20100727
reuters

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's troubled farm sector has started to recover from depths plumbed two years ago when it faced a food crisis, but funding problems could cut into programmes helping farmers recover, a U.N. official said.

20100727
reuters

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Fighting al Qaeda's North African arm is the business of the countries of the Sahara region, Algeria's foreign minister said on Tuesday, after French special forces joined a failed attempt to rescue a hostage.

20100727
reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A tiger escaped from the back of a truck in South Africa on Tuesday and remained on the run as police used helicopters to hunt it down.

20100727
reuters

KADUNA Nigeria (Reuters) - Governors of Nigeria's northern states said on Tuesday southern President Goodluck Jonathan had the constitutional right to stand in elections next year but stopped short of endorsing him.

20100727
reuters

KAMPALA (Reuters) - The African Union will beef up peacekeeping troops in Somalia, but will not allow them to attack Islamists there despite the urging of several countries after the rebels killed 76 people in suicide attacks in Uganda.

20100727
africanews

Zambia's new coach Dario Bonetti said his new job is 'a wonderful challenge'. The Italian, 48, took over the role on Monday, along with his three assistants - who include his brother Ivano. Bonetti, who won two caps for Italy as a player, declared his main ambition was to qualify the Chipolopolo for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.

20100727
africanews

Patrice Pohe, journalist and a communication adviser of Raymond Tchimou, the state prosecutor, was on July 21, 2010 arrested and detained on the orders of his boss for allegedly leaking the report about embezzlement in the cocoa and coffee sector of the country to the privately-owned Le Nouveau Courrier newspaper.

20100727
africanews

Floods that followed persistent rains have killed eight people in the locality of Pouss in Maga in the Far North Region of Cameroon. The floods also left several people wounded and homeless. The disaster occurred last Thursday while residents were asleep and swept away mud houses and trees.

20100727
africanews

France's government vowed to step up the fight against Al-Qaeda in northern Africa after militants killed a French hostage in the Sahel desert region. "The fight against terrorism continues and it is going to strengthen, particularly against AQMI," Prime Minister Francois Fillon told Europe 1 radio.

20100727
africanews

US president Barack Obama has pledged to help Africa to develop in a message delivered to the heads of state at the AU summit on Monday by US Attorney General Eric Holder.

20100727
africanews
The African Union president Bingu wa Mutharika has criticized the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments against Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir. He said they were "undermining African solidarity and African peace and security." The ICC is trailing the Sudanese leader for genocide and other crimes.

20100727
africanews

Eleven Somali pirates have been given 10 years each in jail in the island nation of Seychelles, the presidency said on Monday. The pirates were sentenced on charges for attempting to hijack a coastguard vessel last December.

20100727
africanews

Somali forces from the semiautonomous land of Puntland killed 13 members of Al-Qaeda linked group on Monday.

