Al Jazeera and agencies | November 07

Al Jazeera -
Seven Saudis and an unknown number of Houthi fighters have been killed as Saudi forces battle Yemen rebels for the fifth straight day, medics have said.

Saudi commanders said troops were shelling suspected Houthi positions on Saturday and plumes of smoke could be seen rising above the Jebel al-Dukhan peak that marks the frontier near the border town of Al-Khubah.

A medical official said seven Saudis, four of them women civilians, had been killed and 126 people wounded since the fighting erupted.

The Houthis claimed that they captured a number of Saudi soldiers on Friday.

Jeffrey Gettleman | Nairobi | November 5

NYT - Members of the political elite in Kenya, a nation where top leaders have long escaped prosecution for corruption and other crimes, could now face an international investigation into the violence that shook the country after disputed elections last year.

After months of stonewalling by Kenyan politicians, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced Thursday that crimes against humanity had been committed during the postelection period and that he would seek a formal investigation into them.

Harare | Nov 6

Reuters - Zimbabwe's government has proposed that Zimbabweans take 51 percent ownership of all foreign companies in the country, including mines and banks, according to a draft law seen by Reuters on Friday.

An official at the Chamber of Mines expressed surprise and concern at the proposed legislation, prepared by the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment.

"We haven't seen the regulations but if what we've heard is true, then that's a step back. It goes against what we've been discussing with the Ministry of Mines and other ministries," the official, who declined to be named, said.

The draft regulations said "indigenous Zimbabweans" should hold a controlling interest in each foreign-owned business with an asset value above $500,000. They could further unsettle those investors with an interest in the ruined economy.

Zimbabwe passed an Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment law in 2007, which seeks to transfer control of all firms -- including mines and banks -- to black Zimbabweans.

Seeing how well giving all the farms to indigenous Zimbabweans went, this ought to send the country into a whole new level of hell.

Jonathan Sherwood | Rochester, NY | November 3

Futurity - In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial.

Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world’s oceans, and the rift is indeed likely the beginning of a new sea.

Nick Mathiason | Nov 3

The Guardian - New code of conduct could limit aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states who have been buying vast tracts of agricultural land

Aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states to buy vast tracts of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa could soon be limited by a new global international protocol.

A scramble for African farmland has in recent years seen the equivalent of Italy's entire arable land hoovered up by businesses from emerging economies.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Bank are now discussing a new code of conduct for land buyers in Africa. Amid increasing concerns over food security, it could include ensuring consent is given prior to selling land from local people as well as ensuring smallholders do not lose out. A first draft is expected to be released next spring.

Alex Wijeratna, Action Aid's food rights campaign officer, said: "There's a new scramble for land in Africa. It's growing at an incredible rate. There's massive secrecy, poor communities can't get information and they're not being consulted. There's an argument for a moratorium on sales until there's a proper framework to assess them. We are concerned that an agreement will not come fast enough."

Earlier this year, legendary hedge fund speculator George Soros highlighted a new farmland buying frenzy caused by growing population, scarce water supplies and climate change. South Korea bought huge areas of Madagasca recently while Chinese interests bought up large swathes of Senegal to supply it with sesame.

Haroon Siddique & Giles Tremlett | Nov 3

The Guardian - The British mercenary Simon Mann, who was sentenced to 34 years in prison in Equatorial Guinea last year for plotting to overthrow the oil-rich country's government, has been granted a presidential pardon.

Equatorial Guinea's information ministry said tonight that Teodoro Obiang, the president, had already signed the waiver, which was "a complete pardon on humanitarian grounds".

Mann, an Eton-educated former SAS officer, was arrested in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2004 with dozens of mercenaries when their private plane landed. He spent three years in prison in Zimbabwe and was then extradited to Equatorial Guinea.

During his trial, the court in Equatorial Guinea heard that Mark Thatcher, the son of the former British prime minister, was a member of the group. Mann acknowledged knowingly taking part in the attempt to topple Equatorial Guinea's government, but his lawyer argued he was a secondary player. He has been held at the notorious Black Beach prison in Malabo, the capital.

