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/ 4 February 2008
The Kenyan government on Monday lifted a ban on live broadcasts imposed over a month ago as violence erupted over the outcome of a hotly contested presidential election, the Information Ministry said. The government said the ban was in the ”interest of public safety and tranquillity” when it was announced on December 30.
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/ 4 February 2008
Egyptian security forces closed the border with the Gaza Strip on Sunday nearly two weeks after the wall was first breached. Gunmen from the Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, appeared to be cooperating with the Egyptians, turning back crowds of Palestinians as barbed wire and metal barricades were installed.
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/ 4 February 2008
South African business tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa, chosen by former United Nations chief Kofi Annan to head long-term mediation efforts in Kenya, pulled out on Monday because of reservations expressed by the Kenyan government. ”Kofi Annan reluctantly accepts the withdrawal of Cyril Ramaphosa from the role of chief mediator,” a UN official said.
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/ 4 February 2008
The death toll from a series of earthquakes that hit Central Africa rose on Monday to 43 as a major aid operation for hundreds of injured and thousands of homeless gathered pace amid new aftershocks. Thirty-seven of the deaths were reported in Rwanda’s Western Province and six around the Democratic Republic of Congo city of Bukavu, which was near the epicentre.
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/ 4 February 2008
Sudan and the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force have agreed the terms under which the 26Â 000-strong force will deploy in western Darfur, removing a major barrier to its operations. Experts estimate about 200Â 000 people have died and 2,5-million been driven from their homes.
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/ 4 February 2008
Resolutions at the United Nations or African Union could alter the mission of French troops in Chad, France’s Foreign Minister said on Monday as a first planeload of evacuees landed at a Paris airport. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Defence Minister Herve Morin said French forces secured Chad’s airbases and were protecting French and foreign civilians.
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/ 3 February 2008
Fierce fighting with tanks and helicopter strikes rocked the capital of Chad for a second day on Sunday as rebels surrounded President Idriss Déby Itno in his palace and hundreds of foreigners fled the country. International aid organisations reported bodies in the streets and hundreds of people wounded.
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/ 3 February 2008
Kenyan opposition chief Raila Odinga on Sunday called for the deployment of foreign peacekeepers to stem the country’s escalating violence, saying security forces were not impartial in crackdowns. Kenyan police have admitted to killing dozens of arsonists, looters and people who have attacked them during violent demonstrations.
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/ 3 February 2008
Two strong earthquakes shook the African Great Lakes region on Sunday, killing at least 34 people in Rwanda and six in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to officials and hospital sources. Hundreds of people were wounded, many with fractured limbs, after the two quakes struck close together along the western Rift Valley fault.
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/ 3 February 2008
Marguerite Sabamahoro, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, remembers the moment she was woken at her home in Kigali on April 7 1994 by the sound of gunfire and bombing as if it were yesterday. ”I lost aunts, uncles, cousins and friends to the genocide,” Sabamahoro tells visitors to a new genocide exhibition at the Apartheid Museum.
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/ 3 February 2008
The United States of Africa is one of few concrete plans on which African leaders agreed as they struggled with issues of peacekeeping and political disputes at this week’s continental summit. The problem is, so many countries want to be Washington, DC, and presidential candidates are already rumoured.
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/ 2 February 2008
African Union leaders condemned the latest unrest in Chad and Kenya on Saturday at the close of a summit overshadowed by new crises on the continent and which saw little headway achieved on older ones. The pan-African body’s summit wrapped up even as military sources said that rebels had seized control of the Chadian capital.
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/ 2 February 2008
Rebels seized Chad’s capital, Ndjamena, on Saturday after intense fighting with government forces, military and rebel sources said, as President Idriss Déby Itno remained holed up in the presidential palace. ”The whole of the city is in the hands of the rebels. It’s down to mopping-up operations,” said a military source.
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/ 2 February 2008
The death toll from ethnic fighting and a police crackdown in western Kenya rose to 44 on Saturday, a day after the feuding political sides agreed to a framework to try to end weeks of violence. Thirty-four people have died in fresh clashes, police said on Saturday, including in western Nyanza province.
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/ 2 February 2008
Rebels penetrated the capital of Chad on Saturday, clashing with government troops and moving toward the presidential palace after a three-day advance through the Central African nation, a French military spokesperson and witnesses said. Witnesses reported looting and gunfire near government buildings.
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/ 2 February 2008
Fighting broke out between Chadian rebels and government forces just north of the capital on Saturday, both sides said, as France prepared to evacuate its nationals in the face of the rebel advance. ”Fighting between government forces and rebels has started at about 20km north of Ndjamena,” a military source said.
