EnglishSunday, 3 November, 2013

26ALANBAA

A career diplomat with more than 32 years of ex-perience H E Manyuped-za P Lesetedi, the Am-bassador of Botswana to Kuwait comes across as a man of immense knowl-edge and wisdom in the world of diplomacy.

Having joined the min-istry of foreign affairs in Botswana in 1981 soon after graduation, Ambas-sador Lesetedi has served in many capacities and countries during his ten-ure as a diplomat. His very first posting was in New York in the United Nations mission and after his three year stint moved on to Belgium, followed by Zimbabwe. Ambas-sador Lesetedi was also involved in the commit-tee of the peacekeeping operations in Mozam-bique and returned to the United Nations for an-other brief 2 year term.

He was then posted to China, followed by Ethi-opia and then served as director for multilateral affairs back in Botswa-na before getting his first posting as ambassador to Ethiopia in 2008. In 2010 Ambassador Le-setedi was accredited as the first non-resident Bo-tswana ambassador to Kuwait and later in 2011 became the first resident ambassador to Kuwait.

“Our relations with Kuwait are very, very good,” he emphasizes, pointing that relations with Kuwait began soon after Botswana got their independence in 1966.

UPI -- Proposals by Brazil, Germany and India to create sepa-rate networks to block U.S. spying could cause a breakup of the Inter-net, experts warn.

NSA spying, as re-vealed by former Na-tional Security Agen-cy contractor Edward Snowden, has a num-ber of countries scram-bling to protect private or commercially sensi-tive emails and phone records from U.S. and British security servic-es, experts and academ-ics said.

Such moves to encour-age regional online traf-

“We share a similar his-tory like Kuwait as we too were British protec-torates and not colonies,” he points out.

Ambassador Lesetedi stresses on the important contribution that Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic

Development (KFAED) has made to his coun-try since independence. “They have been very generous and funded so many economic projects from infrastructure to air-ports and bridges and this signifies the excel-

lent relationship between the two nations.”

KFAED’s role has been appreciated and welcomed by Ambassador Lesete-di, they have been true friends in the time of need and many projects have been successfully com-

pleted he points out. The total investments are in excess of tens of mil-lions of dollars.

“We are in the process of concluding many sec-tor specific agreements, from air services to avoid-ance of double taxation,” he stated and indicated that he was also keen to have an agreement in the area of education so that student exchanges could take place.

It is evident that Am-bassador Lesetedi is ex-erting a great amount of effort and goodwill to take the relationship for-ward. Leaving no stone unturned he says “We are also exploring an invest-ment protection agree-ment and a visa agreement for diplomatic passport holders.”

However ambassador Lesetedi feels there is plenty of room for ad-vancing this relationship and is keen to see some high level exchanges dur-ing his tenure here. “I would really like to see our leadership visit Ku-wait and vice-versa,” he pointed out.

Ambassador Lesetedi feels that there needs to be more people to people contact as this is some-thing he says is lacking. “Many Kuwaitis are not fully aware of Botswa-na, its location and also the great tourism and in-vestment potential, as an embassy we need to market ourselves and bring awareness local-ly,” he says.

Botswana gets almost a million tourists annual-ly, particularly from USA

and Europe and Africa while from the Gulf re-gion it is only marginal, hence Ambassador feels the stake holders such as tourist operators and ho-tels should get involved in promoting Botswana.

Botswana has some amazing Safaris and incredible beauty and the government is very concerned about con-servation. Hunting will not be permitted from 2014 hence beauty of the wilderness will be maintained.

Commenting on the investment potential, he says there is a huge potential that is lacking the exposure and he is working very closely with the Botswana In-vestment Trade Centre to promote investment particularly from the pri-vate sector.

Elaborating on some of the areas where the po-tential is great he points at glass manufacturing, “We have known reserves of 230 million tonnes of silicon, and also we export around 280,000 tonnes of soda ash per annum,”

Botswana is looking to diversify its economy and is heavily dependent on mining and beef ex-ports. It has been one of the largest diamond producers in the world. “Botswana can provide great access to African markets as it is a mem-ber of South African De-velopment Community (SADC) and also has a cooperation agreement with European Union and under this agree-

ment exports to EU are duty free,” Ambassador Lesetedi points out.

