Voting began on Saturday in Nigeria’s landmark presidential elections, hours after a failed attempt to blow up the electoral commission marred hopes of a trouble-free poll in the first post-colonial transfer of power between two civilian presidents. Private vehicles were warned to keep off roads in Lagos and heavily armed troops threw up roadblocks on key thoroughfares.
No image available
/ 19 February 2007
Three Croatians have become the latest foreigners to be kidnapped at gunpoint in Nigeria’s oil capital of Port Harcourt, industry sources said on Monday. Gunmen abducted the three late on Sunday, reportedly as they were out drinking in the city now notorious for the dozens of foreigners who have been seized in recent months.
In a remote corner of southern Rwanda, Twa pygmies are fighting a losing battle against the modern realities of environmentalism that are robbing them of their traditions. They have been forced to abandon their centuries-old hunter-gatherer lifestyle by a ban on such activity in the dense Nyungwe rainforest.
Huddled in a draughty football stadium, about 2Â 000 Rwandans braved hours of torrential rain to watch the screening of the latest movie on their country’s 1994 genocide, Shooting Dogs. Survivors were in the audience at the film’s Rwanda premiere, braving their own memories more than a decade after hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in a 100-day bloodbath.
As King Kong trampled the holiday-season box office last week, Rwanda quietly remembered United States primatologist Dian Fossey, who put the film ape’s inspiration, the mountain gorilla, on the map and most likely saved it from extinction. Fossey’s legacy still looms large in the inhospitable Virunga Mountains where many of the world’s remaining 700 mountain gorillas live.
No image available
/ 26 December 2005
With new hotels springing up and existing ones getting makeovers, Rwanda is trying to shake off once and for all its image as a land of state-sponsored killing and rivers of blood to draw larger numbers of well-heeled tourists to enjoy its scenery and rare wildlife.
No image available
/ 20 December 2005
Pygmies in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hope their country’s future Constitution will lead to improved living standards and security in their region. ”Everyone in our community voted” in a constitutional referendum held on Sunday and Monday, said Seseti Wiongwa, a Bambuti pygmy.
African Union leaders on Monday called on their fellow African nations to present a united front in their dealings with the rest of the world, and exhorted the rich nations of the planet to make good on their promises to help the world’s least-developed continent climb out of poverty.
No image available
/ 28 February 2005
A dangerous humanitarian crisis is looming in the Democratic Republic of Congo with sharply increasing unrest in the Ituri region where nine United Nations soldiers were killed on Friday, the UN warned. Observers say attempts to block the disarming of local rebels could jeopardise the transitional process designed to bring peace to the vast central African state.
No image available
/ 20 December 2004
New fighting was reported on Sunday between the army and mutineers in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as the military said clashes in the area had killed at least 14 earlier in the week. United Nations and rebel sources said new battles took place after three days of calm north of Kanyabayonga.