood Workers International (BWI) research uncovered construction workers working for as little as US $1 per hour. The net wages of an average construction worker in 2008 was approximately US $2 per hour.

As Maytome Tachi, a construction worker at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg notes: “the World Cup creates jobs, but not better working conditions.” Two construction workers have lost their lives at World Cup construction sites. Workers at one of the hallmark sites, Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, embarked on an 11-day strike in 2007 in part due to unsafe working conditions.

The Durban strike was not unique. Throughout South Africa, World Cup stadia have been plagued not only by poor working conditions; they have also been sites of resistance for workers and their organizations, who have organized 26 strikes throughout the country since World Cup construction began. In July 2009, 70,000 workers embarked on a national strike—the first of its kind in a fragmented sector represented by different labour organizations—to demand a 13 per cent wage increase. In the end, because of inflation rates of 10-15 per cent, the subsequent agreement of 12 per cent did not amount to a substantial increase, let alone a living wage for the average construction worker.

If workers on World Cup projects are struggling to make a living and taxpayers are footing the cost of an ever-expanding bill, who is benefiting from this massive public expenditure?

According to BWI, “construction company annual reports for 2009 indicate mega-profits being made despite the downturn taking place internationally and in the local economy.” The largest South African construction companies report before-tax profits of 58 to 142 per cent. The average CEO of such a company contracted for the World Cup earns around 245 times the income of the average construction worker.

Whereas South African construction companies have been forced to address workers’ demands to a certain extent, as Cottle notes, Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) is guaranteed to make money, regardless of what happens in labour disputes. Thus, the biggest winner from South Africa’s hosting of the World Cup appears not to be a South African business or shareholder, but FIFA. The South African government passed legislation in 2006 treating FIFA and its subsidiaries “as diplomatic missions” and thereby creating a “tax-free bubble” around all their economic activities. With its tax-exempt status and before the World Cup has even begun, FIFA has already reported profits of US $3.2 billion from the 2010 World Cup– the largest profit it has ever made in pre-Cup economic activities.

While FIFA repatriates record profits from the World Cup, construction companies have secured the largest international venue to showcase their world-class stadia and thereby future opportunities for expansion. The South African public, however, will be left footing the bill for World Cup-related costs incurred even after 2010. According to Cottle, there is no way the stadia will generate enough revenue to be self-sustaining. The costs of sustaining them will therefore be offloaded onto municipalities, many of which are already cash-strapped and resorting to increasing fees for public services such as water and electricity.

As a result of its World Cup expenditures and its loss in revenue due to the world economic crisis, the South African government recently announced it is entering into deficit spending and will be borrowing over US $1 billion from international financial institutions. Meanwhile, predicting that World Cup-related travel will not reach the levels originally anticipated, FIFA’s official accommodation agent recently relinquished its rights to around half a million bed nights it had reserved at local hotels. South African corporate analysts then warned that the once-projected massive boost to the South African economy from the World Cup will be “muted.”

As public resources are diverted toward select national and transnational corporations that are profiting from the World Cup being hosted in South Africa, the very same South African public that will be indebted because of the event has had to be mobilized in support of it. Government and big business secured public support for the World Cup by promising that public revenue generated from the event would far exceed the costs of hosting it, and that over 500,000 jobs would be created. To guarantee this continued support, the South African government has spent over US$2.5 million in events to “mobilize communities and create awareness and enthusiasm for the World Cup.” And while the government mobilizes communities in the name of nation-building and “psychological readiness” for the event, it is spending close to US$100 million in security equipment and deploying a dedicated police force of 41,000 officers to contain the same public during the event.

Thus, while the government states it will “leave nothing to chance in securing the event,” it leaves the security of its citizens to chance as it bequeaths them with debt, and millions remain in need of stable housing, water, sanitation, and safe, secure jobs.

On opposite sides of the globe, 2010 in both Canada and South Africa has shown that hosting mega-sport events is actually widening the gap between rich and poor in host countries. The unifying potential of sport is ideologically employed, obscuring class tensions that these mega events in fact reproduce and exacerbate.

Rachel Elfenbein is a PhD student at SFU and Chair of the Teaching Support Staff Union. Before moving to Canada, she conducted popular education and research with civil society organizations in southern Africa. An original version of this article was published by the Vancouver Media Co-op.

SAfrica World Cup

Move over Hollywood, African film industry booming

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 18:03:29 +0000

The African film industry received another boost during the Academy Awards this year with the South African film Tsotsi taking home the best foreign language film award. Although the film was not the first academy award for South Africa, it comes at a time when African-made films are a booming domestic and international industry.

In the last five years, Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has been churning out between 600 and 2,000 films a year, becoming the third-largest film industry behind the US and India. "Nollywood" has become a multi-million dollar industry both in Africa and in the US, which has almost a million African-born citizens.

Most of the Nollywood films are extremely low budget, costing less than $15,000 US and usually shot with one digital camera over a two-week period. This, however, hasn't hindered their popularity in Africa. Nigerian actors from low-budget pulp films have become household names in Ghana and Zambia, while actors' guilds have seen a huge increase in membership.

