They’ve become as much a symbol of Africa’s landscape as the stereotypical lions and plains. Discarded plastic bags — in the billions — flutter from thorn-bushes across the continent, and clog up cities from Cape Town to Casablanca. South Africa was once producing seven billion bags a year and Kenya not so long ago churned out about 4 000 tonnes of polythene bags a month.
Kenya’s main opposition coalition has split into two factions ahead of a presidential election in December, boosting President Mwai Kibaki’s chances of re-election, politicians said on Wednesday. After months of feuding between opposition presidential aspirants Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, the pair have parted ways.
The Somali government is trying to create a Baghdad-style safe ”Green Zone” in Mogadishu to protect senior officials and foreign visitors from insurgent attacks, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said on Tuesday. In an interview with Reuters, the Somali premier also accused United States-based Human Rights Watch of ”abusing” his government.
African nations have been falling over themselves to pledge support for an expanded peacekeeping mission in Sudan’s Darfur region under United Nations and African Union auspices. At least six countries have quickly promised troops. But in arguably Africa’s second biggest trouble spot, Somalia, the rush to supply Darfur has a bitter ring.
Rights group Amnesty International condemned Kenyan police on Tuesday for the execution-style killing of more than 30 people in last week’s crackdown on the deadly Mungiki gang in a Nairobi slum. Hundreds of police officers went into the Mathare shanty-town on two raids, shooting dead at least 33 people.
A blast in central Nairobi killed at least one person on Monday and police on the scene said they believed it could have been a suicide bombing. Police commissioner Hussein Ali said five or six other people were critically injured after the explosion outside the Ambassadeur hotel in the central business district.
Kenyan police faced protests on Wednesday after killing 22 people in a slum believed to be a stronghold of the Mungiki gang, branded ”agents of the devil” by a government minister. Police spokesperson Eric Kiraithe said officers had shown ”restraint” while flushing out known members of the group.
About a quarter of nearly 400 000 refugees who deserted Mogadishu during fighting earlier this year have returned to the Somali capital, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. But life in the war-scarred city was tough, with shortages of electricity and water, uncollected garbage clogging the streets and many businesses and schools shut, the agency said.
Washington and London should appoint envoys to help ensure Uganda’s government and Lord’s Resistance Army rebels do not squander their best hope for peace in 20 years, an influential think-tank said on Friday. Talks resumed in south Sudan on Thursday, with United Nations envoy Joaquim Chissano warning that if squandered, the opportunity may never return.
The carnage and suffering in Somalia may be the worst in more than a decade — but you’d hardly know it from your nightly news. For a mix of reasons, from public fatigue at another African conflict to international diplomatic divisions and frustration, a war slaughtering civilians and creating a huge refugee crisis has failed to grab world attention or stir global players.