20100626
africanews

Zambia President Rupiah Banda on Saturday accused donors of blackmail after the Global Fund suspended health assistance and the European Union halted aid for road construction citing corruption in the country.

20100626
africanews

Leaders controlling about half the forces of a separatist rebel group in Ethiopia's Ogaden region have agreed to make peace, the government said on Saturday, but the rebel group denied there had been any deal.

20100626
africanews

Ghana cut the number of malnourished people by 75% between 1990 and 2004. Ghana, often hailed as a success story in West African agriculture, tops a global list of 10 countries that have managed to slash their number of hungry people by a huge margin.

20100626
africanews

The people of the self-declared republic of Somaliland have begun voting in the region's second presidential election. Three men, Dahir Riyale Kahin, Ahmed Mohamud Silanyo and Feysal Ali Warabe, are vying to become president of the unrecognised region, a haven of relative peace in the northwest of Somalia.

20100625
africanews

Somaliland, which is more tribally homogenous than the rest of Somalia, has been striving to attain international recognition for almost two decades and many voters saw the election as a fresh opportunity to demonstrate their aspiring state's democratic credentials.

20100625
africanews

The man who led a near coup d'état in the troubled West African nation of Guinea Bissau in April, has been named head of the army. Government sources in Bissau that President Malam Bacai Sanha officially fired ousted chief of staff, General Jose Zamora Induta, and replace him with the man who ordered his detention, General Antonio Indjai.

20100625
africanews

Ghana players are taking $ 45,000 each for advancing to the second round of the 2010 World Cup.

20100625
africanews

A Rwandan journalist working for a private newspaper has been shot dead in front of his house in the capital. Witnesses say Jean Leonard Rugambage, the acting editor of Umuvugizi newspaper, was fired on by two men who then fled in a car.The authorities had recently suspended the paper, prompting it to start publishing online instead.

Only few days remaining to the implementation of the East African Community (EAC) Common Market Protocol, Burundians ate still behind with regard to business opportunities and access to services. Mr. Jean Rigi, Burundian Permanent Secretary in the ministry in charge of EAC Affairs added that behavioural change takes time.

He however said, if Burundian wants to be competitive in EAC region, they have to change their behaviour and work more hours like others. He appealed to local traders to work in association and mobilize adequate finances in a bid to get access to the market with required monetary strength.

The five East African Community partner states that is Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda will from July 1 implement the EAC Common Market Protocol. The code of procedure entails free movement of people and goods in the region.

A contract has been awarded for feasibility studies on the proposed Dar es Salaam-Mombasa natural gas pipeline.

The East African Community secretariat has picked the COWI Group to carry out the US$561,700 (Ksh40 million) survey funded by the African Development Bank. The Denmark based consulting group will work with COWI Tanzania Limited and Runji & Partners of Kenya.

EAC director for productive and social sector Mr. Caleb Weggoro said the project’s aim is to establish the commercial viability of building the proposed pipeline from Dar es Salaam through Tanga to Mombasa. The pipeline has been proposed to supply natural gas along the route as well as to Mombasa for power generation and other industrial applications. MottMacDonald Ltd of Britain is currently carrying out a study on the viability of Kenya building bulk import, storage and distribution facilities of liquefied natural gas in Mombasa.

Tanzania made commercial discovery of natural gas and Uganda discovered oil. Kenyan remains the only country in the region that has not found fossil fuels despite exploration efforts recently showing possibilities.

Tanzanian President Khalfan J. M Kikwete picked nomination forms in Dodoma, the new capital of the Tanzania to defend his seat in the coming general elections in October.

The ruling Revolutionary Party of Tanzania (Chama Cha Mapinduzi – CCM) Secretary General Yusuf Makamba handed over a presidential candidate form to President Kikwete, who is also CCM Party Chairman at CCM Head Office in Dodoma.

The president is at present the only CCM presidential candidate must be endorsed by 250 members from 10 regions on the Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar, according to party rules.

Kenya Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetang’ula appears to have misled a parliamentary committee watch dog on the buying of a building that houses Kenya’s embassy in Japan.

Former Kenyan ambassador to Japan Dennis Awori said yesterday that Kenya lost Ksh1billion in the deal when he appeared before the committee on Defence and Foreign Relations. Former envoy added that he never chaired an evaluation meeting that turned down a “better” land offer from the Japanese government as was earlier testified by the minister.

The committee heard that the Kenyan taxpayers lost the money when the ministry decided to buy the current premises measuring about 1,100 square metres. This was after an evaluation team sent by the Kenyan government rejected an offer of a 700-square metre plot that had been identified by the envoy, with the assistance of the vice-chairperson of Africa-Japan parliamentary League, Senator Yano, who is known for his aggressiveness in pushing for African interests.

Over Ksh1.5 billion was paid for the land on which stands a concrete chancery on a 698-square metre and a wooden house of 402 square metres. However, Mr. Awori said the premises should not have been bought for more than Ksh500 million

President Mwai Kibaki received credentials from four envoys.
Ambassadors Luis Javier Campuzano of Republic of Mexico, Ghurum bin Said bin Ghurum bin Milhan of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Emmerence Ntahonkuriye of Burundi and Kosit Chatpaiboon of Thailand.

Speaking at the welcoming ceremony at State House, Nairobi President Kibaki urged the new envoys to travel freely and interact with Kenyans across the country so as to effectively discharge their duties.

20100622
reuters

Mali's main political party signalled the end of the West African country's rare system of consensus-based politics on Tuesday by declaring that it would field its own candidate in a 2012 presidential election.

20100622
reuters

Zimbabwe has revised rules requiring foreign firms to tranfer majority control to local blacks, with varying shareholding thresholds being set for different sectors of the economy, a minister said on Tuesday.

20100622
voanews

As Burundi prepares for its presidential poll next week, incidents of violence and opposition boycotts have cast a cloud over hopes for democratic reform.

20100622
voanews

Research into the health of Africans takes a big step forward with the launch of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa Project.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the London-based Wellcome Trust are funding the project, with support from the African Society for Human Genetics.

20100622
voanews

At least one member of Nigeria's parliament was injured Tuesday when a fight broke out between lawmakers.
The trouble began after the House of Representatives suspended 11 members who had accused the speaker of corruption. Reports from the scene say punches were thrown and that one lawmaker suffered a broken hand or arm.

20100622
voanews

A medical aid group says if G8 leaders want to improve mother and child health, they must first solve the malnutrition problem.

20100622
voanews

African countries are making the most overall progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. So says a new analysis by the London-based Overseas Development Institute and the U.N. Millennium Campaign. The report’s been released prior to the G8 and G20 summits at week’s end in Canada.