Geordie Gwalgen Dent

New York Times

Washington Post

allAfrica.com

Privatization in South Africa: Starting Over

Wed, 25 Feb 2004 20:11:58 +0000

An anti-privatization activist argues with police guarding the installation of prepaid water meters in Soweto. photo: Indymedia South Africa

In 1996, post-Apartheid South Africa adopted its remarkably progressive constitution, which granted all citizens the basic right to housing, water, health care, and other essentials. In an equally remarkable about-face, the African National Congress (ANC), the governing party of former president Nelson Mandela, has adopted a program of privatization.

For the poor in South Africa, things are in many ways worse now than under Apartheid. In 2003, South Africa beat out Brazil for the distinction of having the largest income gap between rich and poor of any country in the world.

For South Africa's poor, privatization has had disastrous results. While advocates of privatization claim that for-profit water systems will increase efficiency, opponents point out that private firms don't bother to repair inadequate infrastructure in poor townships, preferring to focus on areas that yield higher profits. "Whatever one believes," one critic points out, "the poor have no say in the matter."

In 2000, thousands of people who were no longer able to afford newly raised water tariffs turned to other sources for water. Because almost all of South Africa's surface water is unsuitable for consumption without treatment, the result was one of the largest outbreaks of cholera in the nation's history.

Due to rising rates that accompany privatization, electricity has become similarly inaccessible for thousands of families. Due to various calculations, electricity is more expensive in poor townships than it is in rich--and usually white--areas.

Less than a decade after the end of Apartheid, the tactics of resistance developed over decades of racial oppression have become useful again. The Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee has led a successful campaign called Operation Khanyisa (from Zulu, meaning "to turn on the light"). Teams of volunteer electricians rewire homes that have been cut off because families cannot afford the "privatized" rates--which can be five times higher than in the recent past. Hundreds of thousands of homes have been reconnected, as new "electricians" are trained. Similar campaigns have begun to reconnect access to water in poor neighbourhoods.

When private security forces--nicknamed "red ants" for their red overalls--are sent to evict people from homes, large crowds are mobilized in order to physically block the eviction. Evicted families are also moved in by force. Lack of housing and overcrowding are major problems, with thousands of people living in makeshift shacks built in yards.

Other tactics have been traditionally straightforward: a large crowd is mobilized to present a list of demands to politicians, and attempt to shame them into halting privatization plans by referring to the constitution and past promises. When frustration runs high, a more direct approach has been taken: an angry crowd travels to a politician's house and disconnects the power and water. One such encounter led to one of Johannesburg Mayor Amos Masondo's bodyguards firing on a crowd of angry demonstrators.

In some cases, direct action has had significant results. The Treatment Action Campaign has forced a reticent ANC government to provide treatments to many infected with HIV. Similarly, the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee won the cancellations of debts to the power company and halted power disconnections.

Trevor Ngwane of the Anti-Privatization Forum says that the campaigns are "more or less keeping things where they are" in terms of privatization. "This is having the effect of the social movements beginning to realize their own limitations and starting to look for real and long-lasting solutions."

The problem, according to Ngwane, is a lack of "clear class politics." "The ANC is doing what the old National Party could not do," he explains, "because it can hide behind its struggle credentials and the peoples trust of Nelson Mandela to get away with theft and murder."

Ngwane claims that the problems with the ANC have deep historical roots. The ANC began, he says, in 1912 "as an organisation of 'educated' Africans and enlightened chiefs who wanted equal rights for themselves because they were 'civilised,' unlike the rest of the the 'natives'."

While the ANC adopted the radical rhetoric of the 1960s, with Mandela calling for a "turn to the masses," Ngwane says that the belief that "the interests of the exploiter can be harmonized with that of the exploiter" remained fundamental.

The problem today, Ngwane says, is that there are very few viable political parties that do not support capitalism--even the South African Communist Party stands in support of the ANC. Political parties will make promises to the poor, he says, but the only way these promises are fulfilled is through the ongoing struggles of the people affected by capitalism and the attendant privatization.

Additional Reading:

» The Dominion: Interview with Trevor Ngwane

» Research Paper: Altering Water Privatization in South Africa: Adapting Social Resources for the Poor

» Canadian Labour Congress: Privatization Can Cause More Problems Than it Solves - Lessons From Africa

» Yellow Times: Water privatization in Africa

» Republic of South Africa: Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996

» ZNet: What went wrong in the 'New South Africa'?

» In These Times: Guerrilla Technicians Challenge the Privatization of South Africa's Public Resources

» Agence France-Presse: Tens of Thousands of Marchers Gather Against Privatization in South Africa

» New Left Review: Trevor Ngwane: Sparks in the Township

Less than a decade after the end of Apartheid in South Africa, popular resistance movements are growing again. This time, the enemy is privatization.