Mann was also ordered to pay a fine and compensation of about £14.6m.

The presidential pardon said Mann had been released, taking into account his health and given his need "to receive regular medical treatment and to be with his family". It stated that the pardon came on the eve of an official visit to Equatorial Guinea by Jacob Zuma, the South African president.

The decree also said that Mann's "attitude during the investigation … and his behaviour during the trial and while being held in prison … showed sufficient and credible signs of repentance".

Steve Connor | Nov 3

The Independent -

The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro – the highest mountain in Africa – may soon be falling on bare ground following a study showing that its ice cap is destined to disappear entirely within 20 years, due largely to climate change.

The vast ice fields of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania are melting at a faster pace than at any time over the past 100 years and at this rate they will be gone completely within two decades or even earlier according to one of the world's leading glaciologists.

A team led by Professor Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University said that the latest assessment of Kilimanjaro's famous ice cap has confirmed that 85 per cent of the ice that covered the mountain in 1912 has been lost, and 26 per cent of the ice that was there in 2000 is now gone.

A series of cores drilled through the ice fields at different points on Kilimanjaro has revealed that the melting observed over the past few decades is unprecedented in nearly 12,000 years. The research also shows that that the current thinning of the ice cap is faster than when a devastating 300-year drought occurred 4,200 years ago, a period when very little snow fell on the mountain.

"The dramatic loss of Kilimanjaro's ice cover has attracted global attention. The three remaining ice fields on the plateau and the slopes are both shrinking laterally and rapidly thinning," the scientists write in a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

If conditions persist, and warmer temperatures continue to melt more ice than falls in the form of snow, then there is a "strong likelihood that the ice field will disappear within a decade or two", the authors conclude.

Oct 28

BBC - Hundreds of people have attended a wedding in central Somalia between a man who says he is 112 years old, and his teenage wife.

Ahmed Muhamed Dore - who already has 18 children by five wives - said he would like to have more with his new wife, Safia Abdulleh, who is 17 years old.

"Today God helped me realise my dream," Mr Dore said, after the wedding in the region of Galguduud.

The bride's family said she was "happy with her new husband".

Mr Dore said he and his bride - who is young enough to be his great-great-grand-daughter - were from the same village in Somalia and that he had waited for her to grow up to propose.

"I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love; and then we agreed to marry," the groom said.

Alisha Ryu | Nairobi | October 22

VOA News - At least 24 people were killed and as many as 60 wounded in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, during what witnesses say was one of the worst fighting in recent months. African Union peacekeepers are being increasingly blamed for causing deaths and injuries among civilians.

Even the most battle-hardened residents describe the early morning fighting between African Union peacekeepers and al-Shabab militants as one of the most frightening battles they have ever seen.

October 16

Al Jazeera - Nigeria's main rebel group has ended its 90-day ceasefire with the government and threatened to resume attacks in the oil-producing southern region.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said in an emailed statement that it would resume "hostilities against the Nigerian oil industry, the Nigerian armed forces and its collaborators" on Friday.

Daiel Howden | Oct 17

The Independent - Arrest of MDC official pushes Tsvangirai to denounce Mugabe as 'dishonest partner'

Zimbabwe's troubled power-sharing government is facing its most serious crisis after the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, declared a "temporary withdrawal" in response to the arrest of one of his main allies.

"It is our right to disengage from a dishonest and unreliable partner," he told reporters in Harare. "Whilst being in government, we shall forthwith disengage from Zanu-PF and in particular from cabinet and the council of ministers until such time as confidence and respect are restored amongst us."

The stalemate could stall all government business including attempts to reform the constitution. Mr Tsvangirai said that if the crisis intensified further, it could be resolved only by holding fresh elections under the supervision of the United Nations and the Southern African Development Community.

The former trade unionist and opposition leader has been sharing power with his bitter political rival, President Robert Mugabe, since March this year but the already rocky relationship has reached breaking-point after the arrest of Roy Bennett, a prominent member of Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

David Leigh | Oct 17

The Guardian - • Guardian 'released from restrictions forthwith'
• Report called firm's oil waste 'potentially toxic'
• Read the Trafigura study: the Minton report (pdf)

Lawyers for oil traders Trafigura finally abandoned attempts to keep secret a scientific report about toxic waste dumping in west Africa, that was shown to the Guardian.

