Nairobi

Faltering peace talks in southern Sudan aimed at ending one of Africa’s most brutal conflicts suffered a new blow Friday after Ugandan rebels pulled out, claiming their security was threatened and they were no longer welcome by Sudanese mediators.

Food aid began reaching 6 000 Somalis on Friday trying to flee fighting in their homeland but blocked from entering Kenya, the United Nations said. A war that ousted south Somalia’s six-month Islamist rulers sent thousands of civilians heading for the border with Kenya.

Kenyan police on Thursday interrogated two al-Qaeda suspects’ wives caught fleeing Somalia, as mystery remained over whether their husbands survived a United States air strike. The US on Monday hit a village in southern Somalia in an attempt to take out an al-Qaeda cell accused of bombing two US embassies and an Israeli-owned hotel.

Rift Valley Fever, a highly contagious virus, has killed 74 people in Kenya and infected hundreds more after spreading from the north-eastern region to the coast, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday. The fever, which is spread through mosquito bites or movement of contaminated animals, causes flu-like symptoms and can lead to death through bleeding.

An outbreak of Rift Valley fever has claimed 25 lives in Kenya in the past week, bringing the death toll to 62 as the disease spreads, health officials said on Thursday. The disease has infected nearly 200 people since an outbreak was first diagnosed in mid-December.

The United States has a right to pursue Somalia’s Islamists, which it believes have ties to international terror networks, the US embassy in Kenya said on Thursday. On Wednesday, the US State Department said the country is working with other countries in the region to ensure that Islamists linked to terrorism are not able to flee the country.

Ethiopian helicopters, helped by United States intelligence, nearly hit Somali Islamist leaders after they fled their last stronghold, officials said on Thursday. Kenyan police said, meanwhile, that a Kenyan military helicopter was ”extensively damaged” after it came under sustained ground fire while patrolling the border with Somalia, hours after the border was closed.

Authorities were on Wednesday deporting dozens of Somali refugees who had fled to Kenya from violence in lawless Somalia as Nairobi tightened security on the frontier. A day after Ethiopian helicopters missed their Islamist targets, instead bombing positions in Kenya, police escorted the refugees across the border into Somalia from a registration centre in Liboi.

Three people have died in Kenya after clashes between police and residents of one of Africa’s largest slums on Sunday. Police were deployed to the sprawling Kibera slum, which houses an estimated 800 000 people, after a political rally became unruly, with opposing sides pelting each other with stones and some forcing a passing train to grind to a halt.

African leaders met in Kenya on Thursday to discuss security, governance and economic development in the continent’s troubled Great Lakes region. The impoverished and volatile area, which includes Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and eastern Democratic of Congo, has been mired in violence since Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, which triggered a string of wars and counter-wars.

Somali Islamist forces backed by 4 000 foreign fighters are moving into position for an attack on the interim government’s base, Somalia’s prime minister said on Wednesday. ”I don’t think that they are ready for dialogue, for peace and stability to prevail in Somalia. In that case, war may become inevitable,” Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said.

The Kenyan Parliament’s decision to raise President Mwai Kibaki’s salary by 186% has outraged many in the East African nation where more than half the population lives on less than a day. Parliament voted this week to raise Kibaki’s monthly salary to nearly  000 a month, plus allowances of  600, officials said.

The death toll from catastrophic floods that have hit East Africa has risen to more than 250, aid workers said on Friday as rains continued to pound the impoverished region. Floods have hit Kenya, Somalia, Rwanda and Ethiopia, with tens of thousands of people forced to flee their homes, aid agencies said. Disease from poor sanitation is also taking its toll.

At least 20 people have died in northern Somalia after an outbreak of diarrhoea, sparked by heavy flooding, bringing the death toll to 116, the United Nations said on Wednesday. About one million Somalis are estimated to be affected by the flooding, according to the UN.

Facing mounting pressure to declare a national disaster, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki pledged to help hundreds of thousands of people affected by floods as the death toll hit 51, officials said on Wednesday. Kibaki said the "government is assisting communities affected by floods occasioned by the ongoing rains", his office reported in a statement.

Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi vowed on Monday that his government, backed by Ethiopia, would take Mogadishu from powerful Islamists now controlling the city, fuelling war fears. With forces loyal to his weak administration and Ethiopian soldiers reinforcing the government seat of Baidoa, Gedi said he had an obligation to act.

Somalia has replaced Sudan as the ”epicentre of jihadism” in East Africa since the rise of a powerful Islamist movement, according to an author who has just finished a book on the Horn of Africa nation. ”The most potent expression of jihadism in the region has occurred in stateless Somalia,” says Gregory Alonso Pirio.

Environment ministers ground their way towards the end of a 12-day climate summit on Friday, squabbling over a blueprint for negotiating the next round of carbon pollution curbs under the United Nations’s Kyoto Protocol. The talks gathered members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Cool seasonal rains have slowed the march to war between Somalia’s Islamic militants and the secular government, but in the weeks ahead the tropical sun will break through the clouds, dry the muddy roads, shrink the flooded rivers and, many fear, ignite a civil war.

Kenya on Wednesday appealed for aid to help hundreds of thousands of people hit by devastating and deadly floods across the country, triggered by unusually heavy seasonal rains. As rains continued to pound north and coastal Kenya, authorities made a national appeal for almost -million to help about 300 000 people who are affected by the floods, which have so far killed 23 people.

The United Nations has not given up on sending its own troops to reinforce a peacekeeping force in Darfur, despite strong Sudanese opposition, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters in Nairobi, Annan also described the situation on Sudan’s border with Chad as ”very fragile and volatile”.