11 June, 2013

Ghana arrests African gold miners

Ghana arrests gold miners from Niger, Nigeria and Togo

Ashanti Gold Field in Ghana (file photo)Ghana is one of Africa's biggest gold producers

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Ghana's police have arrested at least 55 West Africans suspected of illegal gold mining, an immigration spokesman has told the BBC.
The arrests suggest that the police's focus has shifted away from Chinese miners to African miners, reports the BBC's Akwasi Sarpong in Accra.
More than 200 Chinese workers would be repatriated after their arrest last week, the spokesman said.
Ghanaian law prevents foreigners from working in small-scale gold mines.
Ghana is Africa's biggest gold producer after South Africa.
Screened
The raids are popular with many poor Ghanaians who feel that foreigners are taking jobs from them, our reporter says.
Immigration spokesman Francis Palmdeti told the BBC that of the 55 arrested, 51 were from Niger, three from Togo and one from Nigeria.
Identity checks were being done on three other detainees after they claimed they were Ghanaians, not Malians, as suspected, he said.
The raid shows that officials are determined to stop any non-Ghanaian from getting involved in artisanal mining, our correspondent says.
The suspects are being screened at an immigration detention centre in the capital, Accra.
The authorities plan to deport them, our reporter says.
Mr Palmdeti said the Chinese embassy in Accra had agreed to arrange flights for the repatriation of 202 Chinese workers arrested last week in raids in four mineral-rich regions.
Most of them have been freed on bail after the embassy gave an undertaking that they would not remain in Ghana illegally, he added.
Gold 'stolen'
Nearly 140 of the Chinese have also paid a fine of $1,000 (£640) each for illegally working in Ghana, Mr Palmdeti said.
Some of the foreigners work for local companies, our correspondent says.
At least one of these companies, Honsol Mining, is at loggerheads with the government over the deportations.
The company alleges that during a swoop by the security forces on its premises in March, gold was stolen and equipment was damaged, our reporter says.
It insists that all its workers have valid permits, and alleges that members of the security forces have stolen goal during raids on its property this year, our correspondent adds.
In October last year, a Chinese boy was killed during a security crackdown on illegal mining.
About 100 Chinese nationals were also detained over illegal mining the same month.

Nigeria 'worse for missing school'

Slight fall in world's children without schools

Makeshift school in Lagos, 2013Makeshift school in Lagos: Nigeria has the most children without schools
The global figure for the number of children without access to schools has fallen to 57 million, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
But the improvement is unlikely to be enough to meet the millennium pledge for primary education for all by 2015.
These latest figures are for 2011 and are a fall from an estimate of 61 million missing school in 2010.
Unesco's director general Irinia Bokova says: "We are at a critical juncture."
Each year there is a monitoring report from Unesco measuring the world's progress towards the goal of universal primary education - with recent years showing a stagnation after early gains.
But these latest numbers provide a more up-to-date picture, ahead of a United Nations meeting on how to give fresh impetus to efforts to get all children into education.

MOST CHILDREN OUT OF SCHOOL

  • Nigeria
  • Pakistan
  • Ethiopia
  • India
  • Philippines
  • Burkina Faso
  • Kenya
  • Niger
  • Yemen
  • Mali
Source: Unesco.
This update also shows that aid for basic education has fallen by 6% and that most of the major donors have cut their funding in the past year. It means that the UK is now ranked by Unesco as the largest direct donor to basic education.
The US had previously been the biggest donor, but it has cut its budget while the UK has continued to increase its spending, leaving the UK as the biggest donor in 2011.
Germany, Australia and Norway have also increased their donations, but there have been budget cuts from France, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada.
Global pledge
The pledge for universal primary education made by world leaders in 2000 seems increasingly likely to be missed - and there are already discussions about setting new post-2015 targets.
There had been a previous target set in 1990 to achieve this by 2000. When this was missed the goal had been moved forward to 2015.
These latest mid-year figures do show some progress, but part of this is because previous estimates have been revised. The actual progress is about 2 million fewer children missing school, according to Unesco.
More than half of the children missing out on school are now in sub-Saharan Africa. The last annual report showed that in some countries, including Nigeria, the problem is getting worse rather than better.
In contrast, in south and west Asia there have been considerable gains, cutting the numbers of out-of-school children by two thirds in two decades.
Malala's campaign
However the annual comparisons show that in Pakistan there were more children without schools in 2011 than in 2010.

MOST PROGRESS IN GETTING CHILDREN INTO SCHOOL

  • India
  • Ethiopia
  • Pakistan
  • Ghana
  • Vietnam
  • Kenya
  • Mozambique
  • Morocco
  • Niger
  • Egypt
Source: Unesco
Malala Yousafzai, a teenage schoolgirl from Pakistan, has become an international campaigner for the right to education, after she had been shot by the Taliban last year.
Pakistan has the second largest number of children without schools - although it has been making substantial improvements, with the third biggest increase in pupils in schools over the past five years.
In terms of annual changes, Ethiopia and Uganda have made the biggest progress in getting pupils into schools.
There are also concerns about making sure that pupils remain in school.
Despite the advances in getting more children to begin school, Unesco says there has not been corresponding progress in pupils staying in school, without about a quarter dropping out before the end of primary school.
There will also be an emphasis on the quality of education and what children learn.
"The world must move beyond helping children enter school to also ensure that they actually learn the basics when they are there," says Unesco chief, Irina Bokova.
"Now is not the time for aid donors to back out. Quite the reverse: to reach these children and our ambition to end the learning crisis, donors must renew their commitments so that no child is left out of school due to lack of resources, as they pledged at the turn of this century."
Gordon Brown, the former UK prime minister and now UN Special Envoy for Global Education, said: "It is clear that by cutting global education aid just at the time when we need to step up our efforts to meet the millennium development goal by 2015, we are missing out the most marginalised - the street children, child labourers, girl brides and disabled children - whose chances of finishing school remain abysmally low."
Mr Brown said that it was not "the time for pessimism or defeatism" and promised that in September he would "set out our plan to get 20 million more children into school".