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/ 2 February 2008
Kenya’s government and opposition struck an agreement on Friday to take immediate steps to try to end tribal bloodshed in a five-week-old political stand-off in which about 850 people have been killed. Meanwhile, 27 people have been killed in fresh violence in western Kenya, police said on Saturday.
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/ 1 February 2008
Prominent South African businessman Cyril Ramaphosa was expected in Kenya later on Friday to help mediate in talks between the government and the opposition aimed at ending a month of post-election violence. Ramaphosa led the African National Congress in negotiations with the National Party to end apartheid in the early 1990s.
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/ 1 February 2008
Mozambique’s poverty-alleviation programme this week received a boost following the approval of a further -million loan by the World Bank. ”The council of executive directors of the World Bank has approved a credit for the International Development Association to the value of -million,” the bank said in Maputo on Friday.
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/ 1 February 2008
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon flew into Kenya on Friday to provide heavyweight diplomatic clout for efforts to end a month of post-election turmoil in which more than 850 people have been killed. African leaders at a summit in neighbouring Ethiopia attended by the UN head have called for urgent action to stop the bloodletting
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/ 31 January 2008
Kenya’s police said the fatal shooting of a legislator by a policeman on Thursday was a ”crime of passion” and had already led to one arrest. But the head of the Orange Democratic Movement, Raila Odinga, called the death of David Kimutai Too in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret a politically-motivated ”execution”.
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/ 31 January 2008
African Union heads of state were set on Thursday to begin a three-day summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, focused on the deadly crisis in Kenya and the challenges facing the body’s peacekeeping missions. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was expected to address the organisation and call for a peaceful resolution of the post-poll dispute in Kenya.
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/ 30 January 2008
Kenya on Wednesday pledged tougher action to rein in post-election violence that threatens to spiral out of control, in the East African nation’s darkest moment since independence in 1963. Protests over President Mwai Kibaki’s disputed re-election in the December 27 vote have degenerated into cycles of killing between rival tribes.
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/ 30 January 2008
Al-Qaeda’s North Africa wing said it was behind a blast at a police station in Algeria which authorities said killed two people. Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb said a suicide bomber drove a truck packed explosives that detonated at the police station in a town east of Algiers on Tuesday.
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/ 30 January 2008
People in drought-affected regions of central and southern Somalia need urgent help after losing most of their livestock, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Information, Ahmed Abdisalam, said on Wednesday. He said the worst-affected regions are Hiiraan, Galgadud, Mudug and parts of Bay and Bakol and Gedo.
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/ 30 January 2008
There is clear evidence of ”ethnic cleansing” in Kenya’s Rift Valley since a disputed election, but it does not amount to genocide, said the top United States diplomat for Africa. ”The cycle of retaliation has gone too far and has become more dangerous,” said US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer.
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/ 29 January 2008
The African Union starts a heads-of-state summit in Addis Ababa on Thursday seeking to bolster the body’s capacity to solve conflicts such as the crises in Darfur and Somalia. Since its inception in 2002, the pan-African body has lacked the funds and political drive to take effective action on the continent’s flashpoints.
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/ 29 January 2008
South Africa believes that no political ambition could justify the current cycle of violence in Kenya, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday. Speaking at the Union Buildings, Pahad called on Kenyan political parties to rise above ”narrow political interests” and settle the conflict through dialogue.
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/ 29 January 2008
The Presidency on Tuesday denied that anti-apartheid activist John Minto had been nominated for a prestigious national order, which Minto said he would decline on the grounds that the situation in South Africa was worse than under white rule. Minto published a letter to President Thabo Mbeki on his website.
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/ 29 January 2008
Any attempt to use the Beijing Olympics to discredit China or force it to change policy is doomed to failure, the leading communist party newspaper said on Tuesday. The counter-attack comes amid a rough week for the Olympic organisers, who have had to admit concealed fatalities on the construction site.
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/ 29 January 2008
Former United Nations chief Kofi Annan brought together Kenya’s political rivals on Tuesday in a push to mediate an end to the post-election crisis and stop spreading tribal bloodshed. About a dozen people were killed in the country on Tuesday, bringing the toll to more than 850.
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/ 29 January 2008
The mandate of about 1 000 South African soldiers deployed in Burundi under an African Union mandate is to be extended as efforts to get the last remaining rebel group to re-join the peace process gain momentum, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday.