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Switzerland has said it will lift a travel ban on senior Libyan officials to ease tensions in a dispute that has drawn in much of Europe.
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The Swiss government has expressed hope that Libya would respond by ending visa restrictions against citizens of Switzerland and 24 other nations in Europe's passport-free zone.

The Swiss blacklisted nearly 200 Libyans after back-and-forth recriminations stemming from the arrest by Geneva police of leader Moammar Gadhafi's son, Hannibal, in 2008 for allegedly beating his servants.

Tripoli retaliated as the blacklisted Libyans were prevented from visiting countries such as France and Germany.

Libya's restrictions threatened work for Italian and other European companies in the African country.

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The Abidjan-Lagos transport corridor, connecting the Ivorian capital with Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria along the densely populated coast, is to be overhauled to lower transportation time and costs. Border posts are also set to become more effective.

The grand scheme to overhaul the 998.8 kilometres West African coastal corridor yesterday was granted necessary funding to get implemented. The World Bank announced it had approved US$ 258 million for the first phase of the rehabilitation programme.

The project is to help overhaul the main transport artery stretching along the West Africa coast from Abidjan to Lagos, and the customs and immigration posts and systems located on it. This regional operation aims at helping "improve the movement of people and facilitate trade between the five countries served by corridor," being Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria.

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The Government of Ghana will soon issue a Biometric Passport to the citizenry as required by the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO).
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Old Ghanaian passports will be replaced by Biometric Passports

The Biometric Passport has advanced security features which are expected to reduce identity theft and extra fraudulent activities associated with the non-machine readable passport regime.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Alhaji Muhammed Mumuni said this would enhance the efficient management of the country's border posts and ports of entry and strengthen the overall capability of the security services in confronting the menace of illicit trafficking in narcotics, small arms, human trafficking and terrorism within Ghana's borders and beyond.

According to the Minister he has instructed all Ghana Missions abroad to cease forthwith the issuance of non-machine readable passports and send all pending applications to Accra for processing.

He added: "Three Missions in Europe and one in the America have been selected initially to be equipped with facilities for capturing the bio data of applicants for processing and issuing to be done in Accra".

He said the old and new passport regimes will run concurrently until November 2015 when the old passports will be phased out. Alhaji Mumuni said only those in possession of hand-written passports were obliged to change them by April 1, 2010.

With the launch of the new passport regime, Ghana has become the ninth ECOWAS State to issue Biometric Passports as they joined Nigeria, Niger, Guinea, Senegal, Cote d'lvoire, Liberia, Benin and Togo.

A Ghanaian company, Buck Press Limited, has been contracted to produce the passport booklets and also set up the Passport Application Centres (PAC's).

Under the arrangements, Ecobank, the National Investment Bank, the Ghana Commercial Bank and the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) would sell the passport application forms until such time that selected Ghana Post offices would be included.

A Mobile Passport Application Centre has also been set up to facilitate the applications of physically challenged persons in various institutions.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Immigration Service is working with its partners to install new scanning machines for the Biometric Passports at the airports and other ports of entry into the country.

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KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda plans to repay France a 3-million-euro debt in the next three years, its finance minister said on Friday, marking the resumption of economic cooperation between the two countries after four years.

French ambassador to Rwanda, Laurent Contini, said his country was planning to offer the central African nation budgetary support.

Relations between Kigali and Paris have been on the mend and French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Rwanda last month, underlining the importance of Rwanda in the Great Lakes region.

"This agreement is in line with the recent revival of our cooperation with France. The main reason we are signing this particular agreement is to reschedule our outstanding loan," John Rwangombwa, minister of finance and economic planning, told reporters after a signing ceremony.

"Whatever we pay will be transformed into a grant that will be financing some of our development projects in the country."

The two countries broke off diplomatic ties in 2006 after a Paris judge accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame and nine aides of shooting down former President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane in April 1994, sparking off the genocide.

Contini said the grants would help finance a rural electrification programme.

Rwanda is spending more than 60 billion Rwandan francs in energy investment programmes. External financing, including loans and grants, account for about half of the country's budget.

