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/ 18 September 2004
Sudan has pledged to stick to the terms of an oft-violated ceasefire agreement for its civil-war wracked Darfur region and said it will allow humanitarian agencies unfettered access to the area where tens of thousands have died. African Union-hosted peace talks in Nigeria collapsed without agreement on Wednesday.
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/ 15 September 2004
One of two rebel movements engaged in peace talks with Sudan’s government, mediated by the African Union, said on Wednesday the negotiations over the Darfur region have collapsed and could be suspended for weeks. The AU-mediated talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, are a bid to end the conflict that erupted in west Sudan in 2003.
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/ 9 September 2004
African Union-sponsored talks on the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region hit another hurdle on Wednesday as the Khartoum government rejected a draft protocol on the key issues of security and disarmament. ”This draft, the way it had been prepared, contradicts obligations that we have already undertaken,” said Sudan’s deputy foreign affairs minister Najeib Abdelwahab.
UN urged to act on Sudan
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/ 6 September 2004
Peace talks between Darfur’s rebel groups and the Sudanese government were stalled on Monday over the issue of disarmament, as an African Union-brokered conference entered its third week, AU officials said. ”The two sides are sticking to their hardline positions,” said the commander of the AU ceasefire monitoring team in Darfur.
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/ 1 September 2004
Sudan’s government and its rebel foes returned to the negotiating table on Tuesday as African Union-led attempts to reach a deal on ending Darfur’s humanitarian crisis were overshadowed by kidnapping claims. As delegates to the African Union peace conference in Abuja held their eighth day of talks, they had yet to reach agreement on the first agenda item: how to ensure the safety of the Darfur region’s 1,2-million displaced people.
A 155-strong company of Nigerian infantrymen arrived at Abuja aiport on Monday, ready to depart to the war-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur as part of an African Union force protecting ceasefire monitors. ”You are going to Sudan purely to assist our brothers and sisters in restoring a hope that is fast diminishing in them,” said Brigadier General Shekari Biliyak.
Sudan’s government on Thursday defiantly dismissed a United Nations deadline for it to disarm its proxy militia in the Darfur region, insisting it would resolve the conflict there through ongoing African Union peace talks. On the fourth day of talks between the government and Darfur’s rebel groups, the parties put a row over disarmament to one side in order to decide how to tackle a mounting humanitarian crisis in the western region.
The Nigerian senate has ordered Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to pay ,5-billion compensation for damages caused by nearly 60 years of exploration in the Niger
Delta. The senate adopted the Bill which ordered the payment to members of the Ijaws ethnic group ”for the severe health hazards, economic hardship, injurious affection, avoidable deaths and sundry maladies” resulting from oil spills at Shell facilities.
A senior Sudanese official has rejected any immediate wider role for African Union troops in its troubled Darfur region, saying security in the western region was the responsibility of Sudanese forces. Sudan’s Agriculture Minister Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmad on Monday dismissed a proposal by the African Union to send nearly 2 000 peacekeepers to the area.
A people without hope in Sudan
Talks between the Sudanese government and two rebel groups from the western Darfur region began on Monday in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, as the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw travelled to Sudan for talks with the government in Khartoum. Few details regarding the agenda of the talks were made public.
Nigeria’s external debt stood at ,92-billion at the end of last year, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told a news conference in Abuja on Tuesday. Nigeria owes ,47-billion dollars, 83,45% of its total debt, to the Paris Club of creditor nations, ,04-billion to multilateral institutions and ,44-billion to the London Club.
Former Liberian leader Charles Taylor failed to attend a court hearing on Monday to defend himself against a bid by two Nigerian amputees to force their government to hand him over to international justice. The amputees allege that Taylor had a role in their ordeal and have asked for a judicial review of Nigeria’s decision to grant him political asylum.
The president of the Africa Business Roundtable, Nigeria’s Bamanga Tukur, on Friday urged countries in West Africa to take every step to ensure the region adopts a common currency, the eco, by next July. Speaking in Abuja, he said the first step will be to surmount challenges that have stood against their bid for a united and stronger region.
The leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda pulled their countries back from the brink of war on Friday when they agreed at a crisis summit in Nigeria to respect a peace accord signed in 2002. Kabila and Kagame held five hours of talks to try to defuse rising tensions between them.
Nigeria is to spend -million this year to launch its second satellite, NigeriaSat II, Minister of Science and Technology Turner Isoun said on Thursday. ”We are satisfied with the performance of NigeriaSat I and were encouraged to go a step further,” the minister said.
