Nairobi, march 11 (Alshahid) -– Leaders from Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) member states on Tuesday urged parties to the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement to remain committed to the implementation of outstanding issues in the agreement.

The IGAD leaders asked the parties to the CPA to particularly move towards completing the North-South Abyei border demarcation, redeployment of forces, integration of the joint Units, establishment of South Sudan and Abyei Referendum Commissions of popular consultations in South Kordofon and blue Nile States .

They also want the long-running boundary dispute in the oil-producing Abyei region resolved fast owing to the building tension ahead of the country’s elections next month and an upcoming referendum in 2011 to decide whether South Sudan would formally break away from the North.

Both north and south Sudan have claimed Abyei, a central area straddling the country’s north-south border, for decades.

The leaders, who included President Mwai Kibaki, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Ismael Omar Guelleh of Djibouti and Transitional Federal Government of Somalia Premier Omar Ali Sharmark among others, made the recommendations in a communiqué issued at the end of the 14th Extra-Ordinary Summit of IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government on the Sudan peace process at Kenyatta International Conference Centre.

“The implementation of the CPA is at a critical stage because of the coming elections and the referendum and how they are tackled will shape the future of Sudan,” President Mwai Kibaki said.

In his closing remarks, Ethiopian Prime Minister Zenawi reaffirmed IGAD’s total commitment to support both SPLM and NCP in the Sudan peace process towards the realization of the agreed objectives and goals of the C.P.A. implementation process.

CAPE TOWN, march 11 (Reuters) -- South Africa and the UK have agreed to double trade between their countries, which fell to around 40 billion rand last year due to the global recession, a South African minister said on Thursday.

"In 2009, trade fell back to around 40 billion rand, so doubling our trade is definitely a very attainable target and both sides agreed on that," Rob Davies, South Africa's trade minister told journalists.

MOGADISHU, march 11 (Reuters) -- Fighting between Somali government forces and al Shabaab rebels in the north of Mogadishu on Wednesday killed 17 people and wounded 65, a Somali human rights group and rescue services said.

Residents said al Shabaab also beheaded two employees of a telecommunications company in the capital who had been accused by the al Qaeda-linked insurgents of spying for the government.

Somali insurgents have fought the government since the start of 2007 and the Western-backed administration has been hemmed into a few blocks of the capital since a rebel offensive last May.

The government has said for several months it will launch a major offensive but has yet to carry out the plan. Rebels have stepped up attacks in various parts of the city in recent weeks and government forces have responded with shelling.

"We have collected 17 dead civilians and 65 others wounded- we took them to various hospitals," Ali Muse, the coordinator of ambulance services, told Reuters.

"Most of the casualties took place this afternoon when fighting became more fierce. The death toll may rise for most people were seriously wounded by shells. Some are likely to die in hospitals."

Somalia's state minister for defence said it was a victory to overpower al Shabaab fighters.

"We have surrounded al Shabaab and driven them away. It was a victory for us and we shall disclose the details tomorrow," Sheikh Yusuf Mohamed Siyad 'Indha Ade', told reporters.

Siyad said some al Shabaab fighters had surrendered while they had captured others.

The beheaded telecoms company staff had been accused by al Shabaab of helping to direct government shells towards rebel positions in Mogadishu, residents said.

"We could see the two beheaded bodies lying on the street but we were afraid to carry them away," said resident Abdullahi Karshe.

Somalia has had no effective government for 19 years and Western nations and neighbours say the anarchic country is used as a shelter by militants intent on launching attacks in east Africa and further afield.

The chaos onshore has allowed pirate gangs to flourish and make millions of dollars from hijacking ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

Residents said the fighting escalated in the afternoon after African Union tanks joined in. Government officials would not comment that AU forces were fighting alongside them.

"AU tanks joined later, forcing al Shabaab to pull back carrying dead bodies and injured ones in their cars," resident Ali Samatar told Reuters.

Residents said government troops dragged away the corpse of an al Shabaab fighter believed to be that of a foreigner.

"I could see a government's battle wagon pulling a dead body. I cannot exactly say the nationality of the dead al Shabaab, but he looked like an Arab - the body was white," resident Bare Farah told Reuters.

