2010-04-30
PRETORIA (Reuters) - South African President Jacob Zuma unveiled a new National Planning Commission on Friday tasked with charting a long-term and cohesive development strategy for the continent's largest economy.

Former finance minister Trevor Manuel, now National Planning Minister, will chair the body, whose 25 other members are drawn from as broad a spectrum as possible of South African industry and society.

Although the commission has no executive power it keeps Manuel, a pro-business figure hated by the African National Congress's communist and trade union allies, close to Zuma's inner circle.

Manuel's deputy will be Cyril Ramaphosa, an ex-union leader and ANC member once tipped as a possible future president, but who has largely eschewed government to become one of post-apartheid South Africa's richest black businessmen.

Key figures drawn from a list of 1,280 possibles include Bobby Godsell, a former mining executive and previously chairman of state power utility Eskom, power expert Anton Eberhard and ex-government policy maker Joel Netshitenzhe who resigned last year.

Zuma said the commission would map out South Africa's long-term needs in areas such as water, food, climate change, energy, infrastructure, housing and defence.

"While each of these areas of work relate to an aspect of government's work, the Commission is asked to take an independent, cross-cutting, critical and long-term view," Zuma told a news conference.

The commission was seen as providing a boost for Manuel over left-leaning voices around Zuma.

"Overall it seems to be a victory for Trevor Manuel over the leftist elements of cabinet, but it remains to be seen quite what influence it can have over policy formation. At the least it is a counteracting balance in the policy debate," Peter Attard Montalto, emerging markets analysts at Nomura International, said.

The commission, which will have its own full-time secretariat, would produce a "national vision" document for cabinet consumption in 18 months, Manuel said. The body is first scheduled to meet on May 10 and 11.

2010-04-30
NAIROBI (Reuters) - A landslide in western Kenya after relentless heavy rains has killed 10 people and more may be buried in the mud, the Kenya Red Cross (KRC) said on Friday.

KRC said the latest deaths took the number of people killed by floods and landslides in Kenya so far this year to 100.

El Nino weather patterns across east Africa are blamed for the wild storms that have hit east Africa's biggest economy. A massive landslide in neighbouring Uganda killed scores of people in a remote village in March.

"Ten bodies have been retrieved from the landslide scene and 10 other people have been injured," Nelly Muluka, communications officer for KRC, told Reuters by telephone.

"It is feared that some people have been buried in the landslide but we don't know how many, maybe dozens," she said.

The landslide struck late on Thursday in Kitony village in the Marakwet district of western Kenya, she said. A KRC team is on the scene and has launched rescue operations.

El Nino, which means "little boy" in Spanish, caused abnormally heavy rainfall in 1997/98 in Kenya, where last year severe drought also hampered economic growth.

2010-04-30
ISIOLO, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenya has deployed security agents to its border with Somalia after Islamic clerics announced they had clamped down on the public broadcast of soccer and films, a security official said.

Clerics in the frontier town of Mandera said on Monday they had confiscated a number of satellite TV dishes in a football-obsessed nation ahead of the World Cup because public film dens were corrupting youths.

"Two groups, an undercover team from National Security Intelligence Service and (an) anti-terrorist unit, arrived here on Tuesday night to investigate," a senior local security source who did not wish to be named told Reuters late on Thursday.

The security officer also said another team had been dispatched to Dadaab refugee camp which is home to some 270,000 mostly Somali refugees in the mostly Muslim region.

He said local residents from Mandera, located just a few kilometres from the porous border, claimed al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebels in Somalia had made phone calls to congratulate the clerics.

A government spokesman denied the deployment but one leading cleric in Mandera, Sheikh Daud Sheikh Mahmud, said he had been informed of the intelligence officers' arrival.

Mandera district's top civil servant sought to allay fears that hardline Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia might be extending their influence across the frontier and said it was a local security committee that had closed down the video halls.

"The closure of video dens has the government's blessing," said District Commissioner Francis Lenyangume.

Lenyangume said parents backed the move because the dens were frequented by drug pushers and showed pornographic films. Local residents were free to watch the World Cup and satellite TV in their own homes, he said.

Al Shabaab militants control swathes of central and southern Somalia, including much of the area bordering Kenya, enforcing a harsh version of sharia law that includes banning music on radios and amputating the hands of thieves.

Ten percent of Kenya's 39 million people are Muslim and 78 percent are Christian, according to the CIA World Factbook.

