Millions of the world’s poorest children are among the principal victims of climate change caused by the rich developed world, a United Nations report said on Tuesday, calling for urgent action. The Unicef report Our Climate, Our Children, Our Responsibility measured action on targets set in the UN Millennium Development Goals.
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) will take its claim of victory in last month’s election over President Robert Mugabe to the United Nations Security Council this week. MDC secretary general Tendai Biti will lead a delegation to New York, where he will tell a Security Council session that the party is not prepared to partake in a presidential run-off.
The United States’ top diplomat for Africa said on Sunday any national unity government in Zimbabwe should be headed by opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who Washington believes won a March 29 election. Election officials said they hoped to compile statistics from the presidential election by Monday for verification by the candidates.
A top United States official urged African leaders on Sunday to put pressure on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to release the results of the presidential election, insisting the opposition had won. The Southern Africa Development Community ”should ensure that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission releases the results of the elections,” said US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer.
President Robert Mugabe’s party has failed to secure control of Zimbabwe’s Parliament in a partial recount of the March 29 election, results showed on Saturday, handing the ruling party its first defeat in 28 years. Results of a parallel presidential poll have not been released and Mugabe has been preparing for a run-off against Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition.
President Robert Mugabe appeared unlikely on Saturday to win back control of Parliament in a partial vote recount after a police crackdown on members of the opposition, which accuses him of stealing the poll. About 13 seats have been recounted so far. Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF must win nine of 10 remaining constituencies to take back control of Parliament.
Crowds of Chinese students waving red flags and signs such as ”One World, One Dream, One China” scuffled with pro-Tibet protesters in the latest leg of the Olympic torch relay in Japan on Saturday. Commenting on the turmoil that has bedevilled the global relay, International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge urged the West to stop hectoring China over human rights.
Rising food prices have developed into a global crisis, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday. Concerns about food security mounted this week as rice prices hit records in Asia, and the United States warned that staples for the world’s hungry were getting much more expensive.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched a new campaign on World Malaria Day on Friday, calling on the world to ensure that all of Africa has access to basic malaria control measures by the end of 2010. Ban said the African countries hardest hit by malaria have fallen behind in the fight against the disease.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will present a set of proposals to the Foreign Affairs Ministry on how the government can resolve Zimbabwe’s electoral crisis, the party said on Friday. The proposals include the possible suspension of Zimbabwe from the African Union, arms embargoes and the severing of diplomatic ties.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog chief said on Friday United States allegations that Syria secretly built a nuclear reactor with North Korean help would be investigated. ”The agency will treat this information with the seriousness it deserves and will investigate the veracity of the information,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
A single phone call prompted United States pop star Madonna to begin charity work in Malawi, and it was while making a documentary on the African country’s one million orphans that she found a baby she decided to adopt. I Am Because We Are premiered at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday.
A shipment of Chinese arms bound for Zimbabwe will be recalled after South African workers refused to unload the vessel and other neighbouring countries barred it from their ports, China said on Thursday. The recall came in addition to Western pressure over Zimbabwe’s election crisis.
Ethiopia criticised Amnesty International on Thursday and said the group’s accusations that Ethiopian soldiers killed 21 people at a Mogadishu mosque were ”lies” and ”propaganda”. Amnesty said on Wednesday the soldiers, who are stationed in Somalia to bolster the interim government, had also captured dozens of children.
Amnesty International accused Ethiopian soldiers on Wednesday of killing 21 people, including an imam and several Islamic scholars, at a Mogadishu mosque and said seven of the victims had their throats slit. The rights group said the soldiers had also captured dozens of children during the raid on the al-Hidaaya mosque.
”Well, what would you do in your country?” That was the question a group of Darfuri refugees put to an aid worker in their camp near the Sudanese border 18 months ago. Anna Schmitt was trying to collect documentary evidence of the atrocities, but the camp elders were growing increasingly frustrated that their voice was not being heard in the West.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair was left red-faced when he was caught travelling on a train without a ticket and said he had no cash to pay the fare, a report said on Wednesday. Blair was confronted by a ticket inspector as he travelled to Heathrow airport to catch a flight to the United States on Monday.
