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/ 11 October 2007
Togo holds parliamentary elections on Sunday that, if free and fair, could convince international donors that the small West African state has fully embraced democratic rule. The European Union, once Togo’s biggest donor, froze most aid to the former French colony in 1993.
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/ 11 October 2007
Renegade former general Laurent Nkunda late on Wednesday called for a truce in his battle with the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo after at least 85 rebels died in four days of heavy clashes. Nkunda also offered to send 500 of his men to a transit camp pending their integration into the regular forces.
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/ 10 October 2007
Dozens of families, many of them empty-handed, returned on Wednesday to a bombed-out Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon that was the scene of 15 weeks of fierce battles between the army and Islamist militants. Buses and mini-vans hired by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency picked up the first families from the Beddawi refugee camp.
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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
More than 100 fighters, including 85 rebels, have been killed in clashes in the Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a top army officer said on Wednesday. Colonel Delphin Kahimbi, the army’s second in command in the eastern province, said 16 troops and 85 rebels had been killed around Karuba.
United Nations officials warned on Tuesday that fighting between rebels and army troops in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had displaced up to 500 000 people and left many in an ”appalling” situation. The warning came as heavy fighting between forces loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda and the army continued in the Nord-Kivu region on Tuesday.
Pakistani jets pounded militant hideouts near a troubled tribal town for the third day on Tuesday as officials said about 250 people had died in some of the heaviest clashes since 2001. The fighting has forced thousands to flee from Mir Ali, a town that President Pervez Musharraf has previously pinpointed as a den of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.
Thousands of families began fleeing a town in a Pakistani tribal region after three days of fierce clashes between pro-Taliban militants and security forces that killed nearly 200 people. Around 150 militants and 45 soldiers were killed in fighting around Mir Ali, a town known as an al-Qaeda haunt.
Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came under intense pressure on Monday night to order an invasion of northern Iraq following the deadliest attacks for over a decade on the Turkish military and civilians by separatist Kurdish guerrillas.
The appointment by Burma’s junta of one of its most trusted troubleshooters as a go-between for detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi suggests the generals may be serious about negotiations. Aung Kyi is a major player within the junta and will act as more than an errand boy, those who know him say.
Sudanese government troops and allied militia on Monday attacked a town belonging to the only Darfur rebel faction to sign a 2006 peace deal, rebels said. ”Government planes have attacked Muhajiriya, which belongs to us, and government forces and Janjaweed militia are fighting our forces” said Khalid Abakar, a senior representative from the Sudan Liberation Army.
Renegade ex-general Laurent Nkunda said Monday that his troops had launched an ”active offensive” against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) army in the east of the country. An officer in the DRC armed force confirmed that fighting had broken out again in the Masisi highlands.
An Algerian army operation against a group suspected of links to al-Qaeda has left 22 militants and seven soldiers dead in recent days, the daily Liberte reported on Monday. Security officials would not immediately comment on the sweep, which reportedly targeted the region of Tebessa, 650km east of the capital, Algiers.
About 50 Pakistani troops are missing in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan after fierce battles with Islamic militants that have already claimed 80 lives, the army said on Monday. The soldiers have been out of radio contact since early on Monday in rugged North Waziristan, where the United States says Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network is regrouping.
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) renegade general Laurent Nkunda on Monday abandoned a month-old ceasefire and blamed government army attacks for fresh fighting in an eastern border province. His announcement heralded more conflict and humanitarian suffering in DRC’s North Kivu province, which has long been a tinderbox of ethnic tensions.
The bearded image of guerrilla leader Ernesto ”Che” Guevara has become a pop icon splashed on mugs, T-shirts and even bikinis 40 years after his death, and Vallegrande, a Bolivian town, is out to cash in on the marketing frenzy. In central Bolivia, where Guevara battled the army before he was captured and killed, tour operators offer a chance to retrace his final steps on the ”Che Trail”.
