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Martyrs and marchers for a better Guinea, a footage posted by usnico on YouTube.

The people of Guinea, West Africa is facing one of the merciless dictatorships Africa has known. During the last weekends, tens of demonstrators, marching for a better Guinea have been systematically murdered by the security forces of General Lansana Conte, in power since 1984. Many among the victims are poor children. Our thoughts go out to the families of the victims and to the courageous Guinean people who is facing one of the worse tyrannies of our time.

CAR fighters urged to disarm

An opposition leader in Central African Republic has called on his fighters to lay down their weapons after he signed a peace deal with Francois Bozize, the country's president.

 

Abdoulaye Miskine, leader of the People's Democratic Front which signed an accord with Bozize in Libya on Friday, said those who disregarded his order would be punished. More...

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China 's Hu tells Sudan it must solve Darfur issue, 02 Feb 2007 13:55:30 GMT, By Opheera McDoom, KHARTOUM, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Chinese President Hu Jintao told Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Friday Khartoum had to resolve the four-year-old conflict in Darfur, a source said after talks between the two leaders. More...

Aid to Africa: A new weapon in the war on terror?, 01 Feb 2007 17:07:00 GMT, Blogged by: Megan Rowling
Should other African states be worried about U.S. activities in Somalia? Covert support for a bunch of warlords and a couple of bombing raids targeting al-Qaeda suspects may not amount to much at first glance. But some analysts think they're an indication the U.S.-led 'war on terror' has well and truly kicked off in Africa. This week, John Chipman, head of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, noted at the launch of The Military Balance 2007 that the latest outbreak of violence in Somalia has led many "to view the weak state as 'jihad's third front' after Afghanistan and Iraq". More...

Ambassador Cohen Talks About U.S.- Africa Relations, VOAnews.com  More...

Chad and Eritrea have also played a destabilizing role in the region - Ambassador Cohen

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Immigration: The Third-World Invasion
by William H. Calhoun
December 17, 2006 12:00 PM EST
An ex-Army intelligence officer recently said to me, "An invasion is taking place. Whether by means of legal or illegal immigration, the third-world hordes are invading the first world, and they are taking no prisoners. If this is not stopped now, America within one generation will be a third-world sewer." But what is being done? O Tempora! O Mores!
More...

WORLD: Is Bin Laden Dead?
Saudi sources tell TIME that credible reports suggest the fugitive Qaeda leader has contracted a serious 'water-borne illness,' and may have already died. ...More
source: TIME.com, Sep. 23, 2006
By SCOTT MACLEOD/CAIRO AND TALA SKARI/PARIS

WORLD: Conflicting reports: Bin Laden could be dead or ill,--PARIS, France (CNN) -- Osama bin Laden has a water-borne illness, a Saudi intelligence source told CNN on Saturday, a report that conflicts with an article in a French newspaper saying that the al Qaeda leader is dead. ...More
Sep. 23, 2006, CNN.com

WORLD: "We Do Not Need Attacks"
Exclusive: On the eve of a visit to the U.S., Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks to TIME's Scott MacLeod about debating President Bush, pursuing nuclear energy and denying the Holocaust....More, source:TIME.com,
Sunday, Sep. 17, 2006, By SCOTT MACLEOD

The Zongo Affair: a dismissal that hurts
Marcel Kafando: only indictment in the assassination case of journalist Norbert Zongo, was released, Thursday, July 20th, 2006 ...More

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   UN appalled by Beirut devastation.  The UN's Jan Egeland has condemned the devastation caused by Israeli air strikes in Beirut, saying it is a violation of humanitarian law. Source: BBC News, July 23, 2006....More

 

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Hussein Gets Feeding Tube at Hospital After Hunger Strike, By DAMIEN CAVE, New York Times, July 23, 2006---BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 23 ? Saddam Hussein was hospitalized Sunday morning, fed with a tube and given a battery of tests to ensure that he could stand trial later this week despite a hunger strike that began July 7, Iraqi and American officials said. ...More

