No image available
/ 4 December 2007
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) troops clashed with rebels in the country’s east for a second straight day on Tuesday as they sought to take control of a strategic village, the army said. Fighting in the past two days has killed four soldiers and injured about 20.
No image available
/ 3 December 2007
Pakistani authorities on Monday banned former premier Nawaz Sharif from standing in next month’s general election, further damaging the credibility of a vote that the opposition may yet boycott. The ruling came as Sharif prepared to hold crunch talks with fellow opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
No image available
/ 3 December 2007
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) army attacked a stronghold of renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda on Monday, a day after his men seized a strategic town from the government and forced out thousands of civilians, United Nations officials said.
No image available
/ 1 December 2007
Turkey’s army said it entered northern Iraq on Saturday to tackle up a group of up to 60 Kurdish rebels, a day after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Cabinet authorised a cross-border operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It was not clear whether the incursion was a major operation by Nato member Turkey aimed at destroying bases of the PKK.
No image available
/ 1 December 2007
The man who devised the Bush administration’s Iraq troop surge has urged the United States to consider sending elite troops to Pakistan to seize its nuclear weapons if the country descends into chaos. In a series of scenarios drawn up for Pakistan, Frederick Kagan has called for the White House to consider various options for an unstable Pakistan.
No image available
/ 30 November 2007
Colombian officials on Friday showed recently seized videotapes of rebel-held hostages, among them three United States defence contractors and a former presidential candidate — the first images in years providing evidence the captives may be alive.
No image available
/ 30 November 2007
Courts in Uganda’s war-ravaged north are tacitly condoning rape and other sexual abuses against women and girls, even protecting rapists from prosecution, rights group Amnesty International said on Friday. Sexual abuses against women have become commonplace in northern Uganda during two decades of war.
No image available
/ 29 November 2007
President Pervez Musharraf promised on Thursday to lift Pakistan’s state of emergency on December 16, making a long-awaited gesture of reconciliation hours after being sworn in as a civilian leader. Addressing the nation on television, Musharraf said he would also restore the Constitution, which was suspended when he declared emergency rule on November 3.
No image available
/ 29 November 2007
Fresh clashes between Chad’s government army and rebels broke out on Thursday near the eastern border with Sudan, three days after a major battle that shattered a month-old peace accord, army and rebel sources said. Monday’s battle was the heaviest in months in eastern Chad.
No image available
/ 29 November 2007
The final toll from Cyclone Sidr was likely to be more than 4 000 as hundreds of fishermen are still missing in Bangladesh, the army said on Thursday. Armed forces spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Faruque Hussain, giving updated figures, said 3 256 bodies had been found and that 880 people were missing and feared dead.
No image available
/ 29 November 2007
Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf was sworn in as president for a second term on Thursday, but this time as a civilian and without his army uniform to protect him from pressure to end emergency rule. Musharraf took the oath for another five years in office from the newly installed chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.
No image available
/ 28 November 2007
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf stepped down as army chief on Wednesday and will be sworn in as a civilian leader for a second five-year term on Thursday. Musharraf passed the baton of command to his hand-picked successor, General Ashfaq Kayani, at a ceremony at army headquarters in Rawalpindi.
No image available
/ 27 November 2007
Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf said farewell to military colleagues on Tuesday as he prepared to become a civilian president ahead of January’s general election. Musharraf visited Joint Staff headquarters in Rawalpindi a day before he steps down as army chief to fulfil one of the long-held demands of his political rivals and Western allies.
No image available
/ 27 November 2007
Soldiers and rebels have both claimed to have killed several hundred of their opponents in combat on Monday in eastern Chad. The battles at Abougouleigne left ”several hundred [rebels] dead, several injured and several prisoners of war”, according to the statement from the army’s general staff.
No image available
/ 26 November 2007
A senior United Nations official has called on armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) troubled Nord Kivu region to lay down their arms and reintegrate into the regular army, a statement said on Monday. Intense fighting has been shaking eastern Nord-Kivu province near the border with Rwanda for weeks.
No image available
/ 26 November 2007
Pakistan’s ex-premier Nawaz Sharif plotted tactics with key aides on Monday as he sought to capitalise on his hero’s welcome home from exile to spur opposition to President Pervez Musharraf. Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a coup in 1999, was due to file his nomination papers for general elections, despite warning his party may end up boycotting the January 8 vote.
No image available
/ 24 November 2007
Lebanon edged closer to chaos on Friday when President Emile Lahoud ordered the army to take charge of security after political rivalries blocked the election of his successor hours before his term expired. The pro-Syrian head of state said the country risked descending into a state of emergency.
