Ragged children sang and an elderly woman beamed toothlessly for the cameras as a convoy of French special forces rolled slowly through the Bunia suburb of Nyakasanza, the sun sparkling on their submachine guns.
South Africa said on Sunday it will provide troops for the international peacekeeping force set to deploy in turbulent northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where ethnic violence has killed hundreds in recent weeks.
Bunia: Where are the French?
Brazzaville does not make the news very often. Its main problems — civil war, crushing poverty, corruption, Aids — are those of its country’s bigger and better-known neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo, but sitting on the border between West and Central Africa, Brazzaville enjoys the culture of both
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/ 14 February 2003
Guinea is one of the poorest, most isolated countries. Its seven million people live on about a year for an average of 40 years. Now, by a quirk of international relations, the country is charged with deciding the fate of another suffering people.
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/ 10 February 2003
The French foreign legionnaires reach a blind spot in the red earth track, halt, and drop silently as cats into western Ivory Coast’s tangled bush. They crouch there, listening. But nothing stirs except chattering insects and startled birds.
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/ 22 January 2003
Both sides in Côte d’Ivoire’s four-month civil war said they believed peace talks that started this week could end the conflict.. ”I am optimistic. I think we will find solutions and what we hope is that everyone is flexible so that we arrive at a negotiated political solution,” said Guillaume Soro.
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/ 18 January 2003
Thousands of children are being smuggled into Europe from war-ravaged Somalia every year, with Britain the most popular destination, according to a UN report released yesterday.
For a man charged with leading a government of more than 10 discordant parties and several former ministers with questionable pasts, Kenya’s president-elect, Mwai Kibaki, made a feeble impression this week.
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/ 19 November 2002
Uhuru Kenyatta owes a lot to his name. Less than a year after entering politics, the 42-year-old son of Kenya’s founding father will fight the presidential election next month for the party that has ruled for almost 40 years. On the campaign trail one can see the power of the name.
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/ 6 November 2002
The World Food Programme made a renewed plea to the over-stretched aid community this week for funds to feed up to 14-million people facing starvation in the Horn of Africa. It was the agency’s fourth appeal this month setting the plight of the Horn against that of Southern Africa.