2010-04-30
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - French energy group Areva may build a 100 MW solar power plant in South Africa if the project can be included in the national energy plan under discussion in government, daily newspaper Business Day reported on Friday.

The company could start building the concentrated solar power plant between 2011 and 2012, the paper quoted Tom Bartolomei, the group's senior vice president for business development, as saying.

South Africa's vast solar potential is largely untouched due to the high costs of putting up solar power plants, but the country has said its solar thermal power potential was in the tens of thousands of megawatts.

MEKNES, Morocco (Reuters) - Morocco plans to lease 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of farmland per year to improve yields, satisfy growing national demand and boost export sales, its agriculture minister said on Thursday.

But Aziz Akhennouch told Reuters the north African kingdom had no plans to join a continent-wide trend of selling farmland outright to foreign companies and governments that want to secure their future food supplies.

Morocco has leased 80,000 hectares (200,000 acres) in two batches in the last decade, drawing more than 13 billion dirhams. Some 24 percent of the investors in the 296 farms were foreigners.

"We are offering 21,000 hectares (in the next lease tender) but the goal is to offer 30,000 per year so we are offering 21,000 first and will probably offer another 10,000 before the end of the year," Akhennouch told Reuters in an interview at Morocco's annual agriculture show in the city of Meknes.

He said around 20 to 25 percent of the demand was coming from foreigners and the government "will try to satisfy all operators as agriculture needs its Moroccan farmers but we also need groups with expertise, know-how and the necessary means.

Akhennouch, who is Morocco's Minister for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries, played down the prospect of selling farmland outright.

"We are in a logic of partnership, not of selling land but leasing it long enough, for 20 to 40 years, to give investors the visibility they need," he said. "And I think we are succeeding well."

"The comparative advantage of Morocco is that we have real farmers already there when the investor comes along. It's something ancestral and ... profoundly rooted."

WHEAT IMPORTS

Akhennouch this week forecast a 2010 national cereals harvest of around 8 million tonnes, higher than a recent estimate by the country's main grains industry body.

Asked how much grain Morocco would need to import after the harvest to satisfy national demand, he said: "For soft wheat, it will be roughly 36 million quintals."

"I think we will assure supplies for a large part of the year but will have to import in certain months."

The head of Morocco's grain import agency said in January the country would need to import between 1.3 million and 1.7 million tonnes of foreign soft wheat before this year's harvest.

Akhennouch said cereals would remain a vital element in Moroccan agriculture even as the country maximizes production of export crops such as tomatoes, olives and citrus fruit under its Green Morocco Plan.

The government was targeting a national grain harvest of 7.5 million tonnes per year between 2010 and 2020, he said.

"We're talking about an average," he said. "There will be highs and lows, but our goal is to improve yields.

Farming accounts for up 17 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and employs 40 percent of the total workforce.

More than 70 percent of the farmers own just 5 hectares on average, and have scant financial resources to modernize agriculture without aid and new investment flows.

OUAGADOUGOU, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Burkina Faso has offered 5, 000 tons of cereals to Niger to help fight famine, which is threatening nearly half of its 11 million population, according to the government.

The humanitarian aid is a token of friendly relations and good neighborhood between the two African countries and is part of efforts to save the Sahalian children and women being affected by hunger, a cabinet report said on Thursday.

Niger also donated food and other kinds of relief worth 50 million FCFA to help victims of floods in Burkina Faso in September 2009.

Food shortages are currently threatening other countries of the Sahalian strip, including Chad, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali, the UN food agency FAO said in a recent report, calling for international aid to the African countries.

Burkina Faso began to sell cereals at subsidized prices in March in the northern part of the country which was the most affected with the famine.

The World Food Program has opened centers in Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso to distribute free kits of rice, sugar and oil to the most vulnerable households.

ABIDJAN, April 30 (Xinhua) -- The special representative of the African Union (AU) in Cote d'lvoire, Ambroise Nyomsaba, met with President of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) Youssouf Bakayoko here on Thursday to discuss the stalled election process.

The presidential elections, which were postponed to late April and early May, are likely to be put off again as time is running out amid continued disputes over the vote list and disarmament.

After the meeting at the CEI headquarters, Nyomsaba said the AU was very much interested in the election process in the West African country.

"The CEI president explained to me the work that is going on and I encouraged him to carry on with the same zeal," he told media.

"It is important to have regular consultations among the actors in this process," said the AU emissary, who has visited CEI twice in the past month.

