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/ 5 February 2008
Negotiations to address Zimbabwe’s political crisis were no longer needed as it was only procedural issues that remained to be solved, South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday.
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/ 5 February 2008
The United Nations Security Council on Monday unanimously condemned the rebel attacks in Chad and urged world support for the embattled government as the insurgents threatened a new assault on the capital. A statement drafted by France, Chad’s former colonial ruler, "strongly condemns these attacks and all attempts at destabilisation by force".
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/ 4 February 2008
Thousands of civilians fled Chad’s capital Ndjamena on Monday after rebel forces pulled back from a two-day assault, but the rebels said they would attack again to try to topple President Idriss Déby Itno, whose government said it had beaten off more than 2Â 000 insurgents.
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/ 4 February 2008
Sudan and the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force have agreed the terms under which the 26Â 000-strong force will deploy in western Darfur, removing a major barrier to its operations. Experts estimate about 200Â 000 people have died and 2,5-million been driven from their homes.
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/ 4 February 2008
Resolutions at the United Nations or African Union could alter the mission of French troops in Chad, France’s Foreign Minister said on Monday as a first planeload of evacuees landed at a Paris airport. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Defence Minister Herve Morin said French forces secured Chad’s airbases and were protecting French and foreign civilians.
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/ 3 February 2008
Kenyan opposition chief Raila Odinga on Sunday called for the deployment of foreign peacekeepers to stem the country’s escalating violence, saying security forces were not impartial in crackdowns. Kenyan police have admitted to killing dozens of arsonists, looters and people who have attacked them during violent demonstrations.
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/ 3 February 2008
Fighting restarted on Sunday around the presidential palace in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena, where rebel forces have surrounded President Idriss Déby Itno and loyalist troops, residents said. This is despite an earlier report that the main leader of the rebels had accepted a ceasefire proposed by Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi.
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/ 3 February 2008
The United States of Africa is one of few concrete plans on which African leaders agreed as they struggled with issues of peacekeeping and political disputes at this week’s continental summit. The problem is, so many countries want to be Washington, DC, and presidential candidates are already rumoured.
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/ 3 February 2008
General Mahamat Nouri, the main leader of Chadian rebels in control of large parts of the capital, Ndjamena, has accepted a ceasefire proposed by Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi, Libyan news agency Jana reported. The rebels seized Ndjamena on Saturday after intense fighting with government forces.
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/ 2 February 2008
African Union leaders condemned the latest unrest in Chad and Kenya on Saturday at the close of a summit overshadowed by new crises on the continent and which saw little headway achieved on older ones. The pan-African body’s summit wrapped up even as military sources said that rebels had seized control of the Chadian capital.
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/ 2 February 2008
Rebels seized Chad’s capital, Ndjamena, on Saturday after intense fighting with government forces, military and rebel sources said, as President Idriss Déby Itno remained holed up in the presidential palace. ”The whole of the city is in the hands of the rebels. It’s down to mopping-up operations,” said a military source.
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/ 2 February 2008
Kenya’s government and opposition struck an agreement on Friday to take immediate steps to try to end tribal bloodshed in a five-week-old political stand-off in which about 850 people have been killed. Meanwhile, 27 people have been killed in fresh violence in western Kenya, police said on Saturday.
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/ 1 February 2008
Gabon Foreign Minister Jean Ping was elected on Friday as the African Union’s top diplomat, replacing Mali’s Alpha Oumar Konare as the head of the AU Commission. ”I can’t say too much at the moment, but of course I am very happy,” Ping told a crowd of diplomats, journalists and well-wishers after winning the vote at an AU summit in Ethiopia.
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/ 1 February 2008
The aid group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Friday it was pulling all its international staff out of Somalia after three of its staff were killed by a roadside bomb. For the time being ”MSF has suspended all international staff presence”, the medical humanitarian organisation said in a statement released in Nairobi.
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/ 1 February 2008
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon flew into Kenya on Friday to provide heavyweight diplomatic clout for efforts to end a month of post-election turmoil in which more than 850 people have been killed. African leaders at a summit in neighbouring Ethiopia attended by the UN head have called for urgent action to stop the bloodletting
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/ 31 January 2008
A court in Zimbabwe dismissed an appeal against the extradition of Simon Mann, a former British special forces officer accused of leading a coup plot to topple the government in the oil-rich West African nation of Equatorial Guinea, his lawyers said on Thursday. Mann’s lawyers had argued he would face torture and a likely death sentence if extradited Equatorial Guinea.
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/ 31 January 2008
Kenya’s police said the fatal shooting of a legislator by a policeman on Thursday was a ”crime of passion” and had already led to one arrest. But the head of the Orange Democratic Movement, Raila Odinga, called the death of David Kimutai Too in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret a politically-motivated ”execution”.
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/ 31 January 2008
African Union heads of state were set on Thursday to begin a three-day summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, focused on the deadly crisis in Kenya and the challenges facing the body’s peacekeeping missions. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was expected to address the organisation and call for a peaceful resolution of the post-poll dispute in Kenya.
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/ 29 January 2008
The African Union starts a heads-of-state summit in Addis Ababa on Thursday seeking to bolster the body’s capacity to solve conflicts such as the crises in Darfur and Somalia. Since its inception in 2002, the pan-African body has lacked the funds and political drive to take effective action on the continent’s flashpoints.
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/ 29 January 2008
The mandate of about 1 000 South African soldiers deployed in Burundi under an African Union mandate is to be extended as efforts to get the last remaining rebel group to re-join the peace process gain momentum, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday.
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/ 29 January 2008
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon kicked off a landmark trip to Rwanda on Tuesday with a visit to the genocide memorial, amid simmering resentment over the world body’s failure to prevent the 1994 massacres. Ban paid homage to the victims of the massacres, which left about 800 000 people dead, mainly from the Tutsi minority of President Paul Kagame.
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/ 28 January 2008
Sudan will seek to head the African Union during the continental body’s upcoming summit at its headquarters in Addis Ababa, a Sudanese official said. Sudan’s two previous bids for the AU’s rotating presidency have been unsuccessful due to reservations over Khartoum’s rights record in the western region of Darfur.
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/ 26 January 2008
Gunfire rang out in Nakuru, Kenya, on Saturday and armed gangs manned roadblocks in the Rift Valley town where ethnic clashes have killed at least 25 people in 24 hours, witnesses said. Paramilitary police patrolled the provincial capital, which had previously been spared post-election violence that has killed around 700 people.
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/ 25 January 2008
Ethnic fighting killed at least 12 people in Kenya’s Rift Valley and forced thousands from their homes on Friday. The violence, and a denial by opposition leader Raila Odinga that he would agree to serve as prime minister under President Mwai Kibaki, followed the first meeting between the two rivals since a disputed December 27 election triggered a political crisis.
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/ 25 January 2008
A new flare-up of violence shook Kenya on Friday and fresh political recriminations dulled hopes a meeting between the president and opposition leader could resolve a month-long crisis. The local Red Cross said clashes related to a disputed December 27 poll had engulfed areas around the town of Nakuru.
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/ 24 January 2008
South Africa will have a second opportunity this year to head the United Nations Security Council, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday. South Africa, a non-permanent member of the 15-nation Security Council, will take over the presidency of the UN-decision making body in April again.
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/ 24 January 2008
Kenya’s opposition on Wednesday called off mass rallies scheduled for Thursday to protest disputed presidential polls. This was at the request of former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, who is in Kenya to mediate the crisis. Annan was in Nairobi in the latest attempt to mediate the turmoil sparked by the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki last month.
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/ 22 January 2008
Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan was due to arrive in Kenya on Tuesday to try to mediate in a post-poll crisis that has torn the country in two and triggered weeks of violence that has killed hundreds. A hotly disputed election returned President Mwai Kibaki to power last month amid cries from opposition leader Raila Odinga that he rigged it.
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/ 21 January 2008
While political protests blight Kenya, Ghana will polish its image as a tourism and investment destination when it hosts the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament, which started on Sunday. Staging Africa’s most prestigious sporting event will cast a positive international spotlight on the small but stable West African state.
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/ 19 January 2008
The United Nations envoy to Sudan, Jan Eliasson, said on Friday that fresh fighting in the war-torn region of Darfur has set back hopes for a speedy resumption of peace talks. ”The current atmosphere is not the best,” Eliasson told reporters in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, where he met Sudan’s First Vice-President, Salva Kiir.
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/ 18 January 2008
Opposition street protests over the disputed re-election of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki will end after demonstrations planned for Friday, a spokesperson said. At least eight people have been shot dead by police during two days of protests called by Raila Odinga, leader of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement.
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/ 16 January 2008
South Africa wants countries who have promised troops for the peacekeeping operation in Sudan’s Darfur region to speed up their deployment. ”If we don’t get fast movement of the forces, their full deployment and the technical assistance, then the whole comprehensive agreement … could be endangered,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Wednesday.