KENYA

A cholera outbreak has killed at least 238 people and infected some 8 923 others in the past three months in southern Sudan, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said. Although the outbreak has been contained in two main southern towns, it has spread to other areas, the United Nations said in a statement on Wednesday.

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Monday said he was determined to clinch lasting peace in Darfur and renewed his rejection of foreign intervention in the war-torn western region. We reiterate our determination and keenness to achieve a lasting and comprehensive peace in Darfur through direct negotiations with the rebels.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Monday urged neighbouring states Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo to help decimate insurgents from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group that has waged a brutal war in the country’s northern region.

A former intelligence chief and three other former high-ranking Kenyan officials suspected of involvement in Kenya’s biggest financial scandal were brought to a magistrate’s court on Friday, but their lawyers prevented them from entering a plea. President Mwai Kibaki’s administration has initiated fresh prosecutions in the Goldenberg affair.

A meeting of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union opened in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Friday to discuss the proposed transfer of the pan-African body’s peacekeeping force in Sudan’s western Darfur region to the United Nations, officials said.

Thousands of angry Kenyans, including prominent opposition politicians, paraded through the country’s main cities on Tuesday protesting a heavy-handed police raid on the second largest media group. ”We are demonstrating in order to protect press freedom in Kenya. Press freedom in Kenya is under siege,” said former roads minister Raila Odinga.

The Kenyan media group whose premises were raided last week by police moved to the high court on Monday seeking to declare the attack and seizure of its property unconstitutional, according to court papers. Last week, armed policemen stormed the group, Kenya’s second-biggest media organisation, temporarily shutting down its television station, damaging its printing press and burning newspapers

The Kenyan government on Monday blamed increasing incidents of poaching and illegal trade in bush meat in the country on a searing drought that has put millions of people across East Africa at risk of famine. As the government and relief agencies scramble to save human populations from starvation, wildlife authorities have warned that poachers are targeting weakened wildlife.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Health has announced that it will provide free anti-retroviral therapy (ART) for 58 000 HIV-positive people until the beginning of July. The ministry said on Friday that some 23 000 people had already benefited from free ART provision since January 2005.

Dozens of armed men raided a leading Kenyan media house on Thursday morning and shut down its operations, three days after police arrested several reporters from the same organisation. The raid targeted The Standard newspaper’s editorial offices, printing plant and the transmission centre of its affiliate company, the Kenya Television Network.

Kenyan police said on Wednesday they had arrested three journalists over an article alleging that President Mwai Kibaki held secret talks with a lawmaker who had successfully rallied opposition to constitutional reform last year. After recording statements, the men were locked in the capital’s Kileleshwa police post, said Danson Diru, a police’s criminal police investigations officer.

The Eritrean government has rejected a proposal by the United Nations Security Council to hold talks with an independent commission to resolve its ongoing border dispute with Ethiopia. ”The final and binding decision of the boundary commission marks the legal conclusion of the Eritrea-Ethiopia issue once and for all,” said the Eritrean foreign ministry on Monday.

A searing drought that has put at least 11-million people across East Africa on the brink of starvation risks turning into a catastrophe if donors fail to respond quickly to the situation, an aid agency warned on Thursday. With drought-related human deaths already reported in Kenya and Somalia, cattle, camels and donkeys are also dying at an alarming rate in some areas.

A cholera outbreak has killed at least 45 people and infected about 1 860 others in the past two weeks in the southern Sudan capital, an international medical charity said on Wednesday. Médecins sans Frontières said ”a large outbreak can be expected” in Juba, a town with more than 250 000 people.

The Seychelles has banned foreign ships licensed to fish in its territorial waters from removing fins of captured sharks, in a move to conserve marine life. The fins are highly prized by gourmets in many parts of East Asia, particularly southern China, and attract high prices.

Livestock across East Africa are facing complete ”decimation” from a drought that has already killed tens of thousands of animals across the region, a British veterinary charity said on Thursday. With drought-related human deaths already reported in Kenya and Somalia, cattle, camels and donkeys are dying at alarming rates in some areas.

The United Nations and the European Commission are seeking -million to meet the needs of 30-million vulnerable people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Monday. The DRC’s 2006 humanitarian action plan has been launched in Belgium.

A hot-air balloon carrying safari-goers over Kenya’s famed wildlife-rich Maasai Mara National Reserve crashed on Friday, killing the British pilot and a female Belgian tourist, officials said. The 11 other passengers in the balloon — eight Canadians and three Belgians — were injured in the crash, according to police.