E-zwich Smartcard Launched
By Samuel Amoako and David Adadevoh
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
E-ZWICH smartcard, a universal electronic system that facilitates easy access to and transfer of money has now become part of financial transactions in Ghana.

The new system which is also designed to remove the cumbersome and insecure processes of using cash, was launched in Accra yesterday by President J.A. Kufuor, with a call on corporate bodies and government agencies to use it to ensure transparency and integrity on payrolls.

E-zwich is an electronic payment system that allows one to make payments for goods and services or transfer money to others without having to carry physical cash.

Available at all banks countrywide, the system involves the loading of money onto the smart card after registering with any bank without necessarily having an accounts with that bank.

President Kufuor said the introduction of the system has the potential of transforming the payments landscape, the financial services industry and the general conduct of business in the country.

He said accessing the technology was an integral part of government’s overall vision of making Ghana the gateway to the West Africa sub-region and transforming her into a major financial hub.

The President said that globalisation has come with a major challenge of adopting best practices in all spheres of endeavour especially within the macro economy in order to survive in the market.

He said it was against that background that the government has pursued polices to develop and modernise the financial sector to enable it to play a key role in resource mobilisation for increased investment.

With the reforms and the stability of the macro-economy, President Kufuor said the nation was witnessing dramatic growth in the banking sector.

He pointed out, however, that inspite of the impressive growth of financial institutions, an estimated 80 per cent of the eligible population was still "un-banked" or "under-banked" and seemed not to have access to financial services.

With the introduction of the e-zwich, he said financial services should be extended to that large segment of the population who constitute what is described as the "informal sector".

Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, commended the Bank of Ghana for coming out with a system that will deepen the change in the country’s financial sector.

"This new system is a great landmark in the history of Ghana as our payment systems can be compared with those in other parts of the world," he said.

Dr Paul Acquah, Governor of the Bank of Ghana, said a cursory examination of the payments system’s landscape revealed that it was dominated by cash transactions hence the need to introduce the new system.

"The statistics indicate that after 50 years of independence about 80 per cent of the bankable public in Ghana do not have a bank account," he said.

"This situation has arisen because the traditional payment systems offered by the major banking institutions do not address the key requirements of the un-banked population due to the difficulty in opening bank accounts which involved a lot of paper works," he said.

The design of the e-zwich he said, was a collaboration between the Bank of Ghana, Ghana Association of Bankers and Net One Company of South Africa which provided the technology and technical support.

The e-zwich the Governor said would transform the payments system to enable those without bank accounts to transact business without necessarily going to the bank.

You're running out of oil - Bush

PRESIDENT George Bush yesterday told leaders of the oil-rich states of the Middle East that they must face up to a future without their precious hydrocarbons.
In a stark warning, he said their supplies were running out and urged them to reform and diversify their economies. The outgoing United States president told the World Economic Forum, meeting in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, that it was tiADVERTISEMENTme to "prepare for the economic changes ahead".

Mr Bush's family name is inextricably linked to the oil industry, and this was his strongest statement yet on the future of global supplies.

He told the conference: "The rising price of oil has brought great wealth to some in this region, but the supply of oil is limited, and nations like mine are aggressively developing alternatives to oil.

"Over time, as the world becomes less dependent on oil, nations in the Middle East will have to build more diverse and more dynamic economies."

Mr Bush also used his speech to call for more investment in people and "extending the reach of freedom", as well as urging other nations to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and to isolate Syria.

He particularly mentioned women's rights, saying they were key to building powerful economies. He cited Egypt as a model for the development of professional women, girls going to school in Afghanistan and women joining political parties in Iraq and Kuwait.

In an apparent criticism aimed at Saudi Arabia, he told the forum: "This is a matter of morality and of basic math. No nation that cuts off half its population from opportunities will be as productive or prosperous as it could be. Women are a formidable force, as I have seen in my own family and my own administration. As the nations of the Middle East open up their laws and their societies to women, they are learning the same thing."

The president's speech was made only days after he urged Saudi Arabia to increase oil production to ease prices at the pumps, as millions around the globe face increasing costs of filling up and even more grapple with rising food bills.

The future of Scotland's own North Sea oil supply is an issue for both politicians and consumers, who were given a taste of limited fuel shortages during the Grangemouth refinery dispute.