The people of Cote d'Ivoire and the international community are waiting for the holding of the elections, which have been postponed several times since 2005 and expected to end the country's crisis following an attempted coup in September 2002.

NAIROBI, April 30 (Xinhua) -- A French warship has destroyed a pirate mother ship, some 480 nautical miles east of the Somali coast, EU Naval Force said on Friday.

Naval Force spokesman John Harbour said the French warship Nivose on Thursday boarded and searched the vessels but the pirates were found to have disposed of pirate paraphernalia. "The EU NAVFOR warship Nivose found stopped and searched a mother ship and two supporting skiffs, some 480 nautical miles east of the Somali Coast. The 11 Somali crew of these vessels were taken on board the Nivose, as were the two attack skiffs and the mother skiff was sunk," Harbour said in a statement.

He said the EU Naval Force will continue with its aggressive stance against piracy and the intention to interdict and disrupt pirate activity.

Harbour said over 40 pirate action groups have been disrupted in the last two months showing that the new strategy is working.

According to the world's anti-piracy organization, the International Maritime Bureau, Somali pirates attacked ships 217 times in 2009, up from 111 attacks in 2008.

Crews have been successfully repelling more attacks, making it harder for pirates to capture ships and earn multi-million-dollar ransoms.

But the pirates have responded more violently. The IBM says only seven ships were fired upon worldwide in 2004, whereas 114 ships were fired upon last year off the Somali coast alone.

Many ship owners are investing in physical defences like stringing razor wire and adding fire hoses that can hit attackers with streams of high-pressure water. Some ships are even having electric fence-style systems installed.

HARARE, April 29 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe' s Zanu-PF party is making a two-pronged approach on apostolic faith sects in the country with a view to having all of them immunize their children against killer diseases, while at the same time increasing its support base.

The party's highest decision making body outside congress, the political bureau (in short politburo), decided at its meeting in Harare on Wednesday to push the government to engage the apostolic sects so that they immunize their children against measles.

It also wants the party's commissariat department to mobilize the church to support its programs.

Zanu-PF has begun a massive mobilization drive ahead of possible elections in 2011. Mugabe and MDC leader Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai have intimated that fresh elections may be held next year, with or without a new constitution as had been anticipated.

However, their colleague in the inclusive government Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara of the smaller MDC faction, has dismissed the possibility of elections next year, although as a junior partner in the government, his word may not carry the day.

Even though the Zanu-PF says the government should lobby the sects to immunize, the intention goes beyond health issues with the party lately targeting them as a potential support base. It will, therefore, not be surprising to see it using its health and commissariat departments to indoctrinate the sects both politically and health-wise.

Also, given that the minister of health and child welfare in Zimbabwe's inclusive government is from Tsvangirai's MDC party, Zanu-PF will find the use of its own structures to reach out to the sects being the most desirable route. The sects command huge followings, with their numbers increasing everyday.

Zanu-PF entered into a power-sharing agreement with the two MDC factions after losing a lot of ground in the 2008 legislative elections, and the disputed presidential election won by Mugabe after Tsvangirai withdrew from the race. Tsvangirai, who had won the first round but failed to attain 50 percent or more of the vote, withdrew because of the violence that preceded the run-off with Mugabe.

Zanu-PF now wants to reclaim lost glory and is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to do so.

The party's information and publicity secretary told the Herald that the politburo had urged to commissariat department to continue engaging various groups such as the Church to support the party's programs, adding that the government should work with apostolic sects on the issues of measles and hygiene.

All the apostolic faith sects, except probably one (Johane Marange), do not immunize their children against the six child killer diseases - measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, poliomyelitis and neo-natal tetanus - although the government provides the service free of charge. Neither do they visit hospitals and clinics for conventional medical care, leaving their children's fate in the hands of God instead.

An apostolic faith sect member who refused to be named told Xinhua in an interview on Thursday that most sects did not seek conventional treatment because they believed that only the power of God and water could sustain a person's life.

"God looks after the person's life, while water is the life. That is why you see them blessing water which they use to treat each other. That is also why they do not eat a lot of foods, preferring the more natural ones like vegetables and beef.

"They do not want to visit hospitals because they fear that they may eat food contaminated with some foods they are not supposed to eat, such as pork," he added.

Measles, a highly contagious viral respiratory infection that causes high fever, skin rash, running nose, watery eyes and a cough, mainly among children under the age of five, has proved to be the biggest of the killer diseases, with about 98 percent of the deaths occurring among the apostolic sects.