International News Briefs

Fri, 11 Jul 2003 06:43:25 +0000

Headlines:In it for the Oil: Polish Foreign Minister ¶ Israel Occupies New Land ¶ Terrorism Suspects: Confess or Die? ¶ Dell Stops Using Prison Labour ¶ Apartheid by Any Other Name ¶ US and Iraq Briefs

In it for the Oil: Polish Foreign Minister

Prisoners at camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, their faces and eyes covered: unnamed detainees are denied access to lawyers and face secretive tribunals. photo: US Navy

Poland's Foreign Minister, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, admitted that Poland was motivated to support the US invasion of Iraq by the possibility of access to Iraq's natural resources. "We have never hidden our desire for Polish oil companies to finally have access to sources of commodities," he told a Polish News Agency.

Poland currently has 250 soldiers in Iraq, but the country will send 2,500 more in September as a part of a peacekeeping force. Poland has been a staunch supporter of the US-led invasion. At the time of Cimoszewicz's interview, a group of Polish companies had signed a deal with Halliburton, which has been granted multi-million dollar contracts in Iraq by the US government. US Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton before entering the 2000 Presidential campaign. (Middle East Online, Washington Times)

Israel Occupies New Land

Even as Israeli forces relinquished control of Bethlehem and parts of Gaza, the government appropriated hundreds of acres of the West Bank, north of Jerusalem. The first phase of the road map requires Israel to stop confiscating Palestinian property and to freeze all settlement activity.

Palestinians and Israeli human rights activists say Israel is taking land to further a plan for a "greater Jerusalem". The Israeli official in charge of the land seizures told the Guardian, "this is nothing special. My work is enforcing the law. I can't talk". (Guardian)

Terrorism Suspects: Confess or Die?

According to American legal sources cited by The Observer, "two British terrorist suspects facing a secret US military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay will be given a choice: plead guilty and accept a 20-year prison sentence, or be executed if found guilty." The sources said the dilemma was designed to ensure "maximum cooperation". Prisoners in the US prison at Guantanamo have not been allowed access to lawyers, and Amnesty International has alleged that many captives have suffered "severe abuse". According to the Associated Press, the Pentagon has said that it may "continue to hold the suspects even if they are acquitted by a tribunal". Military officials asserted that prisoners' status as "unlawful combatants" is separate from guilt or innocence on charges brought before a tribunal.

Amnesty International has also condemned US interrogation methods in Iraq. One Iraqi businessman claimed that U.S. interrogators "deprived him of sleep, forced him to kneel naked and kept him bound hand and foot with a bag over his head for eight days," according to the Associated Press. Other journalists have witnessed detainees "wearing only underwear and blindfolds, handcuffed and lying in the dirt 24 hours after their capture." US officials have declined to comment on specific cases.

(Observer, New York Times, Associated Press)

Dell Stops Using Prison Labour

Dell Computer has cancelled a recycling contract with UNICOR, a Washington D.C. based company that makes use of prison labour. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, a California environmental group, had recently released a report calling Dell's UNICOR operation a "primitive" system that exposed inmates to dangerous chemicals. CEO Michael Dell claimed the report had nothing to do with the company's decision.

Prison labourers in the US are paid as little as one dollar per hour for their work, though contracters pay the federal minimum wage to the prison. One prison official quoted by the Daily Texan said that "the idea was started to get prisoners to pay for their own incarceration." UNICOR (also known as Federal Prison Industries) is run by the US department of justice, and offers prison labour for work in electronics, textiles, graphics, services, and other areas. Over two million people are currently incarcerated in the US.

(AP, Daily Texan, www.unicor.gov)

Apartheid by Any Other Name

Of 45 million South Africans, 31 million are black, 5 million white, 3 million colored and one million are Indians. Whites, however, still control roughly three quarters of equity in South African businesses, leaving the majority of the population at a major economic disadvantage.

The recent introduction of legislation of "Broad-based Economic Empowerment", also known as "Black Economic Empowerment", has highlighted existing political divisions in the country. White business groups claim that the legislation places too many restrictions on investors, and could scare away internation investment. Labour leaders and black business groups say the plan doesn't go far enough to create jobs and basic services for the country's poor and unemployed.

Manila Times

US and Iraq Briefs

George W. Bush appointed a pharmaceutical executive to administer US AIDS relief funds. The Council on Foreign Relations released a report which concluded that US government agencies were vastly underprepared to deal with a terrorist attack.

US official Richard Perle told the American Enterprise Institute that "we have a responsibility, a stewardship, not to turn [Iraq] over to institutions incapable of seeing this through to a successful conclusion... the last thing the Iraqis need is French statism or German labour practices." According to the Washington Post, "cities and towns outside of Baghdad are largely administered by former Iraqi military and police officers and people who had close ties to the Baath Party". UNICEF officials claimed that the US invasion and occupation has made Iraq's entire population dependent on food aid.

George Bush reportedly told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas that "god told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them." (Observer, Ha'aretz, Washington Post, Inter Press News Service)