The Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde convicted recently by a French court for negligence is in Cameroon for the December 23rd emergency meeting of heads of state of the CEMAC countries. President Biya received Mrs Lagarde for nearly one hour before the start of the meeting and explained in his opening remarks that he had considered it useful to invite the IMF boss.

Christine Lagarde is expected to make valuable contributions and provide useful insights into the IMF’s perception of the economic problems of the Sub region.  Several African countries have recently sought support from the IMF. Benin is currently under discussion for a precautionary facility, Côte d’Ivoire, despite its strong growth has reached an agreement with the institution to contain the exogenous shocks, Egypt got $ 12 billion and Mozambique has reportedly reopened discussions with the international financial establishment.

However, the IMF direction does not seem to be popular in the opinion of all the leaders of the Sub Saharan region. The CEMAC heads of state are more favorable to the implementation of an endogenous strategy within the framework of the Program of the economic, monetary and financial reforms.

By Sonne Peter

A court in France has found Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), guilty of negligence over a massive state payout that she made to a business tycoon in 2008, but exempted her from any penalty.

The ruling was made on Monday after the French Court of Justice of the Republic, a special body that tries ministers for wrongdoing while in office, convicted Lagarde of negligence that paved the way for the payment of 404 million euros (445 million dollars) in compensation to Bernard Tapie, the former owner of sportswear giant, Adidas.

The Paris court censured Lagarde for failing to contest the “colossal” payment, but spared her a fine or prison sentence. Lagarde’s lawyer welcomed the verdict and said he “would have preferred that she be simply cleared.” Patrick Maisonneuve said, “Since Madame Lagarde was not sentenced, I wonder about whether to appeal or not to the highest court.”

Presstv

Beijing’s city government has ordered 1,200 factories around the Chinese capital to either shut down or reduce production in a bid to avert another “airpocalypse,” conditions where air pollution reaches unprecedented levels.

In a statement released on Saturday, the local government said an oil refinery run by the state oil giant Sinopec and a Cofco food plant, were among 500 companies required to cut output. Some 700 other firms were also ordered to suspend activities altogether.

Environmental authorities also issued a red alert that started on Friday night and will run until Wednesday amid warnings of a new round of haze shrouding different cities in northern Chinese.

The red alert, which is the highest level of a four-tier warning system, orders curbs on traffic and construction work as well as advisories for schools, hospitals and businesses in the mega city.

It is issued when the air quality index (AQI) is forecast to break 200 for over four days in succession, exceed 300 for more than two days or exceed 500 for at least 24 hours.

Presstv

Russian officials say Moscow is working on an ambitious plan to establish a joint Islamic bank with Iran – a move that can not only help promote their banking ties but also provide them with a wide banking network of Muslim countries.

The announcement was made by Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak who visited Tehran earlier this week for talks on expansion of mutual cooperation in a variety of areas. “The creation of a Russian-Iranian Islamic bank was discussed. Our banks are exploring the mechanism, the related decision has not been made yet,” Novak was quoted by the media as saying at a bilateral meeting held in Tehran.

No timeframe or potential size was given for the proposed bank, which would be the first such institution operating in the two countries, Reuters wrote in a report on the move. State-linked Russian lenders Vnesheconombank, Sberbank and Tatfondbank have been developing Islamic financial products of their own over the past year, it added.

Iran is keen to diversify funding options for its companies. At present, most financing in Iran is sourced from domestic lenders with only a small portion sourced from foreign sources and the debt capital markets. Other reports by Iran’s domestic media emphasized that Tehran and Moscow were moving close to a scheme to ditch the dollar and trade in their own local currencies.

Iran’s Persian-language newspaper Aftab-e Yazd quoted Deputy Director of International Cooperation and Public Communications Department of the Russian Central Bank Andrey Melnikov as saying that Iran and Russia were preparing for on trade in national currencies at the Moscow Exchange.

“There are issues requiring further consideration. There is no doubt [that] it is positive that [Russian and Iranian] central banks are reviewing them. This and the present project on currency pair trading of the [Russian] ruble and [Iranian] rial will significantly increase the [volumes of] using the national currencies for mutual settlement in case there is demand for these currencies,” Melnikov was quoted as saying in a report that was also carried by Sputnik news agencies.

Presstv

The trial of Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has reached a new boiling point as the former French finance minister has been forced by court to clarify a “colossal” payout she made in 2008 to a business tycoon.

Presiding Judge Martine Ract Madoux asked Lagarde on the second day of her trial on Tuesday to explain justifications behind the payout of 45 million euros ($48 million) to Bernard Tapie as part of a settlement with the former owner of sportswear giant, Adidas.

The judge said the figure was “colossal” and much higher than a normal payout meant to compensate plaintiffs over moral damages. “The heart of this case are the moral damages of 45 million euros, even though… moral damages for the death of a child are between 30,000 and 50,000 euros. Ultimately, it’s a colossal figure,” said Ract Madoux.

Lagarde ordered the payout one year after she became finance minister under France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy. The IMF managing director sought to settle through arbitration the dispute with Tapie over the purchase of Adidas in 1993 by a state-owned bank. However, many say Tapie had benefited from his personal links to Sarkozy during arbitration as he finally managed to walk away with 404 million euros as settlement. The former minister, who is currently 73, was later ordered by a court to repay the money.

Lagarde has been charged with negligence in the settlement case. She said during the trial on Tuesday that her questioning over the figure would not have altered the case. However, the judge argued that Lagarde should have reacted to the entire process at the time as the figure was like a “punch in the stomach.” Lagarde, the third IMF chief to face trial, could receive a maximum one-year prison sentence and a 15,000-euro ($15,900) fine if found guilty.

Presstv

A report entitled “From conflict to illegality: Cartography of the diamond trade of the Central African Republic in Cameroon”, made public on Friday in Canada, accused the Biya regime of creating a hub in Cameroon for the Central African diamonds gotten through smuggling.

According to the report, Cameroon consistently allows diamonds from the Central African Republic to cross its borders and penetrate the legal supply chain. The report pointed out that the porosity of Cameroon’s border coupled with deliberate inefficient police controls, contraband smuggling and corruption, explained the presence in Cameroon of diamonds from other neighboring countries including the Central African Republic, CAR.

The survey carried out by Partnership Africa Canada, showed how conflict diamonds in the CAR branded as “blood diamonds” still have entry points to the international markets via Cameroon. “While the international outcry over the blood diamonds financing the war in the Central African Republic triggered an action to stop the trade, the same spotlight was not turned on the neighbors of the CAR,” said Joanne Lebert, Executive Director of Partnership Africa Canada.

Field interviews with miners, traders and exporters detailed the smuggling of diamond from the Central African Republic on the 900-km border with Cameroon, corruption between officials responsible for verifying the origin of diamonds and large deliveries of undeclared blocked conflict diamonds, the report said.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that exports of diamonds from the Central African Republic were the subject of an international embargo after a coup in 2013. However, when President Biya had his man, the late General Tumenta in Bangui, Diamonds sold on the international markets from the CAR were stamped “as originating from Cameroon and Kimberley Process Certificates were issued certifying their status as a country without conflict, allowing them to be exported to the international markets.

By Chi Prudence Asong