The disease was once brought under firm control in the 1990s, accounting for only one life in 1998, but lack of immunization may result in resurgence because the danger of the disease spreading is very high because vaccination is not 100 percent effective and exposure may lead to infection.

What this amounts to is that some people who immunize their children against the killer diseases end up being compromised by the faith of others who do not see the importance of taking preventive measures.

Some sects have been known to hide away their children during vaccination programs, even running away with the sick on whom they pour "holy water", leaving the authorities helpless because they cannot force the parents to have the children vaccinated against their will.

The law only empowers the minister responsible for health to institute measures that protect everyone in an emergency, but bars the same from forcing people to access a service that prevents them from being threats to public health.

However, Zanu-PF now looks set to use the resistance to its advantage by persuading the sects to come on board and at the same time embrace the part's principles.

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria April 29 (Xinhua) -- Nigerian Gunmen operating in the creek of oil rich Niger Delta region have abducted four officials of the country's National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) along the Aba-Port Harcourt, a security source told Xinhua on Thursday.

The kidnapers also shot dead an operative of the agency, Emeka Obi Wohley, the security source said.

The source said the gunmen are demanding for a ransom of about 110,000 U.S. dollars.

One of the victims, who is heavily pregnant, was released on compassionate ground, the source added.

NAFDAC spokesperson Abubakar Jimoh confirmed the incident to Xinhua on phone.

He described the attack as shocking.

Obi Wohley was said to have traveled to his village in Imo State over the weekend and was expected to be back in the office on Monday morning.

Rivers State police spokesperson Rita Inoma-Abbey told Xinhua that she needed more time to get the details.

She, however, said a middle-aged man, Anayo Prince Wali, was kidnapped at the refuse dump opposite a gas plant along Airport Road, Rumuodomaya, Port Harcourt on Wednesday evening by four gunmen, who operated in a blue Toyota Camry car.

Inoma-Abbey said all police patrol teams were mobilized to search for the gang.

The police spokesperson added that more teams had been drafted to the nearby bush, searching for the kidnappers.

This brings to a total of 13 persons kidnapped this month alone within the Abia and Rivers states.

Abduction is common in Nigeria. Over 300 foreigners have been seized in the Niger Delta since 2006. Almost all have been released unharmed after paying a ransom.

KHARTOUM, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) announced that four peacekeepers from South Africa were safely released on Monday after being held in captivity in western Sudan for 16 days.

"We are grateful to have our colleagues back with us. This day would not have been possible, had it not been for the good cooperation of the Sudanese government and the local authorities of South Darfur," said UNAMID chief Ibrahim Gambari in a statement.

"I am proud of the courage and resilience displayed by our colleagues throughout these trying circumstances," said Gambari, adding that, "I certainly hope that this is the last time that peacekeepers, both military, police and civilians, who are here to bring peace and stability to the people of Darfur, are subjected to such unacceptable ordeals."

The news came a day after a meeting held between Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Gambari, at which the Sudanese leader had pledged to do everything possible to assist in bringing about the safe return of the UNAMID personnel.

The statement noted that after undergoing medical examinations, the four released persons, who serve as police advisors in the 26, 000-strong UNAMID, will fly to their home country, where they will be reunited with their families.

The four peacekeepers, two men and two women, were abducted in Nyala on April 11, but the statement did not disclose the identifications of the kidnappers.

The UNAMID took over the peacekeeping mission from the poorly- equipped African Union peacekeeping forces on Dec. 31, 2007 in order to monitor a fragile ceasefire between Sudanese armed forces and rebel groups in Darfur where bloody clashes have lasted for seven years.

KHARTOUM, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Sudanese President Omar al- Bashir said on Monday that he is determined to complete the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and to hold the referendum in southern Sudan at the due time.

The Sudanese president made the remarks in a previously recorded address aired to the nation shortly after the National Elections Commission (NEC) announced his victory in the first multi-party elections in Sudan for 24 years.

Al-Bashir received 6,901,694 votes out of 10,114,301 votes, or 68 percent in the elections, which were held from April 11 to 15, the NEC chairman Abel Alier told a press conference on Monday.

Al-Bashir expressed appreciation of the support offered by the international community for the elections in Sudan by sending nearly 1,000 observers to monitor the polling.