MOGADISHU, March 11 (Xinhua) -- The Somali government will begin within weeks the much anticipated major onslaught to retake the Somali capital Mogadishu from Islamist groups with help from the U. S. military, a Somali military officer said Wednesday.

Although Somali government officials have either been evading the whole question of whether the United States will get involved in the much speculated offensive or been noncommittal in their answers, some within the government military seeking anonymity, said the plan is in the final stages.

"It could be in weeks because we have been planning for this (offensive) for sometime and we have been coordinating with the United States because without their help this may not be a success, " a senior Somali military commander told Xinhua in Mogadishu,

The commander in the Somali capital Mogadishu added that Somali government forces would, as he put it, take the lion's share in its drive to reclaim the restive capital once the offensive gets underway.

The U.S. military and the 5,000 African Union peacekeepers will back the thousands of newly trained soldiers of the Somali government to wrestle the important and largest city which has remained the seat of government for the Somali State for 50 years.

Many analysts here believed that any side which manages to control the whole of Mogadishu is in essence in control of the whole country as the city has been and still is the area which generates most of the political and economic activities in the whole of war-ravaged country.

"It is make or break for both the Somali government which controls only part of this important city and for rebels who claim to control most of the south and centre of Somalia for control of Mogadishu ," said Ali Mohamed, an analyst in Mogadishu .

A senior U.S. military commander said on Tuesday the United States would support the Somali transitional government to retake the national capital Mogadishu .

Speaking to a Senate hearing on Somalia , William Ward, who runs the U.S. Africa Command, said the Somali government's efforts in retaking Mogadishu is "something that we would look to do in support."

Both the Somali government and Islamist insurgent fighters have been engaged in war of words and display of force since the talk of the offensive began several weeks ago.

The radical Islamist group of Al Shabaab which has, for the past two years, been waging deadly insurgence against Somali government and African Union peacekeeping forces expressed defiance in reacting to the U.S. support of Somali government offensive.

"It is just the usual American bluff and intimidation which will never frighten us. Even if they truly come and back the apostate government we will defeat them," Ali Mohamoud Rage, spokesman for the group told reporters in Mogadishu this week.

The New York Times reported on Friday the United States is helping the Horn of Africa nation's government put together a major offensive to take back the capital, providing training and support. The broadsheet also cited unnamed U.S. officials as saying that Pentagon may send Special Forces to help, as well as striking militants from the sky.

The U.S. military has recently been carrying out surveillance and air strikes on Islamist targets in Somalia where two senior Al Shabaab leaders were killed while in the meantime it provided some military support for the Somali government in their fight with radical groups.

Washington, as well as other capitals, considers the group which recently pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, as a terrorist entity and banned it from operating in their respective countries. Britain is considering following suit.

LAGOS, March 11 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian Police in northern Plateau State has said 109 people were killed in the Sunday violence.

Local officials and residents had previously said that over 500 people, mostly women and children were killed during the violence on Sunday.

Ikechukwu Aduba, state commissioner of police spokesman, disclosed this at a news conference in Jos on Wednesday.

The clash followed the crisis on Jan. 17 in Jos in Plateau State, when some youths attacked worshippers at St. Michael's Anglican Church in Nasawara Gwom.

NEW YORK, march 11 (Reuters) - The Libyan president of the U.N. General Assembly is among more than 180 people banned from traveling to much of Europe due to a diplomatic row between Libya and Switzerland, Libya's U.N. mission said on Wednesday.

Ali Abdussalam Treki, former Libyan foreign minister and president of the General Assembly since last September, is on a list of Libyans whom Tripoli says are barred from obtaining visas in the so-called Schengen area.

The borderless travel zone incorporates 25 European countries -- 22 European Union members plus Switzerland, Iceland and Norway -- where free movement of persons is guaranteed.

Libya is calling for an end to the visa ban for the people on the list, which was provided to reporters by its U.N. mission, and for both sides to resolve the dispute in arbitration mediated by a neutral country.

"We could have a solution, not to escalate everything," Libyan Ambassador to the U.N. Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham told reporters at the country's mission. "We want a solution."

Shalgam himself, as well as Libya's OPEC Secretary Abdullah Albadri, are on the list. A spokesman for the Swiss mission declined comment.

