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/ 17 September 2007

Fears mount over more floods in Africa

Fears mounted on Monday that downpours that have killed dozens in Africa, uprooted hundreds of thousands and devastated crops could continue past the end of the rainy season and hit areas that have so far escaped floods. Experts say the rising waters may hit as yet unaffected areas in the coming days.

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/ 8 September 2007

Fighting erupts in eastern DRC

Fresh clashes have erupted between a renegade general and government troops in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The United Nations said violence in the region was hampering efforts to deliver food to tens of thousands of displaced
civilians.

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/ 7 September 2007

Chad offers to help UN Darfur peace moves

Chad will back United Nations moves to end the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region by allowing international peacekeepers on its own soil and supporting peace talks, President Idriss Itno Déby said on Friday. Déby made the commitment to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was in Chad on a regional tour to canvass support for the UN’s peacekeeping initiative for Darfur.

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/ 6 September 2007

DRC rebel calls for truce as fighting worsens

A dissident Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) general called for African mediation to broker a ceasefire in eastern DRC as fighting between his forces and government troops neared the provincial capital on Thursday. New clashes broke out before dawn around Karuba, a village about 30km west of Goma, the capital of troubled North Kivu province.

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/ 5 September 2007

Zimbabwe faces food-shortage crisis

The number of people facing serious food shortages in Zimbabwe is expected to grow to 4,1-million over the first quarter of next year, the Canadian ambassador to the African country said on Wednesday. ”This figure is expected to increase dramatically in the coming months,” Roxanne Dube said at a ceremony where Canada donated ,3-million to the World Food Programme.

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/ 4 September 2007

Central America braces for powerful Hurricane Felix

Tens of thousands of people hunkered in storm shelters on Tuesday as Hurricane Felix roared toward Central America, but transport shortages left many facing the storm’s whipping winds and rain in their homes. The category-four hurricane, due to make landfall around mid-morning, charged toward Honduras and Nicaragua with top sustained winds of 215km/h.

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/ 3 September 2007

Pyongyang’s nuclear dividend

Tank traps, landmines and checkpoint barriers flank the North Korean road to Panmunjom, the last frontier of the Cold War. For more than half a century, this small village in the demilitarised zone that divides the Korean peninsula has been frozen in suspended conflict.

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/ 3 September 2007

DRC general turns guns on govt forces

Peace accords that were to put an end to the conflicts that killed millions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR) are collapsing after a powerful renegade Tutsi general declared war on the government. The United Nations has started airlifting thousands of government troops into the eastern Kivu region, which has endured two foreign invasions and more than a decade of civil war.

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/ 31 August 2007

Zimbabweans flee to more misery in SA

Crispin Mutamba fled exhausting bread and fuel queues in Zimbabwe for wealthy South Africa, only to find himself stuck in another one for three months outside Home Affairs in Pretoria hoping to get permission to stay. The chances are slim. Mutamba can’t find a job or a home, and, like many Zimbabweans, he feels like a pariah.

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/ 29 August 2007

Temporary SA residence for Zim refugees?

The government needs to adopt a new approach to deal with Zimbabwean citizens flocking into South Africa, Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said on Tuesday. The South African Broadcasting Corporation reported her as saying one solution could be to provide them with temporary residence permits.