The US has turned dramatically towards biofuels, with Congress raising the federal requirement for using the oil alternative from 6.5 billion gallons last year to nine billion gallons this year. As a consequence, about a quarter of the American corn crop was used for biofuels last year, driving up the price of corn and, hence, also the price of food for millions of families.

Predictions of when the world's oil supplies will fall below global demand range from as early as the next decade, to as late as 2050. Mr Bush has been criticised throughout his term in office for not encouraging more energy alternatives in the US, and for allowing controversial drilling explorations for new fossil-fuel supplies in often environment-ally sensitive areas, such as Alaska.

Analysts warned last night that few in the Middle East, which has two-thirds of the world's oil reserves, are likely to heed Mr Bush. Many have already started diversifying their economies and do not like being preached to by someone so unpopular in the region.

Gerald Butt, editor of the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey, said: "The Gulf states have been trying to diversify their economies away from oil for years, so they'll say, 'This is like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs'.

"Arab states don't like being told what to do by outsiders, and especially by America, whose standing in the region is very low. Bush's comments will be dismissed as unwarranted interference."

Although he praised parts of the Arab world, commentators said Mr Bush had angered many with a speech at the Israel parliament last Thursday, in which he offered unflinching support for the Jewish state but mentioned the Palestinian dream of statehood only once.

Walid Khadduri, a Beirut-based consultant, pointed out that the Gulf states had already been investing windfall profits from high oil prices in major infrastructure projects, including education and housing, and in diversifying their industrial bases.

He said: "Bush's credibility is zero anyway. I really don't know anyone who follows what he says, especially after what has happened in Iraq and then his Knesset speech the other day."

The knock-on effect of rising fuel costs has led to increasing food prices and subsequent riots around the globe, as high prices hit some of the world's poorest.

There is now a desperate attempt to find oil from alternative sources to keep the supply flowing.

Potential sources in Canada would cost almost three times as much to produce as conventional crude oil because they have to be extracted from tar sands. Although the supply, in Alberta, is estimated to be second in size only to Saudi Arabian reserves, the production costs are unlikely to offer much relief for consumers.

While the Bush presidency has tried to reduce its dependence on foreign oil, it has yet to decrease fuel use, say critics.

While the UK produces about 0.3 per cent of the world's supply of oil and uses about 2 per cent, the US produces 2.5 per cent but uses 24 per cent.

Family dynasty is soaked in black gold

BOTH George H Bush and George W Bush will be remembered almost as much for their connections to oil as to the presidency.

Bush Snr owes his fortune to Texas crude, while his son also took posts in the industry before following in his father's footsteps into politics.

Commentators have accused Bush jnr's drive to war in Iraq as merely a quest for oil, with potentially billions of dollars in profit to be made from opening up the country's oil reserves – if Iraq was ever stable.

George Bush Snr, who was president from 1989 to 1993, became a millionaire off the oil industry by the age of 40 in Texas. He started the Bush-Overby Oil Development company in 1951 and co-founded the Zapata Petroleum Corporation two years later. He served as the firm's president from 1954 to 1964. He then entered politics.

After gaining an MBA from Harvard University, Bush Jnr worked in the family oil businesses.

He became a senior partner and chief executive officer of Arbusto Energy, Spectrum 7 and Harken Energy.

Arbusto Energy obtained financing early on from James Bath, a close Bush family friend and in 1979 the sole US business representative of Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi family and brother of Osama bin Laden.

Barnett: What will America do when Iran gets nuclear weapons?

By Thomas P.M. Barnett
Sunday, May 18, 2008

Hillary Clinton promises she'd obliterate Iran if it used nuclear weapons against Israel, suggesting that, as president, she'd return the "favor" - in spades. Putting aside campaign rhetoric, the senator raises an excellent point: What will America do when Iran gets nuclear weapons?

Many national security experts still think Washington can stop Tehran's reach for the bomb. I am not one of them.

Iran has already achieved a sloppy, asymmetrical form of nuclear deterrence, meaning we can't stop it from "getting nuclear" unless we "go nuclear" pre-emptively, something we won't do.

America could stop Iran with a massive conventional invasion, but that's not something we can pull off in time.

We also can't eliminate Iran's program through conventional bombing. We can certainly raise a lot of sand, but Iran's been smart enough to distribute its assets and bury them deep underground, learning from Israel's strikes against Iraq decades ago.

Yes, Israel might strike pre-emptively with nukes. That remains the big wild card.