Defence lawyers and observers have received death threats during the appeal hearing of four men sentenced to death over a Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) journalist’s murder, human rights groups said on Wednesday. Serge Maheshe (31), a reporter with Radio Okapi, was murdered in June last year.
Burundian rebels fired a dozen shells at the capital, Bujumbura, overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, hitting the residence of the Vatican’s ambassador, an army spokesperson said. The attack by the National Liberation Forces came the day after the Burundian military bombed rebel strongholds north of the capital.
As many as 300Â 000 people may have died in the five-year conflict in Darfur, a dramatic increase over earlier estimates of 200Â 000, a top United Nations official said on Tuesday. Sudan’s UN ambassador, Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, said the figure was grossly exaggerated.
It is an overcast morning in the Bulaq neighbourhood of Cairo, three hours after the muezzin’s call to prayers. The streets are choked with honking cars, while goats — and a few ragged-looking people — pick at piles of stinking rubbish overflowing from metal wheelie bins.
Militias allied to the Somali government recaptured a southern port from Islamists on Tuesday, taking the death toll from an upsurge of fighting in recent days to nearly 100, witnesses said. The militias recaptured Guda town, which had been taken by the Islamists’ militant al-Shabaab wing on Monday.
Post-election violence in Zimbabwe could reach genocidal proportions without intervention from the international community, the country’s church leaders warned on Tuesday. ”We warn the world that if nothing is done to help the people of Zimbabwe, we shall soon be witnessing genocide similar to that experienced in Kenya,” they said.
Computer maker Hewlett-Packard sees Africa as one of its fastest-growing markets, it said on Tuesday, expecting the world’s poorest continent to rival India for IT outsourcing within a decade. Hewlett-Packard Africa MD Rainer Koch said its sales on the continent are rising by 25% year-on-year.
A ”silent tsunami” unleashed by costlier food threatens 100-million people, the United Nations said on Tuesday, but views differed as to how to stop it. The Asian Development Bank said there was enough food to go round, and the key was to help the poor afford it. It said Asian governments that have curbed food exports were overreacting.
Climate change in Africa could leave 250-million more people short of water by 2020, spurring conflicts and threatening stability on the world’s poorest continent, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner said on Tuesday. Rajendra K Pachauri said the responsibility lay with wealthy developed nations to curb their carbon emissions.
Zimbabwe’s opposition leader pushed the United Nations on Monday to intervene to end his country’s election crisis as President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party flatly denied it was behind a rise in post-poll violence. Meanwhile, the row over a partial recount of the March 29 poll rumbled on.
South Africa is honouring her for helping it overcome the legacy of apartheid, but Linda Biehl says she is simply doing what any parent would after the death of a child: trying to find meaning in loss. She was speaking on the eve of a ceremony at which President Thabo Mbeki is to grant her one of the country’s highest honours.
Sudan on Tuesday shut down for its first census in 15 years, a milestone in the peace deal that ended Africa’s longest civil war but clouded in dispute threatening to undermine the accord further. The two-week census is crucial to prepare constituencies for national elections.
African National Congress president Jacob Zuma on Monday called for greater cooperation between the Group of Eight (G8) and the five emerging economies of the South — China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. He was speaking in Berlin at a North-South dialogue on relations between the G8 and the five emerging powers.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon cast doubt on Monday on whether sub-Saharan Africa will meet the 2015 deadline for eradicating extreme poverty, despite an economic boom linked to higher commodity prices. ”Many countries are falling behind,” Ban told the ongoing UN Conference on Trade and Development.
Seven African governments and the world’s largest banks and construction firms meet in London on Monday to plan the most powerful dam conceived to date — an -billion hydro power project on the Congo River which, its supporters say, could double the amount of electricity available on the continent.