No image available
/ 23 November 2007
With a United States naval ship stationed off Bangladesh’s coast, US military officials prepared on Friday to deliver much-needed food and medical supplies to the hundreds of thousands that Cyclone Sidr left homeless and hungry, a top US military commander said.
No image available
/ 23 November 2007
A proposed new law to boost patriotism in Thailand would be ”chaotic” because it would require motorists to stop when the national anthem is played twice a day, lawmakers said on Friday. A vote on the Flag Bill proposed by a group of retired and active duty generals in the army-appointed Parliament was deferred on Thursday to allow a committee to study it.
No image available
/ 23 November 2007
Explosions and machine-gun fire echoed through the hills of east Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Friday, as government troops battled rebels for a third day amid a worsening humanitarian crisis that has displaced nearly 200 000 people in the past few months, a United Nations military spokesperson said.
No image available
/ 23 November 2007
The Soweto derby, between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs, has captured the imagination of football lovers since 1970. The fixture has become the showstopper of the South African football calendar. This weekend’s match in Durban will export the passions of South African fans to Europe and those parts of Africa where it will be televised live.
No image available
/ 23 November 2007
”In America a woman can be raped and if she has no health insurance then she can’t get help. That’s fucking ridiculous. So what are we doing here telling the rest of the world how to live? We have enough problems to sort out at home.” David Smith recalls a few of the sentiments expressed by United States troops during his stay in Baghdad.
No image available
/ 22 November 2007
United Nations peacekeepers will help the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) army disarm eastern dissident groups by force in violence-plagued North Kivu province, UN and Congolese commanders said. Army soldiers and fighters loyal to renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda clashed again on Thursday a few kilometres from Rutshuru.
No image available
/ 22 November 2007
Thousands of people were being evacuated on Thursday as tropical storm Mitag gained strength, becoming a typhoon as it neared the eastern Philippines, officials said. Mitag, packing winds of 120km/h with gusts of 150km/h was barrelling towards the Bicol peninsula, south-east of the capital, Manila, the local weather bureau said.
No image available
/ 22 November 2007
Fighting flared in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s powder keg east on Wednesday, as the army battled insurgent troops after killing 20 rebel soldiers who staged a pre-dawn attack. Men loyal to cashiered general Laurent Nkunda launched a raid on an army position near Rutshuru, the headquarters of an eponymous district in the troubled Nord-Kivu province.
No image available
/ 22 November 2007
The Bangladesh government pledged on Thursday to feed more than two million people left destitute by Cyclone Sidr amid warnings the country faces acute food shortages after the storm ravaged crops. The pledge comes as officials and relief agencies struggle to get desperately needed rice, drinking water and tents to remote villages.
No image available
/ 21 November 2007
More than 40 people have been killed in two days of fighting in a north-west Pakistani valley as troops seek to wipe out militants trying to enforce Taliban-style rule, the military and witnesses said on Wednesday. Major Amjad Iqbal, an army spokesperson, said 17 militants were killed in Swat valley’s Shangla district in gun battles overnight.
No image available
/ 21 November 2007
A week after a cyclone killed nearly 3 500 people on the Bangladesh coast, relief workers said on Wednesday they had been able to get food, medicine and other provisions to almost all those affected. A relief operation by civil authorities and the army, navy and airforce was at full force after roads blocked by fallen trees has been cleared.
No image available
/ 19 November 2007
It was after the second beating by Ethiopian soldiers that Abdi Bashi Jama says he decided to head for the border. But though separated from family, far from his home village in Ethiopia’s eastern Ogaden region, and a refugee rather than a shop-owner now, Jama considers himself lucky.
No image available
/ 19 November 2007
Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Monday rubber-stamped President Pervez Musharraf’s contested re-election victory in October, after he purged the court of hostile judges. ”Five petitions have been dismissed. One is pending and it will be heard on Thursday,” said the Attorney General Malik Qayyum.
No image available
/ 18 November 2007
Fighting between rival Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims in north-western Pakistan’s troubled tribal belt has claimed 70 lives, security officials and state media reported Sunday. State television said another 150 people were injured as heavily armed tribesmen clashed in the Kurram district bordering Afghanistan.
No image available
/ 16 November 2007
At least 629 people have died in Bangladesh as a result of severe Cyclone Sidr, it was officially stated on Friday. The cyclone roared ashore with winds of more than 250km/h, and the death toll was expected to rise further, with about 1 000 fishermen reported as missing.