Sudan ships first export of ethanol

KHARTOUM — Sudan, angling to become Africa's leading exporter of ethanol, has sent out its first shipment of the bio-fuel to the Netherlands, an official with the state-owned Kenana company said on Monday.

"The first cargo of five million litres of ethanol was exported yesterday. It left for Rotterdam and is intended for the European Union," said Kenana sales manager Majdi Hassan.

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir announced last year that the company, which produces sugar and molasses, would oversee a project to lead Africa in bio-fuel production.

The price of the shipment was 3.3 million dollars (2.29 million euros), at 660 dollars a cubic metre, but the price of further shipments would vary depending on the market, Hassan said.

Kenana's plant, located in the White Nile State south of Khartoum, was built by the Brazilian ethanol supplier Dedini.

Hassan said negotiations were ongoing with European companies for the sale of Sudanese ethanol.

It can produce 65 million litres a year, with plans to increase production to 200 million litres a year by 2012, Hassan said.

Source:AFP

NZ, Netherlands protest start of whaling season

New Zealand Australia and the Netherlands have issued a joint statement, calling for "responsible behaviour" as Japan begins its whaling season in Antarctica.

The joint communique said the three nations remained "resolute in our opposition to the so-called scientific whaling" but condemned "dangerous or violent activities" by whalers and protesters.

"The Southern Ocean is a remote and inhospitable region where the risk of adverse incidents is high and the capacity for rescue or assistance is low. Our Governments jointly call upon all parties to exercise restraint and to ensure that safety at sea is the highest priority," the communique said.

The statement, issued by Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully, said the three countries would be using diplomacy and the International Whaling Commission to fight for whale conservation.

The Japanese whaling fleet has recently left Japan for the Southern Ocean while the protest group, the Sea Shepherd, set sail in the Steve Irwin from Australia yesterday.

Greenpeace is not sending a vessel to the Southern Ocean.

Greenpeace New Zealand oceans campaigner Karli Thomas said the organisation will be campaigning for an end to whaling in Japan by taking a case to the Japanese Supreme Court.

Source:nzherald.co.nz/

Surprise Seed: The Netherlands Beats out France

FIFA has announced the seeds for Friday's World Cup draw, again changing the seeding formula days before the draw.

In 2002, FIFA used a formula which assigned weights to the two preceding World Cup finishes and theprevious three years' FIFA World Rankings. In 2006, FIFA adjusted those weights in response to (what would eventually be conceded as a) flawed world ranking system. For example, the Czech Republic was number two in the world at the time of the draw.

Had that formula been in place this cycle, the eight seeds would have been South Africa (as the hosts), Brazil, Germany, Italy, Spain, England, France and Argentina.

Today, FIFA announced France would not be seeded. Instead, the Netherlands - ranked third in the world but having failed to qualify for the 2002 World Cup - received a seed.

How did that happen? FIFA again changed the seeding formula. The questions: What is the new formula, and why the change?



FIFA decided to use the October 2009 World Rankings, completely discarding the use of previous World Cup results.

This can be seen as a hat-tip to a ranking system that has improved since 2006, yet it is still a system that is too flawed to be used as the sole input. There seems to be a regional bias to the ranking that sees half of the world's top 50 teams coming from the UEFA (Europe) region.

The other side of that bent coin: With the exception of Australia (who were not part of AFC until this qualifying cycle), no Asian confederation team is ranked above Japan's 43rd despite South Korea finishing fourth and seventeenth in the preceding World Cups and not losing in 2010 qualifying.

Even more curious: FIFA used the October 2009 rankings. They passed over November's rankings, and they didn't (as of this posting) issue an early edition of the December rankings.

The apparent logic: Use the teams' stature at the end of World Cup qualifying-proper, implicitly saying that no team should benefit from wins accrued in the November playoffs.

That makes sense, but it also means that the World Cup playoffs from 2005 are considered but the 2005 World Cup qualifying-proper is not. The FIFA rankings consider four years worth of data.

Few will argue that the Dutch are unworthy of consideration amongst the top seven sides in the world, but the timing of the decision reaffirms suspicions that FIFA would decide on whatever seeding formula served their needs, as it concerns the seeds. This is why FIFA does not release a seeding formula before the seed announcement, allowing the organization to (for the second World Cup in a row) tailor their criteria to serve their ends. We also saw this in UEFA qualifying, where a late decision to seed the top-four-rated playoff qualifiers drew the ire of small nations who thought the draw would be random.

Why was France - the 1998 champions and 2006 runners-up - effectively dropped? Out of fairness to the Dutch, who were unseeded in 2006 despite being ranked third in the world in November 2005? More likely, FIFA saw seeding France as untenable after L'Affaire Henry.

The same day France lost its World Cup seed, FIFA's disciplinary committee announced it would be investigating Thierry Henry's handball against France.

The good news: FIFA tried to do what it thought was best for the sport. The bad news: FIFA cooked the seeds and seemed always intent on doing so.

Lucky for FIFA those October 2009 rankings worked out so nicely for this draw, right?

Source: worldsoccerdigest.com/