But let's be clear that Israel would be protecting its long-standing regional monopoly on weapons of mass destruction.

That monopoly hasn't kept Israel safe from conventional military attack; Israel's military superiority does that. It also hasn't prevented terrorism, even though Israel maintains a world-class defensive capacity there, too.

All Tel Aviv's WMD monopoly generates is diplomatic opportunity: as soon as somebody else in the region gets a few nukes to challenge Israel's roughly 200 warheads, the world's great powers will collectively force direct negotiations leading to - at least - a bilateral strategic arms treaty between the two states.

Why? We'll all find the resulting situation too much to bear, not just in the West but far more in the East, which relies on Persian Gulf energy too much to suffer such strategic uncertainty.

What does that get us? It gets us Iran having to recognize Israel to achieve its primary goal in pursuing a nuclear capacity - namely, America's promise not to engage in forcible regime change in Tehran.

Since that goal will effectively be achieved by Tehran's looming nuclear capacity, anyway, then we're heading into a different dynamic: simultaneously creating a stable nuclear stand-off between Israel and Iran, a dyad that quickly becomes a triad if Saudi Arabia decides that Arab Sunnis need their own nuclear champion to balance the Persian Shia.

For many regional and nuclear experts, such developments would constitute an almost unthinkably unstable strategic situation, but again, the only way to stabilize such a situation would be to force a trilateral or even regional security scheme that acknowledges each state's nuclear weapons explicitly and links those capabilities to one another through the condition of mutually assured destruction.

Pursued intelligently by outside great powers, Iran's reach for the bomb could end up being the event that makes real peace in the Middle East truly possible.

No, I don't expect any outside great powers, especially the United States, to acquiesce to Iran's nuclear efforts. I expect them to try and stop that outcome from unfolding, but once those efforts prove insufficient, then we'll collectively shift to the dynamics I've just described.

When that moment comes, one thing will have to be made crystal clear to Tehran: If Iran attacks Israel with nuclear weapons, the United States would retaliate massively with nuclear weapons, effectively ending Iran's existence as a nation.

Absent that firm guarantee, we'd put Israel into the scary situation of worrying about their second-strike capability.

And, yes, America would need to make the same position clear to a nuclear-capable House of Saud.

Too scary to contemplate? Hardly.

We've covered this territory before and ended great power wars across the Eurasian landmass in the process. Now, we're simply facing similar possibilities - and dangers - in the Middle East.

In this journey, offering the right promises to wage unlimited war will get us the best opportunities to forge a permanent peace.

Thomas P.M. Barnett (tom@thomaspmbarnett.com) is a visiting scholar at the University of Tennessee's Howard Baker Center and the senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC.

May 18, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Obama and the Jews

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Pssst. Have you heard? I have. I heard that Barack Obama once said there has to be “an end” to the Israeli “occupation” of the West Bank “that began in 1967.” Yikes!

Pssst. Have you heard? I have. I heard that Barack Obama said that not only must Israel be secure, but that any peace agreement “must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people.” Yikes!

Pssst. Have you heard? I have. I heard that Barack Obama once said “the establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue. The Palestinian people deserve it.” Yikes! Yikes! Yikes!

Those are the kind of rumors one can hear circulating among American Jews these days about whether Barack Obama harbors secret pro-Palestinian leanings. I confess: All of the above phrases are accurate. I did not make them up.

There’s just one thing: None of them were uttered by Barack Obama. They are all direct quotes from President George W. Bush in the last two years. Mr. Bush, long hailed as a true friend of Israel, said all those things.

What does that tell you? It tells me several things. The first is that America today has — rightly — a bipartisan approach to Arab-Israeli peace that is not going to change no matter who becomes our next president. America, whether under a Republican or Democratic administration, is now committed to a two-state solution in which the Palestinians get back the West Bank, Gaza and Arab parts of East Jerusalem, and Israel gives back most of the settlements in the West Bank, offsetting those it does not evacuate with land from Israel.

The notion that a President Barack Obama would have a desire or ability to walk away from this consensus American position is ludicrous. But given the simmering controversy over whether Mr. Obama is “good for Israel,” it’s worth exploring this question: What really makes a pro-Israel president?

Personally, as an American Jew, I don’t vote for president on the basis of who will be the strongest supporter of Israel. I vote for who will make America strongest. It’s not only because this is my country, first and always, but because the single greatest source of support and protection for Israel is an America that is financially and militarily strong, and globally respected. Nothing would imperil Israel more than an enfeebled, isolated America.

