POLITICS

The EU has granted “GSP+” status to Cape Verde, the first African nation to sign up to GSP+. Under this trade scheme, which grants preferential access to the EU market when certain conditions of good governance are fulfilled. Cape Verde will continue to enjoy generous preferential access to the EU after its graduation from the “Everything But Arms” (EBA) initiative (EIN).

Cape Verde could receive between 50 and 70 million US dollars as part of its second Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact, according to consulting company Center for Global Investment. The list of countries expected to benefit from a second financial compact with the US government corporation will be announced on December 15 (A Semana).

The Movement for Democracy (MpD) confirmed the names of Ulisses Correia e Silva (Praia), Augusto Neves (São Vincente) and Orlando Delgado (Ribeira Grande Santo Antão) as candidates for the party in the local elections of 2012 (Inforpress).

LAW ENFORCEMENT

The Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) is organising a three day Regional Seminar on Criminal Asset Recovery from December 12 – 14 at the National Assembly in Praia, Cape Verde (AllAfrica).

SAL

“They say when god was happy with creation he dusted his hands and created Cape Verde. So I spent a week on the idyllic island of Sal to check out his handy work and I certainly wasn’t disappointed…” Read the full report at Cambridgefirst.

SOS Tartarugas is looking for a shark specialist for a shark monitoring program (SOS Tartarugas).

A Chinese couple died at Sal Hospital in what is being treated as a case of suspected murder. The couple was rescued from a fire in their own apartment in the Chã de Matias district of Espargos, but both were found to have various stab wounds on their bodies (A Semana).

THE GRAND TOUR OF CAPE VERDE

Read The Grand Tour of Cape Verde, Atlantico Weekly’s travel guide to the country’s main islands.

HOLIDAY EDITION

This is Atlantico Weekly’s last edition of 2011. We will be back in January, continuing our steady supply of English-language news about Cape Verde and Angola. We will also continue to publish more interviews with Entrepreneurs of Cape Verde as well as an updated Grand Tour of Cape Verde…

Happy holidays and Boas Festas!

ECONOMY

“Cape Verde’s economy is expanding at a more moderate pace, supported by a resilient tourist sector and implementation of the public infrastructure program. However, risks to the outlook have grown in view of the continuing economic and financial turmoil in Europe. Inflation has picked up this year in response to the surge in fuel and food prices, though core inflation remains subdued.” Read the full report on the IMF mission to Cape Verde here.

HELP ATLANTICO  GROW!

Atlantico Weekly is freely distributed and we like to keep it that way.

That’s why we’d like to ask you one favor in return: send Atlantico Weekly to your friends and colleagues and help us grow!

AVIATION

The International Air Transportation Association (IATA) has renewed TACV Cabo Verde Airlines’ Operational Safety Audit certificate, which guarantees the company’s operational safety for another two-year period (A Semana).

ENTREPRENEURS OF CAPE VERDE

Check out Atlantico Weekly’s new feature: Entrepreneurs of Cape Verde, which will be a series of short interviews with entrepreneurs in Cape Verde, both homegrown and foreign. We started off a first round with Josephine Sturiale, Paulino Dias, Patone Lobo and Helen Hutchings & Steve Cooling. You can expect a new series from January 2012!

And yes, Atlantico Weekly is looking for more entrepreneurs of Cape Verde to interview. Those interested may contact Atlantico Weekly (atlanticoweekly at gmail.com).

TWITTER, FACEBOOK & LINKEDIN

Atlantico Weekly is now on Facebook. Be welcome to join our group!

You can now follow Atlantico Weekly on Twitter at atlanticoweekly.

Also be welcome to join our Atlantico Weekly networking and discussion group on Linkedin.

SPLIT SECOND POLL

POLITICS

President Jorge Carlos Fonseca announced that he will be releasing his latest book before Christmas. The work, entitled Cabo Verde: Constituição – Democracia –Cidadania (Cape Verde: Constitution – Democracy – Citizenship), is a compilation of 15 essays and studies (A Semana).

