European Union foreign ministers have agreed to increase sanctions against Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s supporters ahead of power-sharing talks.
Lebanon’s Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri pledged on Tuesday there would be no political surrender to what he called a bid by Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian backers to impose their will on the nation by force. The Shi’ite Hezbollah group and its opposition allies have routed supporters of the Sunni-led government in Beirut.
Desperate survivors of Cyclone Nargis poured out of Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta on Sunday in search of food, water and medicine as aid groups said thousands more people will die if emergency supplies do not get through soon. Buddhist temples and high schools in towns on the outskirts of Nargis’s trail of destruction are now makeshift refugee centres.
The military rulers of Burma went ahead with a constitutional referendum on Saturday despite calls from the outside world to postpone it after the devastation of Cyclone Nargis.The plebiscite was postponed by two weeks in the hardest-hit Irrawaddy Delta and the city of Rangoon, but voting went ahead in other parts of the country.
The international community pleaded with Burma’s military rulers on Wednesday to let foreign aid workers and desperately needed relief supplies into the cyclone-crushed country. The United Nations, the United States and France stepped up pressure on the junta to open their doors to foreign aid.
Aid was trickling in on Wednesday for an estimated one million victims of Cyclone Nargis in military-ruled Burma, with the death toll of more than 22 500 expected to mount. France has suggested invoking a United Nations ”responsibility to protect” clause and delivering aid directly to Burma without waiting for approval from the military in Rangoon.
Disease, hunger and thirst pose a major threat to hundreds of thousands of survivors of Cyclone Nargis, aid agencies said on Wednesday, urging Burma’s military rulers to open the doors to international humanitarian relief. Aid officials estimate hundreds of thousands are homeless in the swamplands of the delta south-west of the biggest city Rangoon.
Pirates off the coast of Somalia released 30 hostages seized aboard a French yacht a week ago following negotiations that ended the stand-off peacefully, French officials said. The hostages, including 22 French crew aboard Le Ponant, were freed ”without incident”, President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement, without providing details.
The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Friday became the first world leader to decide not to attend the Olympics in Beijing. As pressure built for concerted Western protests to China over the crackdown in Tibet, European Union leaders prepared to discuss the crisis for the first time on Saturday, amid a rift over whether to boycott the Olympics.
China warned of a ”life and death” struggle with the Dalai Lama on Wednesday, as it sought to end a wave of protests in its Tibetan regions with arrests and tightened political control. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has accused the Tibetan spiritual leader of masterminding the protests from his base in the Indian town of Dharamsala.
Chad and the United Nations Children’s Fund began on Friday to send home 103 African children that a French charity had sought to fly to France in October for adoption, authorities said. Eighty-three children were the first to leave an orphanage in Abeche, eastern Chad, on Friday in two buses.
The West cast doubt on Russia’s presidential election on Monday after Dmitry Medvedev won a landslide victory and vowed to follow the course set by outgoing leader Vladimir Putin. Near complete results gave Medvedev 70,2% of Sunday’s vote, crushing his nearest rival, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who won 17,8%.
No image available
/ 4 February 2008
Thousands of civilians fled Chad’s capital Ndjamena on Monday after rebel forces pulled back from a two-day assault, but the rebels said they would attack again to try to topple President Idriss Déby Itno, whose government said it had beaten off more than 2 000 insurgents.
No image available
/ 4 February 2008
Resolutions at the United Nations or African Union could alter the mission of French troops in Chad, France’s Foreign Minister said on Monday as a first planeload of evacuees landed at a Paris airport. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Defence Minister Herve Morin said French forces secured Chad’s airbases and were protecting French and foreign civilians.
No image available
/ 3 February 2008
Fighting restarted on Sunday around the presidential palace in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena, where rebel forces have surrounded President Idriss Déby Itno and loyalist troops, residents said. This is despite an earlier report that the main leader of the rebels had accepted a ceasefire proposed by Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi.
No image available
/ 3 February 2008
General Mahamat Nouri, the main leader of Chadian rebels in control of large parts of the capital, Ndjamena, has accepted a ceasefire proposed by Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi, Libyan news agency Jana reported. The rebels seized Ndjamena on Saturday after intense fighting with government forces.
