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At least 16 civilians have been killed and more than 70 others wounded in mortar attacks in the Somali capital city of Mogadishu, officials say.

Several bombs struck the city's northern Suqa Holaha on Monday.

"At least 16 people died and 71 others were wounded in four districts of Mogadishu," Ali Yasin Gedi, the vice chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization, told Reuters.

Clashes have killed at least 21,000 people in Somalia since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes.

The local fighters have stepped up attacks against Somalia's UN-backed transitional government and African Union peacekeepers in order to topple the embattled government.

Somalia's main opposition fighters, al-Shabab, are the military off-shoot of the Council of Islamic Courts. They have been fighting the Somali government troops and African Union peacekeepers in and around Mogadishu.

The Council of Islamic Courts came to power in 2006 after defeating Somali warlords. It was, however, forced out of power in 2007 through an Ethiopian invasion aided by the United States.

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CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian border police shot dead an African migrant and injured another on Monday as they tried to slip across the border into Israel, security sources said.

The pair attempted to sneak into Israel near the Karam Abu Salem border crossing. The first migrant died on the spot but his nationality was unknown as he was carrying no identity papers. The injured migrant, who was from Cameroon, was taken to Rafah hospital.

Egyptian police have stepped up efforts in recent months to control the border with Israel, following an increase in human trafficking through Egypt.

At least 19 migrants have now been killed at the border since last May, and 28 have been injured.

The Sinai border is a main transit route for usually unarmed African migrants and refugees seeking work or asylum in Israel. Egyptian police say the smugglers who ferry migrants to the border region sometimes fire on security forces.

Egypt, which for years tolerated tens of thousands of African migrants on its territory, fears the unfettered flow of migrants at its Sinai border could pose a security threat in an area where Islamist militants sometimes find refuge.

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ASMARA (Reuters) - An impending mining boom in Eritrea will challenge oil-rich neighbours to make it easier for foreign companies to prospect across a massive geological structure in the region rich in base metals and gold, analysts say.

Eritrea set the government's stake in any mining project at 10 percent stake in 2008 with an option to buy a further 30 percent, a small claim compared to other countries in the area like Egypt which mandates a 50 percent stake or Sudan at 60 percent, according to industry experts.

The relatively liberal mining terms have led more than a dozen foreign companies to get licenses to explore in Eritrea which analysts expect to accelerate dramatically in the next five years and provide a lifeline for the impoverished economy.

Advanced projects are at Bisha, run by Canada's Nevsun Resources Ltd, with gold production expected by the end of the year, and at Zara, run by Australia's Chalice Gold Mines and expected to start producing a year later.

"In the next ten years other nations in the region will look at Eritrea's mining boom and they will want in. They will relax their laws and it will become a regional boom," Timothy Strong, Eritrea manager for British company London Africa, told Reuters.

"If you look at the geography, Eritrea is a relatively small nation compared to African giants Sudan and Egypt, but it has many more foreign mining companies than the others combined. Geologically speaking, they are just as prospective as Eritrea."

The companies are attracted to Eritrea because it sits on a patch of the Arabian Nubian Shield, a geologic feature that stretches from Saudi Arabia and Yemen in the east to Sudan and Egypt in the west.

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HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe may have to import over half the maize it needs this year to cover a deficit after drought has destroyed crops and left the country facing a severe food shortage, a farmers' group said on Monday.

The former regional bread basket has relied on food aid and imports since 2001, after President Robert Mugabe's government seized commercial farms from whites to resettle landless blacks, most of whom were poorly equipped and underfunded.

Zimbabwe's unity government, set up by Mugabe and his rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, had projected a return to food self-sufficiency this year with maize output of 2.5 million tonnes, double last year's yield.

But both black and white farmers' unions have forecast production of maize, a staple in the nation's diet, will be nowhere near this figure.

"All indications are that this season will be a total disaster. We will be very lucky if we get more than 500,000 tonnes," Deon Theron, president of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which represents the 500 remaining white farmers, told Reuters.

"We need about 1.8 million tonnes of maize, so over a million tonnes will have to be made up by imports."

The government has also indicated the current season would be poor, but has not revised its output target, saying it will soon carry out a nationwide crop assessment.

Theron said apart from the drought, which affected much of the late planted crop, poor preparations and continued disturbances on white farms had also contributed to another poor season.

