ELECTIONS

As of December 3, the last day prior to the February legislative elections in which voter registration was possible, a total of 309,617 Cape Verdeans had registered to vote – 271,971 in Cape Verde itself, and 37,644 abroad (A Semana).

Presidential candidate David Hopffer Almada has launched his own website, in Portuguese alas.

PAICV and UCID have already decided who will be leading their list for São Vicente during the 2011 legislative elections: Filomena Martins and António Monteiro, respectively. The MpD is contemplating Jorge Santos to head theirs (AW).

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INTERNATIONAL

Cape Verde has been chosen to hold the chairmanship and secretariat of the Summit of Macaronesian Archipelagoes. The first summit, which was considered historic by various of its participants, was aimed mainly at creating a space for political coordination and cooperation for development among the archipelagoes of Cape Verde, the Canary Islands, the Azores and Madeira (A Semana).

LAW ENFORCEMENT

Some 50 metric tons of cocaine circulate every year through Africa, according to a report from the Sahelo-Saharan Geopolitical and Strategic Observatory (OSGS). In the report, Cape Verde is listed as one of the West African countries in which drug seizures have increased the most (A Semana).

From now on, all of the shipping containers arriving in Praia undergo X-ray scans in order to control all of the merchandise coming into the capital city. At the moment, the country is in a position “to prevent the entry of arms,” given that its ports and international airports all have scanners and weapon and explosives detectors (A Semana).

BOA VISTA

The women of Boa Vista have fewer employment opportunities than men, according to a study ordered by the Organization of Women of Cape Verde (OMCV) and the Cape Verdean Institute for Gender Equality and Equity (ICIEG). The study, carried out nearly one year ago, encompassed the areas of João Galego, Barraca and Sal-Rei (A Semana).

The systematic power outages that have plagued Boa Vista over the past several weeks are punishing the island’s economy, according to merchants and business owners in the restaurant and hotel/real-estate sectors, with large quantities of rotten food products thrown away and the flight of tourists to large-scale hotels (A Semana).

SAL

The re-opening of the Djad’Sal Hotel on the island of Sal was scheduled for Wednesday, December 15, but the hotel’s doors remain closed more than two months after activities ceased (A Semana).

ECONOMY

The government of Cape Verde has set up a fund of 100 million Cape Verdean escudos to support the internationalisation of the country’s companies, the chairman of Cabo Verde Investimentos, Carlos Rocha said in Praia (Macauhub).

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AVIATION

Passenger traffic in Cape Verde’s airports was 19.4% higher in November of this year than during the same month in 2009. The volume of domestic passengers rose 24.4%, while international passenger traffic was up 14.2% (A Semana).

On 13 December, the EU Council of Ministers authorised the signature of an aviation agreement between the EU and Cape Verde. The agreement was initiated in July, and will replace the clauses that do not comply with EU law that appear in bilateral air agreements between Cape Verde and several member states (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom). Thanks to the agreement, all EU airline companies will now have the possibility of offering connections to Cape Verde from these eight countries (Europolitics).

FISHING

20 of Cape Verde’s fishing vessels are now equipped with the Satellite Vessel Monitoring System (VMS), according to the director of the Department of Fishing, Adalberto Vieira (A Semana).

TELECOMS

Internet service has been slow in Cape Verde for more than a week, and sometimes stops altogether for minutes at a time. Users have complained, but net service provider Cabo Verde Multimédia affirms that it has “not detected any problem” on the network (A Semana).

UTILITIES

Cape Verde’s electricity and water company Electra is undergoing restructuring with a view to its being privatised in 2011, said Cape Verde’s prime minister, José Maria Neves, cited by the Cape Verdean press (Macauhub).

Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has won an order for turbines with total capacity of 25.5 megawatts for a project in Cape Verde (Reuters).

SPLIT SECOND POLL

ELECTIONS

Political parties and coalitions will have from December 18 to 28 to present their candidates for the February 6 legislative elections in the country’s various electoral circles. The determination is part of the electoral calendar published in Wednesday’s edition of the Official State Bulletin, and is the result of an agreement reached by the National Elections Commission, government representatives and Cape Verde’s political formations, the PAICV, the MpD, the UCID, the PTS and the PSD (A Semana).

SPLIT SECOND POLL

INTERNATIONAL

Cape Verde has been under the careful watch of the United States of America since last year, according to the secret American diplomatic files released this week by the site Wikileaks. Washington, D.C., according to the documents to which A Semana has had access, ordered its agents and diplomats to investigate the archipelago’s propensity for terrorism and drug trafficking. Based on their findings, they were asked to elaborate a data base featuring biographical information, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, travel records, working hours, telephone contacts and e-mail addresses of leaders and individuals with connections to Cape Verde. For the full story see A Semana and for a reaction from the US Embassy on Cape Verde see here.

The Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project has received powerful Washington backing for efforts to restore Sephardic cemeteries on the island chain, with US Congressman Barney Frank among those attending a benefit for the group last week (Jerusalem Post).

For more info on the Cape Verde Jewish Heritage Project take a look at their website.

SAL

Prime Minister José Maria Neves and Minister of Internal Administration Lívio Lopes presided in Sal over the launch of  the “Safe Tourism” project and the inauguration of the National Police Station (AW).

BUILDING OF THE WEEK

The Triangle project for Calhao on Sao Vicente Island

ECONOMY

The executive directors of the International Monetary Fund, who recently carried out a mission to Cape Verde, congratulated the country’s authorities for its “strong macroeconomic performance” and for the progress made toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (A Semana).

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EXPORT

Approximately half a ton of fresh fish was exported from the Cova de Inglesa complex, on the island of São Vicente, on a direct flight to Portuguese capital Lisbon. The event was “historic,” according to the director of the Department of Fishing, because it was the first lot of fish from the complex to be exported, by air, to Europe (A Semana).

SPLIT SECOND POLLS

POLITICS

The date for Cape Verde’s parliamentary elections has been set by President Pedro Pires for February 6th 2011.

Diplomat Alice Ferreira dos Santos has replaced Arnaldo Lopes as the director of the Department of Consular Affairs and Treaties in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The substitution appears to be the Ministry’s response to a complaint lodged by the governing PAICV against Lopes, whom they suspect of involvement in a “conspiracy” with opposition party MpD regarding the registration of Cape Verdean voters in the diaspora (A Semana).

INTERNATIONAL

Three municipalities in the African island nation of Cape Verde have signed agreements with a preservation group toward maintaining Jewish cemeteries (Jerusalem Post).

BOA VISTA

At 3:00 pm Saturday, November 27, an aircraft with 96 passengers on board was “hit” by a flock of birds, damaging the Boeing 737-800’s motor and forcing it to carry out an emergency landing at Rabil International Airport on the island of Boa Vista. The simulated situation was part of an exercise aimed at testing the airport’s response capacity in the case of an accident (A Semana).

BRAVA

Brava now has near-total coverage in terms of its water and electricity networks, according to Mayor Camilo Gonçalves (A Semana).

SAL

The results of the first phase in expansion work on Palmeira sea port, on the island of Sal, were unveiled by Prime Minister José Maria Neves. The project is being executed in two phases and encompasses investments on the order of 47 million Euros, financed by the European Investment Bank (A Semana).

SANTO ANTAO

The government of Cape Verde is set to launch tenders for the construction of dams on the island of Santo Antão, the island’s delegate for the Ministry of the Environment, Rural Development and Marine Resources announced (Macauhub).

Santo Antão’s Post-Harvest Inspection Center, located in the city of Porto Novo, has yet to become operational due to a lack of interest on the part of the private sector. The tender for the operation of the center has yet to be the object of a single bid (A Semana).

ECONOMY

Cape Verde should improve its level of competitiveness in order to take better advantage of existing opportunities within the context of the international crisis, Bank of Cape Verde governor Carlos Burgo said during the presentation of the annual report on economic perspectives in Africa (A Semana).

AVIATION

TACV Cabo Verde Airlines intends to buy another airplane to increase its fleet, the head of Department of Marketing and Business Communication, Carlos Carvalho announced (AW).

Several European tour operators are setting up extra flights to Cape Verde this northern winter season as the archipelago is becoming more popular among tourists than expected (Afrol).

BANKING

SISP, the entity that operates Cape Verde’s Vinti4 credit and debit card and ATM network, has received the PCI-DSS international payment system security certificate (A Semana).

The United Nations Organisation for Industrial Development (UNIDO/France), promised to create a risk capital firm in Cape Verde in early 2012, to support small and medium-sized enterprises in the country (AW).

Geocapital, the stakeholding company linked to Macau gaming magnate Stanley Ho, is due to start the process of integrating the banks it has been acquiring in Portuguese-speaking African countries. The first banks to become part of the network would be Banco da África Ocidental, of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde’s Caixa Económica (Macauhub).

TOURISM

Yes, tourism is on the rise in Cape Verde. Luckily, the inland areas and huge swaths of coastline remain untouched. The increase in tourism has made it easier for eco-tourists to get to Cape Verde (there are more flights than ever before). The infrastructure — or lack thereof — assures eco-adventurers that there are plenty of sparsely inhabited, relatively untouched places to wander through (Mother Nature Network).

TRANSPORT

The hydrofoil Kriola was handed over to its owners, Cabo Verde Fast Ferry. The first of two high-speed vessels built in Singapore, the boat is scheduled to arrive in Cape Verde between December 25 and 29, three days after which it will make its maiden Praia-Fogo-Brava voyage (A Semana).