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ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's Senate on Thursday approved a constitutional amendment to allow politicians who are accused of fraud, but not convicted, to run for federal and state office.

The Senate also voted to require candidates to have a university degree, which civil rights advocates said unfairly favoured the OPEC member's wealthy minority.

The changes were among a series of constitutional amendments passed by the Senate and now must be approved by the lower house of parliament, two-thirds of state legislatures and the presidency.

More than a dozen former governors and ministers have been accused of corruption in one of the world's most tainted countries, but few have been convicted, with cases getting bogged down in legal wrangling.

The Senate voted by 82-8 to delete the constitutional provision disqualifying candidates indicted by a federal panel for fraud or embezzlement. The Supreme Court ruled against the provision a few years ago.

Corruption is endemic in Africa's most populous nation, from policemen at checkpoints demanding bribes to senior government officials accused of embezzling millions of dollars.

A federal election is due to take place before the current presidential term ends in May 2011.

The Senate approved changes making it more difficult to run for office by requiring candidates to be college educated. Currently, a politician only needs a high school-level certificate.

Nigeria's higher educational system is highly competitive and expensive, with few families able to afford the cost of tuition. Most Nigerians live on less than $2 a day.

"These changes systematically disenfranchise a lot of Nigerians. Eligibility to contest elections will continue to be limited to the children of the rich," said Shehu Sani, president of the Civil Rights Congress.

The Senate also voted to require a vote to take place between 150 and 90 days before the end of a presidential term. If passed, that would mean a poll would need to take place between late December 2010 and early March.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has proposed voting to take place on January 22, 2011 if electoral reforms are passed or on April 23, 2011 if not.

Mauritania has officially ended its relations with Israel one year after freezing all bilateral ties over Israel's deadly siege on the Gaza Strip.

The northwest African nation's foreign minister, Naha Mint Hamdi Ould Mouknass, said late Saturday that her country's break of diplomatic relations with Israel was "complete and definitive."

The announcement was made at a gathering in Nouakchott aimed at rallying support for policies of President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

Nouakchott has also expelled Israel's representative and closed Tel Aviv's embassy in the country.

The move leaves Egypt and Jordan as the only Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel that host Israeli embassies.

Relations between the two soured after Israel's offensive on the tiny but densely populated enclave in late 2008. Mauritania and Qatar froze relations with Tel Aviv a few months later.

Several other nations, including Bolivia and Venezuela, suspended ties with Israel over the 22-day air and ground assault that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians.

The number of fatalities at the Israeli side by the end of the conflict reportedly stood at 13.

NIAMEY, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Nigerien President of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy Salou Djibo has signed two laws, reaffirming the ineligibility of military officers to stand in future presidential elections.

According to the laws, personnel of the defense and security forces, the prime minister and ministers in the transition government are ineligible to contest during the elections which will be organized after the transition period, Niger's News Agency (ANP) reported on Thursday.

The order also covers the national police, the customs and the water and forest guards.

"This ineligibility of the defense and security forces is applicable particularly to the president and other members of CSRD. No exemption to this ineligibility will be accepted whether through one taking leave or resigning and the present order will not be amended during the transition period," the statement said.

The order calls for neutrality of transition government members, provincial governors, mayors and traditional chiefs.

"All their partisan activities are prohibited," the order said, warning that "in case of failure to apply the above mentioned regulations, the current laws should be enforced."

Djibo assumed the functions of the head of state and government since the Feb. 18 coup d'etat, which overthrew president Mamadou Tandja.

LOME, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Togo's security forces are put on guard against acts of vandalism being planned on Saturday after the presidential election.

Some "uncontrollable groups of youth are planning to infiltrate" the authorized demonstrations that are supposed to take place on Saturday in the capital Lome to commit acts of vandalism by using petrol bombs, a senior official of the 2010 presidential election security forces (FOSEP) warned on Friday.

"According to the information that we have, certain groups of uncontrollable youths are preparing to infiltrate the protests and either spread panic or commit acts of vandalism by use of petrol bombs," a senior FOSEP officer said in a statement.

The revelation came amid reports that the West African country's top opposition United Forces for Change (UFC) and the ruling Assembly of Togolese People (RPT) would both organize demonstrations in the Togolese capital.