Just after 7.30pm Carter-Ruck, libel lawyers for Trafigura, wrote a letter to the Guardian which said the newspaper should regard itself as "released forthwith" from any reporting restrictions. An MP revealed the report's existence to parliament this week, after the Guardian was hit with a "super-injunction" banning all mention of it and other UK media were then subsequently notified of, and therefore bound by it.

The Minton report, commissioned in 2006 from the London-based firm's scientific consultants, said that based on the "limited" information they had been given Trafigura's oil waste, dumped cheaply the month before in a city in Ivory Coast, was potentially toxic, and "capable of causing severe human health effects".

The study said early reports of large scale medical problems among the inhabitants of Abidjan, were consistent with a release of a cloud of potentially lethal hydrogen sulphide gas over the city. The effects could have included severe burns to the skin and lungs, eye damage, permanent ulceration, coma and death.

Daniel Howden | Darfur, Sudan | October 17

The Independent - The Lord's Resistance Army, one of the most feared guerrilla groups in Africa, has moved into Darfur, one of the continent's most troubled regions, intelligence sources in Sudan say.

The unexpected move by the LRA comes just as the war-weary west of Sudan recedes from world headlines and after the UN mission there had tentatively declared the fighting to be over. The possible arrival of a messianic cult notorious for rape, civilian massacres and the enslavement of child soldiers threatens that fragile peace. The LRA has been terrorising the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo for 18 months but the bulk of its forces have now crossed into southern Darfur, a senior official in the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) told The Independent.

"We have confirmed that the LRA are there and they have clashed with the local population," said Major-General Kuol Deim Kuol.

Grand Rapids, MI | October 16

PressTV - The grounds have reportedly been established for armed American presence on Somali soil with a US security firm winning a contract in the war-ravaged country.

Michigan-based CSS Global Inc., secured the contract under the plea of 'fighting terrorism and piracy' and 'protecting' Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), reported Michigan Live citing The Grand Rapids Press newspaper.

Daniel Howden | Oct 15

The Independent - From Liberia to Ethiopia, Beijing is constructing a 21st century empire thousands of miles from home

This afternoon more than a dozen Liberians are expected at the Samuel Doe sports stadium in the capital, Monrovia. In a makeshift classroom with some plastic chairs and a whiteboard their teacher, Li Peng, is waiting to finish the group's second week of instruction in Mandarin Chinese. Early attendances at the free daily lessons provided by the Chinese embassy have been poor, but officials are blaming heavy rain rather than light interest. The class is still struggling with the basics and few Chinese listeners apart from their teacher would recognise the strange "hellos" and "goodbyes" being called out.

"Learning Chinese may prove difficult," Mr Li admitted. "But if they work hard they will make it."

The West African country set up to settle freed American slaves in 1843 is English-speaking and the going is hard.

"Traditionally, we Liberians are closer to the Americans than we are to the Chinese," he says. "But the irony is that the Chinese are more open to us than the Americans are."

Liberia's government has no Mandarin speakers, and China's ambassador, Zhou Yuxiao, admits that he's uncomfortable that multibillion-dollar accords between the two countries are signed with one side unable to read the documents.

Nairobi/Abuja | Oct 11

DPA - Some 70 people were killed, many of them burned to death, in a multiple-vehicle inferno in Nigeria caused after a fuel tanker lorry crashed, the online edition of This Day newspaper reported Saturday.

The accident in Anambra State ultimately involved nine vehicles, including the fuel tanker, six commuter buses, and passenger car and a van, the report said.

The newspaper cited eyewitnesses as saying the fuel tanker first toppled over near a junction, spilling fuel onto the road. The fuel exploded when a car approached the secne and then the other vehicles also were engulfed in flames.

John Lichfield | Oct 11

The Independent - The scientist suspected of plotting terrorist attacks on nuclear sites in France is a brilliant, internationally known physicist who has worked on research projects in Britain and the US, it emerged yesterday.

Adlène Hicheur, 32, who currently works on the "Big Bang" Large Hadron Collider experiment on the Swiss-French border, was once a research fellow at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, Oxfordshire. His name is attached to dozens of research papers presented at universities and nuclear research centres all over the world.

Mr Hicheur, and his brother, Zitouni, or Halim, also a highly qualified scientist, were arrested at their parents' home on a suburban council estate at Vienne, south of Lyons, on Thursday. French investigators say that advanced, internet "bugging" equipment allowed them to read, in "real time", emails exchanged between the brothers and the North African branch of al-Qa'ida. The messages are alleged to have contained, in recent days, suggested targets for attacks on nuclear sites in France and other countries "allied with the United States".

Will Ross | Eldoret, Kenya | October 9

BBC - A Kenyan deadline expires on Friday for people displaced by post-election violence to leave their camps.

Two weeks ago President Mwai Kibaki ordered the closure of the camps, which at the peak of the violence were home to around 500,000 people.

Oc t 7

BBC - Rival ethnic groups in Kenya who fought after the 2007 election are rearming in readiness for violence at the 2012 poll, a BBC investigation has found.

It is feared villagers in Rift Valley province are moving from traditional weapons such as spears to machine guns.

Government officials insist they are tackling the influx of illegal arms.

But they have been widely criticised for failing to punish the ringleaders of violence after the 2007 election, in which 1,300 people died.

Daniel Howden | Oct 6

The Independent - Plans for a high-speed rail line may spell the end for East Africa's Victorian engineering folly.

In a neglected corner beyond Nairobi's frantic bus terminal lies the entrance to the city's railway station. It barely warrants a second glance from the thousands of commuters making their way on to the hundreds of matatu minibuses that keep Kenya's capital moving. The station is more useful for time travelling than getting anywhere in a hurry. Most of the destinations have fallen off its battered departure boards, no one sits on the ripped upholstery in the first-class waiting room, and only a tiny Somali girl is brave enough to use the blocked bathrooms behind it. Platform One has the feel of a museum gone to seed, which is what it has taken a step closer to becoming this month with the unveiling of plans for a high-speed rail link between Mombasa and the capital.

It may not have passed the lips of Nairobi's station announcers but the plan for double-decker trains was also the last call for the legendary "Lunatic Express", a folly of Victorian engineering that changed East Africa and created the modern country now crowding on to buses outside. The new version is expected to cost more than £2.5bn and take five years to build and will cut journey times to three hours. Despite its price and ambition, the construction will not match the extraordinary cost both in human lives and to the British Exchequer of the line it replaces.

The railway line's original purpose was to shore up Britain's hold on Uganda, which was believed to hold the key to the security of the River Nile. In the convoluted logic of the late 19th-century "Scramble for Africa", stopping France, Germany or Belgium from tampering with Lake Victoria's waters flowing into the Nile would secure the Suez Canal and, in turn, the passage to India. A rail track would mean troops could be quickly transported from the coast to the Great Lakes region in defence of the empire. At least, this was the argument made in the 1890s by the British East Africa Company to persuade Parliament to finance the line that would eventually cost £5m (that, and assurances that it would hasten the end of slavery).

Not everyone was convinced and the radical MP Henry Labouchere denounced it memorably: "Where it is going, nobody knows, what is the use of it, none can conjecture ... It is clearly naught but a lunatic line."

Miriam Mannak | Cape Town | Oct 6

IPS - Maternal mortality rates in Africa constitute a "monumental tragedy" that requires urgent attention by African governments, health experts say.

"Expectant mothers in Africa, of all pregnant women in the world, are worst off. An average African woman has a chance of one in fourteen of dying during pregnancy or child labour," says human rights and health researcher Ebenezer Durojaye.

Durojaye, a Nigerian working at South Africa’s University of the Free State, told IPS that the situation in Sierra Leone is even worse. "Here, a woman has a chance of one in eight of dying during pregnancy and labour. In countries like Singapore, for instance, the maternal death risk is one in 3,000," he explained.