Opposition party MpD’s Political Commission will met to define the political force’s mayoral candidates in the 2012 municipal elections. Attention will be focused on the nine of the country’s 22 municipalities in which there is still a large degree of uncertainty regarding the candidates to be supported by the party (A Semana).

Cape Verde could become the first country in the world free of child labor, said Pedro Américo de Oliveira, ILO responsible for relations in the context of the global fight against child labor (Inforpress).

TWITTER, FACEBOOK & LINKEDIN

Atlantico Weekly is now on Facebook. Be welcome to join our group!

You can now follow Atlantico Weekly on Twitter at atlanticoweekly.

Also be welcome to join our Atlantico Weekly networking and discussion group on Linkedin.

INTERNATIONAL

On June 24, 2011, President Barack Obama nominated Adrienne S. O’Neal to be the United States ambassador to Cape Verde. There is a significant Cape Verdean-American population, particularly in New Bedford, Massachusetts. O’Neal received her Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on October 5, but she has yet to be confirmed by the full Senate (Allgov).

LAW ENFORCEMENT

The P511 Guardiao coastguard patrol vessel was presented by shipbuilding company Damen to the Capeverdean community of Rotterdam. The Guardiao is now on its way to Cape Verde.

The National Police has a new method to combat crime in Praia: community police officers. A total of 40 officers, divided into eight groups, will live in the capital city’s various different neighborhoods, integrating themselves into the community in order to get to know it inside and out, with the purpose of becoming familiar with all of its residents and being able to detect any sign of suspicious activities or danger (A Semana).

A Cape Verdean immigrant in Switzerland has been sentenced to 22 months behind bars for her involvement in an international human trafficking network. The 57-year-old woman may, however, have her sentence suspended if she pays 47,000 Swiss Francs to the 143 Brazilians she helped lure to the European country with false promises of work and who were forced into prostitution (A Semana).

BOA VISTA

MpD legislator José Luís Santos has asked President Jorge Carlos Fonseca to use his power of influence alongside the government to encourage it to pay the compensation promised years ago to the owners of the lands on the island of Boa Vista on which the island’s international airport and a number of hotels were built (A Semana).

FOGO

All is set to go for the drilling of eleven water prospecting wells in the municipalities of São Filipe, Santa Catarina and Mosteiros on the island of Fogo, with the arrival of the drilling truck on the island (A Semana).

SAL

Jurist Démis Lobo says he is available to head the PAICV’s ticket in the 2012 municipal elections on the island of Sal. The young man, who is responsible for the local delegation of investment and tourist promotion agency Cabo Verde Investimentos, is the only party member so far to express an interest in attempting to “dethrone” Jorge Figueiredo, who has served two terms as Sal mayor. The current mayor has long since affirmed that he will run for re-election for his own locally-formed political movement, GIMDS, which is supported by the MpD (A Semana).

19-year-old Portuguese athlete Inês Correia conquered the women’s world kitesurf championship on Sal (A Semana).

THE GRAND TOUR OF CAPE VERDE

Read The Grand Tour of Cape Verde, Atlantico Weekly’s travel guide to the country’s main islands.

SANTIAGO

As water and electricity supply problems continue to assail the country, the municipality of Santa Cruz, on the island of Santiago, expects to solve its own difficulties beginning in the first half of 2012 with a wind farm and a new desalinization unit (A Semana).

SANTO ANTAO

Forest engineer Rosa Rocha is the candidate chosen by the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV) to run for president of the Municipal Council of Porto Novo, during the municipal elections of 2012 (Inforpress).

SAO NICOLAU

In nineteen months’ time, the island of São Nicolau will have its first dam in Banca Furada, in the Fajã Valley. The groundbreaking ceremony was presided over by Minister of Rural Development Eva Ortet and took place during the Ribeira Brava municipal festivities (A Semana).

ECONOMY

Diesel oil, fuel oil and kerosene will see slight price increases beginning December 8. Gasoline and butane, meanwhile, are cheaper as of today. The Economic Regulation Agency (ARE) justifies the changes with alterations in the price of petroleum derivatives on the international market in October and November (A Semana).

