Addis Ababa

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Friday the time for excuses regarding Africa was over, adding that the continent must be pushed to the top of the world’s agenda. As he left Ethiopia after the opening of the British-sponsored Commission for Africa, set up to reverse the continent’s fortunes, Blair charged that now was the time for action.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned on Thursday that poverty and instability in Africa are providing a fertile breeding ground for terror and criminal organisations.
Addressing the second meeting of a commission he set up to develop ways of helping Africa, Blair called for ”international attention to be turned into international action” in a bid to address the scale of the crisis facing the continent.

Ethiopia and Eritrea — two of the world’s poorest countries — are paying ”a big price” for failing to resolve a simmering border dispute, a United Nations envoy said on Wednesday. Lloyd Axworthy, the UN Secretary General’s special envoy to Ethiopia and Eritrea, said his staff are trying to determine how much the ongoing dispute has cost the two countries.

The Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU) will meet on Monday to discuss the deployment of an African peacekeeping force in the Darfur region of western Sudan. ”We expect to make a decision today [Monday]” whether to transform a 300-strong ceasefire observer mission in Darfur into a peacekeeping force, said Sam Ibok, AU’s director for peace and security department.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) plans to provide anti-retroviral drugs to 150 000 Aids patients in Ethiopia by 2005. The distribution of the drugs comes under the WHO’s ”3 by 5” initiative, which plans to provide such drugs to three million patients affected by the disease in poor countries by 2005.

The African Union was on Wednesday set to suppress one of its own reports critical of Zimbabwe’s human rights record, in the wake of protests about procedure and claims that the two-year-old assessment was ”smuggled” on to the agenda of this weeks AU summit.

South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki and his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo were among the first leaders to arrive at the conference centre where the third ordinary session of the assembly of the African Union is taking place. A brass band from the Ethiopian police force and a traditional Ethiopian band welcomed delegates on a wet and rainy Tuesday morning.

Burkina Faso warned on Monday it would shoot down planes violating its airspace, as neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire denied veiled charges that its planes had committed any violations. ”We want the region to be peaceful and if the planes that overfly our territory, without authorisation, and which haven’t been announced continue, we will shoot them down,” said Burkinabe Foreign Minister Youssouf Ouedraogo.

The African Union’s (AU) executive council has given the go-ahead for a common African position on the controversial issue of human cloning to be drawn up. The South African government proposed to the fifth ordinary session of the council that a common African position be presented to the international convention against the reproductive cloning of human beings.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed on Monday for a green revolution in Africa, telling a conference in Addis Ababa that ending the continent’s chronic hunger crisis was possible given the right strategies and political will. Nearly a third of all men, women and children in sub-Saharan Africa are severely malnourished.

The pan-continental African Union on Tuesday launched a new Peace and Security Council, which it hopes will become a robust guarantor of stability in Africa, much like the United Nations Security Council. ”It is with joy, pride and great honour that I solemnly declare the Peace and Security Council of the African Union formally launched,” said Mozambique’s President Joaquim Chissano.

The African Union (AU) on Friday welcomed a ceasefire deal reached by Khartoum and rebels from the western Darfur region and urged the international community to deliver aid to some 770 000 people affected by the conflict. The war has claimed at least 10 000 lives and displaced about 670 000 others inside Sudan and a further 100 000 have fled into eastern Chad.

The pan-African Parliament on Friday elected four vice-presidents representing the continent’s regions, following the election a day earlier of Tanzanian Gertrude Mongella as president of the new assembly.

Pharmacist Sudhir Sathe stands by an idle production line. By now, he says, desperately needed anti-retrovirals for 70 000 Aids patients a month could be rolling off the gleaming conveyor belt. ”We do not need to state the urgency of getting these drugs out,” said Sathe, who has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 27 years. ”We are frustrated.”

United Nations Special Envoy Lloyd Axworthy expressed disappointment on Monday after failing to visit Eritrea at the start of his peacekeeping mission. He described Eritrea as the ”missing voice” in his efforts to overcome the stalled three-year peace process between it and neighbouring Ethiopia.

The United Nations special envoy for Eritrea and Ethiopia, Lloyd Axworthy, said on Thursday that Asmara had shown reservation to his visit, but vowed to continue his efforts to resolve the border dispute between the two states. ”The Eritrean president is showing reservation to my mission, but I am used to doors being slammed on my face,” said Axworthy.

Nearly 200 people have been killed in a fresh outbreak of ethnic violence in a remote part of southwestern Ethiopia. A government statement said 196 people were killed and 25 injured in clashes between the Anuaks and other ethnic groups in the Dima district of Gambella state.