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/ 25 September 2007
Ethiopia said on Tuesday it may terminate the pact ending its border war with Eritrea, accusing its smaller neighbour of breaching the deal on several fronts including coordinating ”terrorist activity”. Relations between the two nations are at their lowest since a 1998 to 2000 border war killed 70 000 people.
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/ 25 September 2007
African countries must diversify their economies in order to fight poverty, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation said on Tuesday at the first session of a gathering of African Union trade and industry ministers, hosted by South Africa at Gallagher Estate in Midrand.
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/ 24 September 2007
Southern African nations on Monday lined up behind Robert Mugabe in a row over whether the Zimbabwean President would be invited to a European Union-Africa summit in December, saying they would boycott the event if he was banned. The meeting in Lisbon would be the first in seven years.
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/ 21 September 2007
Peacekeeping missions in Africa are hampered by difficulties in generating forces and a shortage of funding, a senior United Nations official said on Friday. Nick Seymour, senior political officer with the UN’s peacekeeping department, said getting enough troops to conflict zones will always be a challenge.
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/ 21 September 2007
Gordon Brown or Robert Mugabe? One won’t go to a summit between Europe and Africa in December, but the Portuguese hosts say the potential rewards of closer ties between the two continents outweigh the antagonism between the leaders of Britain and Zimbabwe.
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/ 20 September 2007
Britain will call on the European Union to extend sanctions against members of Zimbabwe’s ruling elite as the country’s humanitarian crisis plumbs new depths, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Thursday. He urged the international community to do everything it can to relieve human suffering in Zimbabwe.
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/ 20 September 2007
Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri urged Sudanese Muslims in a video posted on Thursday to fight a force of African Union and United Nations peacekeepers. Al-Zawahri accused Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of abandoning his Muslim brothers to appease the United States.
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/ 20 September 2007
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown threatened on Wednesday to boycott a summit of European and African leaders if Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe is allowed to attend. He called on fellow heads of state to increase pressure on Harare before the planned December talks between the European Union and African Union.
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/ 20 September 2007
France on Wednesday called for a joint force of United Nations and European Union peacekeepers to protect civilians in parts of Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) bordering Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region. It tabled a resolution at the UN Security Council for a mixed force in eastern Chad and the north-east of the CAR.
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/ 19 September 2007
One of Darfur’s most powerful rebel leaders will not take part in peace talks until a lasting ceasefire is put in place and security is restored, he said in an interview published on Wednesday. Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur has refused to join Darfur rebel commanders and groups who agreed a joint position last month.
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/ 17 September 2007
France is to invest about €400-million in the next four years to help South Africa with service delivery, job creation and environmental and sustainable development, French ambassador Denis Pietton said on Monday. ”In terms of service delivery, we will help with providing development assistance,” the ambassador said in Pretoria.
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/ 17 September 2007
Somali leaders meeting in Saudi Arabia said they wanted to replace foreign forces backing the interim government against rebels with Arab and African troops under the aegis of the United Nations. The pact came days after a rival meeting in Eritrea by an opposition alliance that included leaders of the Islamic courts movement.
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/ 17 September 2007
The former commander of the failed United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda on Sunday warned the newly appointed head of a similar force in Darfur that he faced ”long odds” against success and predicted he would be betrayed by the very officials and governments meant to be backing the mission.
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/ 16 September 2007
A real and unprecedented opportunity for peace in Darfur is emerging after breakthrough talks between Britain and Khartoum this week, according to the United Kingdom’s key envoy to the region, Mark Malloch Brown. A new optimism is building ahead of next month’s crucial talks between 13 rebel factions and the Sudanese government in Libya.
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/ 14 September 2007
A key European Union and Africa summit remains under a shadow cast by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, whose attendance is demanded by African leaders but could spark a boycott by Britain. The Europeans are tempted to try for a compromise ”Myanmar-style”, by proposing that Zimbabwe be represented at a lower level.