Four onshore wind farms in Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa, would go on line in January 2012. The 32 turbines project would generate over 28 MW of electricity and ease Cape Verde’s reliance on imported fossil fuels. The government of Cape Verde wants to raise the share of wind energy production to 25% by 2012, and eventually to 50% by 2020. The EIB has invested €45-million in the project, which also received funding from the African Development Bank (Engineering News).

HELP ATLANTICO  GROW!

Atlantico Weekly is freely distributed and we like to keep it that way.

That’s why we’d like to ask you one favor in return: send Atlantico Weekly to your friends and colleagues and help us grow!

BUSINESS

São Vicente district court divided the blame between plaintiff and defendant in the civil suit shipping company Darya filed against São Vicente-based Cabnave because of the repair of one of its vessels by the latter. Neither of the two companies, however, accepted the ruling, and both have filed appeals to the Supreme Court of Justice (A Semana).

Urban passenger transportation company Transcor is negotiating with Moura Company to purchase all of the latter’s assets, which include Cape Verde’s largest fleet of buses. The purchase, however, comes along with two conditions: defining what professional classes have the right to free passes, and ensuring the reigning-in of unlicensed minivans currently operating along Praia city bus routes (A Semana).

AGRI ETC

Minister of Rural Development Eva Ortet said that Cape Verde is expected to register a 20% drop in corn production this year in comparison to 2010, when the harvest of the grain was of more than 7,000 metric tons. The cabinet minister reaffirmed, however, that this year’s agricultural season would be “reasonable,” with considerable bean and pasture production and a large amount of water (A Semana).

SunOpta Inc. , a leading global company focused on natural, organic and specialty foods and natural health products, today announced that the SunOpta International Foods Group will expand its fair trade and organic coffee business with the development of operations in the Republic of Cape Verde. Trabocca B.V. (“Trabocca”), 65% owned by The Organic Corporation B.V. (“Tradin Organics”), in hand with a local Cape Verde partner have formed Fogo Coffee Spirit Ltd. (“Fogo Coffee”). Fogo Coffee will establish a coffee processing facility to produce the first certified organic, Fogo-origin, high quality coffee in the Republic of Cape Verde. Trabocca will own 51% while Casa Rodrigo Ltd., a Cape Verde company, will own the remaining share with Trabocca exclusively marketing the coffee worldwide (Marketwatch).

AVIATION

A collision of TACV Boeing with a bird caused a delay flights at Praia Airport (AW).

Cape Verde’s total passenger throughput (all airports) has risen from just over 600,000 in 1995 to a projected 1.9 million in 2011, making it one of the fastest-growing resort destinations in the world. Will Sao Tome & Principe airport expansion make it the next Cape Verde (Centre for Aviation)?

ENTREPRENEURS OF CAPE VERDE

Check out Atlantico Weekly’s new feature: Entrepreneurs of Cape Verde, which will be a series of short interviews with entrepreneurs in Cape Verde, both homegrown and foreign. We started off with Josephine Sturiale, Paulino Dias and Patone Lobo. This week an interview with a British couple: Helen Hutchings and Steve Cooling of Blu bar, Santa Maria on Sal Island.

And yes, Atlantico Weekly is looking for more entrepreneurs of Cape Verde to interview. Those interested may contact Atlantico Weekly (atlanticoweekly at gmail.com).

TWITTER, FACEBOOK & LINKEDIN

Atlantico Weekly is now on Facebook. Be welcome to join our group!

You can now follow Atlantico Weekly on Twitter at atlanticoweekly.

Also be welcome to join our Atlantico Weekly networking and discussion group on Linkedin.

PORTS

The stevedores at Palmeira sea port on the island of Sal are unhappy with the way port management company Enapor is distributing tasks. According to them, they sometimes spend several days at a time at home, and when work does emerge, the number of workers requested is not enough for the cargo to be loaded or unloaded (A Semana).

REAL ESTATE

Cape Verde, one of the unsung success stories of Africa in the last decade with annual economic growth rates averaging 6 percent, now fears for its tourist and real estate sectors as hard-up Europeans start deciding against a new holiday home. “The demand for real estate in the tourism sector is stagnant, which has consequences for the employment,” said Olavo Correia, a former governor of the central bank who now heads the Cape Verdean Association of Tourism Builders (PROMITUR) (Reuters).

TELECOMS

Cape Verdean mobile telephony company CVMóvel said it had been granted a license to provide third generation mobile phone services (3G), thus “developing Cape Verde’s telecommunications market.” In a statement CVMóvel noted that it had been focusing, “continuously on new technologies, and proof of this was the launch of the mobile phone Internet service and mobile broadband service” (Macauhub).

POLITICS

Cape Verde has gone from 45th to 41st place in the 2011 Corruption Perception Index, with a rating of 5.5 on a scale of 0 to 10, in which 10 represents a country perceived to be free of corruption and 0 represents a highly corrupt nation.

Relations between Minister of Finances Cristina Duarte and Bank of Cape Verde governor Carlos Burgo are worse than they have ever been. After the public disagreement regarding the 2012 General State Budget in what turned into a veritable “school lesson” on public finances, the tension is palpable between these two institutions, which, in theory, should be transmitting a climate of macroeconomic stability to the country and the world (A Semana).

INTERNATIONAL

Ten Belgian journalists, accompanied by architect Franck Damman, visited the islands of São Vicente, Santo Antão and Sal on the invitation of Eddy Buyl. The businessman hopes the visit will help show his compatriots the advantages of the islands as a tourist destination (A Semana).

Representatives from scientific and business universities, civil society and authorities will participate in an international conference on Friday, December 2, on São Vicente, discussing the strategic framework for relations in the South Atlantic and its opportunities for Cape Verde (AW).

The Prime Minister of Cape Verde said in a meeting with Guinean entrepreneurs  that he is working to remove all barriers to conducting business between Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (Inforpress).

LAW ENFORCEMENT

A brothel owner and several accomplices from the north-western city of Solothurn, Switzerland, has been sentenced to four and a half years imprisonment for human trafficking and pimping. Of these, one woman from Cape Verde and two from Brazil who had helped run the brothel received suspended terms of 22, 18 and 15 months respectively (Swissinfo).

Darragh MacAnthony, the former boss of MacAnthony Realty International (MRI), is facing a criminal investigation in Spain following complaints from former clients that furniture “packs” purchased from one of his companies were never delivered. MRI sold properties in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Cape Verde, Morocco and Romania, where the company also arranged furniture supplies (Cyprus Property News).

Three National Police officers were arrested for allegedly having stolen more than two kilograms of cocaine from the Anti-Crime Brigade headquarters in Praia (A Semana).

TWITTER, FACEBOOK & LINKEDIN

Atlantico Weekly is now on Facebook. Be welcome to join our group!

You can now follow Atlantico Weekly on Twitter at atlanticoweekly.

Also be welcome to join our Atlantico Weekly networking and discussion group on Linkedin.

DEFENSE & SECURITY

Sal hosted the 13th meeting of the Ministers of Defense from the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP). The meeting was used to analyze the degree of execution of the deliberations and recommendations that came out of the 12th meeting, which took place in December of last year in Brasília, and to plan future actions of multilateral interest (A Semana).

HELP ATLANTICO  GROW!

Atlantico Weekly is freely distributed and we like to keep it that way.

That’s why we’d like to ask you one favor in return: send Atlantico Weekly to your friends and colleagues and help us grow!

DIASPORA

The World to Brooklyn, a new series showcasing vibrant artists from different cultures in an exciting new venue in downtown Brooklyn, continues on December 3rd with Cape Verdean singer Fantcha. Singing in a rich, sensuous voice in her native Creole, she performs mornas – the languid bluesy ballads about love, loss and longing made famous by her mentor and homeland icon Cesaria Evora. To lift spirits, she offers her country’s playful uptempo dance numbers, coladeiras (World Music Central).

THE GRAND TOUR OF CAPE VERDE

Read The Grand Tour of Cape Verde, Atlantico Weekly’s travel guide to the country’s main islands.

PROJECT OF THE WEEK

Proposal (not accepted) for a hotel at Achada Grande Frente, in Praia, Santiago, designed by Afonso Cardoso (Facebook).

ECONOMY

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has made a number of recommendations to the Cape Verdean government following a 15-day mission in the country, including the need to create space to allow for growth in private credit and the reduction of the external public debt/GDP ratio to below 50% (A Semana).

A business delegation from Romania, headed by the country’s ambassador to Senegal, arrived in Cape Verde. The delegation is made up of more than 40 entrepreneurs operating in various different economic sectors (A Semana).

The Regional Secretariat of the Economy of the Portuguese autonomous region of the Azores, in partnership with the APIA, will elaborate a series of measures to assist regional businesses to reinforce their merchandise export capacity, with a special focus on exports to Cape Verde (A Semana).

HELP ATLANTICO  GROW!

Atlantico Weekly is freely distributed and we like to keep it that way.

That’s why we’d like to ask you one favor in return: send Atlantico Weekly to your friends and colleagues and help us grow!

AVIATION

Cape Verde’s Finance Minister, Cristina Duarte, said that the government had had problems finding a foreign partner for privatisation of airline TACV for the last two years (Macauhub).

The Cape Verdean government has managed to renegotiate with the International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC), and will now purchase two new Boeing 737s instead of the aircraft TACV Cabo Verde Airlines originally intended to acquire, and which failed the tests carried out in Qatar, jeopardizing the 78 million escudos the airline had paid as a down payment to secure the deal (A Semana).

FISHERIES

The government is negotiating with fish processing company Frescomar to investigate the possibility of absorbing up to an additional 5,500 metric tons of fish, essentially skipjack, bullet tuna and mackerel, in 2012. The fish, according to the State Secretary of Marine Resources, will be caught by Cape Verdean vessel owners (A Semana).

ENTREPRENEURS OF CAPE VERDE

Check out Atlantico Weekly’s new feature: Entrepreneurs of Cape Verde, a series of short interviews with entrepreneurs in Cape Verde, both homegrown and foreign. Latest interview is with an experienced entrepreneur on Sal Island: Patone Lobo of the Hotel Odjo d’Agua.

And yes, Atlantico Weekly is looking for more entrepreneurs of Cape Verde to interview. Those interested may contact Atlantico Weekly (atlanticoweekly at gmail.com).

TELECOMS

The Brazilian project for construction of a network of undersea telecommunications table includes a direct link with Angola and will also pass by Cape Verde according to information from the Brazilian Communications Ministry (Macauhub).

Communication is vitally important for most users, and with Facebook adding more users by the day, ForgetMeNot Africa has come up with a solution to keep the people of the remote islands of Cape Verde connected. The company launched the first Internet-free Facebook, email and online chat service for Portuguese-speaking Africans, and mobile operator T-Mais is improving its subscribers’ access to mobile internet by enabling internet messaging via SMS (IT News Africa).

TOURISM

Portuguese hotel chain Oásis Atlântico plans to open another hotel on the island of Sal. The Oásis Salinas Sea will be a five-star hotel unit with 338 rooms, and will open its doors between May and June of 2012, according to confirmations from the group’s executive administrator, Alexandre Abade, who explains that the hotel represents an investment “of close to 25 million Euros” (A Semana).

Meliá Hotels Internacional, Spain’s largest hotel chain, said it would manage a large luxury tourist resort with 850 rooms in the south of the Cape Verdean island of Boavista, on Santa Mónica beach. Known as the Meliá White Sands, the new resort will give Meliá a total of 2,500 rooms in Cape Verde when added to the Meliá Tortuga Beach Resort & Spa, which opened last May as well as two more units under construction on Sal Island: Meliá Dunas and Meliá Llana (Macauhub).

TWITTER, FACEBOOK & LINKEDIN

Atlantico Weekly is now on Facebook. Be welcome to join our group!

You can now follow Atlantico Weekly on Twitter at atlanticoweekly.

Also be welcome to join our Atlantico Weekly networking and discussion group on Linkedin.