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.
Kenyan authorities should prosecute murderous militias implicated in the country’s devastating post-election violence, but also address any ”genuine grievances” they may have, former United Nations leader Kofi Annan said on Saturday.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for concerted international action on rising food prices ahead of the opening on Sunday of five days of talks on globalisation. More than 3 000 delegates from 193 nations are expected to attend the 12th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Zimbabwe’s opposition alleged widespread irregularities as the partial recount begun on Saturday of votes cast in the presidential and parliamentary elections held three weeks ago, including ballot boxes with seals broken before they were delivered for the count or with no seals at all.
The United Nations special envoy for Somalia was in Washington on Friday to press for more attention on efforts to stabilise the country. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah says that the West needs to exert leverage on power brokers in Somalia who have bank accounts abroad. Western countries can also help mobilise Somali expatriate communities to support peace talks.
More than 3 000 delegates from 193 nations will descend on the Ghana capital, Accra, on Sunday for five days of United Nations talks on globalisation — against a backdrop of rising food prices and an economic slowdown. The talks will be opened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who will warn that not everyone benefits from globalisation.
Kenya’s food crisis was set to worsen after a fungus wiped out 10% to 20% of its annual rice production, the United Nations said on Friday. The fungus destroyed 5 600ha of rice in the Mwea Irrigation Scheme in Central Province, known as the rice basket of the country, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The United Nations will close its human rights office in Angola after the authorities there withdrew their cooperation, the office of the high commissioner said on Friday. Angola has ordered the office to cease its operations by the end of May after pulling out of talks to establish a formal agreement to regulate the rights body’s work in the country.
The United Nations agency charged with relieving world hunger on Friday made an appeal for $256-million more in funds to cope with sharp rises in food prices. The World Food Programme request came on top of another "extraordinary emergency appeal" of $500-million made by the agency in March to top up its 2008 budget.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Thursday night set the seal on a new phase in Britain’s special relationship with the United States when he won ringing endorsements from the present and future generations of American leaders. US President George Bush hailed Brown as a ”good friend”.
The draft Expropriation Bill will undermine property rights and could scare off foreign investors, the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) said on Thursday. The proposed Bill, tabled on Wednesday, also goes against United Nations guidelines on eliminating racial discrimination, said party leader Pieter Mulder in a statement.