The Provincial Administration Ministry has given the green light to the holding of demonstrations on both side along the well defined routes in the city.

The UFC has rejected the provisional results of the March 4 polls and staged a series of protests against the re-election of outgoing President Faure Gnassingbe, while the RPT plans to celebrate his victory and rally more support on Saturday.

Facing the threats of vandalism, FOSEP "would like to warn any one who would want to cause any trouble and asks everyone to be vigilant so that these demonstrations can go on peacefully," the statement said.

The FOSEP 2010 commander, lieutenant colonel Yark Damehane, assured the organizers and the civilian population that proper security measures will be taken during the demonstrations.

FOSEP is a security unit with 6,000 officers from the police force and the gendarme. It was set up for the purposes of the 2010 presidential election.

LIBREVILLE, MARCH 13 (Reuters) -- Gabon, Africa's seventh largest oil producer, is offering 42 additional offshore deepwater and ultra-deepwater oil blocks for exploration, the government said on Friday.

The West African nation, which currently produces roughly 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day and relies on energy for about half of its gross domestic product, is seeking bids from international firms by May 5, it said.

The country will "engage in a marketing plan for the Gabonese oil sector in the financial centers of Paris, Houston, Singapore, London and the Canadian city of Calgary," a government spokesman said.

Gabon's oil sector, one of the continent's most mature and already home to several international oil companies including France's Total, has been in decline since the late 1990s when output was over 350,000 bpd.

WASHINGTON, march 13 (Reuters) -- The United States on Friday denied coordinating plans by Somalia's embattled government to launch an offensive against Islamist fighters, saying it had no plans to "Americanize" the conflict.

Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson described as inaccurate reports suggesting that U.S. officials were ready to get more militarily involved as Somalia's government fights the Islamist al Shabaab, which has been linked to al Qaeda.

"The United States does not plan, does not direct, and does not coordinate the military operations of the TFG (transitional federal government) and we have not and will not be providing direct support for any potential military offensives," Carson said.

Carson told a news briefing the United States had provided limited military support to the transitional government, but that almost all of this was channeled through an African Union peacekeeping effort.

Al Shabaab Islamist fighters attacked government positions this week seeking to seize the advantage before a long-awaited government offensive to drive them out of Mogadishu, the capital.

Somalia has lacked an effective central government for 19 years. Western and neighboring countries say it has become a sanctuary for militants.

Carson said the United States had provided about $185 million over the last 19 months to support African Union peacekeepers and about $12 million in direct support to the Somali transitional government.

"The amounts of money that we're talking about are really relatively small," he said. Funds were spent on communications equipment, uniforms, and to support training of government soldiers by other African countries.

The United States also provides about $150 million in food aid to Somalia. This has been complicated by a U.N. World Food Program's decision to suspend work in much of southern Somalia due to threats against staff and al Shabaab demands for payments for security.

Carson said the United States continued to seek an "inclusive" political resolution to Somalia's crisis and believed that the transitional government, which only controls a portion of Mogadishu, was best placed to promote one.

"The TFG has demonstrated an enormous capacity to survive," he said.

JUBA, march 13 Sudan (Reuters) -- Northern nomads attacked a south Sudan army base, killing three people, the southern army said, escalating tensions in the oil-rich border region less than a month before the first multi-party elections in 24 years.

South Sudanese will also vote next January on independence from the north after decades of civil war, and the latest attack highlights an urgent need to demarcate the north-south border and determine the rights of those whose livelihoods traverse the frontier.

"The Misseriya (nomads) have yesterday attacked our forces again," southern army spokesman Kuol Deim Kuol told Reuters on Friday. "They killed two SPLA (southern army) soldiers ... (and) a body from the Misseriya was found."

Four other southern soldiers were also wounded, he said. A similar attack happened in early February on the same army base in oil-producing Unity state close to the north-south border where northern nomads seasonally graze cattle.

In the February gun battle at least 18 people were killed.

East African nations met this week and urged Sudan's north-south former foes to reach agreement on the post-referendum situation within two months as the vote fast approaches.

Citizenship, sharing of Sudan's 500,000 barrels per day of crude oil and a disputed census are some of the post-referendum arrangements yet to be solved.

Southern officials have said that about 70 percent of the border has been agreed upon but that there are still at least four areas of contention including oil-producing areas.

Analysts worry a widely expected vote for independence could cause conflict if the border, which could cut off southern pastures vital to northern pastoralists, is still unclear.

"The south seceding is a threat to their livelihoods and, as the referendum approaches, rising tensions could result in a further loss of life," said Maggie Fick, an analyst from the U.S.-based Enough Project.

The south's semi-autonomous government says the nomads are welcome but must leave weapons in the north, but herders say this leaves them vulnerable to wild animals and cattle raiders.

An agreement signed earlier this month between the herders and southern officials, including from Unity State, says that the nomads may now bring in five small guns to accompany large herds and three guns if they are moving with smaller groups.

"But they (the nomads) are coming with too many guns, they are not implementing this," Kuol said. The agreement also states that the herders are to pay a 5 Sudanese pound levy for each cow grazing in the south, Kuol said.

The attack was probably a result of southern officials trying to stop nomads with large numbers of guns from entering the south and also partly in revenge for those killed in last month's fighting, Kuol said.

Northern nomadic groups were used by Khartoum in the war as proxy fighters against the southern rebels. But in some areas they also formed close trading links with southern communities.

ACCRA, march 13 (Reuters) -- Ghana will set up a commission by the end of the month to begin talks with Ivory Coast over their maritime border, negotiations that could be complicated by Ghana's big offshore oil finds.

"I expect the 13-member commission to be inaugurated by early next week and for preparatory work to begin in April," a Ghanaian source close to the issue said on Friday on condition of anonymity.

Ivory Coast has for years sought to clarify its offshore border with Ghana, but recently renewed its efforts by petitioning the United Nations after Ghana discovered additional oil reserves off its coast.

Ivory Coast's energy minister, Augustin Komoe Kouadio, told Reuters earlier this week he did not expect the negotiations to become a dispute over oil rights.

"I affirm there will not be a fight over oil between Ivory Coast and Ghana," he said.

Ghana, the world's second-biggest producer of cocoa behind Ivory Coast, is set to become a commercial oil producer by the end of this year as production from the giant offshore Jubilee oilfield comes on line.

Late in February, Russian oil firm LukOil announced a significant oil find offshore Ghana in a discovery that will add to the West African country's already sizeable reserves.

LOME, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore reshuffled his government on Friday, replacing three ministers, said news reports from Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso.

The three new government members are Minister of Labor and Social Security Amadou Adrien Kone, Minister of Trade, Promotion of Enterprise and Handicraft Leonce Kone and minister in charge of budget planning Francois Marie Didier Zoundi.

Jerome Bougouma, the former labor and social security minister, resigned over love affair scandals several weeks ago.

Local analysts say the reshuffle was a prelude to the presidential election slated for November.

ANTANANARIVO, march 13 (Reuters) -- A violent tropical storm battered Madagascar's eastern coastline killing at least 14 people and leaving thousands more homeless, the government said on Friday.

The National Office for Risk and Catastrophe Management (BNGRC) said in a statement that tropical storm Hubert destroyed more than 500 homes and left people salvaging what they could from thousands of other flooded properties.

Louis de Gonzague Rakotonirainy, secretary general of the BNGRC, said it was sending 50 tonnes of rice to affected regions.

The world's fourth largest island, where major multinational companies are exploiting oil, cobalt, nickel and uranium deposits, lies in a cyclone belt in the southwestern Indian Ocean and is hit most years.

Madagascar is reeling from the effects of a year-long political crisis which has sharply slowed foreign direct investment and curbed economic growth.

Kano, march 13 (pressTV) -- Three people have been killed and hundreds injured in a fire that destroyed Nigeria's largest textile market, incurring a loss valued at billions of naira, traders said on Friday.

The blaze engulfed 500 shops and hundreds of stalls owned by Nigerian, Indian, Chinese and Lebanese traders while textile goods and materials valued at billions of naira — thousands of dollars — were destroyed.

Firefighters were struggling to extinguish the fire that began shortly after midnight on Thursday at Kantin Kwari textile market in Kano.

Eye witnesses said that those killed were in the process of saving their goods and money from being consumed in the wild fire.

"The fire was caused by a spark from a nearby transformer when power was restored after a blackout," Liti Kulkul, a spokesman for the traders told AFP.

"Fire is still raging but firefighters are battling to contain it," he said, adding that the state-run National Emergency Management Agency was working to dispatch a helicopter to put out the blaze.

HARARE, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai appear to have found common ground with regards to the issue of black empowerment, with both agreeing that the policy should enhance indigenous participation in the economy.

However, they still have to agree on how best to implement the policy as they try to strike a balance between black participation in the economy and the need to attract foreign investors.

Mugabe remains vociferous, to the extent that he has become anti-white, in his bid to implement the policy, while Tsvangirai is taking a cautious approach, lest the policy scares away foreign investment much needed to help turn around the country's economy.

Since the then entirely Zanu-PF government led by Mugabe moved to promulgate an indigenization law in 2007, Tsvangirai's MDC party, then in opposition, and the investor community had opposed it because of lack of clarity on how it would be implemented.

The law requires companies to submit forms declaring their shareholding structures within 45 days from March 1, 2010.

The intention is that indigenous people should hold 51 percent shareholding in all existing and new multinational businesses.

Businesses that do not meet the 51 percent indigenisation requirement will be expected to submit a plan on how they intend to meet the requirements within 45 days from March 1, and those with acceptable reasons will be afforded an extension not exceeding 30 days.

Also, all existing businesses with a threshold of 500,000 U.S. dollars should, within 45 days from March 1, 2010, declare their shareholding status to the indigenisation minister through a prescribed form.

Current entities will be given a five-year period from March 1, 2010 to comply, while new businesses will also be given five years from date of commencement of business.

Both existing and potential investors have expressed concern over the new regulations. Mugabe has said indigenization laws should not be viewed as obstacles to investment promotion but as promoting the greater participation by Zimbabweans in the economy and as a democratization of economic activities.

When indigenization and economic empowerment minister Saviour Kasukuwere gazetted the indigenization regulations in January, a war of words erupted between him and investment promotion minister Elton Mangoma, with the latter arguing that they would push away investors. Mangoma is a member of Tsvangirai's party, which also criticized the regulations.

"The MDC views these provocative and anti-investment regulations as a deliberate attempt to undermine the country and its people. At a time when Zimbabwe desperately needs foreign direct investment, it is an affront to recovery efforts for the Ministry of Youth and Indigenisation to nocturnally and unilaterally gazette these anti-people and anti-Zimbabwe regulations," the party said.

It alleged that the people who were intended to benefit from the new regulations were not ordinary people, but those in Mugabe' s inner circle. However, party leader Tsvangirai was this week singing a different tune as he sought to assure investors that there was nothing sinister about the new regulations.

"I want to assure you that there is no intention on the part of the government to undermine investment, but to promote broad based indigenization and empowerment.

"Sometimes investors get alarmed when a policy is announced without clarification, but I want to assure you that the policy is in the best interests of the people of Zimbabwe. The policy intends to enhance local participation and, of course, not the enrichment of a few people," he told a symposium on public-private partnerships in Harare on Thursday.

Even as early as last year, Tsvangirai had expressed support for the regulations, provided they were implemented in a transparent manner.

He told a mining conference in September that he supported the policy, but wanted its implementation to be fair, transparent and in line with international norms.

"To remove the uncertainty around the policy of indigenization, it will be based on ensuring that ordinary Zimbabweans benefit from the country's mineral endowment and participate at all levels in the business of mining and mineral exploitation."

He argued that no right-thinking Zimbabwean, or any person from anywhere in the world, could see fault in such an approach if it was implemented fairly, transparently and in line with accepted international norms.

Now that the policy is being explained, there is a bit of thawing by skeptics who had seen it merely as a way to expropriate wealth from foreign companies. It is now clear that investors will get a fair return on their investments following a valuation of their worth.