According to the CPA inked by the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement in southern Sudan and the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) led by al-Bashir, a referendum will be held in the semi-autonomous southern Sudan in January 2011 to decide the fate of the region.

The Sudanese president said he would conduct consultations with various political blocs in the country to work out ways to overcome the challenges.

In the address, al-Bashir reiterated commitment to implementing the electoral program of his NCP party, saying that "we will live up to the level of the assignment and the trust bestowed on us, with our hearts and minds open for the dialogue with all the other parties to institute for a partnership to face challenges."

The Sudanese leader also thanked the Sudanese people for making the electoral process a success.

Some 400 people gathered inside the headquarters of the NCP in central Khartoum to celebrate the victory of the party in the general elections, with NCP candidates being elected governors in 13 states out of 14 in northern Sudan and a majority in the national parliament.

NAIROBI, April 26 (Xinhua) -- European Union Naval Force said on Monday its warship ESPS Victoria intercepted a pirate action group (PAG) comprising one mother ship, a Whaler, and two skiffs.

EU Naval Force spokesman John Harbor said the suspected pirates were detected by the frigate's helicopter, about 40 miles from the Somali coast northwest of the Seychelles on Sunday.

Harbor said the helicopter crew saw that the mother ship was carrying a large number of fuel drums, and also the normal paraphernalia for hijacking ships (ladders, hooks, among others) as there was no fishing gear on board. "EU NAVFOR warship closed the PAG position and, following the orders of the EU NAVFOR Force Commander Jan Thornqvist, a search was conducted with no opposition from the pirates," Harbor said a statement.

He said the boarding party confirmed the suspicions that these vessels were being used with the intent to carry out acts of piracy.

"All the suspects were then put into one of the skiffs and given the necessary equipment to reach the Somali coast. Victoria then proceeded to destroy the other vessels," he said.

The incident came barely a week after the Somali pirates hijacked three Thai vessels almost 600 miles outside the normal operation area for the EU Naval Force.

The Somali pirates have expanded their range south and east in response to an increase in patrols by European and American warships off the Somali shore.

This was the second event in four days of patrolling in the area. Two whalers were lifted on board of Johan de Witt and five crew members of the whaler were sent safely back to the shore.

The Horn of Africa nation is at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, one of the world's most important shipping channels.

The country has been plagued by factional fighting between warlords and hasn't had a functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre.

The Gulf of Aden, off the northern coast of Somalia, has the highest risk of piracy in the world. About 25,000 ships use the channel south of Yemen, between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.

NAIROBI, April 26 (Xinhua) -- The European Union Naval Force has seized two Somali pirate boats and yet prevented another pirate group from leaving the Somali coast.

Naval Force said the Dutch warship HNLMS Johan de Witt's weekend seizure was the second event in four days of patrolling in the most dangerous waters of the Somali coast.

"After four days of counter piracy operations, this is the second pirate boat, so called whalers, on her flight deck. A good start for a patrol that was slightly different from others," Major Theo Mestrini said in a statement.

Mestrini said the EU Naval Force spotted a whaler, near the Somali coast which was very close to one of the pirate camps where they had seen activities on Friday night.

"After Commanding Officer approval, we approached the whaler. The crew was totally surprised and looked confused. Soon it was clear that this whaler was equipped to be used for pirating. They were ready to set sail to the ocean, but we prevented it," he said.

He said the incident was the second event in four days of patrolling in the area where two whalers were lifted on board of Johan de Witt and 5 crew members of the whaler were sent safely back to the shore.

HNLMS Johan de Witt is the newest and biggest ship of the Royal Netherlands Navy. She can operate near the coast, greatly enhancing EU Naval Force's new strategy.

"It's a new concept and to be honest, the ship was not designed for it. But it shows the flexibility of the ship, the craft and, of course, her crew; they are the ones that do the job," Commanding Officer Ben Bekkering said.

The incident came barely a week after the Somali pirates hijacked three Thai vessels almost 600 miles outside the normal operation area for the EU Naval Force.

The Somali pirates have expanded their range south and east in response to an increase in patrols by European and American warships off the Somali shore.

This was the second event in four days of patrolling in the area. Two whalers were lifted on board of Johan de Witt and five crew members of the whaler were sent safely back to the shore.

The Horn of Africa nation is at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, one of the world's most important shipping channels.

The country has been plagued by factional fighting between warlords and hasn't had a functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre.

The Gulf of Aden, off the northern coast of Somalia, has the highest risk of piracy in the world. About 25,000 ships use the channel south of Yemen, between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.

