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/ 24 December 2007
Iran will soon announce an international tender for building 19 nuclear power plants, a week after Russia said it had begun fuel deliveries to the Islamic state’s first such facility. Kazem Jalali, a spokesperson for Parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, said each power plant would have a capacity of 1 000 megawatts.
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/ 24 December 2007
A first contingent of 100 peacekeepers from Burundi deployed in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Sunday, hours after fighting between Islamist rebels and government forces killed at least four people. The arrival of the soldiers marked the first phase of long-delayed support for 1 600 Ugandan troops.
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/ 24 December 2007
"A child if I want and when I want," reads the sign at the family-health centre in Niamey where dozens of Niger women come to get free contraceptives. "I was taking the pill without my husband’s knowledge," said Zahratou Amadou, a 38-year-old mother of 10. "When he found out he repudiated me."
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/ 23 December 2007
The handful of grain Abiye Omar clutches in her skinny hand has travelled a long way from the fertile fields of America’s Midwest to the desolate Somali seaside town of Merka. It has sailed on a relief ship through seas plagued by pirates and sharks, then been carried ashore by porters into the hands of aid workers who have to contend with bandits, arsonists and insurgents.
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/ 22 December 2007
The Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to extend the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for a year and demanded that all militias and armed groups in the volatile east lay down their weapons and start disarming. The council asked the UN force ”to attach the highest priority to addressing the crisis”.
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/ 22 December 2007
The Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to wrap up the United Nations peacebuilding mission in Sierra Leone in September next year, praising this year’s peaceful and democratic elections in the West African nation and efforts to professionalise its armed forces.
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/ 21 December 2007
We’re in southern Nepal; we’re not quite sure where as we lost the main highway about 30 minutes earlier in a desperate search for a petrol station. We didn’t find one in time. I’m barefoot and covered in dirt, straining to push our auto-rickshaw down a two-lane highway, as my boyfriend steers and tries to pump the clutch into action, writes Melissa Bell.
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/ 20 December 2007
War may break out again in Western Sahara if United Nations-sponsored talks between Morocco and the Polisario Front independence movement fail, Polisario said on Friday. A third round of UN-brokered talks to resolve Africa’s longest-running territorial dispute are set for January 7 to 9 in Manhasset, New York.
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/ 20 December 2007
Aid groups urged the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday to set a 30-day deadline for Sudan to stop obstructing the planned January 1 deployment of UN-African Union peacekeepers to Darfur or face sanctions. ”The new hybrid peacekeeping force for Darfur is being set up to fail,” said a statement.
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/ 19 December 2007
Rescue efforts are under way in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after a fleet of boats capsized on the Tshuapa river, killing at least 45 people, reports said on Wednesday. About 80 people were on board the motorised canoes when they went under on Sunday night.
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/ 19 December 2007
Six French humanitarian workers accused of trying to kidnap 103 African children go on trial in Chad on Friday as speculation grows that a diplomatic deal could send them back to France. Although the accused risk forced labour sentences if convicted, Chadian lawyers and many citizens believe they will either be able to serve their jail terms in France
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/ 19 December 2007
The hardest part is yet to come for Beijing Olympic organisers, heading into 2008 with all plans in place but potential pitfalls aplenty in the run-up to the event in August. Traffic congestion, closely linked to air quality, food security, media freedom and human rights as well as boycott calls are issues likely to flare up again over the coming months.
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/ 19 December 2007
The United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution on Tuesday calling for a moratorium on the death penalty, overcoming protests from a bloc of states that said it undermined their sovereignty. The resolution, which calls for ”a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty,” was passed by a 104 to 54 vote, with 29 abstentions.
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/ 18 December 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a visit overshadowed by a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq, called on Iraqi leaders on Tuesday to urgently implement a national reconciliation roadmap. Turkish troops crossed overnight into the Iraqi Kurdish province of Dahuk, about 200km from the city of Kirkuk, where Rice’s plane first touched down.
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/ 18 December 2007
Human Rights Watch (HRW) Tuesday accused Zambia’s government of failing to stop escalating violence against women and prevention of access to antiretroviral treatment for people living with HIV/Aids. HRW said 17% of Zambia’s adult population is living with HIV and 57% of them are women.
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/ 18 December 2007
More than 1 400 would-be migrants, mostly Somalis and Ethiopians, have drowned off Yemen this year trying to cross the Gulf of Aden on rickety boats run by brutal smugglers. About 28 300 people leaving northern Somalia, mainly Somalis and Ethiopians, have made it to Yemen’s shores on 300 boats this year.
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/ 17 December 2007
Iran will not halt uranium enrichment even with delivery of fuel from Russia for its first nuclear power plant, a senior Iranian official said on Monday, adding he could not yet confirm Iran had received the fuel. The Russian state agency building the station said in a statement on Monday it had delivered the first fuel shipment for the Bushehr plant.
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/ 17 December 2007
Russia warned on Monday that Kosovo could slip into ”uncontrollable crisis,” ahead of a United Nations Security Council showdown over the Serbian province’s push for independence. The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that the ”indulgence” of some countries in allowing Kosovo to move towards independence could have ”serious negative consequences” for stability.
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/ 17 December 2007
His middle-of-the-road rock and schmaltzy balladry may have opened him up to much mockery over the years. But not in Tehran. Chris de Burgh is to capitalise on his inoffensive image and not inconsiderable following in the Islamic republic by becoming the first major Western artist to perform live since the 1979 revolution.
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/ 16 December 2007
The military wing of Somalia’s Islamist movement plans to intensify its offensive against government troops and their Ethiopian allies, a senior commander said on Sunday. Muktar Ali Robow said al-Shabab had killed nearly 500 Ethiopian soldiers and would fight until foreign troops left the Horn of Africa country.
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/ 16 December 2007
A ”historic” Bali deal. A ”Berlin Wall” dividing rich and poor nations on global warming policy falls. And now comes the hard part. After the praise for the agreement hammered out at the Bali meeting to work out a climate treaty involving all nations by late 2009, governments will have to work out the details.
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/ 15 December 2007
A roadside bomb wounded at least 12 Somali soldiers in Baidoa and two people were killed in violence in Mogadishu on Saturday. The attacks in the capital and the south-central town hosting Somalia’s Parliament came after two days of fighting in Mogadishu between allied Somali-Ethiopian forces and Islamist insurgents.
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/ 15 December 2007
Nearly 200 nations agreed at United Nations-led talks in Bali on Saturday to launch negotiations on a new pact to fight global warming after a reversal by the United States allowed a breakthrough. Washington said the agreement marked a new chapter in climate diplomacy after six years of disputes with major allies since President George Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol
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/ 15 December 2007
India and China objected on Saturday to a draft deal at United Nations talks meant to launch negotiations to fight climate change, saying rich nations should do more to lead the way. ”The need of the hour is for enhanced commitments and instead we see a huge watering down,” said Indian delegate Chandrasekhar Dasgupta.
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/ 14 December 2007
Two convicted terrorists who had been freed in an amnesty carried out this week’s suicide bombings at United Nations and government buildings that killed 37 people, an Algerian security official said. One of the bombers was a 64-year-old man in the advanced stages of cancer, while the other was a 32-year-old from a poor suburb.
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/ 14 December 2007
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The battle to lead the African National Congress (ANC) pits an Aids dissident against a rival who took a shower as a form of safe sex, in a country that has the world’s highest rate of HIV infections. The ANC is electing its new leaders at a conference in Polokwane, Limpopo, that starts on Sunday.
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/ 14 December 2007
The European Union’s biggest four countries are pushing to impose and oversee independence in Kosovo without a fresh United Nations mandate, risking a showdown with a resurgent Russia and fierce resistance from Serbia, which vows no surrender of Kosovo.
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/ 14 December 2007
Negotiators at climate talks in Bali on Friday struggled to break a deadlock over United States objections to goals for cutting emissions by dropping a reference to a non-binding 2020 target in draft text. But the European Union insisted the two-week talks, due to end on Friday, should set stiff 2020 guidelines for rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
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/ 8 December 2007
United Nations peacekeepers expressed fears on Friday for tens of thousands of displaced people under threat in the latest conflict zone in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Goma, capital of the eastern province of Nord-Kivu, has been rocked by clashes between rebels led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda and army troops.
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/ 8 December 2007
Developing countries led by China squabbled with the West over mandatory emission cuts at the Bali climate-change conference, as activists accused Canada on Saturday of undermining the negotiations by insisting on targets for poor nations. Delegates from nearly 190 nations are attending the December 3 to 14 meeting.
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/ 8 December 2007
A series of six black-and-white prints on display in an unassuming corner of the New York Public Library have sparked controversy on the airwaves and blogosphere quite out of keeping with the dark, marble-lined corridor in which they are hung. The prints show the mugshots of main members of the Bush administration.
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/ 8 December 2007
Senior Israeli officials warned on Friday that they were still considering a military strike against Iran, despite a fresh United States intelligence report that concluded Tehran was no longer developing nuclear weapons. Although Israel says it wants strong diplomatic pressure put on Iran, it is reluctant to rule out the threat of a unilateral attack.