I don’t doubt for a second President Bush’s gut support for Israel, and I think it comes from his gut. He views Israel as a country that shares America’s core democratic and free-market values. That is not unimportant.

But what matters a lot more is that under Mr. Bush, America today is neither feared nor respected nor liked in the Middle East, and that his lack of an energy policy for seven years has left Israel’s enemies and America’s enemies — the petro-dictators and the terrorists they support — stronger than ever. The rise of Iran as a threat to Israel today is directly related to Mr. Bush’s failure to succeed in Iraq and to develop alternatives to oil.

Does that mean Mr. Obama would automatically do better? I don’t know. To me, U.S. presidents succeed or fail when it comes to Arab-Israeli diplomacy depending on two criteria that have little to do with what’s in their hearts.

The first, and most important, is the situation on the ground and the readiness of the parties themselves to take the lead, irrespective of what America is doing. Anwar Sadat’s heroic overture to Israel, and Menachem Begin’s response, made the Jimmy Carter-engineered Camp David peace treaty possible. The painful, post-1973 war stalemate between Israel and Egypt and Syria made Henry Kissinger’s disengagement agreements possible. The collapse of the Soviet Union and America’s defeat of Iraq in the first gulf war made possible James Baker’s success in putting the Madrid peace process together.

What all three of these U.S. statesmen had in common, though — and this is the second criterion — was that when history gave them an opening, they seized it, by being tough, cunning and fair with both sides.

I don’t want a president who is just going to lean on Israel and not get in the Arabs’ face too, or one who, as the former Mideast negotiator Aaron D. Miller puts it, “loves Israel to death” — by not drawing red lines when Israel does reckless things that are also not in America’s interest, like building settlements all over the West Bank.

It’s a tricky business. But if Israel is your voting priority, then at least ask the right questions about Mr. Obama. Knock off the churlish whispering campaign about what’s in his heart on Israel (what was in Richard Nixon’s heart?) and focus first on what kind of America you think he’d build and second on whether you believe that as president he’d have the smarts, steel and cunning to seize a historic opportunity if it arises.

Schwarzenegger calls for 'rebranding' GOP
Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer
Saturday, May 17, 2008
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger created shock and awe in the Republican Party when he warned years ago that the GOP was in danger of "dying at the box office" by failing to make the sale to a wide swath of voters.

And with the presidential election looming, the Republican governor of the nation's most populous state - a decidedly blue state - has now found a chorus of agreement. The Republican "brand" - thanks to an unpopular president, a war, gas prices, foreclosures and deficit - has become such damaged goods that GOP Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia groused last week that "if we were dog food, they would take us off the shelf."

The answer for GOP presidential candidate John McCain: take a page out of the Schwarzenegger playbook and sell a product that is "counter" to the current GOP brand on issues like global warming, spending, and even immigration reform.

McCain comes to the Golden State this week on a campaign and fundraising swing, including a rally Thursday in Stockton being publicized with an invitation graced by a picture of a McCain hug - not with President Bush but with Schwarzenegger.

And the governor, in an interview with The Chronicle last week, had some candid advice and observations, not only about the GOP brand - but on McCain's efforts to expand his appeal to independents and disillusioned Democrats.

"The Republican idea is a great idea, but we can't go and get stuck with just the right wing," Schwarzenegger said. "Let's let the party come all the way to the center. Let those people be heard as much as the right. Let it be the big tent we've talked about.

"Let's invade and let's cross over that (political) center," he said. "The issues that they're talking about? Let them be our issues, and let the party be known for that."

t didn't work'

He observed that his own political opponents, including former Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, tried to define him in much the way McCain is being defined by Democrats - as joined at the hip with Bush.

"It didn't work," he laughed. But "how does (McCain) beat the Democrats? By offering a better future. He needs to offer hope, he needs to go in and show he can solve the problem in Iraq and have better relations with other countries again ... and bring the economy back."

As Democrats get closer to picking their party's nominee, McCain is getting advice on his image "rebranding" from some of the same GOP insiders who helped Schwarzenegger win re-election. They include senior campaign adviser Steve Schmidt and former Schwarzenegger communications director Adam Mendelsohn, partners in a GOP political consulting firm, Mercury LLC in Sacramento.