Gyude Bryant, head of Liberia’s transitional government, said on Tuesday in Abuja, Nigeria, that Liberians have resolved ”never to go to war again”. Bryant, who arrived on Tuesday for a two-day visit, said that his countrymen are in agreement that there should be no more war if Liberia is to overcome its war-weary past.
Nigeria has launched an investigation into claims that a large number of military officers have been canvassing support for a coup d’état in the oil-exporting West African giant, officials said on Friday. They played down fears that Africa’s most populous country was at risk of its sixth military takeover since 1966.
Nigeria said on Monday that it was looking for ways to ”decongest” the death row sections of its jails, where 458 prisoners are awaiting execution, some of them for more than 20 years.
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/ 23 February 2004
A Nigerian judge refused to grant bail on Monday to three suspects charged with masterminding a -million fraud and then trying to bribe investigators to drop the case against them. The three suspects face 86 charges relating to the biggest alleged case to date of ”419 fraud”, a crime for which Nigeria has become notorious.
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/ 6 February 2004
Five alleged perpetrators of the world’s biggest advance-fee fraud scam were taken before a Nigerian High Court on Thursday charged with 86 counts of duping a Brazilian bank out of -million. Emmanuel Nwude, former director of Union Bank, a top-rated bank in Nigeria, led the accused, who all pleaded not guilty.
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/ 26 January 2004
Nigeria’s government and trade unions took their battle over a controversial fuel tax back to court on Monday, five days after labour leaders suspended plans to launch a crippling general strike over the levy. The case has become a key battle for President Olusegun Obasanjo as he strives to push through wide-ranging economic reforms.
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/ 8 December 2003
While Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was basking in the international spotlight as host of the Commonwealth summit, his impoverished countrymen were angrily demanding to know what was in it for them.
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/ 5 December 2003
A special edition of a newspaper banned by the government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe hit the newsstands in Nigeria on Friday as Commonwealth leaders were debating how to handle the Zimbabwe crisis. "The voices Mugabe wants to silence," shouted the front-page headline of <i>The Daily News</i>.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=24517">Summit opens under Zim cloud</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=24516">’Trade barriers should go'</a>
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/ 5 December 2003
Tackling poverty and lifting barriers to free trade are central to combating the spread of global terrorism, leaders at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Nigeria said on Friday. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said said it is crucial to end the ”debilitating effect of trade barriers”.
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/ 5 December 2003
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II called on Commonwealth leaders to fight poverty and build peace, as she opened a summit of the 54-nation grouping on Friday that is likely to focus on its rift over Zimbabwe. "Your decisions can make a real difference to people’s lives," the queen said.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=24516">’Trade barriers should go'</a>
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/ 5 December 2003
Tony Blair pledged on Thursday to stand firm against Zimbabwe at the Commonwealth summit which starts on Friday in the Nigerian city of Abuja. The opening session was expected be dominated by a dispute about the suspension of Robert Mugabe’s regime from the organisation.
IMF to expel Zimbabwe
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/ 4 December 2003
Commonwealth leaders will try to find a way to resolve their dispute over the suspension of Zimbabwe from the 54-member grouping but do not want the issue to dominate their summit, the body’s secretary general said on Thursday. Don McKinnon said ministers will meet to review Zimbabwe’s progress.
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/ 4 December 2003
British Prime Minister Tony Blair headed to a summit of Britain and its former colonies on Thursday with a message that Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe has yet to earn reinstatement to the bloc — while two African leaders pledged to campaign for Mugabe’s return.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=24441">Zim won’t ‘dominate’ Abuja meeting</a>
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/ 4 December 2003
The 52 leaders of the Commonwealth of Nations are to meet on Friday in Abuja for a summit designed to promote democracy and development but overshadowed by the threat of a north-south split over Zimbabwe.
Cold comfort for Mugabe’s ‘zombies’
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/ 2 December 2003
A major international human rights group on Tuesday accused the Nigerian government, the host of this week’s Commonwealth summit, of using violence and intimidation to silence its critics. Human Rights Watch accused the 54-nation global body of hypocrisy in honouring the Nigerian regime while excluding President Robert Mugabe.
Nigeria on Monday named a high-powered team to prepare for a state visit by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, amid reports that al-Qaeda may be plotting an attack against her. The queen is due to visit Nigeria in December, when she will open a Commonwealth summit in Abuja and visit the commercial capital Lagos.