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/ 12 September 2007
A senior Darfur rebel leader accused the Sudanese government on Wednesday of trying to grab land ahead of October peace talks, and threatened to pull out of the talks unless attacks stopped. Justice and Equality Movement leader Khalil Ibrahim said the violence in the remote west would make it impossible for him to travel to negotiations with Khartoum.
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/ 10 September 2007
Sudanese government aircraft bombed a rebel-held town in Darfur on Monday, insurgent groups said, hours after the government said it was investigating a rebel raid on one of its bases last month. Reports of the attack came seven weeks before rebel groups and the Khartoum government are set to meet for peace talks.
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/ 9 September 2007
Burundi rebels refused on Sunday to rejoin a truce monitoring team they quit in July unless the South African chief mediator of talks with the government is replaced. The Forces for National Liberation — the last active rebel group in the tiny Central African country — accused Charles Nqakula of bias.
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/ 7 September 2007
Chad will back United Nations moves to end the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region by allowing international peacekeepers on its own soil and supporting peace talks, President Idriss Itno Déby said on Friday. Déby made the commitment to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was in Chad on a regional tour to canvass support for the UN’s peacekeeping initiative for Darfur.
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/ 6 September 2007
Sudan and Darfur rebels will hold talks on October 27 in Libya to push for peace ahead of the expected deployment of a 26 000-strong peace force in Darfur, a United Nations-Sudanese government statement said on Thursday. The statement said the UN ”expresses the hope that parties will cooperate fully” with UN and African Union mediators.
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/ 6 September 2007
Sudan has developed unmanned surveillance planes, is developing missiles, and is now ”self-sufficient” in conventional weapons, a Sudanese state news agency reported. The rare public announcement on Sudan’s military capability gave no details on how far missile development had progressed or where the surveillance drones might be used.
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/ 5 September 2007
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in the Darfur region of western Sudan on Wednesday, promising to step up pressure for a political solution to the festering conflict. Ban told journalists he would push for progress in peace talks between the Sudanese government and rebel groups.
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/ 4 September 2007
Corruption continues to be a serious problem at the Department of Home Affairs, its director general said on Tuesday. Speaking after his first 100 days in office, Mavuso Msimang said he hopes to root this out by motivating staff, putting in place better technology and improved facilities. He conceded that the department continues to be ”sick”.
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/ 4 September 2007
Peace talks between the Sudanese government and Darfur’s rebel groups could begin next month, according to senior United Nations officials. The UN Security Council agreed in July almost to triple the number of foreign troops and police in Darfur with the aim of protecting the millions of displaced people.
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/ 3 September 2007
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon headed for Sudan on Monday to lay the groundwork for a solution to the festering Darfur conflict through talks and deployment of thousands of peacekeepers. Ban will seek commitment to his plan from Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and visit a refugee camp in the western Sudanese Darfur region.
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/ 1 September 2007
Malnutrition is on the rise in Darfur as a surge in violence prevents aid workers from reaching more people in need, a senior United Nations official said. Eighteen spot surveys in three Darfur provinces indicated the emergency threshold of 15% of the population suffering from malnutrition had increased to more than 17% in some areas.
The leaders of France and Britain on Friday revived the spectre of sanctions against Khartoum if progress is not made on a Darfur ceasefire and upcoming political talks. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a joint editorial in the Times in London that sanctions could be used to bring peace to Darfur.
Darfur rebels accused the government of bombing South Darfur on Thursday, the latest attack in an aerial campaign that has driven thousands of people from their homes over the past month. ”There is aerial bombardment on a daily basis — bombing by MiG 29 and by Antonov,” Justice and Equality Movement commander Abel Aziz el-Nur Ashr Ashr said.
Camps teeming with frustrated refugees in Sudan’s Darfur region have become militarised and present a danger that cannot be ignored, a United Nations official was quoted as saying on Thursday. The UN’s emergency relief coordinator said the presence of weapons in the camps made for a potentially explosive situation.