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/ 2 February 2008

Annan brokers deal in Kenya

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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/ 31 January 2008

Kenya crisis set to dominate AU summit

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

AU seeks to improve conflict-solving

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

UN chief kicks off landmark Rwanda visit

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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/ 4 January 2008

World frets over Sri Lanka

Nordic ceasefire monitors began wrapping up their six-year mission to Sri Lanka on Friday after the government scrapped a truce with the Tamil Tigers, and their mandate, amid a chorus of international concern. The government formally notified mediator Norway late on Thursday it was giving a stipulated 14-day notice period to end the truce.

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/ 1 January 2008

Post-election death toll soars in Kenya

Police raids, arson and tribal attacks over the last 24 hours have claimed more than 100 lives in Kenya, police and officials said on Tuesday, bringing the toll for five days of post-election bloodshed to 299. ”At least 30 have burned to death inside a church in the Kiamba area,” a police commander said.

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/ 22 December 2007

UN has firm demands for factions in volatile DRC

The Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to extend the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for a year and demanded that all militias and armed groups in the volatile east lay down their weapons and start disarming. The council asked the UN force ”to attach the highest priority to addressing the crisis”.

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/ 19 December 2007

UN calls for moratorium on death penalty

The United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution on Tuesday calling for a moratorium on the death penalty, overcoming protests from a bloc of states that said it undermined their sovereignty. The resolution, which calls for ”a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty,” was passed by a 104 to 54 vote, with 29 abstentions.

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/ 15 December 2007

Bali breakthrough launches climate talks

Nearly 200 nations agreed at United Nations-led talks in Bali on Saturday to launch negotiations on a new pact to fight global warming after a reversal by the United States allowed a breakthrough. Washington said the agreement marked a new chapter in climate diplomacy after six years of disputes with major allies since President George Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol

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/ 15 December 2007

India, China object to Bali climate draft

India and China objected on Saturday to a draft deal at United Nations talks meant to launch negotiations to fight climate change, saying rich nations should do more to lead the way. ”The need of the hour is for enhanced commitments and instead we see a huge watering down,” said Indian delegate Chandrasekhar Dasgupta.

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/ 14 December 2007

Algiers bombers had been released in amnesty

Two convicted terrorists who had been freed in an amnesty carried out this week’s suicide bombings at United Nations and government buildings that killed 37 people, an Algerian security official said. One of the bombers was a 64-year-old man in the advanced stages of cancer, while the other was a 32-year-old from a poor suburb.

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/ 14 December 2007

Bali climate draft drops 2020 emissions goals

Negotiators at climate talks in Bali on Friday struggled to break a deadlock over United States objections to goals for cutting emissions by dropping a reference to a non-binding 2020 target in draft text. But the European Union insisted the two-week talks, due to end on Friday, should set stiff 2020 guidelines for rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

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/ 7 December 2007

Somali president dismisses rumours of ill health

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf said on Friday he was in good health after recovering from a bout of pneumonia, and laughed off a flurry of reports he was near death. ”I’m fine, I am OK,” Yusuf said in an exclusive interview from his hospital bed in Nairobi. ”I had pneumonia, but the doctors have taken it out [treated it] and I am well now,” he said.

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/ 4 December 2007

Ethiopia: World is forgetting Somalia

Ethiopia has warned that the world’s disinterest in sending peacekeepers to Somalia was dampening hopes of achieving peace in the shattered African nation. Of the 8 000 peacekeepers the African Union pledged to send to bolster President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s weak government, only 1 500 Ugandan troops are actually on the ground.

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/ 3 December 2007

Somalia needs more help, says UN

The United Nations’s top aid official, John Holmes, arrived in Somalia on Monday, calling for more to be done to help the Horn of Africa country where almost 6 000 civilians have been killed in fighting this year. UN officials say Somalia’s humanitarian crisis is Africa’s worst, with one million people displaced.

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/ 2 December 2007

Fight against Aids: ‘We must do more’

Activists and global leaders used World Aids Day on Saturday to warn against complacency in fighting the disease and called on governments to fill a multibillion-dollar funding gap. ”We have made tangible and remarkable progress on all these fronts. But we must do more,” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.

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/ 1 December 2007

Signs of progress on World Aids Day

Activists on Saturday sought to keep the battle against HIV in the public eye on World Aids Day in the face of growing complacency amid progress in treating and slowing the spread of the disease. The December 1 event is traditionally a time of grim stocktaking as Aids campaigners sound the alarm over the disease’s rampage through Africa.

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/ 27 November 2007

Deadlock in Kosovo talks

Internationally sponsored talks over the future status of the Serbian province of Kosovo were deadlocked on Tuesday, after Kosovo Albanian leaders rejected Serbia’s proposal for self-governance. Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanian population wants to break all ties with Serbia.

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/ 27 November 2007

Ethiopia ups military budget, blames Eritrea threat

Ethiopia has boosted its defence budget by more than -million to gird for a possible resumption of hostilities with Eritrea over their disputed border, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Parliament on Tuesday. ”Our military budget has been raised proportionally from three billion to 3,5-billion birr [a rise of 16,7%, equivalent to ,3-million],” Meles said.

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/ 20 November 2007

A million Somalis have fled their homes

The number of Somalis uprooted by fighting in their own country has hit a ”staggering” one million, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said 600 000 people are believed to have fled Somalia’s lawless capital, Mogadishu, since February.

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/ 20 November 2007

Somali mothers mourn their lost children

Aid workers are calling it Africa’s biggest humanitarian crisis, but no one has to tell Fatima Usman how rapidly things have gone bad in Somalia. The slender 23-year-old’s son Mohamed died of hunger. So did her daughter Isha. ”I am praying to God that he will not take this baby yet,” she says, gently cradling the wizened face of Muhiadeen, her four-month-old son.