5060680
All was going well just before the flamboyant Libyan leader, Col. Muammar Gadaffi, reached the security checkpoint at the venue of the ongoing 15th Ordinary Session of the African Union heads of state summit in Munyonyo on Sunday.
Riding in a four-wheeled electronic cart, Col. Gadaffi had arrived shortly after the Senegalese, South African and Zambian presidents. He chose to ride the cart instead of walking.
His burly security men had marched along in a security ring around the slow moving cart, shouting in Arabic as they approached the Ugandan Presidential Guard Brigade cordon, possibly demanding that they be allowed to pass through. But President Museveni’s guards stood their ground.
Undaunted, they allowed Col. Gadaffi to get past them with just four of his men. And this is what kicked off the drama which then unfolded. Some of Gadaffi’s guards tried to force their way through but were firmly resisted by the uncompromising Ugandan security personnel.
Don’t fight
For about five minutes, other guests looked on as the unseemly grab-and-drag scuffle played out, only dying down after the Libyan Ambassador to Uganda Abdalla Bujeldain intervened. “Don’t fight. Don’t fight” he shouted at one of the Libyan guards who was struggling with the Ugandans.
Dressed in a shimmering greenish gown and spotting his trademark dark shades, Col. Gadaffi appeared oblivious of the commotion going on around him. He would calmly enter the large summit tent before settling down next to Uganda’s unflappable Foreign Affairs minister, Sam Kutesa. Sunday’s altercation was not the first time the presidential security units of Uganda and Libya have entangled with each other.
In March 2008, during the opening of the Old Kampala Mosque (built largely with money donated by the Libyan leader), they came within seconds of drawing guns on each other. There were fist fights and flying kicks in a macho display of martial artistry both at the pre-event at Nakivubo Stadium and at the new mosque itself. Then, the quarrel was about who should control the entrance. On Sunday, after the Presidents adjourned to take a group photo, the stampede resumed.
The ensuing melee caught some reporters and delegates, and for a moment it was difficult to tell who was in charge. Col. Gadaffi, who was near the scene, continued talking to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, pretending as if nothing was going.
Ordinarily, such scenes would not occur but the love-hate relationship between the boys from Libya and the Ugandans would seem to stem from the desire of the former to take over things when their man is around.
A visiting head of state should ideally not bring more than 10 armed guards into a host country – at the very least if they were more than that number then their presence must be discreet.
In fact, Defence/army spokesperson, Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, said while the number of his security was not so much of an issue: “For us, we were controlling the number of guns entering into the conference room,” he said. Col. Gadaffi’s security has repeatedly ignored the rule on guns.
Security sources say this time he entered the country with more than 300 guards, most of them armed. His big entourage at Entebbe Airport stretched the airport security when he arrived in the country on Saturday. He came with five aircraft, one carrying the many vehicles for his motorcade. This has almost always been the norm each time he visited Uganda which for a while tolerated the enthusiasm of his protection unit – until it became a little too rich for the taste of his hosts.
Standing ground
It was a similar display of self-importance that upset the applecart of Col. Gadaffi’s 2006 visit to Nigeria. Faced with a potential loss of face, he threatened to return home after the Nigerian authorities refused to allow all his 200 guards from entering the country with arms.
In Uganda, as is his practice, he has now had that fancy. A bedouin tent is pitched on the grounds of Munyonyo at a point not far from the waterfront. Guarded by rings of his security, it is in this tent that the Libyan leader is said to be entertaining a train of visitors including traditional leaders he personally invited to the summit to diplomats and politicians of varying shades.
As usual, Col. Gadaffi, it would appear, is determined to stamp his mark of the unorthodox on this summit as has happened elsewhere. It will be remembered that he unsettled his Italian hosts – and sparked public outrage in June 2009 when in a typical lecture on his unconventional understanding of democracy, suggested that if it was up to him he would abolish all political parties in Italy and give power directly to the people.

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Members on the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee want the Libyan Leader to fulfil his promise to pay about Shs2.6 billion used in feeding and accommodating Afro-Arab youth conference delegates in Kampala in 2008. Col. Muammar Gadaffi is currently attending the 15th AU Summit in Kampala.
This became apparent yesterday after the accounting officer in the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social development, Ms Christine Guwatudde, disclosed to the committee that despite her repeated letters on the matter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, nothing has since come to fruition.
The letters were supposed to remind the Libyan leader about his obligation to pay the money that the government used to clear bills at the Commonwealth Speke Resort, Munyonyo after he personally asked that the conference be extended so he could address it.
Gadaffi’s request
“Our Brother Gadaffi is here and it’s important that he is reminded to fulfil his commitment-to pay the outstanding bills that government incurred on his behalf,” the Chairman of the committee, Mr Nandala Mafabi said.
Ms Gawatudde told the committee that the money was accrued after the conference was extended by four more days on the request of the Libyan leader who committed to foot any extra costs for the additional days.
The youth conference had been planned for only seven days but on Col.Gadaffi’s request it was pushed to 11 days. “We have a commitment (from Col. Gadaffi) that he will pay and have also written several letters about this matter but nothing has been forthcoming,” Ms Gawatudde said. The Libyan Ambassador, Mr Abdalla Bujeldain, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

20100726
Reuters

The African Union said on Saturday Africa must turn ever more to China for its development because conditions and checks often stalled the flow of funds from Western nations and the World Bank.

20100726
Reuters

African countries are divided about whether they should arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on suspicion of genocide, diplomats at a summit told Reuters on Sunday.

20100726
Reuters

Emerging and frontier equity funds in Africa returned to positive territory last week, attracting net inflows of cash after previously breaking a 44-week winning streak, fund tracker EPFR Global said.

20100726
Xinhua

The African Union (AU) commenced its 15th summit on Sunday in the Ugandan capital of Kampala with the issues of maternal, infant and child health and development and the Somali peacekeeping high on agenda.

20100726
Xinhua

The Chairperson of African Union (AU) Commission Jean Ping on Sunday told African heads of state and government meeting here that the peace and security situation in the continent is still tenuous and fragile.