Nairobi

Researchers in Kenya and South Africa are using cellphone technology to gather information on elephants, cheetahs, leopards and other animals. The relatively cheap tracking device includes a no-frills cellphone that is put in a weatherproof case with a GPS receiver, memory card and software to operate the system. The unit, placed on a collar, is then tied around the neck of a wild animal.

Torn by conflicting desires to help and with desperate needs at home, perennial aid recipients in Africa have confronted a blizzard of emotions in their response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in the wealthy United States. At least five African nations, three of them in the highly undeveloped and disaster prone sub-Saharan Africa, have contributed money to relief efforts.

United Nations staff have returned to their offices in Somalia’s temporary seat of government in Jowhar after Somali authorities locked them out of the UN Children’s Fund compound, a UN official in Nairobi confirmed on Tuesday. This follows the relocation of 13 staff on September 8 owing to security concerns in the area.

A Somali warlord, whose fighters over the weekend seized control of the United Nations premises in the country’s disputed capital of Jowhar, on Tuesday handed back offices to the organisation’s local staff. Mohamed Omar Habeb, who in June offered the Somali transitional leadership refuge in Jowhar, about 90km north of Mogadishu, returned the keys of the UN Children’s Fund offices to the staff.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees urged the international community on Friday to take measures to stop desperate people being smuggled out of Somalia to Yemen by unscrupulous traders. At least 150 people have died in dangerous boat journeys across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia during the past three weeks.

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has expressed concern over the death of at least 75 Somali and Ethiopian would-be immigrants who drowned last week as they were being smuggled to Yemen on boats from Somalia. The UNHCR quoted survivors as saying that they were forced to jump into the sea and swim to shore.

Rangers from the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) have arrested three suspects and seized 22 elephant tusks they were trying to sell in the southeastern part of the country. KWS spokesperson Gichuki Kabukuru said undercover rangers arrested the men in the town of Garsen, about 390km southeast of the capital Nairobi, last Thursday after posing as prospective buyers.

A ship carrying food aid for Somali tsunami victims remains in the hands of Somali pirates after more than two months, a spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Programme said on Friday in Nairobi. ”We received a request through a third party to change the port of discharge,” he said.

Illegal fishing off Somalia’s coast has reached proportions of about -million annually, a United Nations official said on Thursday in Nairobi. ”It is mostly foreign vessels but we don’t know who they are,” said Ghanim Alnajjar, the UN’s independent expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia.

The European Union on Tuesday warned Somalia’s bickering leaders to resolve a long-running and deepening dispute over the seat of the lawless nation’s transitional government or lose out on much-needed aid. ”The leaders have some differences that are not fully encouraging aid to Somalia,” British envoy David Bell told a meeting of EU diplomats.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomed a cash donation from Germany for its aid operation in Mali on Tuesday. The German ministry for economic cooperation donated €500 000 (R3,9-million) for urgently needed food aid for the people in the West African country, according to a WFP statement.

A seemingly endless cycle of extreme violence in lawless Somalia is having a ”catastrophic” effect on the war-shattered nation’s civilian population, the international charity Médécins sans Frontières (MSF) said on Monday. ”The frightening fact is that Somalia is officially not even at war,” MSF said.

Africa’s demand for two permanent veto-wielding seats on an expanded United Nations Security Council is non-negotiable and must be met if the world is serious about improving conditions on the continent, Kenya said on Thursday. Kenya said Security Council expansion as part of broader UN reform is essential.

Somalia’s influential parliamentary speaker said on Wednesday he is working to resolve a crisis over the seat of the lawless country’s transitional government and expressed confidence it will not be permanent. Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden said the disagreement is only ”political” and perhaps to be expected.

A boat carrying 102 people capsized in northeastern Nigeria with all passengers feared dead, national media reported on Tuesday. Recent heavy rains have caused flooding and swollen rivers in most parts of the populous West African nation.

The United Nations warned on Tuesday of an explosion of HIV/Aids in lawless Somalia unless steps are taken quickly to stop the spread of the disease and reduce risk factors. The UN’s monthly report said infection rates were relatively low in areas where testing has been done compared to other parts of Africa, but could rise dramatically.

The United States and 11 African nations on Monday formally opened a regional emergency response center in Nairobi, Kenya, to improve East and Central Africa’s capacity to deal with natural disasters and terrorist attacks. It is part of a US-funded series of symposia aimed at helping African countries better respond to crises.

Kenya’s justice minister has admitted his government is losing the fight against corruption and vowed a ”ruthless” anti-graft war in a stark admission of long-standing donor complaints, in remarks published on Wednesday that were a rare acknowledgement of rampant official malfeasance and failing efforts to curb such abuses.

At least three of the four suspects in the July 21 attempted bombings on the London subway and a bus were born in East Africa, where al-Qaeda-linked groups still operate and may be growing in strength, according to a new assessment by counterterrorism experts.

Following a day of deadly riots in the streets of Khartoum sparked by the death in a helicopter crash of former rebel leader John Garang, Sudan on Tuesday was plunged back into uncertainty.

Clan elders in southern Ethiopia have agreed to hand over suspects believed to have taken part in a village massacre in northern Kenya early this month, sparking reprisal attacks that left at least 82 people dead, Kenyan police said on Wednesday. They said Kenyan officials had been negotiating with Ethiopian authorities in a bid to arrest bandits from the Borana clan.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Tuesday launched a countrywide programme to combat malaria, the top killer of pregnant women and children under the age of five in the East African nation. The National Malaria Programme includes distribution of free insecticide-treated nets, treatment and developing strategies to combat the disease.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Friday insisted a draft Constitution pushed through Parliament by his ruling coalition will improve Kenya, though protesters who clashed with police as lawmakers debated the charter complain it gives him too much power. Lawmakers voted 102 to 61 to approve the draft Constitution.

Condoms are inventions by mzungus (whites) and should therefore be banned, a Kenyan MP said on Thursday. Ramadhan Kajembe, MP for the Changamwe district, said in Parliament that not only are condoms ”mzungu things” but they are also painful to put on.

Kenyan security forces shot and killed 18 cattle raiders from neighbouring Uganda after the rustlers raided a village in northern Kenya, slaying one person, police said on Thursday. Raiders from the Karamojong tribe of Uganda attacked cattle herders from the Turkana of Kenya on Wednesday in the village of Lokiriama, about 735km north of Nairobi.