Southern African leaders on Thursday began an emergency summit to discuss the deepening crisis in Zimbabwe. Host Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, who met with Robert Mugabe after his arrival on Wednesday night, said the meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) would not put pressure on the embattled Zimbabwean president.
Southern African leaders were gathering in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Wednesday for an extraordinary summit on economic and political regional woes spurred by crises in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The two-day summit of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) comes amid a growing global outcry over turmoil in Zimbabwe.
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/ 15 November 2006
Kenya on Wednesday appealed for aid to help hundreds of thousands of people hit by devastating and deadly floods across the country, triggered by unusually heavy seasonal rains. As rains continued to pound north and coastal Kenya, authorities made a national appeal for almost -million to help about 300Â 000 people who are affected by the floods, which have so far killed 23 people.
Recent brief but heavy rains in drought-hit parts of Kenya threaten to worsen the already fragile food situation, with flooding displacing thousands. British charity Oxfam International and the Kenya Red Cross Society said the rains will not end the drought and that an urgent boost in the humanitarian aid was still critical to avert disaster.
Kenyan authorities simulated a major plane crash at Nairobi’s main airport on Thursday, causing confusion after international reports that a serious accident had occurred. The exercise — plans for which had been announced last month — was aimed at giving emergency workers experience in dealing with a large-scale disaster, but officials gave initial conflicting reports about the alleged accident.
"This is war too," murmurs an ex-child soldier in southern Sudan, stone-faced and staring blankly at a placard reading: "Let all children go to school … Leave no child behind." A year after the end of two decades of fighting with regimes in Khartoum in a conflict that claimed 1,5-million lives and displaced four million people, south Sudan has declared war on illiteracy.
East African leaders on Monday called for a combined regional effort to combat a searing drought that has put millions of people on the verge of starvation. The outgoing Inter-Governmental Authority on Development chairperson, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, called for insurance for people affected by famine.
Kenyan police silenced the country’s second-biggest media group early on Thursday, closing its television station and burning its newspapers, after it reported that President Mwai Kibaki had held secret talks with a political opponent, witnesses said. Hooded officers carrying AK-47 rifles stormed the group’s headquarters.
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/ 16 February 2006
At least seven people have died of dehydration in Somalia over the past month as severe water shortages from a killer regional drought force many to drink their own urine. Oxfam International said communities in southern and central Somalia were living in searing 40°C heat with only three glasses of water a day per person for drinking, washing and cooking.
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/ 26 January 2006
Rescuers suspended work at the site of a collapsed building in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, on Thursday as officials conceded there was virtually no chance of finding any more survivors and an Israeli military team that had been leading the effort prepared to leave.