"We predicted the dry conditions affecting the crop now and advised farmers to plant early, but a lot of our farmers who were going to put seed in the ground early were being harassed," Theron said.

"Producing adequate food for ourselves is going to be a problem as long as we don't find a way forward and resolve the disputes on the farms for the benefit of the country."

The Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers' Union (ZCFU), which represents most of the newly resettled black farmers, also gave a grim assessment of the current agricultural season.

"We are likely to have a food deficit and we are now appealing to the government and other stakeholders to start preparing to deal with the food deficit," ZCFU president William Nyabonda told state media.

"It is time for the government to start crafting a budget to source additional grain from neighbouring countries."

Zimbabwe's unity government, which says it needs at least $10 billion to reconstruct the battered economy, is battling to raise funds and grain imports will exert added pressure on its limited resources.

Western donors, seen as key to Zimbabwe's economic recovery, are holding back on funding the government, and have insisted on signs that Mugabe is willing to genuinely share power with the former opposition and institute broad reforms.

Critics blame Mugabe's land seizures for the country's political and economic crisis.

But Mugabe, 85, and in power since independence from Britain in 1980, says the country's problems have been mainly due to intermittent droughts, Western sanctions and sabotage by those opposed to his land redistribution programme.

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A ransom for the release of the cargo ship MV Filitsa has been delivered to pirates on board the vessel off the Somali coast, a regional maritime official and pirate sources said on Monday.

Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers Assistance Programme said helicopters dropped the agreed ransom, but the vessel was now in the hands of another group of gunmen.

As ransoms paid to Somali pirates spiral higher, competition between rival gangs has been growing. A dispute in January over the biggest ever payoff to Somali pirates for a Greek-flagged oil tanker sparked gunbattles at sea and on land.

"The choppers dropped the money. But the ship is still being held captive by another group of gunmen," Mwangura said.

A pirate on board the MV Filitsa told Reuters they were expecting to receive $3 million for the Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship, which was seized in November with crew from Greece and the Philippines.

"Two helicopters carrying the agreed $3 million ransom are flying over the ship and all the shareholders are onboard awaiting the ransom," a pirate called Rage told Reuters, adding that they planned to release the vessel at around midnight.

Worldwide, piracy attacks rose nearly 40 percent in 2009, with Somali pirates accounting for more than half of the 406 reported incidents, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Typically, the pirates hold the captured ships and crews hostage until ransoms are paid.

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DUBAI (Reuters) - An al Qaeda group in North Africa has offered to give Nigerian Muslims training and weapons to fight Christians in the West African country, where more than 460 people were killed in sectarian clashes last month.

Vice President Goodluck Jonathan sent in the military to halt the violence after four days of clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs armed with guns, knives and machetes in the area round the city of Jos in central Nigeria.

"We are ready to train your people in weapons, and give you whatever support we can in men, arms and munitions to enable you to defend our people in Nigeria," the statement by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said.

It was signed in the name of Abu Mus'ab Abdel-Wadoud, who was described as the "emir", or leader, of the group, and appeared on Islamic websites that often carry statements from groups using the al Qaeda name around the world.

"You are not alone in this test. The hearts of Mujahideen are in pain over your troubles and desire to help you as much as possible, in the Islamic Maghreb, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Chechnya," it said.

Nigeria has roughly equal numbers of Christians and Muslims, though traditional animist beliefs underpin many people's faith.

About 1 million people were killed in Nigeria's 1967-70 civil war, and there have been outbreaks of religious unrest since then. But more than 200 ethnic groups generally live peacefully side by side in the West African oil producer.

Last month's violence erupted after an argument between Muslim and Christian neighbours over the rebuilding of homes destroyed in previous clashes in 2008.

A Nigerian man tried to bomb a U.S.-bound plane on December 25 in an attack claimed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a Saudi-Yemeni group using the al Qaeda name and based in Yemen.

AQIM kidnapped a Frenchman and three Spaniards in the Sahara late last year and said it would kill the French hostage by the end of January unless Mali freed four al Qaeda prisoners.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Monday the group had extended the deadline.

AQIM has waged a campaign of suicide bombings and ambushes in Algeria but in the past few years has shifted many of its activities south to the Sahara desert.