"The Republican brand may be in a bad position because of the Bush presidency, but people recognize that John McCain is not George Bush. ... John McCain has a long track record of being a nontraditional Republican - and so does Schwarzenegger," said Mendelsohn.

That makes the Arizona senator well-positioned to build a coalition of voters that can cut into the appeal of the Democratic presidential nominee, who increasingly looks to be Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, he said.

With less than six months until the November election, McCain isn't alone in trying to repackage the GOP's image and outreach; indeed, rebranding fever appears to have caught on across the party.

It explains why, in the wake of losing a solid Republican seat in Mississippi in a special election last week, Republican leader Rep. John Boehner of Ohio sent out a memo outlining what he called a "new positive agenda" for the GOP - titled "The Change America Deserves."

Political observers watching the rebranding effort say it represents a drive to compete with Obama - whose motto is "the change we can believe in" - as he seeks independent and Latino voters who could make or break the 2008 election.

"They don't have any choice," Averell "Ace" Smith, who managed campaigns for Hillary Rodham Clinton in California, Texas and North Carolina, said of McCain's efforts to be a "counter" Republican. "If they ran any other race, they'd doom themselves from the first day.

oters up for grabs

"(Republicans) have to move away from the status quo, because the voters up for grabs are independent and Latinos. And neither of them are particularly in love with ideologists. They both move toward moderation."

On the campaign trail last week, McCain's efforts to position himself as counter to the Republican brand were keenly evident.

He spoke in Portland on what's been described as the first leg of his global warming tour; later in the week, he delivered a landmark speech, drawing some distinct contrasts to the Bush White House - whose disapproval ratings are now a whopping 71 percent - politically as well as stylistically.

On the policy front, McCain said that by 2013, the end of his first term, he envisions most U.S. troops coming home from Iraq "in victory," as well as delivering health care and restoring "economic confidence."

And, acknowledging a White House criticized as too partisan and insular, McCain said that as president he'll ask Democrats to serve in his administration and vowed to "set a new standard for transparency and accountability. ... When we make errors, I'll confess them willingly." He vowed to institute regular presidential question-and-answer grillings before Congress, much like the British prime minister's weekly televised "Question Time."

Democrats immediately jabbed away.

"Why should McCain stop there when he could go the whole nine yards - by letting our Democratic majority in the House pick the president, just like the parliamentary system picks a prime minister?" quipped Kirsten Xanthippe, a California Democratic activist living in the United Kingdom.

"McCain isn't the real McCoy - he's just a 'prime mimicker' of conservative Bush policies, dressed up in the touchy-feely softness of sheep's clothing," she said.

Schwarzenegger disagreed.

"It was wise for him to do what he did this week," the governor said. "That's an attempt to show what his vision is. ...People need to see that there's a plan. He's in the center in a lot of ways, and that will help him - especially in states like California."

epublican brand is terrible'

Some Republicans agreed that McCain's work is required in an election year where challenges loom for the GOP.

"The Republican brand is terrible right now," said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "It's been damaged by a weak presidency ... and the various legs on which the Republican platform rests have been kicked away."

Among them, Whalen said, has been fiscal discipline - crumbling along with the $1 trillion-plus deficit - and family values, a victim of corruption and scandals involving a cast of characters from lobbyist Jack Abramoff to jailed former San Diego Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

"McCain runs at a time when the party itself is ill-defined, and that means McCain has to turn the election on personality - and that ties into being a political maverick," Whalen said. "You'll see McCain saying, 'My opponent talks about change - but I not only talk the talk, I walk the walk.' "

arty's core principles

California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner - the only Republican besides Schwarzenegger elected to statewide office - said his party's image has been battered because GOP officials have forgotten the party's core principles: lower taxes, less government.

"Spending has skyrocketed. ... There's been this real crisis in earmarks, which are not justified, and there's been corruption because of ethics violations," he said. "Republican Party leaders have done a terrible job and let the country down."

But Poizner, speaking from Jerusalem where he accompanied Bush to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday, said GOP leaders like himself, Schwarzenegger and McCain have proven it's possible to stick to Republican principles and win elections, even when polls show the GOP to be the underdog.

"Swing voters are looking for people who have the ability to get things done in both the private sector and public sector," said Poizner, who is considering a 2010 run for governor of California. "We can win elections if we get back to the basics - and that's something that Sen. McCain can do."

E-mail Carla Marinucci at cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com.

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