AFRICA :NEWS,CULTURE, CHINA/AFRICA/WORLD

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nigeria’s Samuel Peter, who floored Vladimir Klitschko three times in a heavyweight title bout five years ago and still lost, said on Friday the bruising Ukrainian will not get up when they meet again in September.

The “Nigerian Nightmare” has another title shot against Klitschko on September 11 in Frankfurt, Germany, and despite the bout being in the world heavyweight champion’s former adopted country, Peter will be packing his own judge and referee.

“He will be down again but this time he will not be standing up,” Peter said on a conference call from his training base in Big Bear, California.

“I got my own referee and my judge … my referee is my right hand and my judge is my left hook, no question about this time around. This time he will not get up from my hook.”

Since the two men have combined for 75 knockouts in their combined 93 career fights, the bout is not expected to go the distance and Peter predicts Klitschko will not survive more than four rounds.

Klitschko (54-3, 48 KOs) will face a much different Peter (34-3, 27 KOs) than the boxer he confronted in 2005 in Atlantic City when he survived to earn a unanimous decision.

Peter has since slimmed down and, according to his trainer Abel Sanchez, the 29-year-old has re-dedicated himself to the sport and is more of boxer than a brawler.

“I’m going to prove to the world I am the best heavyweight champion,” said Peter. “This time I am coming to prove myself a champion again. I have improved, he hasn’t improved.”

A former Olympic boxer, Peter has matured and sharpened the skills he let rust while relying heavily on his devastating knockout power to win fights, according to Sanchez.

“He has put in the work this time,” said Sanchez. “In the past he’s allowed outside influences to contribute to his lack of dedication, lack of commitment.

“It’s important that you just don’t come in with an A plan against a Klitschko. You have to come in with an A, a B and C plan to be able to use them at different times and he’s been working on that.”

(Writing by Steve Keating in Toronto; editing by Frank Pingue)

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang (R) shakes hands with Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Henry Ajumogobia in Beijing, Aug. 31, 2010. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang met with Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Odien Ajumogobia in Beijing Tuesday, with the two sides pledging to boost bilateral ties.

China and Nigeria have a long history of friendly relations, Li told Ajumogobia, who is paying his second visit to China since 2008.

China and the western African country established formal diplomatic relations in 1971. “Particularly since the two countries forged a strategic partnership in 2005, the two countries have deepened political trust, worked closely in various fields, and supported each other in international affairs,” Li said.

As developing countries, China and Nigeria are committed to economic and social development, and “the two countries should expand mutually-beneficial cooperation and boost bilateral ties,” Li said.

Ajumogobia echoed Li’s sentiment, saying his country hopes to consolidate and further develop the friendly ties and his visit here aims to ensure the sound growth of bilateral ties.

On broader China-Africa ties, Li said relations with Africa constitute an important part of China’s diplomatic initiatives.

“China will make joint efforts with Nigeria and other African countries to take the China-Africa strategic partnership to a new high,” Li said.

Later Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi held hour-long talks with Ajumogobia during which they discussed regional and international issues of common concern.

Part of the BAMcinématek series ActNow: New Voices in Black Cinema

Fri, Aug 27, 2010, 2, 4:30, 6:50*, 9:30pm
*Q&A with director Thomas Ikimi

Directed by Thomas Ikimi
With Idris Elba, Eamonn Walker, Monique Gabriela Curnen, Clarke Peters

(2010) 95min

When a military effort to tackle an arms dealer ends catastrophically, Black Ops soldier Malcolm Gray (Elba) lands in a military hospital to overcome the torture he was subjected to. After nearly a year, Gray returns to Brooklyn and moves into a rundown apartment to reflect on the inconsistencies of the botched assignment. But Gray soon gets caught up in another impossible mission: to expose the corruption of a high-powered senator (Walker) on the verge of announcing his presidential campaign…a senator who also happens to be his brother.

BAM Rose Cinemas
General Admission: $12
BAM Cinema Club members: $8 Buy ticket

New Yorkers are invited to come see a documentary at the NY Africa Diaspora Film  on Augut 27  more informations

Human rights organizations and other monitoring groups are keeping close tabs on frameworks to manage oil revenues in several African countries that are hoping to become major petroleum producers. The newcomers to an often opaque and corrupt sector of Africa’s economy include Sao Tome, Ghana and Uganda.

New York-based Human Rights Watch is pressing the new government in the tiny West African country Sao Tome and Principe to pursue a better legal framework on oil-related revenues.

Iain Levine oversees the organization’s research, including a report issued this week called “An Uncertain Future:  Oil Contracts and Stalled Reform in Sao Tome and Principe.”

“The important thing is to maintain the pressure, make the government realize that even though it is a small country and it is a long way away from Western media and so on, that there is a genuine concern about this issue.  The government does have a law on transparency in terms of managing the oil sector, which is important.  It created a series of institutions.  But what has been lacking up to now is political will,” he said.

Sao Tome and Principe is no longer part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which seeks to improve transparency on company payments and government revenues from oil, gas and mining.

Analysts are concerned about signature bonus payments for oil exploration in Sao Tome’s waters and the business practices of companies working with the Sao Tome government.

Another New York-based organization, Revenue Watch Institute, is monitoring the growing oil sector in nearby Ghana.

Although encouraged by a new oil revenue bill that was introduced in Ghana’s parliament, Revenue Watch’s Deputy Director Antoine Heuty says the country faces several major problems. “The latest one has been the questions regarding the contract between Kosmos and Exxon, and the sort of uncertainty regarding these awards of contract.  It is not creating a good environment for the country, so that is one issue.  The other, where we feel that the country should do much better, is that the country is not disclosing its contracts.  So that is also creating opportunities for shady deals and for deals that are not following the international best practices.  So clearly there are many areas where Ghana has a lot of work in front of itself,” he said.

Oil analysts say Western foreign investment in Ghana might suffer after U.S.-based Kosmos Energy canceled a deal this month to sell its stake in an offshore oil project to ExxonMobil, amid efforts by Ghana’s state-owned oil company to purchase the interest with Chinese backing.  Government officials denied that they were discouraging foreign investment in Ghana.

Meanwhile officials in the east African country of Uganda say they hope to start work on their own oil revenue bill soon, but they are dealing with tax disputes over the sale of exploration blocks in the Lake Albert basin.

Iain Levine of Human Rights Watch says African legislators and governments should look to Norway as an example of how to manage oil revenues.

“One is that they have not just spent the money, but they have saved the money to survive through bad times, so you have got responsible management in that sense.  But the critical issue here is processes of transparency, and oversight and accountability to the population, which ensures honesty and good decision making,” he said.

An African example of how to manage resource money, Levine says, is Botswana’s diamond industry, which has raised living standards across the country and improved government services.

But international monitoring groups warn that most resource driven economies in many parts of Africa so far have been marked by large-scale corruption, endemic poverty and repeated unrest.

Dir. Sandy Cioffi
Like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, this powerful documentary tells the story of the people of Nigeria’s Niger Delta, who have experienced the same ordeal for years. In a small corner of the most populous country in Africa, billions of dollars of crude oil flow under the feet of a desperate people. Immense wealth and abject poverty stand in stark contrast. The environment is decimated. What if the world paid attention before it was too late?

Ny premiere August 27 @ Riverside Church theater 6 pm , buy ticket and see   more