Durojaye was speaking at the 19th World Congress by the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO), in Cape Town, South Africa. The event, which runs from Oct. 4-9, is being attended by over 2000 obstetricians, gynaecologists and health experts from around the world.

"The situation in Africa is an outright nightmare and a monumental tragedy," Durojaye said.

Robert Verkaik | Oct 5

The Independent - The deal, worth £500m today, was part of a package of compensation measures to appease the Libyan leader and help open up trade with the North African state during the late 1970s.

Discovery of the secret offer, detailed in a letter sent by the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, raises fresh questions about whether Britain has ever paid Gaddafi compensation.

Jason McCue, the lawyer currently negotiating with the Libyans on behalf of victims of IRA bombings, said he was astonished that Britain was prepared to agree to such a pay off. "This all goes to support why our peace and reconciliation delegation is keen to meet and discuss matters in Tripoli. We believe that Anglo-Libyan relations should be flourishing but that certain human tragedies in the past have been overlooked and never reconciled."

Daniel Kawczynski MP, the chairman of the Libyan all-party group, accused the former Labour government of breaching the trust of the British people. "We should never entice other states away from terrorism by offering them taxpayers' money," said the Conservative MP for Shrewsbury.

Dutch Island, Nigeria | Oct 3

Reuters - Militant fighters loyal to a Nigerian rebel leader in the oil-producing Niger Delta began emerging from the creeks on Saturday to surrender their weapons and accept amnesty.

Dozens of speedboats full of fighters carrying machineguns and rocket launchers travelled from Dutch Island, a camp in the mangrove creeks of the Niger Delta and home to militant leader Ateke Tom, to the oil hub of Port Harcourt.

Tom, whose fighters have been behind many of the attacks on the oil industry in the eastern Niger Delta in recent years, accepted a presidential pardon on Thursday.

The amnesty offered by President Umaru Yar'Adua, which expires on Sunday, is one of the most serious attempts yet to stem unrest which has prevented Nigeria from producing much more than two-thirds of its oil capacity, costing it billions of dollars a year in lost revenue.

"When I saw (Yar'Adua), I trust him very well," Tom told reporters in his camp, some 40 minutes by speedboat from Port Harcourt, before setting off for a disarmament ceremony.

"I am going to disarm every (one) of my boys," he said

Khartoum | Oct 3

Reuters - Sudan's ruling party nominated President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for re-election on Saturday despite an International Criminal Court warrant to arrest him for war crimes.

The Hague-based court says the government of Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup with Islamist backing, committed crimes against humanity while fighting mostly non-Arab rebels in Darfur.

The multi-party elections set for April 2010 will be the first in Africa's largest country in 24 years.

"The National Congress Party's General Conference has decided to support the nomination of Omar Hassan al-Bashir as (our) candidate for the presidential elections in 2010," the closing communique of the party conference, seen by Reuters, said.

Since the arrest warrant was issued last year, Bashir has received full backing from his party, which dominates the central government. He has travelled to countries that support him, in defiance of The Hague-based court.

The United Nations says some 300,000 people have died in Darfur, with more than 2 million driven from their homes in violence Washington describes as genocide. Khartoum rejects that description and puts the death toll at 10,000.

Conakry, Guinea | Oct 2

DPA - Guinea's junta has called for a unity government in the wake of a crackdown by security forces that a local rights group says killed at least 157 people at an opposition rally.

A communique from the ruling military council, broadcast on state television and radio late Wednesday, called for the unity government and for a United Nations-backed investigation into the massacre.

The junta also said it wants to appoint an African leader to mediate between the military leadership and opposition parties.

Guinea's security forces opened fire on an estimated 50,000 demonstrators at a stadium in the capital Conakry on Monday as they protested against junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara's rumoured decision to run for president.

The official death toll has been put at 57, but the Guinean Organization for the Defence of Human Rights says it counted 157 bodies and over 1,200 injured.

Witnesses and medical personnel told New York-based Human Rights Watch that many bodies were riddled with bullet holes, while others bore stab wounds from knives and bayonets.