Pakistani soldiers backed by helicopter gunships killed 20 pro-Taliban militants in an attack on Sunday in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, a military spokesperson said. The army attack came hours after staunch United States ally President Pervez Musharraf swept the most votes in a presidential election.
The Burma junta reduced security in Yangon sharply on Sunday, apparently confident it would face no further mass protests against military rule, but the streets remained unusually quiet and arrests continued. The few people on the streets said they were still fearful and the internet remained cut off.
Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf swept the most votes in a presidential election on Saturday but he has to wait for the Supreme Court to confirm the legality of his bid before he can be declared winner. Doubts over whether the election result will stand have fuelled uncertainty.
Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party dismissed the Burma junta’s offer of talks as surreal on Friday as a United Nations envoy warned of ”serious international consequences” from the junta’s brutal suppression of pro-democracy protesters.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court kept the fate of President Pervez Musharraf’s re-election bid in its hands by deciding a vote could go ahead on Saturday, but a winner cannot be declared until it rules if he was eligible to stand. United States ally General Musharraf is sure to win the vote in Parliament and the country’s four provincial assemblies.
Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Riaz Muhammad Khan on Wednesday urged the United States to be more patient as his country fights extremists in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Khan acknowledged his country suffered an ”image problem” but said there needed to be a greater understanding of the enormous challenges.
Despite gradually easing its iron grip on Burma’s main city on Thursday, the junta continued to round up scores of people and grill hundreds more arrested during last week’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy marches. One freed monk said some had been beaten when they refused to answer questions about their identity.
Burma’s junta arrested more people under the cover of darkness on Wednesday despite a crescendo of international outrage during a keenly watched United Nations mission to bring an end to a bloody crackdown on protests. At least eight truckloads of prisoners were hauled out of downtown Rangoon.
United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari met Burma junta chief Than Shwe and detained opposition Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday at the end of four-day mission to halt a bloody crackdown on the biggest democracy protests in 20 years. There was no word on whether Gambari’s single meeting with Than Shwe had persuaded him to relax his iron grip.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said on Monday he would pull his country’s troops out of Darfur if it was determined that African peacekeepers who were killed at the weekend were not equipped to defend themselves. Twenty African Union soldiers were killed or injured and 40 missing after an assault on the Haskanita base in Darfur on Saturday night.
The army chiefs of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) met on Monday for 48 hours of security talks behind closed doors. Monday’s talks in the city of Lubumbashi, in the south-east of the DRC, were also due to be attended by the United Nations mission in the DRC in an ”observer” role.
United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari may not have met Burma junta supremo Than Shwe at the weekend, but the fact he is still in the country suggests his mission is far from failed. The schedule for Gambari’s mission was threadbare — 24 hours and one meeting with Than Shwe.
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/ 30 September 2007
A suicide bomber killed 28 Afghan troops and two civilians on Saturday in an attack on an army bus in Kabul, the Afghan president said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in the Afghan capital since the hard-line Islamist movement was ousted from power for harbouring al-Qaeda leaders.
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/ 29 September 2007
United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari flew to Burma on Saturday carrying worldwide hopes he can persuade its ruling generals to use negotiations instead of guns to end mass protests against 45 years of military rule. ”He’s the best hope we have. He is trusted on both sides,” Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said.
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/ 28 September 2007
India’s version of American Idol sparked violence on Friday when police clashed with supporters of the winner, leaving at least 30 people injured. Prashant Tamang, an ethnic Nepali youth from the eastern state of West Bengal, beat Amit Paul from Meghalaya state, inflaming regional rivalries.
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/ 28 September 2007
Ugandan troops looted truckloads of valuable trees from south Sudan when they were pursuing Lord’s Resistance Army rebels who were hiding in the region, a research group said on Friday. The Swiss-based Small Arms Survey said the Uganda People’s Defence Forces cut teak trees in southern Sudan’s Equatoria region during Operation Iron Fist.