KHARTOUM, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Sudanese incumbent President Omar al-Bashir won the country's first multi-party elections in 24 years by obtaining more than 6 million votes, the Sudanese National Elections Commission (NEC) announced on Monday.

Al-Bashir received 6,901,694 votes, or 68 percent of the votes, in the elections held from April 11 to 15, said NEC Chairman Abil Alier at a press conference.

He announced at the same time that Salva Kiir Mayardit, the chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), was elected president of the southern Sudanese government in the general elections.

MOGADISHU, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed called for unity among members of government and parliament as rifts have recently emerged over whether the office term of the Speaker of the legislature has ended, a statement from the presidency said Monday.

Somalia's parliament has failed to hold its meeting as differences between lawmakers over the speaker's fate exacerbated widening the rift within the transitional legislative assembly of the embattled Somali government.

"The Somali President, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed calls on the members of the Council of Ministers and the Parliament to put their differences aside and focus on the important security and governance tasks that the Somali people expect," said the statement Xinhua obtained.

President Ahmed has held a closed-door session with the Council of Ministers. This followed similar meetings that the Somali leader had in the last four days with the members of parliament and other leading figures of the Transitional Federal Institutions namely the speaker of the parliament and the prime minster, the statement said.

The meetings were said to be part of extensive consultations the president has had with the members of the Somali government institutions "in order to defuse the ongoing political wrangling" within the government

The statement said that the aim of the talks were to "refocus the combined energies of the government and parliament to the tasks that they swore to uphold, namely serving the people and putting the national interest ahead of personal and partisan gains. "

President Ahmed it added underscored to the members of the Council of Ministers and MPs that both the Somali people and international community expect the Somali government institutions "to set their priories right in the face of the daunting security and humanitarian challenges the nation face."

"Unity, patience and selflessness should be our motto" the Somali leader informed all concerned, concluded the statement from the president's office.

The internationally recognized Somali government is struggling to stave off Islamist insurgency determined to take over the war torn East African country and establish an Islamic State.

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) held its first meeting chaired by Acting President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday after a court overturned an injunction filed by a group of rebel members.

A group of 19 senior PDP members suspended for launching a rebellion against the party leadership had sought a court order to stop the meeting, due to approve the rules for primaries ahead of presidential elections due by early next year.

A court in the capital Abuja overturned the injunction on Tuesday but ruled that the suspended members, who had argued that their interests would not be represented, should not be discussed at the meeting.

The row in the ruling party revolves around disagreement over who its presidential candidate should be and risks dividing a political grouping whose nominee has won every presidential race since Nigeria's return to democracy just over a decade ago.

President Umaru Yar'Adua, who returned from a Saudi hospital in February, remains too sick to rule and is therefore not likely to try to seek a second term.

Hundreds of protesters from rival groups rallied at the PDP's headquarters in Abuja before the meeting.

Around 200 protesters, some carrying signs saying "No to Corrupt Politicians" and "Let Us Reform Now," demanded the resignation of PDP Chairman Vincent Ogbulafor after fraud charges were brought against him on Monday.

A similar-sized counter rally was also held in support of Ogbulafor, whom a court charged alongside four others with conspiring to siphon off $1.5 million in public funds while he was a government minister in 2001.

ABUBAKAR MAY RUN

Ogbulafor said last month the party nominee should be from Yar'Adua's Muslim north, abiding by the terms of an unwritten agreement in the party that power rotates between north and the mostly Christian south every two terms.

But Jonathan, a southerner, has not ruled himself out of the race and some northerners have said they would support him.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who ran unsuccessfully for president as the opposition Action Congress' (AC) candidate in 2007, said on Tuesday he may also seek to run again but this time on the PDP ticket.

"I will if God permits," he told reporters in the capital Abuja. "The AC alone cannot be a formidable opposition to PDP."

Abubakar, who was the deputy of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, joins former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida in seeking the PDP's presidential nomination.

The party has a strong majority in both houses of parliament and holds over three quarters of Nigeria's 36 states. Its dominance in the last three presidential elections has turned the country into a virtual one-party state, critics say.

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan said on Tuesday it was premature to talk of him making a bid for the presidency in polls due by early next year and called for unity in the ruling party.

"(Jonathan) decried a situation where some persons were already positioning for the 2011 elections even when an electoral timetable is yet to be released," his spokesman Ima Niboro said in a statement.

"He warned that he would not tolerate a situation where his name is dragged into these premature permutations with a deliberate intent to heat up the polity," the statement said.

DALLI, Niger (Reuters) - United Nations humanitarian agencies sounded the alarm on Tuesday about a growing food crisis in the West African state of Niger, but said it was too soon to talk of famine.

John Holmes, the U.N.'s top aid official, heard appeals for help from residents in Niger's arid east where many are on the move in search of food, but warned the U.N. had no miracle solution to the problem in one of the world's poorest countries.

Erratic rainfall last year devastated crops and livestock herds, leaving millions of people hungry in the uranium producer nation and the broader Sahel region.

In Diffa, more than 1,000 km (600 miles) southeast of Niger's capital, Niamey, many people have abandoned their homes in search of food, while others who remain are harvesting green fruits from usually inedible plants.

The teacher in Diffa said 15 children left the school last week alone. Skinny cattle and goats stood in the sun next to Chinese workers constructing a multi-billion dollar oil pipeline project in the region.

"We planted but the harvest was not good. Since then we have been waiting for manna, from wherever it can come," Maria Ali, a 55 year-old mother of 10, told Holmes in Diffa.

Holmes responded: "We do not have a miracle solution but we'll do our best." The U.N. is running a food-for-work programme for villagers who remain, paying them for clearing the main road threatened by the encroaching desert.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said less than a third of the $190 million it is seeking from international donors to respond to the crisis has been raised.

While Byrs said it was too early to speak of famine, she told a briefing: "If we don't get this financing we could have an extremely serious humanitarian crisis in the country".

Aid agencies need to start work in earnest in June or July to stave off hunger problems, she added.

Niger risks a repeat of a severe hunger problem in 2005. At the time, Niger's President Mamadou Tandja tried to play down the problem until media attention made his stance untenable.

A government survey in December estimated 58 percent of the population, or 7.8 million people, were food-insecure.

The military rulers who ousted Tandja in a February coup have talked openly of the danger of famine in a move that aid agencies hope will improve efforts to tackle the crisis.

But acute malnutrition is increasing and more than 1.5 million children risk becoming malnourished over the next 12 months if urgent action is not taken, OCHA said.

The U.N. is trying to estimate numbers of people fleeing the countryside for urban areas or neighbouring countries.

The World Food Programme is also doubling the number of people who receive its food aid under its relief programme to 2.3 million. It said it normally needs 3-4 months to deliver food to Niger, and immediate contributions would enable it to procure food in the region, such as in Nigeria.

Niger's military rulers have taken tentative steps towards restoring civilian rule and meeting a donor-imposed deadline of polls by the end of the year, but the food crisis risks derailing the process.

In the United Nations' 2009 human development index, Niger ranks last out of 182 countries covered.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Nine south Sudanese opposition parties said on Tuesday they would challenge the election of the region's president and state governors in court, adding they had documented evidence of fraud.

The leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), Salva Kiir, won the presidential race in the south with 92.99 percent of the vote in the semi-autonomous region, which is expected to secede from the north after a referendum next year.

"The elections have been rigged," said Lam Akol, Kiir's only challenger who split to form a separate party last year. "We have documented evidence of the (army) taking over polling stations and arresting party agents."

Akol and eight other southern parties said in a joint statement that they would provide evidence to Sudan's Supreme Court to challenge the victory of Kiir and his party's governors in the country's first open polls in 24 years.

The SPLM said that while the elections in the north were rigged by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's dominant National Congress Party, there was competition in the south and senior members of the SPLM had lost their seats in parliament.

"Senior political buro members of the SPLM lost their seats, but can you name one of the NCP leaders who lost theirs?" said Yasir Arman, a senior SPLM official.

The SPLM, a former rebel group which dominates the government of the oil-producing south, also lost the governorship of Western Equatoria state to an independent candidate.

Kiir said he felt "total dismay" at reports of fraud and promised to investigate.

International observers have said the elections across the country did not meet international standards but emphasized there had been intimidation by security forces in the south.

Sudan's north-south civil war, fuelled by ethnicity, ideology and oil, ended in 2005 with a peace deal between the SPLM and the NCP. The elections were supposed to be the climax of democratic transformation in Africa's largest country but few observers believe the polls achieved this goal.

The SPLM says Akol is an NCP agent in the south and accuses him of commanding an armed militia. Akol denies the charges. But he openly supported Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in his successful re-election bid.

Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur.