Dar Es Salaam

The African Union on Thursday urged Darfur’s disparate rebel factions to attend an upcoming meeting in Tanzania to find a common position and prepare for peace talks with Sudan’s government. ”The meeting will enable all the groups involved in the Darfur crisis to draw up a common position,” the AU’s special envoy for Darfur said.

Bubonic plague has killed nine people in northern Tanzania since February, a regional official said on Thursday. The plague outbreak was first reported in one village in late February, but has since spread to six others and infected 72 people, Salash Toure, a medical official in Manyara region, near the Kenyan border, said.

Southern African leaders were gathering in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Wednesday for an extraordinary summit on economic and political regional woes spurred by crises in Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The two-day summit of the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) comes amid a growing global outcry over turmoil in Zimbabwe.

Southern African leaders will gather in Tanzania this week for an extraordinary two-day meeting to discuss the political situation in the region, including Zimbabwe, a top Tanzanian official said on Monday. The summit will replace a meeting of the three Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries charged with dealing with Zimbabwe.

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete on Friday said his talks with Zimbabwe’s embattled leader Robert Mugabe on Thursday were a ”great success”. Kikwete flew into Harare to mediate between Mugabe and the opposition following international outcry over the arrest and beating of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Tanzania’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Juma Akukwetu, who was last month injured in a plane crash, died early on Thursday, the Tanzanian government said. Akukwetu died in a South African hospital where he was being treated for severe burns and multiple fractures sustained in the December 16 plane crash, it said.

Stalled peace talks aimed at bringing a final end to Burundi’s 13-year civil war resumed on Monday but prospects for progress remained unclear with mediators silent on the matter. After a weekend of meetings with both the government and the National Liberation Forces rebels aimed at ending a stalemate , mediators reconvened the two sides.

Peace talks aimed at bringing a final end to Burundi’s 13-year civil war hung in limbo on Thursday with the government and rebels still at odds over basic issues, officials said. The stalled negotiations had been set to resume on Thursday in Tanzania’s commercial capital of Dar es Salaam after a one-week suspension called by South African mediators.

Peace talks aimed at finally ending Burundi’s civil war foundered on Monday as the country’s last active rebel group stormed out of the negotiations, officials said. A senior Tanzanian official participating in the discussions between Bujumbura and the National Liberation Forces said the rebels walked out after threats from South African mediators.

Peace talks between the government of Burundi and the country’s last active rebel group resumed in Tanzania on Friday after a four-day interruption, a Tanzanian official said. Representatives of Bujumbura and the National Liberation Forces returned to the table in the Tanzanian commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, in a bid to meet a July 2 deadline, the official said.

At least 27 people were feared drowned when a cargo boat on which they were traveling capsized during a heavy storm on Lake Victoria, Tanzanian police said on Thursday. The cargo vessel MV Nyamageni was carrying 27 people and 100 crates of soda and beer from the town of Bukoba to the port of Mwanza when it capsized on Saturday.

In a bid to restore public confidence and rein in a recent crime wave, Tanzania’s national police chief on Friday ordered publication of all senior officers’ phone numbers, including his own. Inspector General Said Mwema said he hoped the move would boost communication between victims, witnesses and authorities and thus reduce crime.

At least 36 people were drowned when their boat capsized during a heavy storm on Lake Victoria, Tanzanian officials said on Wednesday. Ignas Mbinga, the regional police commander for western Tanzania, said only nine people survived the accident, which occurred when heavy winds and waves swamped and caused the fishing boat to keel over.

In a move designed to curb further environmental degradation, Tanzania has ordered the eviction of pastoralists from forests and banned the use of thin plastic bags. In a weekend address to the nation, Vice-President Ali Sheni blamed the East Africa nation’s deteriorating environment on destructive and unchecked human activity.

Tanzania’s Revolutionary Party cemented its four-decade grip on power on Sunday when presidential election results confirmed victory for its candidate, Foreign Minister Jakaya Kikwete. Kikwete took 80% of the vote in Wednesday’s polls, demolishing nine challengers in the country’s third elections since the introduction of multiparty politics in 1992.

Polling began in Tanzania on Wednesday for parliamentary and presidential elections widely expected to extend the mandate of the ruling Revolutionary Party, which has already spent 44 years at the helm of the East African nation. Voting stations across the country opened at 7am local time.

The United States has called for a thorough investigation of alleged irregularities in polls that led, amid opposition claims of fraud, to this week’s re-election of President Amani Abeid Karume of the offshore Tanzanian state of Zanzibar. ”We remain troubled by the irregularities,” the US embassy in Zanzibar said.

Business in Tanzania’s commercial capital has been brought to a near-standstill by massive power failures that have left about 30% of the city without electricity, officials said on Friday. Many parts of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city, have gone without power for two days.

The government of Tanzania plans to have at least 44 000 people infected with HIV/Aids on anti-retroviral treatment (ARVs) by the end of 2005, President Benjamin Mkapa said on Sunday. This figure, he said, represents about 10% of the actual number of those in need of ARVs.

Representatives of Sudan’s government and the two rebel factions fighting in the troubled western Darfur region are meeting in Tanzania to salvage stalled peace talks, officials said on Tuesday. Under the auspices of the African Union special envoy for Darfur the three sides began unofficial talks in Dar es Salaam at the weekend.

Burundi’s lone remaining Hutu rebel group on Friday accused the government of repeatedly violating a tentative truce signed last month, amid counter-accusations from Bujumbura. ”Burundi government troops have been repeatedly attacking us since May 17,” said National Liberation Forces spokesperson Pasteur Habimana.

Tanzania’s next government will continue to support the private sector’s role as the engine of growth in the country’s economy, outgoing President Benjamin Mkapa said. Mkapa made the pledge during a meeting with international investors, apparently seeking to reassure them as he prepares to retire.

An explosion rocked an office of Zanzibar’s ruling political party the day after the discovery of the body of a slain activist from the group, police said on Monday on the politically volatile Tanzanian island. Four people have been arrested in connection with the explosion late on Sunday, which did not result in casualties.

Thousands of supporters of Tanzanian main opposition party, the Civic United Front (CUF), on Sunday protested in Dar es Salaam against last week’s barring of the party’s presidential aspirant in the country’s Zanzibar islands from registering for October elections. About 32 000 CUF members have been barred from registering in Zanzibar.

Tanzania’s government said on Tuesday that it will need -billion to halve the number of people who do not have access to clean water, which is currently 14-million, or 39% of the country’s population. The government launched its 10-year water plan on Tuesday to coincide with the United Nations’s World Water Day.