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/ 29 January 2008
A car-bomb attack on a police station killed two people and wounded 23 in a town east of Algiers on Tuesday, the second such bombing in the Opec member in a month. Some residents said the blast in Thenia appeared to be a suicide attack, the tactic used in a twin bombing in the capital on December 11.
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/ 29 January 2008
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon kicked off a landmark trip to Rwanda on Tuesday with a visit to the genocide memorial, amid simmering resentment over the world body’s failure to prevent the 1994 massacres. Ban paid homage to the victims of the massacres, which left about 800 000 people dead, mainly from the Tutsi minority of President Paul Kagame.
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/ 29 January 2008
Kenyan security forces struggled on Tuesday to contain escalating violence as the post-election unrest claimed its first victim among the country’s politicians. Heavily armed Kenyan army soldiers patrolled the volatile Rift Valley capital, Nakuru, on Tuesday while paramilitary police guarded the town of Naivasha, the new epicentre of tribal fighting.
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/ 28 January 2008
Congolese Tutsi rebels and Mai Mai militia clashed on Monday in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), breaking a ceasefire signed last week aimed at ending a long-running conflict, the two factions said. Tutsi fighters loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda and Pareco Mai Mai militia blamed each other for the fighting.
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/ 28 January 2008
Sudan will seek to head the African Union during the continental body’s upcoming summit at its headquarters in Addis Ababa, a Sudanese official said. Sudan’s two previous bids for the AU’s rotating presidency have been unsuccessful due to reservations over Khartoum’s rights record in the western region of Darfur.
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/ 28 January 2008
Protests erupted in western Kenya and machete-wielding mobs faced off in the Rift Valley on Monday after scores died in ethnic violence, complicating mediation efforts by former United Nations boss Kofi Annan. In the normally peaceful Rift Valley town of Nakuru, a mortuary worker said on Monday that 64 corpses were lying in the morgue.
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/ 28 January 2008
Kenyans in the Rift Valley town of Naivasha were braced for fresh violence on Monday after a spate of ethnic killings. At least 19 people were killed here on Sunday in battles between members of President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe and Luos and Kalenjins who backed his rival Raila Odinga.
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/ 28 January 2008
Dozens of policemen in riot gear at Egyptian checkpoints set up in the pouring rain just a few kilometres from the border with Gaza on Sunday failed to halt the flow of Palestinians into Egypt five days after the border was breached. Taiser Shuber had spent two days in Sheikh Zuwayed, a town about 19km into northern Sinai, where he savoured his first trip outside the Palestinian territories.
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/ 27 January 2008
‘We’re running out of oil!” We’ve been hearing this warning at least since the 1970s oil shocks, but recently it has been proclaimed with increasing insistence. The idea goes back to 1956, when Shell geologist M King Hubbert declared that the world had enough oil for only about 50 more years, writes Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero.
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/ 27 January 2008
Sudan summoned the top United States diplomat in Khartoum saying he had interfered in the internal affairs of the country and rejected US criticism of the appointment of Musa Hilal to a central government post. US Charge D’Affaires Alberto Fernandez told Reuters that Khartoum’s lack of implementation of internal peace accords had created an environment of distrust.
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/ 26 January 2008
Gunfire rang out in Nakuru, Kenya, on Saturday and armed gangs manned roadblocks in the Rift Valley town where ethnic clashes have killed at least 25 people in 24 hours, witnesses said. Paramilitary police patrolled the provincial capital, which had previously been spared post-election violence that has killed around 700 people.
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/ 25 January 2008
Ethnic fighting killed at least 12 people in Kenya’s Rift Valley and forced thousands from their homes on Friday. The violence, and a denial by opposition leader Raila Odinga that he would agree to serve as prime minister under President Mwai Kibaki, followed the first meeting between the two rivals since a disputed December 27 election triggered a political crisis.
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/ 25 January 2008
Islamist insurgents briefly seized control of Somalia’s biggest military airfield on Friday and looted weapons, witnesses and an Islamist commander said. Muktar Ali Robow, leader of the al-Shabab rebel militia, told a local radio station his forces also captured government troops during the raid on Baledogle, about 100km west of the capital, Mogadishu.
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/ 25 January 2008
A new flare-up of violence shook Kenya on Friday and fresh political recriminations dulled hopes a meeting between the president and opposition leader could resolve a month-long crisis. The local Red Cross said clashes related to a disputed December 27 poll had engulfed areas around the town of Nakuru.
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/ 24 January 2008
The two rivals in Kenya’s political crisis met on Thursday for the first time since a disputed election and pledged to seek an end to weeks of unrest that have killed nearly 700 people. President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga shook hands and smiled after the closed-door talks, brokered by former United Nations boss Kofi Annan.
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/ 24 January 2008
South Africa will have a second opportunity this year to head the United Nations Security Council, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday. South Africa, a non-permanent member of the 15-nation Security Council, will take over the presidency of the UN-decision making body in April again.
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/ 24 January 2008
A multi-disciplinary team of international counter-terrorism experts will visit South Africa later this year, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday. The United Nations Security Council’s counter-terrorism executive directorate will assess South Africa’s counter-terrorism efforts during a visit this year.
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/ 24 January 2008
Climate change is occurring far more rapidly than even the worst predictions of the United Nations Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Al Gore said on Thursday. Recent evidence shows "the climate crisis is significantly worse and unfolding more rapidly than … projections had warned us", he said.
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/ 24 January 2008
Canada on Wednesday bowed out of the United Nations 2009 conference on racism in Durban, saying it would likely ”degenerate into … expressions of intolerance and anti-Semitism”. Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity Jason Kenney said that, to his knowledge, Canada was the first country to announce it would not take part.
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/ 24 January 2008
Kenya’s opposition on Wednesday called off mass rallies scheduled for Thursday to protest disputed presidential polls. This was at the request of former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, who is in Kenya to mediate the crisis. Annan was in Nairobi in the latest attempt to mediate the turmoil sparked by the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki last month.
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/ 23 January 2008
Rebels in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda signed a peace pact on Wednesday with the government and Mai Mai militia to end fighting in the east of the country. Nkunda’s representative, Kambasu Ngeve, signed the document at a ceremony in the eastern town of Goma, which was attended by President Joseph Kabila.
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/ 23 January 2008
Police fired tear gas to disperse anti-government youths throwing rocks and taunting them at a memorial service on Wednesday organised by the opposition for people killed in an election protest crackdown. The latest trouble came as former United Nations chief Kofi Annan was to begin talks with President Mwai Kibaki and opposition challenger Raila Odinga.
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/ 23 January 2008
The annual Davos gathering of the world’s political and business elite opened on Wednesday with the fragile state of the world economy and stock-market turmoil casting a pall over the glitzy get-together. In recent years the annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort has been held against a backdrop of bumper corporate profits, strong economic growth and tame inflation.
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/ 23 January 2008
With most formal banks inaccessible to many Africans, the service of cellphone banking is expanding to the poor on the continent. Mary Kimani examines how financial institutions are extending their services through the ubiquitous usage of cellphones in rural areas.
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/ 22 January 2008
World powers said they would have to overcome key differences on Tuesday to agree on a new sanctions resolution against Iran that aims to ratchet up pressure on Tehran to curb sensitive nuclear work. The West has been engaged in a diplomatic showdown with Iran over its nuclear programme since 2002.
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/ 22 January 2008
The World Bank and African Development Bank, acting over the turmoil in Kenya, said on Tuesday they may have to adjust lending programmes if unrest persists following a disputed poll. ”We wish to continue working with the people of Kenya … but it is difficult to do so effectively in an environment of instability,” they said.
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/ 22 January 2008
United Nations peacekeepers monitoring the disputed border between Ethiopia and Eritrea may have to halt operations within weeks because Eritrea has cut diesel fuel supplies, said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The fuel stoppage is linked to the border dispute that brought the two impoverished Horn of Africa countries.
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/ 22 January 2008
The United Nations World Food Programme has begun flying in food and shelter to thousands of victims of heavy flooding in Mozambique, the agency said on Tuesday. More than two tonnes of mosquito nets, tents and plastic sheeting were flown in by helicopter on Monday to the Mutarara region, while the first deliveries of food were expected to be made on Tuesday.
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/ 22 January 2008
Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan was due to arrive in Kenya on Tuesday to try to mediate in a post-poll crisis that has torn the country in two and triggered weeks of violence that has killed hundreds. A hotly disputed election returned President Mwai Kibaki to power last month amid cries from opposition leader Raila Odinga that he rigged it.
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/ 22 January 2008
The West must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the ”imminent” spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the West’s most senior military officers and strategists.
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/ 22 January 2008
Kenya opposition leader Raila Odinga vowed on Monday to step up his challenge against President Mwai Kibaki as political unrest re-opened ethnic conflicts across the country. The tribes that voted for Kibaki in the December 27 election disputed by Odinga were being increasingly targeted by rival groups with long-running grievances.
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/ 21 January 2008
Gaza endured a fourth day of hardship on Monday as Israel vowed to maintain a punishing blockade in response to rocket fire from the Hamas-run territory, despite increasing international concern over a developing humanitarian crisis. The European Union slammed what it termed the ”collective punishment” of impoverished Gaza’s 1,5-million residents.