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Term debate shows cracks in African democracy
May 15, 2006, By Daniel Flynn

Why Abuja won’t save Darfur, May 15, 2006
By Eric Reeves, The New Republic online

Coretta Scott King Dies at 78, By ERRIN HAINES
The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 31, 2006; 10:28 PM- --- ATLANTA -- Coretta Scott King, who worked to keep her husband's dream alive with a chin-held-high grace and serenity that made her a powerful symbol of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s creed of brotherhood and nonviolence, died Tuesday. She was 78.  ...More

Sudan agrees to withdraw its candidacy for Africa’s chairmanship ,January 24 , 2005

Ethiopia: Hidden Crackdown in Rural Areas : Independent Inquiry Should Investigate Rural Violence ---January 13, 2006

December 1,2005

Africa - 3 November 2005

November 3, 2005
 

Nigerian plane with 117 aboard destroyed in crash   

By Tom Ashby  |  October 23, 2005

LAGOS (Reuters) - A Nigerian airliner with 117 people aboard crashed and disintegrated in flames shortly after take-off from Lagos and there were no signs of survivors, officials said on Sunday.More
 

Iraq war foes ready for 2,000th military death  

By Deborah Zabarenko  |  October 23, 2005

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cindy Sheehan, the military mother who made her son's death in Iraq a rallying point for the anti-war movement, plans to tie herself to the White House fence to protest the milestone of 2,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq.More

Hurricane Wilma aims at Florida after Mexico chaos

By Noel Randewich  | October 23, 2005

CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) - Hurricane Wilma bore down on Florida on Sunday after devastating Mexico's Caribbean resorts with flood water and wild winds that smashed thousands of homes and killed at least seven people.More

Rice and Straw demand action over Hariri killing

October 23, 2005

LONDON (Reuters) - A UN report on the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri is "very serious" for Syria and the international community must act, the United States and Britain said on Sunday.More

Nigerian first lady dies after surgery in Spain   

October 23, 2005

ABUJA (Reuters) - The wife of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo died on Sunday after undergoing surgery in Spain, the presidency said.

Stella Obasanjo, 59, was separated from Obasanjo in the early 1990s but they got back together during his imprisonment under the military dictatorship of Sani Abacha later in that decade and she has served as first lady for six years.

"President Olusegun Obasanjo announced with the deepest sorrow in the early hours of this morning of his beloved wife and first lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Mrs Stella Obasanjo," Obasanjo's spokeswoman said.

"She died in Spain after undergoing surgery." 

Hunger crisis looms in Malawi      

October 16, 2005

HUNGER CRISIS: Malawi's president warns that 5 million people in his country -- almost half the population -- are imminently threatened with hunger.

CAUSE AND EFFECT: Drought has withered corn crops, worsening a malnutrition problem aggravated by poverty, corruption and AIDS.

FUTURE NEEDS: The president says the government will spend $50 million for 330,000 tons of corn from South Africa, but that Malawi needs an additional 158,000 tons to last until the next harvest in March or April. Donors have provided only $28 million for Malawi relief; the United Nations has sought $88 million.

Soccer great Weah ahead in Liberia, run-off looms  

By Katharine Houreld  |  October 16, 2005

MONROVIA (Reuters) - Liberia's presidential elections appeared headed for a second round as the latest tally on Sunday from last week's vote showed soccer great George Weah's lead was still too narrow to win outright.

With results in from 84 percent of polling stations across the war-ravaged West African country, former FIFA World Player of the Year Weah led the field of 22 candidates with 30 percent of the vote.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former finance minister and World Bank economist, was in second place with 19.6 percent of the vote. She would become Africa's first elected female president if she won.

Any candidate must gain 50 percent plus one vote to win outright in the first round, otherwise a run off will be held in early November between the two leaders.

National Elections Commission chief Frances Johnson-Morris, announcing the figures at a news conference, declined to comment on whether a second round was now inevitable. An official announcement is due by Tuesday.