“Kuwait is a very nice place with a lot of diplo-matic activity,” he says. Concurrently accredited to Qatar, Ambassador Le-setedi is constantly on the move to promote Bo-tswana and build bridg-es of friendship with the entire region.

Botswana is a land-locked country situated in southern Africa. It borders South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Approximately two-thirds of the country lies within the Tropics. Botswana is a nation of stunning beauty and vastness that has un-tapped potential of natural resources and is known to have the best wilder-ness and wildlife areas on the African Continent. More than 38 percent of the total land mass is de-voted to national parks, reserves and wildlife man-agement areas.

As a nation it is one of Africa’s most stable countries and has the con-tinent’s longest continu-ous multi-party democracy and is also relatively free of corruption and has a good human rights record.

fic to be routed locally rather than through the United States are like-ly to be the first steps in a fundamental shift in the way the Internet works, with the possi-bility of hindering eco-nomic growth, they said.

Following reports on the scale of U.S. sur-veillance, Brazil’s gov-ernment has announced plans to promote its own networking technology, encourage regional in-ternet traffic to be rout-ed locally and set up a secure national email service.

“States may have few other options than to fol-

low in Brazil’s path,” Ian Brown from the Oxford Internet Institute told The Guardian. “This would be expensive, and likely to reduce the rapid rate of innovation that has driven the development of the Internet to date ... But if states cannot trust that their citizens’ personal data -- as well as sensitive commercial and government infor-mation -- will not oth-erwise be swept up in giant surveillance op-erations, this may be a price they are willing to pay.”

Revelations of U.S. spying were pushing the

Internet toward a tipping point that could hugely affect how online com-munications work, one analyst said.

“We are certainly get-ting pushed towards this cliff and it is a cliff we do not want to go over because if we go over it, I don’t see how we stop,” said Daniel Cas-tro, a senior analyst at the Information Tech-nology & Innovation Foundation in Wash-ington. “It is like a run on the bank -- the sys-tem we have now works unless everyone decides it doesn’t work, then the whole thing collapses.”

Botswana: Building on stability and prosperity

H E Manyupedza P Lesetedi

Responses to U.S. spying could change structure of the Internet

Staff Report

Cyberspace

(in association with “The Times, Kuwait”)

KUWAIT 31 OCTOBER 2013: EY announces that it will be a platinum sponsor for the “E-Government Fo-rum: Recent Trends, Secu-rity Risks, and Implementa-tion Challenges” which will be held from 11-13 November in Kuwait. The Forum will host business professionals from international companies and government officials.

Held under the patronage

of his highness Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah the Prime Minister of the State of Kuwait, the Forum will be managed by the Central Agen-cy for Information Technology (CAIT) that is mandated with developing the e-government program in Kuwait.

Raoul Savastano, Partner, Advisory, EY Kuwait along with Christoph Capellaro Di-rector, Advisory EY Kuwait

will speak about Business con-tinuity at the Forum. Ken Al-len, Advisory, EY UK will unveil EY’s Global Informa-tion Security Survey results. Senior executives from EY Kuwait will also contribute to the discussion on ‘E-gov-ernment security challenges and Information & Commu-nications Security solutions and trends.’

Commenting on EY’s spon-

sorship Waleed Al-Osaimi said: “We are very proud to be a part of this Forum. Our sponsorship demonstrates our committed support to help develop and progress national information and communication security in Kuwait. It is crucial to con-tinually enhance operating and security systems and our ex-pertise in this field will help to contribute to the progres-sion of Kuwait’s communi-

cation systems.”The Forum comes at a time

where CAIT launched the sec-ond phase of the Kuwait gov-ernment online (KGO) project. KGO represents the official portal of the State of Kuwait and this new phase is aimed at the development of inte-grated e-services which set Kuwait at par with advanced countries in the e-government readiness index.

EY : a platinum sponsor for the “E-Government Forum

Mr. Waleed Al-Osaimi

Press Release