Barry Moody
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/ 21 April 2007

Nigeria votes amid fears of violence

Nigeria votes on Saturday in a presidential election beset by fears that abuses and violence will wreck a milestone in African democracy. Concern that Nigeria’s first handover from one civilian leader to another would be compromised was underlined only hours before the vote when militants attacked government buildings in Nigeria’s oil region with dynamite and assault rifles.

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/ 12 February 2007

Brutal gun attacks cause alarm in Kenya

A 79-year-old American missionary and her daughter, the wife of a United States diplomat, are cut down by automatic gunfire on the edge of town. A top Kenyan HIV scientist and two other people, one on crutches, are killed when teenage gunmen indiscriminately spray vehicles on a highway with AK-47 fire. Baghdad? Mogadishu? No, Nairobi, capital of East Africa’s richest economy.

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/ 30 January 2007

AU works to raise troops for Somalia

An African Union summit on Tuesday discussed raising thousands more troops for a peacekeeping force in Somalia after defusing a potentially damaging row over Sudan. The force, essential to avoid a dangerous vacuum when Ethiopian troops leave Somalia within weeks, needs 4 000 more troops to bring it up to projected strength of almost 8 000.

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/ 7 December 2006

Madagascar stays poor despite resources

Major oil companies are scrambling for oil off the shores of Madagascar, which has rich mineral reserves and huge quantities of gemstones, including an estimated 70% of the world’s sapphires. The former French colony is the world’s biggest exporter of vanilla and occupies a strategic position off the volatile African coast, 400km to the west.

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/ 29 October 2006

Confused in Johannesburg? Is this Africa?

Landing in Johannesburg from anywhere else in Africa can be a deeply disorienting experience, no matter how many times you do it. In fact the contrasts are so great, you can end up wondering if you are still in Africa at all. Confusion sets in as soon as you head into town along a network of fine roads that would put London to shame.