However, while the government is still to agree on how the new law should be implemented, Kasukuwere has not indicated that the process has been suspended.

He has emphasized though that no shareholding will be taken for free and all transactions will be on a commercial basis. If there are valuation disputes, the Administrative Court will decide.

KINSHASA, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) hopes to see the UN peacekeeping mission pull out in 2011 and shift the duty to its own armed forces, a senior official has said.

Communication Minister and government spokesman Lambert Mende told a press conference here on Thursday that Kinshasa hopes to see the UN mission MONUC out in 2011 to allow the army (FARDC), police and security forces to strengthen themselves and the country to conduct judicial reforms.

Mende said the position had already been communicated to UN officials and that the proposal was being discussed by both sides.

The disengagement of MONUC is supposed to begin with those deployed in the zones no longer threatened by any conflict within the central African county. They need to be transferred by now until the end of 2010 to the two provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, which are still facing attacks from armed groups.

On the issue of reconfiguring the mandate of MONUC, the Congolese government stated that this is line with the essential principles of respecting the independence and sovereignty of DR Congo and setting up a national plan by the government to reform the security system.

MOGADISHU, march 13 (pressTV) -- Death toll from the latest clashes between government forces and Somali fighters has climbed to around 80 as the bloodshed continues in the violence-blighted nation.

Three days of clashes in the capital Mogadishu has also left an estimated 200 people, A Press TV correspondent reported.

Many of the victims are said to be civilians caught in the fighting over the control of the capital.

The exact total number of fatalities on either side remains unknown as both claim success in the deadly conflict.

The latest round of fighting began after Somali government forces backed by the African Union peacekeepers engaged al-Shabab fighters on Wednesday.

The government has urged Mogadishu residents to leave the hotspots as it plans to reclaim al-Shabab-controlled areas 'once and for all.'

The violence has forced many residents to flee the capital as government forces claim to have recaptured three capital districts overnight.

An estimated 19 government troops and 30 al-Shabab fighters are said to have died in Thursday clashes as heavy fighting continues in the capital.

nairobi, march 13 (pressTV) -- Enraged crowd engaged police in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi after law enforcement agents allegedly shot dead seven taxi drivers in a Nairobi suburb.

"This is extra judicial killing that our police are engaging in. You can't shoot innocent people like that and say it was a mistake," A Press TV correspondent quoted a local resident Jason Onduso as saying on Thursday.

The seven taxi drivers were allegedly killed by police Wednesday night after they received an apparent false alarm identifying the drivers as part of a criminal gang that harassed motorcycle-taxi operators in the same suburb.

"It is a mistake and we are investigating because the death of seven people in such circumstances is a serious matter that can not be left to pass. But somebody gave a false alarm to the police that these were members of a terror gang operating in the area," said police Spokesperson Erick Kiraithe.

A taxi operator in the area has also pointed to the recent angry squabbles between motorcycle and automobile taxi operators over customers.

"We have had issues here over pricing and control of the area and on the night of Wednesday, we engaged in a scuffle and somebody told the police we were thugs and now they have shot seven people who are very innocent," said James Kamau, a local taxi operator.

Meanwhile, another Police source, speaking on condition of anonymity, has insisted that the security forces responded to gunfire by 'thugs.'

"These were thugs and they had guns and engaged our officers in a shoot out before they were gunned down. They were not innocent as people want to claim," the police source claimed Thursday.

TUNISIA, March 10 (Xinhua) -- The Libyan Foreign Ministry on Wednesday accepted an apology from the U.S. State Department over its spokesman's comments on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The ministry said in a statement carried by the Libyan News Agency that it "accepts the apology and regret shown by the U.S. State Department as well as the explanation given by its spokesman Philip Crowley. "

The statement said that it "welcomes resuming the exchange of visits between officials of the two countries and insists on its willingness to develop bilateral relations in all fields and within a framework of mutual respect."

Libya officially protested last week about statements made by Crowley over Gaddafi's speech calling for a "jihad" against Switzerland last month.

Crowley apologized on Tuesday, saying that his comments "were not intended to offend" and "do not reflect U.S. policy."