Libya said Switzerland started imposing restrictions on granting Schengen visas to Libyan citizens in August 2009, and later issued a list of people prohibited from obtaining visas.

A Libyan newspaper wrote about the list in February, but the full list of names was only now made available.

Treki's spokesman said the assembly president "stresses the need to resolve this dispute in a manner that upholds the principles of international law."

Libyan relations with Switzerland broke down in mid-2008 with the arrest of a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in a Geneva hotel on charges of mistreating two domestic servants.

The charges were dropped but Tripoli cut oil supplies to Switzerland, withdrew more than $5 billion from Swiss bank accounts and imposed a trade embargo on the neutral alpine country.

More European countries were pulled into the dispute when Libya blocked visas for citizens of the Schengen passport-free zone, including most of the European Union, after the Swiss barred entry to some Libyans including Gaddafi and his family.

Switzerland's decision to impose a travel ban on Libyan officials prompted retaliation by Tripoli, which imposed visa restrictions on all visitors from the Schengen area.

The dispute is uncomfortable for European governments that struck up friendly ties with Gaddafi after Libya emerged from sanctions and began cooperating on security and migration.

LONDON, march 11 (Reuters) -- Rwandan foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo said on Wednesday the thawing of her country's relations with France may have paved the way for last week's arrest of a leading Rwandan genocide suspect in Paris.

French judges had sped up their investigation into Agathe Habyarimana since the diplomatic rapprochement in November, Mushikiwabo said on a visit to celebrate Rwanda joining the Commonwealth.

The widow of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, who died in a plane crash in 1994, is suspected of having instigated the genocide in Rwanda in which 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus died in less than 100 days.

"I don't know if it's a coincidence that she's been apprehended but we've had four French judges come to Rwanda to look for evidence since November after years of delay," she told a news conference at the Rwandan High Commission in London.

Habyarimana was briefly arrested on an international warrant issued late last year by Rwandan authorities, who have called on Paris to pursue genocide suspects living in France. She has been forbidden from leaving French territory.

Rwanda has made no official extradition request for the 68-year-old who fled to France in 1994. A French judicial source said it was unlikely she would be returned to Rwanda for trial.

Her lawyer, Philippe Meilhac, rejected the accusations against his client as baseless. But Mushikiwabo said the Rwandan people were convinced of Habyarimana's guilt.

"From the mid 1980s she was a woman who was central in the genocide enterprise. Every single Rwandan in the country at the time will tell you stories about her," she said.

Mushikiwabo praised French President Nicolas Sarkozy for helping restore diplomatic ties between the two countries.

"When he came to power President Sarkozy reached out and said 'I want to have direct dialogue with Rwanda', and he showed a lot of good will. We responded to his personal involvement and request for trust," she said.

Mushikiwabo said she was hopeful Rwanda's high commissioner to India would be extradited by South Africa to face questioning on his alleged links to recent grenade attacks in Kigali.

Lieutenant-General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former army chief of staff, fled to South Africa last month after being questioned by police about the attack, which killed two people and injured 30.

"We are hopeful we will get good help from South Africa. We know for a fact that Mr Nyamwasa has links with another defector and he's part of a network trying to spark instability," she said.

Mushikiwabo told reporters Rwanda was no nearer to returning captured rebel general Laurent Nkunda to authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, citing concerns over the possibility of his being sentenced to death.

Nkunda was arrested in Rwanda in January 2009 and DRC officials want him returned to face war crimes charges.

Bamako, march 11 (AFP) -- Islamist militants freed a Spanish aid worker and an Italian woman Wednesday who were being taken to Burkina Faso from Mali where kidnappers held them since November, a Malian negotiator said.

"The news is good. As we speak the two women are on their way to Burkina," the negotiator said.

Spanish hostage held in Mali freed

By Tidiane SY

An anti-terrorist source in Madrid said earlier Wednesday that Alicia Gamez, 39, one of three Spanish aid workers kidnapped in Mauritania by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in November, was "being freed".

"She is being taken to a safe place," the source said.

Italian national Philomene Kaboure, 39, of Burkina Faso descent, initially refused to to be freed, preferring to remain behind with her Italian husband Sergio Cicala, 65, sources close to the negotiation process said.

