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/ 26 October 2007
Turkish helicopters ferried more troops to the border with Iraq on Friday as diplomatic efforts got under way in Ankara to avert a major offensive against Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq. Turkey has massed up to 100 000 troops along the mountainous border before a possible cross-border operation to crush about 3 000 guerrillas of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
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/ 26 October 2007
Nine French citizens have been arrested in Chad after being accused of attempting to take 103 orphaned children from Darfur out of the country to be adopted by French families, French media reported on Friday. The nine suspects were taken into custody at the airport of Abeche, in eastern Chad, as they were preparing to leave the country with the children.
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/ 25 October 2007
Humanity is changing Earth’s climate so fast and devouring resources so voraciously that it is poised to bequeath a ravaged planet to future generations, the United Nations warned on Thursday in its most comprehensive survey of the environment. The fourth <i>Global Environment Outlook</i> is compiled by 390 experts from observations, studies and data garnered over two decades.
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/ 25 October 2007
Disarray in both government and rebel ranks makes quick progress unlikely in Darfur peace talks billed by the United Nations as a ”moment of truth” to stop four-and-a-half years of violence in western Sudan. The best that can be hoped at the gathering in Libya, which begins on Saturday, is agreement to meet again.
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/ 25 October 2007
France is trying to shed its reputation as ”Africa’s policeman” but, despite efforts to involve European partners in peacekeeping missions, there are no signs it will hang up its baton just yet. France won backing last month for an European Union force to be deployed soon in east Chad and Central African Republic, where it already has troops stationed.
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/ 25 October 2007
Burma’s detained democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is to hold surprise talks with a minister from the ruling junta today, according to sources in Burma. Residents in Rangoon, where Aung San Suu Kyi is being held under house arrest, told the Associated Press that she had left her home to meet officials.
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/ 25 October 2007
Israeli officials prepared a plan on Wednesday to cut power supplies to the Gaza Strip amid violence that killed two Palestinian boys after a rocket salvo damaged an apartment building in the Jewish state. The United Nations has told Israel it must not inflict collective punishment by cutting vital supplies and services.
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/ 24 October 2007
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice singled out Iran on Wednesday as ”perhaps the single greatest challenge” to US security, but stressed that diplomacy was the preferred way to end its nuclear drive. President George Bush last week warned that a nuclear-armed Iran evoked the threat of ”World War III”.
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/ 24 October 2007
Ethiopia has started re-erecting its famed Axum obelisk 30 months after it returned to the country from Italy where it stayed for 70 years, a United Nations expert said on Wednesday. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation is overseeing the operation.
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/ 24 October 2007
The latest clashes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have driven 33 000 more people from villages in Nord-Kivu province and a cholera outbreak is suspected, United Nations agencies reported on Wednesday. About 25 000 people have been uprooted in the rugged Rutshuru highlands about 50km north of the provincial capital, Goma.
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/ 24 October 2007
Africa’s cellphone connections rose by 15-million subscribers or 6,6% in the third quarter of 2007, according to figures from an industry trade body seen by Reuters on Wednesday. The GSM Association said subscribers to GSM and CDMA technologies totalled 241,2-million in the third quarter.
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/ 24 October 2007
The Islamist Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) announced on Wednesday that it would boycott Darfur peace talks due to open in Libya on the weekend, bringing to seven the number of rebel groups intending to stay away. The JEM said it had taken its decision in the light of consultations with six other rebel groups.
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/ 24 October 2007
Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden called for a holy war against a proposed peacekeeping force in Sudan’s war-torn region of Darfur in a message that appeared on jihadi websites on Tuesday. The audio recording was accompanied by a still picture and excerpts were aired by pan-Arab satellite news channel al-Jazeera on Monday.
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/ 24 October 2007
Australia slapped financial sanctions on Burma’s generals and their families on Wednesday as supporters of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi marked her 12 years in captivity with protests in 12 cities. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the measures would hit 418 people, including leader Senior General Than Shwe.
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/ 23 October 2007
A prominent Darfur rebel figure and five other smaller factions will not attend peace talks due to start this weekend in Libya, leaders said on Tuesday, casting doubt on prospects for peace. Ahmed Abdel Shafie told reporters that African Union and United Nations mediators had not heeded rebel requests for a delay to allow them to form a united position.
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/ 23 October 2007
A commander of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has surrendered in northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is in the custody of Congolese authorities, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Opiyo Makasi, reported to be the rebel group’s operations and logistics commander, gave himself up along with his wife.
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/ 23 October 2007
Sudan will announce another ceasefire in its four-and-a-half year conflict with rebel groups in Darfur at the weekend, it emerged on Monday. The announcement will come at the opening of Darfur peace talks, which are to take place in the Libyan city of Sitre.
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/ 23 October 2007
Recent conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Nord-Kivu province has been accompanied by an upsurge in brutal rape and often barbaric mutilations of women and girls, medical workers report. "For the whole of Nord-Kivu we normally treat 250 rape cases each month," said Jane Coyne, mission chief for Médécins Sans Frontières.
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/ 23 October 2007
Somali authorities on Tuesday released the local head of the World Food Programme, who was seized nearly a week ago when government forces stormed a United Nations compound in Mogadishu. "He is safely back in the office. He was brought by some government officers as well as local UN staffers," a UN official said in Mogadishu.
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/ 22 October 2007
Former Mozambique president Joachim Chissano won a new -million prize for African leadership on Monday and was hailed as ”a powerful voice for Africa on the international stage”. Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan chaired the committee that selected the inaugural award by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.
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/ 22 October 2007
Three Sudanese soldiers were killed when government forces attacked a refugee camp in Darfur, the second assault reported on a shelter for displaced people in less than a week, the United Nations said on Monday. The fighting was the latest in a series of clashes just days before planned peace talks.
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/ 22 October 2007
Africa has a larger urban population than North America, reveals an international development study released on Monday. The 2007 edition of the International Institute for Environment and Development’s urban-change analysis found that 25 of the world’s fastest growing large cities were in Africa.
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/ 22 October 2007
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) army said on Monday it had resumed control of an eastern town seized by rebel forces over the weekend and the heavy fighting between the two sides had ended. Forces loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda confirmed the clashes in the eastern Nord-Kivu region were over, and said they were waiting to hear about possible talks.
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/ 22 October 2007
Somali pirates have seized a cargo ship off the East African coast, the head of a local seafarers’ association said on Monday. Gunmen attacked the vessel last Wednesday, said Andrew Mwangura, the programme coordinator of the East Africa Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, but due to chaotic communications with Somalia the incident had taken several days to confirm.
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/ 21 October 2007
Democratic Republic of Congo’s army on Sunday gave pro-government militia fighters 48 hours to disarm or face military action as thousands more people fled renewed fighting in the eastern province of North Kivu. Explosions and gunfire rang out before dawn in the hills around Rugari, a town of tin-roofed houses near the Rwandan and Ugandan borders.
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/ 21 October 2007
Ethiopia’s Ogaden National Liberation Front rebels said they killed 140 government soldiers in a weekend assault targeting a senior official, a statement Ethiopia immediately denounced as false. Both sides routinely claim to inflict large numbers of casualties on the other, but the reports are difficult to independently verify.
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/ 21 October 2007
Around 50 people have been killed in three days of tribal clashes in the western Sudanese region of Kordofan, government officials were quoted as saying on Sunday. Dozens were wounded in the fighting sparked by the killing of one person in a land dispute.
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/ 19 October 2007
Government-backed militias have attacked a refugee camp over the past three days, killing six people and injuring 14 during their search for rebels from Sudan’s Darfur region, witnesses said on Friday. The United Nations confirmed there had been shooting in the Kalma camp outside Nyala, capital of South Darfur, over the past two days.
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/ 19 October 2007
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) army says desertions have weakened rebel forces ahead of a planned offensive against them, but rebel general Laurent Nkunda remains defiant. On Thursday the army put on show what they said were 80 deserters wearing ragtag uniforms from Nkunda’s forces.
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/ 19 October 2007
Rwanda called on France on Friday to extradite a Rwandan wanted for his alleged role in the country’s 1994 genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Dominique Ntawukuriryayo, a former sub-prefect during the mass killings, was arrested by French police in Carcassonne, south-west France.
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/ 18 October 2007
Burma’s ruling junta on Thursday night announced the formation of a Constitution Drafting Commission, another step in the government’s ”road map” to democracy that is supposed to lead to free elections some time in the future. The move came after the junta brutally suppressed pro-democracy demonstrations last month.
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/ 18 October 2007
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Thursday transferred a militia chief to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to face war-crimes charges, including sexual enslavement and using child soldiers. Germain Katanga (29), who once led the Forces for Patriotic Resistance in Ituri, was flown out of Kinshasa early on Thursday.