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Tobacco control: A fight for public opinion

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:09:59 GMT

Monday, November 24, 2008

The struggle to control tobacco has evolved into some kind of “fight for public opinion.” This is how an expert from Paraguay put it: “In order to excel in such a confrontation, the party that strikes home most its message carries the day.”

The measures being taken into account would serve as a direct counter to the effect of packaging and labelling, which constitute an important element of advertising and promotion. Tobacco pack or product features are used in many ways to attract consumers, promote products, and cultivate and promote brand identity. The above statement explains why health warnings on tobacco packs have taken a center stage in the ongoing discussions in Durban.

For years, the tobacco industry has been able to stifle information, influencing inaction among legislators the world over to ensure that the real image of the ruthlessness of tobacco is misrepresented.

While bribery and corruption on the part of shady politicians have played a part in this situation, a great many lawmakers are still not conversant with the actual deadly effects of tobacco. In the words of a Zambian professor:

“Part of the problems we are faced with is the chronic level of uneducated politicians who blatantly refuse to listen to us; they do not have the patience to look at the statistics, they are not willing to listen.”

The professor’s argument is that the situation with tobacco is such that nations stand to save much more money in the absence of tobacco revenue. “We are better off without tobacco,” he argued.

Author: by Kemo Cham- Durban, South Africa

NAMs call for control of food products

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 08:20:30 GMT

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

As the National Assembly opens its third annual meeting, parliamentarians have raised concerns over the long standing phenomenon of uncontrolled marketing of farmers products. They also stressed the need for farmers to be sensitised more to make being aware of the importance of preserving some of their products for domestic consumption.

In the wake of the alarming food crisis, they argued, farmers need not sell all the food products they harvested.

The NAMs comments came following a call made by the Basse parliamentarian, honourable Sellu Bah, for the National Assembly to act in order to remedy the situation. “If we don’t do something about it and allow our farmers to be only concerned with money at the moment, we might end up running into serious troubles,” the Basse NAM stressed.

In a similar development, Honourable Mama Kandeh, the Jimara parliamentarian, agreed that sensitising farmers on how to market their products is a necessity, she urged farmers not to sell all their products harvested, in the local market.

Adding his voice to the chorus, Hon. Sheriff Abba Sanyang, the National Assembly member for Foni Kansala, stressed the need for Gambians to participate actively in assisting governmental efforts to attain food security.

He further stated that despite the promising bumper harvest for this year, the expected benefits might not be realised.” If a farmer is faced with the option of paying the school fees of his child and opt for selling all the products harvested, where will we end up?’’ Hon. Sanyang questioned.

The Foni Kansala NAM, however, suggested that the National Assembly select committee should develop strategies and means which would help the parliamentarians to guide the farmers.

In a separate development, the parliamentarians unanimously adopted the minutes of the National Assembly meeting held on August 21st 2008, the report of the 54th Common-wealth Parliamentarian Association (CPA) conference, held in Malaysia, as well as the report of the 118th inter-parliamentary Union General Assembly.

Author: by Hatab Fadera

Karcher Futuretech eyes Gambia

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:19:22 GMT

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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

In his bid to fully equip the country’s security forces and to make them more robust, especially in peacekeeping operations, President Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh, yesterday invited to State House Jaouid Abdelhamid, the Africa Sales Manager of Karcher Futuretech International, a German based firm, to make a PowerPoint presentation of a range of products they have on offer. The presentation was done at the Cabinet room in the presence of some members of Cabinet and security chiefs.

Karcher Futuretech International specialises in the provision of field camp systems, mobile catering and water purification systems for any source of water.

Karcher Futuretech’s services are mostly sought by armed forces on peacekeeping missions, disaster control organisations as well as relief organisations. The organization has 40 affiliates around the globe. Its services are sought by advanced armies in the world, such as the German contingent serving under the Isaf force in Afghanistan.

Speaking at the presentation ceremony, President Jammeh disclosed that he had come across the company through its comprehensive catalogue, and had felt it necessary to invite them to the country, providing them with the opportunity to showcase their products to his government in a bid to enable the various security units to make choices based on their needs.

He described the company as a leading provider of equipment used in peacekeeping operations.

For his part, Jaouid Abdelhamid, the company’s sales manager in Africa, who gave a detailed and comprehensive PowerPoint display of products provided by his company and some of the areas they are in use, said he was honoured to be at State House.

According to him, the company was founded in 1935 by Alfred Karcher, a German national, and currently employs 6,500 people around the globe with a sales turnover amounting to 1.4B Euros.

At the end of his deliberatiopn, which was keenly watched by the President and other dignitaries, questions were raised by audience in a bid to ensure a detailed understanding of the various areas of interest.

President Jammeh then told the security chiefs present to make a list of what they need to see what can be done.

Author: by Pa Malick Faye

Women's weekly- The Equigambia Association

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:08:53 GMT

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Friday, August 22, 2008

The Equigambia Association is an organisation that was set-up to improve the skills of young tailors and dyers (batik, tie and dye) and help women to create their own independent businesses and find markets for their products, within and outside The Gambia.

This week, Observer Women’s Weekly deems it necessary to introduce these dynamic young women who are contributing immensely to the socio-economic development of the country.

In an interview with Women’s Weekly at their showroom in Kololi, Mrs Amie Puye Ceesay, the sales assistant of Equigambia, said she is a young Gambian woman of 28 years old, born and brought up in Kololi. She attended Bakoteh Primary School, Kotu Junior and Senior Secondary School, from where she proceeded to Kololi Women Skills Centre.

She added that she joined Equigambia in order to improve her skills. “As you can see, all these people are young women who come together to work in order to help themselves, their families and also to contribute to the socio-economic development of the country,” she said.

Mrs Ceesay disclosed that the project is based on the internationally recognised principles of fair trade and the main product, the Equigambia collection, is a range of beautiful and relatively inexpensive garments and accessories for women, men and children.

To achieve their purpose, she explained, the Equigambia project is divided into three separate sections and these are: A training centre to improve skills in the sewing, tie and dye and batik arts; productive activities whereby the dyers and tailors produce designs from the Equigambia collection for the association and a commercial section to sell the items.

The association is managed like a co-operative and selling is done mainly at trade fairs, to tourists, expatriates and Gambians, fashion shows in hotels and various other events.

She further stated that, at Equigambia all the accounts are transparent and the whole enterprise is audited by an approved accountant, to ensure that everything conforms to the principles of fair trade.

She added that, the association also trains young girls, who are school drop-outs or from others skill centres.
She disclosed that most of their customers are tourists and they make bigger sales during the tourist season.

“I, therefore, on behalf of all our members called on the government of The Gambia to come to our aid and Gambians to patronise us as we are young Gambian women working together to develop our country,” she appealed.

Mrs Amie Puye Ceesay called on young girls to venture into business.
Most of the products at the Equigambia showroom have local names like Jainaba (long dress, large size), Banjul (sun dress, one size), wengaloo (bias cut dress, two colors without zip), Farafenni (beach bag), capanita (Sambakuko hat with velcro).
In conclusion, she thanked the Association of Small Scale Enterprises in Tourism (ASSET), for their support.

Author: by Mariatou Ngum-Saidy

Gambia Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (Part II)

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 05:02:46 GMT

Monday, April 28, 2008

Most waste experts agree, the first step in waste control is to reduce, reuse and recycle. Reduce refers to lessening the amount of items or resources that are consumed, using only the amount that is needed, and looking for alternatives that will lessen our use.

Recycle means to process old, used items in order that the material can be used to make new products. Examples of things that are often recycled are glass, plastic, newspapers, aluminum cans, used motor oil, and batteries. It is imperative that Gambia reduces waste in every sector including residential waste; construction waste; retail waste including retail stores, hotels and restaurants and bars; medical waste; pharmaceutical waste, office waste; automotive waste, and computer and electronics waste.

Reduce

One of the best ways to reduce consumable waste is to reduce packaging. The more packaging, the more waste. That is why selling in bulk form is more sustainable than packaged goods. Bulk products reduce waste and retail cost.

Items like grains and flours, sugar, beans, cereals, honey, oil and water can be sold bulk. Hygiene systems would have to be institutionalized by retailers so that products are not handled by the human hand. Effective storage technologies have now been developed to protect bulk products from moisture and pests and therefore packaging is not needed.

All those plastic bottles containing pharmaceutical drugs just pile up on the earth, why can’t pharmacies buy drugs bulk and dispense them in biodegradable packaging?

We all can commit to using biodegradable reusable bags for our shopping thereby reducing plastic bag pollution.

This can be done simply by returning to Gambian practice of taking baskets to shop and carry our purchases. Other biodegradable bags can be made of baobab, cotton or other natural fiber. There are too many waste reduction approaches to discuss here. If, however, Gambia does not become aggressive in the development of waste reduction policies and practices, future generations will have to address the waste nightmare created today.

Reuse

Gambia also needs to be systematic about reuse practices especially of glass and plastic containers. Exactly what are the restaurants and hotels doing with their glass and plastic waste? We should reuse all glass and plastic containers? Instead of merchants in the market selling liquids like oil and palm oil in plastic bags, why can’t they reuse glass bottles?

Perhaps one of our greatest assets goes into the waste stream, which is our organic matter waste. All the raw peals from vegetables like oranges, onions and potatoes or raw egg shells could be composted for use in the agriculture sector. It is even possible to put arid soils into reuse with the use of organic matter.

Our organic matter waste is all around us, dropped tree leaves that we rack up and throw-away to the waste from raw fish throw away. Even coffee grinds are good for the soil.

Any RAW (UNCOOKED) organic matter builds the soil. We could do this by instituting a compost collection system that is tied to our waste collection system. People can also make personal non-assisted commitments to composting for their personal use and to share with others. Believe me, your fruit trees and other plants will flourish with a top dressing of compost.

Composting is easy. Just keep your raw waste in a bucket, throw it in a secluded area in your compound and cover with soil, turn your pile once or twice a week and now and then water your pile to increase the rate of decomposition. When the portions of the pile completely decompose you will have a rich compost to apply to any and all of your horticulture, except plants that prefer poor soils.

Recycle

We also need to strengthen and expand our recycling efforts from aluminum, steal and glass to newspapers and ink cartridges. What happens to all those metal cans and metal tops from milk, sodas, juices and alcoholic beverages? If recycling of paper is not economically and/or environmentally feasible, then a program of composting paper should be studied, however, potential impacts on the environment by artificial colors and chemicals that may be present from paper bleaching processes need to be investigated.

To reduce potential contamination from artificial ink and chemicals in paper from bleaching, we should encourage the use of unbleached paper and vegetable dyes across Gambian society.

Ink cartridge companies have recycling programs. Businesses that use cartridges should commit to sending their used cartridges back to these companies for recycling.

Clearly mass education and government policy on waste is direly needed.

Author: DO

WOMEN’S WEEKLY - AUNTY HADDY JOHN, Veteran food processor

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:37:22 GMT

Friday, April 25, 2008

This week, the mistress of the Observer Women’s weekly column deems it necessary to introduce yet another dynamic, visionary and exemplary woman in the country who is immensely contributing to the socio-economic development of the country. This is no other exemplary women than Aunty Haddy John, a veteran food processor, born in 1942 in Primet Street, Banjul who specialised in producing agro food products for over four decades for consumption and export.

She attended Girls High School in Banjul from 1947 to 1954 and Wesley High School. She later proceeded to the School of Nursing in Banjul before being employed at the RVH.

In a chat with Women’s weekly, Aunty Haddy, who’s dream is to open a factory for processing commodities in the country called on government to assist the women who engaged themselves in producing agro food products in The Gambia.

According to her, she started business in 1967 by selling fish-balls, debe-meat in sticks, coconut cakes, ice and groundnut cakes, which she sold at Sir Dawda Primary School. She added that in 1969, she extended her business in her husband’s shop at 41 Allen Street in Banjul, were she increase her food stuffs with coconut cakes, fish and chips and chicken gravy. “In 1993, I joined the Association of Gambia Entrepreneurs (AGE) which helped me to improve my skills and knowledge in handling her small scale business” she said.

Aunty Haddy further stated that she was very opportune to attend a trainee course for 2 weeks at Wellingara, on behalf of AGE and the training was on cereals products, noting that they were brainstormed on how to use various type of cereals to make corn and millet in flour, coos -coos, rice and winning food for children.

“Thanks to the help of the association, I am now an entrepreneur of AGE, Food and Nutrition Unit (FNU) for many country”. she said

Training of trainers at Yundum, she said, increased her knowledge in using the various ways of making corn to sorghum. This she said, included flour and coarse grains of the corn plus sorghum. She added that, in the training, she also learnt how to cook them in different dishes such as foo-foo and soup, pan-cake and doughnuts, neleng, benachin, mbahal and chakri and also packing them, distribute it for sales at various

supermarkets. “Through this training, I was also privilege to gain knowledge of how to make various dishes which greatly assist me in meeting my family needs” she said.

In order to diversify, she also processes the corn and sorghum and packed them to the supermarket for sale. “I now have all these skills but my main constrain is financial support as I need capital to buy the necessary equipment to expand my business. I am therefore to appealing to government, NGOs, and other institutions to assist me to reach my vision and to achieve my goals.

Author: Mariatou Ngum-Saidy

SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: Ship of shame adrift in controversy

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:59:59 GMT

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

There were conflicting reports about the whereabouts of a Chinese ship, laden with a cargo of small arms destined for Zimbabwe, after it was turned away from South Africa's port city of Durban.

According to some reports, the 150-metre multipurpose cargo vessel, the An Yue Jiang - registered in China and one of 600 vessels owned by the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), dubbed by South African media as the "Ship of Shame" - is now en route to the Angolan capital of Luanda, while others said it was bound for Mozambique's second city, Beira, and another said China had ordered the vessel to return home.

The ship was denied entrance to Durban by the collective efforts of a news magazine editor, Martin Welz, who warned of the ship's impending arrival, industrial action by members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, who said they would not unload the cargo, and the Southern African Litigation Centre, which obtained a High Court order on 18 April, prohibiting passage of the weapons across South African soil.

Mark Hankey, marketing director of the Maritime Intelligence Unit of the international insurer, Lloyds, told IRIN the An Yue Jiang had been listed as a casualty, an umbrella term used for a variety of eventualities, but in this instance referring to its failure to deliver its cargo to the intended destination.

Hankey said according to the latest information they had, the ship was heading for Beira. Mozambique reportedly said the ship would not be allowed into its waters, while Filomeno Mendonca, director of the Institute of Angolan Ports, told the private Angolan radio station, Luanda Radio LAC: "This ship has not sought a request to enter Angolan territorial waters and is not authorised to enter Angolan ports."

Isaak Hamata, spokesman for Namibia's foreign affairs, reportedly said: "We have not received any official request to dock, refuel or off-load the Chinese ship, but if it does come, we would consider it on its merits."

Nastasya Tay, of the Centre for Chinese Studies in Johannesburg, told IRIN that according to her sources, COSCO was considering recalling the ship for commercial reasons, "as it cannot go on just sailing around Africa and hope to dock somewhere".

Landlocked

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country in southern Africa and requires the cooperation of at least a second country if the arms shipment is to be delivered.
The South African government, however, voiced no objections to the ship unloading its cargo, which, according to local media reports, comprised millions of rounds of small arms ammunition, mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional body, was quoted by Zambian media on 22 April as saying that "I am glad that South Africa has refused them [although it was civil society that thwarted it] ... and I hope that will be the case" with all other countries.

"We don't want to escalate the situation in Zimbabwe more than what it is," said Mwanawasa, who, before becoming chair of the regional body, described Zimbabwe as a "sinking titanic."

South African President Thabo Mbeki, appointed in 2007 by SADC to mediate between President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF government and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has been accused of a partisan attitude towards Mugabe since Zimbabwe's 29 March elections.

Mbeki, on his way to a recent emergency SADC summit in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, infuriated the MDC when he announced that there was "no crisis" in Zimbabwe.

The results of the presidential election have yet to be released, more than three weeks after the event. The MDC claim their leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the poll by the required 50 percent plus one vote; if accurate, this would negate a second round of voting for the presidency.

The MDC and civil society have said that since ZANU-PF lost control of parliament in the election - although the ruling party has ordered a recount in 23 constituencies - Mugabe's soldiers and youth militia have unleashed a reign of terror in rural areas.

Weapons to suppress opposition

ZANU-PF has claimed that there was no clear winner in the presidential ballot and a second round of voting was necessary. The MDC said 10 of its supporters had been killed since the poll, and hundreds injured in a campaign dubbed "Operation Mavhoterapapi" (Who did you vote?). The MDC alleges that campaign is designed to intimidate people to vote for Mugabe in a run-off vote.

Amid reports that ammunition stocks in Zimbabwe's armed forces are running low, the MDC and civil society fear the shipment of weapons could be used in a military clampdown to extend Mugabe's 28 years in power.

US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Washington had asked Beijing "to refrain from making additional shipments and, if possible, to bring this one back," according to international media reports.

"We don't think that under the present circumstances, given the current political crisis in Zimbabwe, that now is the time for anyone to be increasing the number of weapons and armaments available in that country," Casey said.

China's foreign ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told media in China the shipment was part of "normal military product trade between the two countries," and then said: "As far as I know, the carrier is now considering carrying back the cargo."

Source: IRIN http://www.irinnews.org

“Winning Products Know No Bounds” - GNL

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:49:16 GMT

Friday, March 28, 2008

In their quest to combat poverty and unemployment in the country, The Gambia National Lottery (GNL) has once again paid out another mouth-watering prize to another lucky winner. The happy customer in this case is a 22 year-old boy by the name of Baba Touray who has walked away with D20,000. Baba Touray is a native of Kaur Warf in CRR, where the presentation ceremony was held recently.

Visitors at the ceremony were being encouraged to buy scratch cards called “instant lotto” on one of which the young man had bagged his prize.

Speaking at the ceremony the Marketing Manager of GNL, Mr. Fabakary Touray, said that the winning products from GNL know no bounds.

He said that GNL has taken cognisance of the social agenda they have taken with their customers especially in rural areas. He added that the Kaur presentation is a clear manifestation of this reality.

He finally urged the visitors to continue patronising GNL and promised the company will continue to expand their winning products.

Mr. Najie Bai Cham, the senior Marketing Assistant in Farafenni, expressed his delight at the gathering.

The winner, Mr Baba Touray, said that he is young and attending school so he wishes to use to money to further his education.

On behalf of GNL management, the senior sales representative of Kaur, Mr. Adama Njie, presented the cash prize to Mrs. Fatou Kah, the winner’s mother.

Village elders and a cross section of society attended the ceremony.

Author: By Ebrima Gillen & Bajen Camara

The Basics of Blogging to Niche Markets

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:38:29 GMT

Friday, March 28, 2008

In the previous article, we discussed how blogs can help you generate traffic for your main website. But what if you don’t have another site? Or what if you want your blog to be your main website, the exclusive carrier of your money making ventures?

This can be achieved, of course. Such is the versatility of web logs.

Standalone blogs are best utilized for online businessmen or women who have decided to pursue what many people call as nicheing. Yes, the word is ungrammatical, but it is a term that many Internet marketers have come to embrace with fondness. Nicheing involves the creation of many sites that cater to particular niches. Niches, of course, are very specialized markets, most of which are so obscure that they do not garner the attention of businesses, hence creating high demands with low supplies. The purpose of nicheing is to find these markets and provide for their needs. These enterprising businessmen would earn through the following ways:

* Creating and eventually selling products that aim to serve the said niches.

* Selling existing products that the said niches need.

* Providing for information that the members of the said niches can access for free, and enrolling the site that contains the information in a Pay Per Click (PPC) program like Google AdSense.

