NO PEACE IN BRAZZAVILLE HEAVY weapons fire continued in the Congolese capital Brazzaville on Thursday. On Wednesday, the head of the national mediation committee, Brazzaville mayor Bernard Kolelas, indefinitely postponed political talks to seek a negotiated solution to the crisis after former strongman Denis Sassou Nguesso refused to attend. According to Sassou Nguesso’s spokesman Francois Ibovi, the former president will not join talks unless President Pascal Lissouba himself signs a formal ceasefire, and not Prime Minister Charles David Ganao as Lissouba has suggested.
6 000 FLEE ANGOLA FIGHTING MORE than 6 000 people have fled fighting in north-eastern Angola to the small diamond mining city of Nzaji, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday, warning of food shortages in the area. Hundreds of other displaced people are in the countryside and hope to reach Nzaji, the UN agency added. The WFP has supplied 107 tons of food and seven tons of used clothing to refugees in north-eastern Angola since June, the agency said.
MAYOR FLEES THE mayor of Secunda, a town in Mpumalanga which has cut electricity to non-paying residents, had to flee an enraged mob on Tuesday night which petrol bombed his house, then attempted to murder him.