Though, the government was unable to confirm a report by Italy's Ansa news agency that an Italian woman was freed at the same time as Spaniard Alicia Gamez.

The couple was kidnapped on December 18, also in Mauritania.

Spanish vice-president Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega confirmed she had gone to Barcelona Tuesday to speak with the families of the three aid workers about possible developments to come in the hostage situation.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero called early Wednesday for prudence but said that "things are going in the right direction."

The Spanish press reported several weeks ago that AQIM had demanded a ransom for the release of the three aid workers for a Barcelona aid group, who were kidnapped in Mauritania on November 29.

Spanish daily El Mundo said Madrid was in the process of paying a five million dollar (3.7 million euro) ransom in exchange for the hostages.

However on March 1 a Malian negotiator said the case "had reached a standstill".

AQIM had previously demanded the release of Mauritanian prisoners for the safety and freedom of the Italian couple, giving a deadline of March 1, which has passed with no news.

The threat posed by terrorist groups in the Sahel is being taken very seriously after the death of British tourist Edwin Dyer in June 2009, killed by AQIM after six months in captivity when London refused to yield to blackmail by the Islamist combatants.

CAIRO, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's Foreign Ministry condemned Wednesday Israel's decision to build 1,600 new settlement units in East Jerusalem, saying it is "a real peril to peace efforts," the official MENA news agency reported.

"Israel's decision to build 1,600 settlement units in the holy city of East Jerusalem is a real peril to peace efforts which have not started seriously yet," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit has ordered making contacts with U.S. officials to brief them on Egypt's rejection of such Israeli moves and calls for freezing them indefinitely if the Israeli government is serious in realizing peace, the spokesman added.

The Israeli Interior Ministry approved on Tuesday building 1, 600 new settler homes in East Jerusalem, just one day after U.S. special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell announced that the Israeli and Palestinian sides had agreed to hold indirect talks.

The Israel's decision was also condemned by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who is on a high-profile visit to the region to boost renewed peace efforts.

MOMBASA, march 11 (Reuters) -- A Kenyan court sentenced seven Somalis to 20 years in prison for piracy on Wednesday after they tried to attack a Danish cargo vessel.

British Royal Navy forces arrested the men in 2008 after they attempted to seize MV Powerful off the Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest shipping routes. Two pirates died in an ensuing fight.

They were then handed over to Kenyan authorities and charged with piracy.

"Having considered the seriousness ... of the offence, and circumstances under which the suspects were arrested, only stiff penalties can deter such activities," Senior Principal Magistrate Lilian Mutende said, delivering her judgment.

Pirates have caused havoc in the Gulf of Aden, raking in millions of dollars in ransoms, hiking insurance premiums on shipping and threatening humanitarian supplies.

Kenya is holding over 100 suspected pirates, and police say this is clogging jails and courts. Local Muslim leaders say Kenya should not be used as a dumping ground and foreign navies should take charge of the people they arrest.

International navies trying to counter piracy off Somalia are often reluctant to take suspects to their own countries because they either lack the jurisdiction to put them on trial there, or they fear the pirates may seek asylum.

The European Union, United States and some other countries have instead struck agreements with Kenya to hand over suspects to face trial there. Some pirates are being prosecuted in France and the Netherlands.

In Kenya, 10 other pirates are serving a seven-year jail term at a prison in Voi, near Mombasa.

A lawyer representing the seven, in their 20s and 30s, said he planned to appeal against the sentences.

"It is clearly stated in law that the court in Kenya ... has no jurisdiction beyond the Kenyan waters. Why should Kenya be the one to feed Somali aliens for 20 years?" Jared Magolo said.

OIC, march 11 (Alaalam) -- The Organization of the Islamic Conference has called for warring parties in Nigeria to iron out differences and put an end to the bloodletting, which has claimed 109 lives.

OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu in a statement condemned the violence between Muslim and Christian communities.

A Nigerian state police chief revised Wednesday the death toll from weekend sectarian massacres from 500 to 109.

He said the earlier death toll in the Nigerian city of Jos provided by government officials was fabricated.

Plateau State police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba gave a breakdown of the list of people killed.

The state's information commissioner Gregory Yenlong told AFP over 500 people had been killed in an orgy of violence in three predominantly Christian villages near Jos.

The police chief said Yenlong was among a group of senior government, medical and police officials who witnessed the body count was conducted.

Mogadishu, march 10 (Al-Jazeera) -- Ali Mahmoud Rajhi, a spokesman for Somalia's al-Shabab group, has told Al Jazeera that the group is not afraid of United States involvement in the battle against them.

He said that the proposed US collusion with Somali government forces makes al-Shabab even more certain they are on the "right" path.

"This decision will not affect al-Shabab movement. Actually, it makes us more certain that we are on the right path; the path that was chosen for us by God.

"We also become more certain that we have to keep going despite the animosity of the disbelieving nations. The Americans want to scare us. But, we are not afraid," Rajhi said.

"If they come to Somalia, they need to know that those who fought them in 1993 and dragged their bodies in the streets of Mogadishu are still present and ready to drag their dead bodies again," Rajhi said.

Mogadishu battle

The US has long been involved in training Somali government troops.

But now it says it might send troops to help a new offensive which aims to push al- Shabab out of the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Somalia's government would welcome US air support for an expected offensive aimed at retaking control of areas from the al-Shabab rebels, Sharif Ahmed, the Somali president, said on Tuesday.

The New York Times cited an unnamed US official in Washington saying that the offensive could begin in a few weeks. "What you're likely to see is airstrikes and Special Ops moving in, hitting and getting out," the official said.

In recent months, US advisers have helped supervise the training of Somali forces to be deployed in the offensive.

US officials said that this was part of a continuing programme to "build the capacity" of the Somali military, and that there has been no increase in military aid for the coming operations, the paper said.

US military intervention in Somalia in the early 1990s, when it led a major international relief operation, ended in disaster after UN forces were drawn into fighting with local warlords.

During the so-called "Battle of Mogadishu" in October 1993, forces loyal to warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid killed a total of 18 US soldiers on a single day, dragging some of their bodies through the streets of Mogadishu.

Jos, march 10 (AFP) -- Fresh gunfire has sent Christian villagers in Nigeria fleeing as a senior official accused the country's military chiefs of having ignored warnings about last weekend's massacre.

Residents of a mainly Christian settlement near the central city of Jos fled to a nearby police barracks for shelter at the sound of gunfire, said locals.

"We heard gunshots reverberating all over the neighbourhood and I could not wait to know who was firing the shots," Josephine Emmanuel, of Bukka Uku, about four kilometres (three miles) south of Jos, told AFP by phone.

"All people in the neighborhood have fled," she added.

Just hours earlier, members of the Fulani clan and Berom ethnic activists had clashed nearby, a senior police officer told AFP.

"Some Fulani pastoralists attempted to attack a village and Beroms repelled them," said the officer speaking on condition of anonymity.

Earlier Tuesday, Jonah Jang, governor of central Plateau state, said Sunday's carnage, which claimed hundreds of lives of mainly Christian villagers, could have been avoided had there not been security lapses.

He had alerted Nigeria's army commander about reports of movement around the area and had been told that troops would be heading there, Jang told reporters in the capital Abuja.

"Three hours or so later, I was woken by a call that they (armed gangs) have started burning the village and people were being hacked to death.

"I tried to locate the commanders, (but) I couldn’t get any of them on the telephone."

Near the central city of Jos, mass burials have been held for some of the hundreds of victims of the three-hour orgy of violence, as survivors nursed their wounds in hospitals.

Troops meanwhile patrolled the three villages where members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group embarked on their killing spree. But residents of neighbouring villages said they had already received new threats.

Officials have said more than 500 people from the mainly Christian Berom ethnic group were hacked to death with machetes, axes and daggers in three villages of Dogo Nahawa, Ratsat and Zot on Sunday morning.

In a surgical ward of Jos hospital, women nursing deep scalp wounds mourned the loss of their children.

Chindum Yakubu, 30, mother of four, described the screams of her 18-month-old daughter who was hacked to death as the family tried to flee the pre-dawn attacks.

"They removed the baby (from her back) and killed her with machete," Yakubu said.

Thousands have been killed in recent years from strife in and around Jos, which is on the dividing line between the mainly Muslim north and Christian dominated south.

"One moment it's relaxed, then the next moment people are running for their dear life," said hospital administrator Ruth Mutfwang, summing up life in the restive region.

As a group of men huddled in small groups at Dogo Nahawa, one was overheard saying "we will take revenge."

International observers have called on the government to tackle the root causes of the ethnic tensions, which have seen thousands killed here in recent years.

The UN's human rights chief Navi Pillay said, "what is most needed is a concerted effort to tackle the underlying causes of the repeated outbreaks of ethnic and religious violence... namely discrimination, poverty and disputes over land."

Nigeria's senate described the attacks as acts of "terrorism" and crimes against humanity.

But the main opposition Action Congress accused the federal government of "hypocrisy," saying perpetrators of the region's violence in recent years had not been brought to justice.

Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, meanwhile objected to suggestions that this was a conflict between Christians and Muslims.

"This is a classic conflict between herdsmen and farmers, only the Fulani are all Muslims and the Berom all Christians," he told Vatican Radio.

"The international media are quickly led to report that it is Christians and Muslims who are killing one another; but this is not true, because the killings are not caused by religion but by social, economic, tribal and cultural issues."

Sunday's attacks were only the latest between rival ethnic and religious groups.

Locals said they resulted from a feud first ignited by cattle theft that was fuelled by deadly reprisals

Nairobi, march 10 (AFP) -- Suspected Somali pirates have hijacked a Kenyan-flagged fishing boat with 16 crew which may be used as a "mother ship" to launch more attacks in the Indian Ocean, maritime sources said Tuesday.

Andrew Mwangura, the head of the East African Seafarers Assistance Programme said that the MV Sakoba had a Spanish captain and 15 other crew members from Kenya, Poland, Senegal, Cape Verde and Namibia.

"The vessel was taken hostage in waters off the Kenyan and Seychellois coasts last week", he said.

The European Union's Atalanta anti-piracy naval mission confirmed in a statement that the ship was in the hands of pirates Tuesday and heading towards the Somali pirate lair of Harardhere.

"The Kenyan flagged fishing vessel Sakoba is reported hijacked 400 nautical miles east of Dar es Salam," the statement said.

Atalanta spokesman John Harbour told AFP that the ship's ownership was unclear and voiced fears that the hijacked vessel might be used by the pirates as a floating base from which to launch their skiffs on more victims.

"We don't know who owns the ship. We know that in 2007 it was Spanish owned," Harbour said. "In fact, that ship might have been used by pirates as a mother ship."

Spain's fisheries federation Cepesca said in a statement that the ship's operator was Kenyan while the foreign ministry stressed that "the only connection with Spain is that the captain is Spanish."

Mwangura said the case was suspect since no attempt has apparently been made by the pirates to contact the owners or operators and start negotiations for a ransom payment.

"Communication with the ship has not been established", he said. "It is very strange because in all other pirate attacks, the hijackers make contact with the ship's owners for the sole purpose of negotiating for a ransom."

The UK Maritime Trade Organisation urged seafarers to avoid sailing too close to the Somali coast.

"The fishing vessel is used as a pirate platform and still poses a threat to mariners," it said.

Ecoterra International, a environmental NGO monitoring maritime activity in the region, said the MV Sakoba had a murky track record.

In 2005, the MV Sakoba, then comprising a crew from Kenya and Spain and registered in Ghana, was involved in an incident during which the Kenyan crew members were injured.

Somali pirates, who raked in at least 60 million dollars in ransom money last year, currently hold at least seven ships and close to 150 seamen hostage.

Over the past year, Atalanta and several other multinational naval missions have curbed piracy in the Gulf of Aden -- one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes -- but sea bandits have since ventured further south into less heavily-patrolled areas of the Indian Ocean.

UNITED NATIONS, march 10 (Reuters) - The United Nations is asking rich nations to help raise $59 million to support refugees who have fled clashes in the cobalt-rich Democratic Republic of Congo.

Thousands of Congolese have fled fighting in the northern province of Equateur and taken refuge in neighboring Congo Republic, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, which has assisted refugees from the outset of the crisis, the United Nations said

on Tuesday in a statement.

"But they have very limited resources and a small population, over half of whom subsist on $1.25 per day," said John Holmes, the U.N. humanitarian affairs chief. "Significant support is therefore required from the international community."

The clashes originated in inter-communal disputes over farming and fishing rights, the United Nations said.

The U.N.'s biggest peacekeeping mission is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a former Belgian colony. It has been in the country since 1999 to help the government as it struggles to reestablish control over the vast central African nation.

A 1998-2003 war and the ensuing humanitarian disaster have killed an estimated 5.4 million people in the country.

United Nations said last week it could begin withdrawing troops from Congo as early as June, around the 50th anniversary of the country's independence.

Home to the world's biggest reserves of cobalt -- used in batteries, ceramics and dyes -- the Democratic Republic of Congo has gold, silver and diamond mines. It also has some of the world's largest stores of copper, tin and metals such as tungsten and coltan, a component of many mobile phones.

LOME, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Togo's main opposition party leader Jean-Pierre Fabre says he will not seek justice from the constitutional court in fight against the elections results which he fears rigged.

"We cannot go and tie ourselves up into judicial processes because once we have gone to the constitutional court which is expected to make a ruling, this ruling is going to be against us," the 58-year-old candidate of the United Forces for Change (UFC) said on Tuesday.

Fabre lost to outgoing President Faure Gnassingbe in Thursday's presidential election with 33.94 percent of the votes against 60. 92 percent, according to the provisional results released by the West African country's electoral commission.

"We know what the Togolese constitutional court has been doing for a very long time and we do not want to go and find ourselves in such an impasse," he told a local TV channel in an interview.

Fabre had previously declared himself the winner of the election with a "wide margin." After the publication of the results, he dismissed them as cooked-up figures, calling on the people to rise up and reject them.

On Tuesday, hundreds of UFC members and supporters staged protests in the capital Lome in defiance of a ban by the authorities. They were quickly dispersed by the Presidential Election Security Forces (FOSEP), a special unit of the 6,000- strong deployment to guard against riots, which left hundreds of people dead in the 2005 polls.

UFC vows to continue the protest march until the weekend. "Today, politics will be the order of the day," Fabre declared.

ABUJA, march 10 (Reuters) -- Hundreds of Nigerians gathered in the capital Abuja on Wednesday for a march to the presidency to demand the appearance of ailing leader Umaru Yar'Adua, two weeks after he returned from a Saudi hospital.

The 58-year-old leader has not been seen in public since being flown back after three months of treatment in Jeddah for a heart condition. There have been no announcements on his health but presidency sources say he remains in intensive care.

His return while still too frail to govern raised fears that his inner circle of aides, led by his wife Turai, would fight to maintain their influence over Africa's most populous nation and seek to undermine Acting President Goodluck Jonathan.

A power struggle at the top of the OPEC member nation of 140 million people could bring paralysis in government decision-making, threatening an amnesty programme in the oil-producing Niger Delta and stalling momentum on reforms.

Several hundred people, many wearing T-shirts with "Save Nigeria Group" on the front and "Enough is Enough" on the back, gathered near to a city centre hotel under the watch of police officers lining the avenue.

"We want the invisible president to be revoked. We are tired of a president we can't see, who can't govern. We want to see him," Babatunde Ogala, a politician from the commercial capital Lagos, told the gathering crowd.

"If we can't see him we want someone else who is allowed to govern. Why is a cabal controlling our country," he said.

Officials organising the march said they planned to walk to Aso Rock, the presidential villa, and hand a letter of protest to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, who co-ordinates between the presidency and government ministries.

"Turai, leave Nigeria alone" and "Jonathan get decisive now" were among the banners held up above the crowd.

A police spokesman addressed the protesters, pledging that the security forces were there to protect them and would help them carry their message "in a peaceful manner". He said officers were not carrying tear gas or weapons.

Such political demonstrations are relatively rare in Nigeria, where the vast majority of people get by on $2 a day or less and feel politics is a game played by multi-millionaires whose outcome has little effect on their daily lives.

Similar marches in recent months have passed peacefully.

Should Yar'Adua be formally declared too sick to govern, or resign or die, Jonathan would be sworn in as head of state and complete the unexpired presidential term, which runs to May next year, with a new vice president.

The demonstrators are also demanding electoral reforms to avoid the sort of chaos seen in the 2007 polls which brought Yar'Adua to power, a vote so marred by ballot-stuffing and intimidation that observers said it was not credible

KHARTOUM, March 10 (Xinhua) -- China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) on Tuesday handed over 110,000 U.S. dollars' worth of medical equipment to Sudan's Al Birr and Al-Tawasul Organization (BTO).

The CFPA donation, including 12 sets of portable ultrasound diagnostic scanners, infant incubators, stainless-steel sterilizer and 500 pieces of solar and hand-winding electric charged torch- radios, was handed over to the BTO at a ceremony held at the Chinese embassy here on Tuesday.

The ceremony was organized by the Chinese embassy in cooperation with Sudanese Ministry of Health and Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.

CFPA Vice Secretary General Yang Qinghai, addressing the ceremony, said the first batch of the equipment had arrived in Sudan in February and would be distributed among 12 hospitals for women and children through the BTO.

"The CFPA will continue to strengthen the exchange and cooperation with the BTO and make more contribution in hospital- building and community development," he said.

Chinese ambassador to Sudan Li Chengwen, for his part, said both CFPA and BTO were important NGOs devoted to humanitarian and charity work.

"This ceremony paves the way for NGO cooperation between China and Sudan, which will certainly deepen the exchanges and cooperation between the two peoples," he said.

Sudanese Minister of Health Tabitha Boutros Shukaya and Sudanese Commissioner General for Humanitarian Aid Hassabo Mohamed Abdul-Rahman highly appreciated the active and effective cooperation between CFPA and BTO, stressing that, as an important aspect of Sudan-China relations, the friendly exchanges and cooperation between NGOs would enhance the traditional friendship between the two peoples.

Fatima al-Amin, wife of Sudanese Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha and BTO president, affirmed in the ceremony the importance of the equipment donated by CFPA, saying that the equipment will help people in remote areas that run short of necessary health equipment.

CAIRO march 10 (Reuters) -- Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, the head of Egypt's most prestigious seat of Islamic learning al Azhar, died of a heart attack on Wednesday during a visit to Saudi Arabia, religious officials at al-Azhar said. He was 81.

Abdullah el-Naggar, advisor to the sheikh, told Egypt's Nile News television the death was a surprise, saying that before leaving to Saudi Arabia the sheikh had seemed in "excellent shape and health."

A member of Tantawi's office, Ashraf Hassan, told Reuters that Mohamed Wasel, Tantawi's deputy, was expected to temporarily take over leading the institution until the Egyptian president appointed a new head for the body.

Al Azhar, which runs schools, universities and other educational institutions across Egypt, receives most of its funding from the state.

When he was appointed in 1996, Tantawi was viewed as having relatively liberal views on issues such as women's rights but had been criticised by some for toeing the government's line.

In office, he opposed female circumcision as not an Islamic practice and took a stand against the full veil, or 'niqab', that completely covers the face.

Tantawi issued a religious edict last year barring the niqab in al-Azhar-run all-girl schools.

A Saudi source familiar with the situation said Tantawi died of a heart attack in the Saudi capital on Wednesday.

CAIRO, march 10 (Reuters) -- Egypt wants visitors to discover its Mediterranean coast at a marine reserve being established near the border with Libya, the government said on Tuesday.

"The goal is to protect endangered species ... and encourage ecotourism in the reserve area, putting it on the global ecotourism map," Environment Minister Maged George said.

The 383-sq km (150-square-mile) reserve, mostly in the water in the Gulf of el-Salloum, is Egypt's 28th nature protectorate, but its first on the Mediterranean.

"Declaring this protectorate is a way to confront a host of environmental problems, such as soil degradation and coastal inundation, climate change and loss of biological diversity," George said in a statement, adding that the area was rich in natural resources.

The protectorate contains more than 160 migratory and local bird species, about 30 reptile and amphibian species and 10,000 to 12,000 marine species. Its creation should encourage scientific research on biological diversity in Egypt, he said.

Tourism accounts for about 11 percent of Gross Domestic Product and is an important source of foreign currency and jobs in Egypt.

In a move to encourage sound environmental practices, the government has begun a $238 million project to slash carbon emissions in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.