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/ 10 November 2007
Ethiopian troops shelled suspected Islamist hideouts on Friday in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, where some of the worst clashes in months have left at least 43 dead in two days, many of them civilians. The escalating violence came as the Ethiopian army tried to flush out pockets of insurgents in southern districts of the Somali capital.
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/ 7 November 2007
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Tuesday he was committed to the north-south peace deal that ended Africa’s longest civil war and there would be no return to hostilities after a crisis threatened the pact. ”I would like to assure you there will be no return to war whatsoever,” he said at a state banquet with South African President Thabo Mbeki.
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/ 6 November 2007
Sudan has asked South Africa to mediate on Darfur, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Tuesday as attempts to end a conflict that has killed more than 200 000 and forced 2,5-million from their homes appeared to founder. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir met President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday.
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/ 31 October 2007
European Union and African ministers met in Accra, Ghana, on Wednesday to decide whether to risk a diplomatic storm by inviting Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to an EU-Africa summit. Britain has said it will boycott the proposed summit in Lisbon if Mugabe attends. Some African nations have said they will stay away if the Zimbabwean leader is not invited.
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/ 31 October 2007
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan has accused Gordon Brown of deliberately undermining the Darfur peace talks and has demanded a public apology after the British prime minister’s threat of new sanctions against Sudan if the talks fail.
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/ 31 October 2007
A bolstered United Nations-African Union force charged with bringing peace to Sudan’s ravaged Darfur region ”may be” operational by early next year, the head of the mission said on Wednesday. Rodolphe Adada made the announcement during the inauguration of the new force’s headquarters in Darfur’s main city of Al-Fasher.
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/ 30 October 2007
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe will be invited to attend the second European Union-Africa summit in December in Lisbon, a Portuguese official said on Tuesday. Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, with some backing in Europe, has indicated neither he nor any other senior minister will attend the summit if the Zimbabwean leader does.
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/ 30 October 2007
Darfur rebels boycotting peace talks in Libya said on Tuesday they would meet envoys from an African Union-United Nations mediation team but specified conditions that gave little hope they would change their positions. Mediators had hoped to unite the rival rebel factions before peace talks opened in Libya on October 27.
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/ 29 October 2007
United Nations and African Union officials are to travel to Darfur this week to try to convince key rebel leaders to join peace talks aimed at resolving the crisis in the Sudanese region, the AU said on Monday. Noureddine Mezni, spokesperson for the AU, said the officials would travel to Darfur ”in the next few days”.
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/ 29 October 2007
African leaders and technology experts met on Monday in Rwanda to discuss plans to boost the continent’s development by securing universal internet access by 2012. Several heads of state attended the Connect Africa gathering, organised by the International Telecommunication Union and supported by international bodies including the African Union.
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/ 28 October 2007
Negotiators working to end four years of violence in the western Sudanese region of Darfur ploughed on on Sunday despite predictions of failure by host Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi. Although the Sudanese government declared a unilateral ceasefire at the start of the meeting on Saturday, key rebel groups have boycotted the talks in the city of Sirte
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/ 28 October 2007
Sudan’s government declared an immediate unilateral ceasefire at the opening of Darfur peace talks on Saturday, but the absence of key rebels cast doubt on whether the move could produce meaningful progress. One rebel leader who did attend the gathering in the Libyan town of Sirte voiced reservations about Khartoum’s move.
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/ 27 October 2007
Delegations gathered in Libya on Saturday to launch talks to end four-and-a-half years of conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region but the absence of key rebels cast doubt on whether negotiations could produce any meaningful deal. On the eve of the African Union-United Nations-mediated talks in Sirte, two main rebel groups said they would not attend.
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/ 27 October 2007
Darfur peace mediators said they will press on with negotiations due to start Saturday in Libya despite the decision by two main rebel groups to boycott the talks, saying time was running out for the war-torn Sudanese region. Officials from the United Nations and the African Union plan to open the negotiations with a call for an immediate ceasefire.
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/ 26 October 2007
The African Union on Friday urged all Sudanese parties involved in the Darfur conflict to take part in peace talks due to kick off in the Libyan city of Sirte. In a statement issued by the pan-African body’s headquarters in Addis Ababa, AU Commission chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare appealed to ”all the Sudanese parties to constructively participate”.
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/ 25 October 2007
Disarray in both government and rebel ranks makes quick progress unlikely in Darfur peace talks billed by the United Nations as a ”moment of truth” to stop four-and-a-half years of violence in western Sudan. The best that can be hoped at the gathering in Libya, which begins on Saturday, is agreement to meet again.
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/ 24 October 2007
The Islamist Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) announced on Wednesday that it would boycott Darfur peace talks due to open in Libya on the weekend, bringing to seven the number of rebel groups intending to stay away. The JEM said it had taken its decision in the light of consultations with six other rebel groups.
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/ 23 October 2007
A prominent Darfur rebel figure and five other smaller factions will not attend peace talks due to start this weekend in Libya, leaders said on Tuesday, casting doubt on prospects for peace. Ahmed Abdel Shafie told reporters that African Union and United Nations mediators had not heeded rebel requests for a delay to allow them to form a united position.
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/ 23 October 2007
Sudan will announce another ceasefire in its four-and-a-half year conflict with rebel groups in Darfur at the weekend, it emerged on Monday. The announcement will come at the opening of Darfur peace talks, which are to take place in the Libyan city of Sitre.
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/ 22 October 2007
Former Mozambique president Joachim Chissano won a new -million prize for African leadership on Monday and was hailed as ”a powerful voice for Africa on the international stage”. Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan chaired the committee that selected the inaugural award by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.
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/ 22 October 2007
Three Sudanese soldiers were killed when government forces attacked a refugee camp in Darfur, the second assault reported on a shelter for displaced people in less than a week, the United Nations said on Monday. The fighting was the latest in a series of clashes just days before planned peace talks.
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/ 19 October 2007
Government-backed militias have attacked a refugee camp over the past three days, killing six people and injuring 14 during their search for rebels from Sudan’s Darfur region, witnesses said on Friday. The United Nations confirmed there had been shooting in the Kalma camp outside Nyala, capital of South Darfur, over the past two days.
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/ 18 October 2007
The Department of Transport has adopted a plan of action to improve regional and national road integration, Jeff Radebe, the Minister of Transport, said on Thursday. Radebe was speaking at an African Union conference at KwaZulu-Natal’s Sibaya Casino and said the effort was part of the AU’s call to eliminate missing infrastructure links on roads.
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/ 17 October 2007
The United Nations World Food Programme on Wednesday condemned the killing of three of its truck drivers in the violence-stricken western Sudanese region of Darfur. Two of the men were killed on Tuesday in south Darfur as they were returning from delivering supplies near the scene of an attack on an African Union base.
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/ 16 October 2007
Landmark weekend parliamentary elections in Togo were ”free, fair and open”, observers from the Economic Community of West African States concluded in a report on Tuesday. ”In spite of a few shortfalls, the legislative elections on Sunday were free, fair and open,” stated the 15-nation group.
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/ 15 October 2007
Representatives of seven Darfur rebel groups met in south Sudan on Monday to try to reach a common negotiating position ahead of peace talks with the government. But huge doubts remain about whether Darfur’s rapidly fracturing rebel groups will be able to agree on a joint set of grievances before they travel to Libya for the negotiations with Khartoum on October 27.
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/ 11 October 2007
Darfur peace talks, aimed at stopping chaotic violence plaguing Sudan’s west, will be a ”moment of truth”, United Nations envoy Jan Eliasson said on Thursday. He urged all of the more than a dozen fractured Darfur rebel factions to attend the talks due to start in Libya on October 27 and said an urgent ceasefire would be the priority.
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/ 11 October 2007
South Africa is confident that a ”critical number” of European and African leaders would be in attendance at the planned European Union (EU)-African Union (AU) summit in Portugal in December to make it worthwhile. Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said: ”Summits depend on a number of people to be there, not just one person.”
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/ 10 October 2007
Fighting has erupted between the only Darfur rebel group to have signed a 2006 peace accord and Sudanese troops, the United Nations said on Wednesday after the rebels accused Khartoum of attacking a town the rebels control. The United Nations said that exchanges of fire took place on between the Sudan Liberation Army faction of Minni Minawi and the Sudanese army.
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/ 10 October 2007
A controversial mission by the Pan African Parliament (PAP) to Zimbabwe to assess the situation in that country did not take place because of a lack of funds, PAP president Gertrude Mongella said on Wednesday. The decision on whether the fact-finding mission should still go ahead would be made during the Parliament’s session next week.
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/ 10 October 2007
Sudan’s army has denied attacking the only Darfur rebel faction to sign a peace deal with Khartoum, saying tribal clashes were to blame for the fighting that killed 45 people in Muhajiriya town. The Sudan Liberation Army, led by Minni Arcua Minnawi, was the only one of three negotiating rebel factions to sign the May 2006 deal and become part of government.
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/ 10 October 2007
Southern Africa is on track to form a free trade zone by 2008 and is still considering establishment of a customs union. ”We will be able to meet the deadline of the FTA [Free Trade Area] and we are seeing what we can do to meet the customs union,” Xolelwa Mlumbi-Peter, a South African trade official.