President Mwai Kibaki is open to the idea of a coalition government to end Kenya’s post-election crisis but only if the opposition meets his terms, South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu said on Friday. ”There is a great deal of hope,” said Tutu, trying to mediate to end turmoil that has killed more than 300 people and threatened one of Africa’s strongest economies.
Pakistan election officials were Wednesday poised to announce the date of crucial polls, thrown into chaos in the wake of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. A few hours later President Pervez Musharraf is to address the nation for the first time since her slaying at a campaign rally last week.
No image available
/ 27 December 2007
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on Thursday as she left an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi, putting January 8 polls in doubt and sparking anger in her native Sindh province. State media and her party confirmed Bhutto’s death from a gun and bomb attack. ”She has been martyred,” said party official Rehman Malik.
No image available
/ 18 December 2007
Palestinians were given a powerful signal of international and Arab support for an independent state on Monday night, with ,4-billion in aid to revive their moribund economy and bolster renewed but faltering peace negotiations with Israel.
No image available
/ 26 November 2007
President Vladimir Putin accused Washington on Monday of plotting to undermine December parliamentary elections seen widely as a demonstration of his enduring power in Russia. Putin, drawing on resurgent nationalist sentiment ahead of Sunday’s poll, also said Russia must maintain its defences to discourage others from ”poking their snotty noses” in its affairs.
No image available
/ 16 November 2007
A special Rwandan commission handed over on Friday a 500-page report on France’s alleged role in the country’s 1994 genocide, the commission’s president said. Paris has already rejected the competency of the commission of historians and jurists tasked to assemble evidence of France’s role in Rwanda’s genocide.
No image available
/ 15 October 2007
United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari told Burma on Monday to stop arresting dissidents and Thailand proposed a regional forum including China and India to nudge the reclusive military junta towards democratic reform. Gambari said the continued arrests and intimidation of activists were ”extremely disturbing”.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned on Monday that neither he nor any other senior British government minister will attend a Europe-Africa summit if Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is there. Previously Brown had said he would boycott the December summit, but it has been unclear if Britain could be represented at a lower level.
African diplomats presented a united front on Saturday to support Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s presence at an upcoming European Union-Africa summit despite strong European reservations. "The African Union wants all African countries to take part" in the summit in Lisbon in December, an official from the body’s headquarters in Addis Ababa said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the world could not stop the Islamic state’s nuclear programme, which the West fears is a cover to build nuclear bomb, the official IRNA news agency said on Thursday. Ahmadinejad was speaking the day after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called on the European Union to take the lead in widening financial sanctions on Iran.
No image available
/ 30 September 2007
Ten African Union (AU) soldiers were killed and 50 were missing after armed men launched an assault on an AU base in Darfur, the worst attack on AU troops since they deployed in Sudan’s violent west in 2004. The AU called it a ”deliberate and sustained” assault by about 30 vehicles, which overran and looted the peacekeepers’ camp on Saturday night.
No image available
/ 26 September 2007
World governments vowed on Wednesday to hold Burma’s military rulers to account for a bloody crackdown on mass street protests, as the United Nations Security Council prepared to meet in emergency session and European Union officials began drawing up new sanctions.
No image available
/ 23 September 2007
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met ministers from world powers and neighbouring countries on Saturday after telling the United Nations secretary general he could guarantee security for a broader UN role in Iraq. Ministers from Iraq, its neighbours and world powers met at UN headquarters.
No image available
/ 19 September 2007
Iran on Wednesday said the military has drawn up a plan under which its fighter jets could bomb Israel if the Jewish state launched a military attack against the Islamic republic over its atomic drive. ”Iranian bombers can carry out an attack in retaliation against Israeli soil,” deputy air force commander Mohammad Alavi said, quoted by the Fars news agency.
No image available
/ 18 September 2007
Russia expressed worry on Tuesday over the possibility of war with Iran as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner pressed for tougher sanctions against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emphasised Russia’s "concern" over "multiple reports that military action against Iran is being seriously considered.
No image available
/ 17 September 2007
Everything must be done to avoid the prospect of war with Iran, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Monday, a day after his foreign minister said the country should prepare for that possibility. The United States, Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China have backed two rounds of United Nations sanctions against Iran.