LONG JOURNEYS

With Liberia's infrastructure in tatters following a brutal 14-year civil war which killed almost a quarter of a million people, many voters will face long journeys if they have to cast their ballots again.

"A second round is a bad thing. It would be complicated," said Claude Nimley, a security guard who traveled for three days to vote in Monrovia for Weah.

"I'm afraid many people won't make it a second time. I thought we would win outright!" said Nimley, who was waiting anxiously for the final election result.

Tuesday's presidential and parliamentary polls were the first in Liberia since the war ended in 2003 after former president and warlord Charles Taylor went into exile in Nigeria.

Taylor, whose army included child soldiers high on drugs wielding grenade launchers and Kalashnikovs, is wanted for war crimes by a U.N.-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone. He is regarded as the mastermind of several West African conflicts.

International election observers, diplomats and United Nations officials have praised the peaceful conduct of an election broadly judged so far to have been free and fair.

Africa's oldest independent republic, Liberia was founded by freed American slaves in 1847. It enjoyed relatively stability for well over a century becoming a center for rubber and iron ore production.

Donations to Niger down after US storms

October 15, 2005

Washington, D.C.

The effects of the drought in Niger linger, but international donations have dried up in the aftermath of the recent hurricanes along the US Gulf Coast, according to officials of Africare, a nonprofit aid and advocacy group. ''Katrina arrived, and Niger just disappeared from the radar screen. That is the cold truth," Myron Golden, the group's regional development director for French-speaking West and Central Africa, said in an interview this week.

(Washington Post)

Kenya

Hijackers release ship with Somalia food aid
NAIROBI -- Hijackers yesterday released a UN-chartered ship carrying food aid and a crew of 10 after successful negotiations with a Somali businessman, officials said. Gunmen released the MV Miltzow after a Somali contractor, hired by the UN World Food Program to handle the food aid, negotiated with them, said Karim Kudrati, managing director of Motaku Shipping Agency, the Kenyan company that owns the ship. Kudrati said he was not aware that any ransom was paid. The crew was unharmed and the food aid was untouched. (AP)

Serbia-Montenegro

US diplomat warns on war crimes suspects
BELGRADE -- A senior US diplomat warned Serbia and Montenegro yesterday that the Balkan country would ''suffer the consequences" for its failure to arrest Bosnian war crimes suspects Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. Nicholas Burns, US undersecretary for political affairs, said Serbia would miss out on closer ties with NATO and the European Union if the two were not delivered to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. After meeting Burns, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said in a statement that Serbia had shown it was ready to cooperate with the Hague and would fulfill all its obligations. (Reuters)

France

Cleric who defended wife-beating is fined
LYON -- A Muslim prayer leader expelled from France to his native Algeria for defending wife-beating received a suspended prison sentence and a fine in absentia yesterday for approving attacks on women. A local feminist group hailed the decision by the Lyon appeals court to sentence Abdelkader Bouziane to a suspended six-month jail term and a fine of about $2,400 for inciting an attack that was not carried out. Bouziane, who has two wives and 16 children, became a symbol of Islamic fundamentalism in France last year when the magazine Lyon Mag quoted him as saying the Koran allowed husbands to beat unfaithful wives. (Reuters)

Spain

Annan appeals for help for Haiti stabilization
SALAMANCA -- UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed for aid for Haiti's reconstruction at the start of a 22-nation summit of Latin American, Spanish, and Portuguese leaders yesterday. Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is struggling to hold its first elections since president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in February 2004 but has had to postpone the polls. The first round of voting in Haiti had been scheduled for Nov. 20, but has been delayed by logistical and technical problems. (Reuters)

The Netherlands

World Court confirms Uganda rebel warrants
AMSTERDAM -- The International Criminal Court in The Hague yesterday unsealed its first arrest warrants, targeting five leaders of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army cult notorious for a 19-year campaign of brutality. The tribunal said LRA leader Joseph Kony, who says he is a Christian mystic, was one of five people wanted on war crimes charges, and it confirmed the list of suspects whose names had already been announced by the Ugandan government a week ago. (Reuters)