Regardless of what path the online entrepreneur decides to take, he should first create a site that serves as the repository of his commercial methods. Niches can be very rewarding. Since there is but a few competitions in the field, your search engine placement is sure to be higher than usual. Traffic should also be at a sustainable level since the members of a niche have nothing else to visit. This will mean a greater possibility for more sales, if you’re selling a product, or a higher Click Through Rate (CTR) if you’re enrolled in a PPC program.

Now, making a site can be quite cumbersome. You have to deal with the aspects of web design, graphic creation, and content writing among other concerns. What more when you have to create numerous sites for numerous niches?

Thankfully, blogs will make things a whole lot easier for you. Every online marketer who has attained success with niche marketing can attribute this to their proper exploitation of blogs. Whereas it would take you a couple of weeks to come up with 10 websites, it would only take you a couple of hours to come up with 10 blog sites. The sheer convenience and ease of web logs have made nicheing a very potent business model.

Blogs can very much substitute for a regular website. As we have previously discussed, high quality content is, ultimately, what will drive traffic to your site, and this kind of content can easily be carried through a blog. Also, you don’t have to change the entire page whenever you want to update your content, as you would with a regular website. With blogs, all you have to do is to write your update in a designated box and press the publish button. Of course, different blogging software have various features, but none comes more loaded than Wordpress (www.wordpress.com).

Blogging is the way to go if you want to create, and maintain, several niche sites. And Wordpress is the weapon of choice for most Internet marketers. To fully realize the potentials of the medium, therefore, you should be able to exploit all the features that Wordpress does offer. Again, David Pankhurst’s excellent report on powerful Wordpress secrets (http://www.malkeenan.com/top10tricks) will help you excel in this area.

Look out for the next article, where we’re going to discuss how you could efficiently integrate the Google AdSense program into your blog, and make it a passive income generating machine.

For More Free Resources visit www.freeearningtips.com

Author: By: Neerj Sidhu

Source: Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

Check Your List Twice, For Spyware

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:00:20 GMT

Friday, March 14, 2008

This season, if you have receive a new computer or new software, check em for the gifts you might not know about. Many computers come with bundled software that includes Adware, Malware and even Spyware. You may not find it until you launch the software program. It may give you a message that says it needs to connect to a site to complete the registration. Make sure you read the entire license agreement.

I know of many stories about how a user had to do a complete restore on their new computer just days after getting it. These stories involve the user spending hours on the phone with customer support trying to resolve the problem. In previous years, Dells customer support has been swamped after the holidays with calls from new users asking for help. Before you get online with the new computer, insure the AntiVirus and Firewall is functioning. The computer will probably prompt you that it needs to get updates. Check what the update is before agreeing to the install. Make sure you get the MS updates needed too.

If after all this, you still don't know which updates or installs to agree to, there are help sites that provide assistance.

Check the products site first, they may have customer support or even a Forum.

Visit Spyware Warrior for a list of rogue/suspect Anti-Spyware products and web sites.

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

Test your Firewall at Hacker Watch to make sure you're able to block attacks.

http://www.hackerwatch.org/probe/

If you're unsure of a process thats running, check it at UniBlues process library.

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/

These are just a few of the help sites out there, there are many excellent sites that can help you.

If after all the searching, you still need help, I recommend the Major Geeks Help Forum.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/

It will involve you registering and downloading the Hijack This program, running it and then uploading the log results to the Malware Forum there. They are good people there and will help you get your computer happy.

Think you've got it covered? Do the “How safe are you” quiz at Stay Safe Online.

http://staysafeonline.org/basics/quiz.html

Also a point to ponder. If you're giving instead of receiving, make sure what you give is safe and reliable.

Don't forget to create a restore point and maintain backups of important data is my last bit of advice.

So after the gift giving, after the clean up, after the nap on the couch, check your computer to insure your online safety.

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

About The Author
Doug Woodall writes to educate about computer security. He also hopes you visit his website at http://www.spywarebiz.com the next time you need a computer securty product.

Author: by: Doug Woodall

Source: Articlecity.com