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DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - The European Union on Thursday urged the five members of the East African Community to sign a long-delayed trade deal with the EU when EAC ministers gather at a regional meeting on Friday.

Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi have gained access to the EU's markets because they initialled the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), but because they have so far refused to sign, there are no legally binding commitments.

"More than two years after initialling the Framework EPA ... the East African Community has not signed it yet. The situation, as it stands now, is untenable," Timothy Clarke, head of the EU delegation in Tanzania, said in a statement.
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AFP, 31 January 2010 - The International Monetary Fund is planning a 100 billion dollar fund to help countries mitigate the effects of climate change, the agency's head said.

"The new growth model will be low carbon," Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the IMF, told political and business leaders meeting at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos this weekend.

Efforts to deal with climate change could not be blocked "just because we cannot meet the financing needs," he said.

Developing countries do not have the funds for these adaptation measures, and developed countries' ability to pay is also limited as they are now weighed down by debt after funds were used to deal with the financial crisis.

It was therefore necessary to "think out of the box" on the issue of funding, the IMF chief said.

"We'll have to find innovative ways to finance it," Strauss-Khan said on Saturday.

"We're going to provide some ideas, built around a Green Fund devoted to finance 100 billion dollars (72 billion euros) a year which is the figure currently accepted for addressing the problem based on the capitalisation coming from central banks, backed by special drawing rights issued by the fund," he said.

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U.S. agricultural aid to Africa in the past has concentrated on meeting emergency humanitarian needs. Now, say experts, it is focused more on reducing poverty and hunger over the long run.

The global food crisis affects Africa but did not originate there, says Ousmane Badiane, director for Africa at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.

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LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambia's Mopani Copper Mines (MCM), a unit of Swiss firm Glencore International AG plans to spend $100 million to sink a new shaft and extend the mine life by 25 years, a minister said on Friday.

Mines Minister Maxwell Mwale told Reuters Mopani planned to develop the new shaft in order to access untapped mineral resource of about 100 million tonnes of copper bearing ore beneath the existing Nkana south ore body and the central shaft ore body in Kitwe, 330 km north of Lusaka.

"The ore bodies being mined are nearing their end and the existing shaft infrastructure cannot go deeper for them to access the rich ore body. They can mine for another 25 years once they access the ore body beneath," Mwale said.

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