Last year it killed a British tourist, Edwin Dyer, after kidnapping him on the border between Niger and Mali while he was attending a festival of Tuareg culture.

The group also said it shot dead a U.S. aid worker in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott in June last year and carried out a suicide bombing on the French embassy there in August that injured three people.

Saharan states have been planning a regional conference to map out a joint response to the al Qaeda threat for more than a year, but the gathering has been postponed repeatedly.

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's hardline al Shabaab insurgents have agreed to join forces with a smaller southern militia and both groups professed their loyalty to al Qaeda.

The failed Horn of Africa state has not had an effective central government for nearly two decades, leading to the rise of warlords, heavily armed criminal gangs and pirates who have been terrorising shipping off its long coastline.

Western security agencies say the country has also become a safe haven for Islamist militants, including foreign jihadists, who are using it to plot attacks across the region and beyond.

In a statement dated last Friday but seen by Reuters on Monday, al Shabaab and the smaller Kismayu-based Kamboni rebel group said they had put their differences behind them.

"We have agreed to join the international jihad of al Qaeda ... We have also agreed to unite al Shabaab and Kamboni mujahideen to liberate the Eastern and Horn of Africa community who are under the feet of minority Christians," the statement said.

"We have united to revive the military strength, economy and politics of our mujahideen to stop the war created by the colonisers, and to prevent the attacks of the Christians who invaded our country."

In this context, "Christians" is believed to refer to Ethiopian troops who invaded Somalia in late 2006 and then withdrew, and to Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers serving with the African Union's AMISOM force in Mogadishu.

The statement appeared to have been signed by senior rebels including Sheikh Hassan Turki, commander of the Kamboni militia, and the reclusive al Shabaab leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane.

Security experts believe Shabaab's total manpower is no more 5,000, while there are a few hundred Kamboni militiamen.

In the capital Mogadishu, insurgents fired mortar bombs at the presidential palace overnight, prompting return fire by troops there that killed at least 16 people, medical officials and residents said.

ARTILLERY BATTLES IN MOGADISAHU

Violence has killed at least 21,000 people in the failed Horn of Africa nation since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes, helping trigger one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.

Al Shabaab rebels routinely fire at the white-washed hilltop Villa Somalia palace compound from other parts of Mogadishu. Troops at the palace often launch shells back.

Residents and medical officials said several bombs struck around the city's northern Suqa Holaha, or livestock market.

"At least 16 people died and 71 others were wounded in four districts of Mogadishu," Ali Yasin Gedi, vice chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation, told Reuters.

At an African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital on Friday, Somalia's Foreign Minister Ali Jama' Jangeli called for more AU troops to help about 5,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi who are based in the Somali capital.

His Kenyan and Sudanese counterparts backed the call. Djibouti has said it would send 450 soldiers soon.

On Sunday, al Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage called on Djibouti to reconsider its decision.

"We warn the Djibouti government and strongly recommend that it not send its troops here, otherwise there will be bad consequences for it," Rage told reporters in Mogadishu.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African opposition parties accused President Jacob Zuma on Monday of a cavalier attitude to safe sex that is hurting the HIV/AIDS campaign after news that a woman not one of his wives had had his 20th child.

The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said Zuma, 68, was sending the wrong message to South Africans, among the world's worst sufferers from HIV/AIDS.

"There are some people who may argue that Jacob Zuma's sex life is a matter of private morality or 'culture', but this is not so. His personal behaviour has profound public consequences," DA leader Helen Zille said in a statement.

At least 5.7 million South Africans are infected with HIV and AIDS kills an estimated 1,000 people a day.

The African Christian Democratic Party said Zuma was undermining the government's drive to persuade people to practise safe sex to combat HIV/AIDS.

"... his conduct undermines his own government's message on HIV/AIDS, because they are talking about safe sex and the president is continuing without using condoms. He is undermining the message of his government," said ACDP leader Kenneth Meshoe.

The Congress of the People (COPE), another opposition party said Zuma could no longer use African cultural practices to justify his "promiscuity".

"Polygamy is not promiscuity and his behaviour is not justifiable under any circumstances, COPE said a statement.

Calling Zuma's conduct "irresponsible" the party said the public should demand he acts like a "President" and not a "gigolo".

A source close to Zuma told Reuters that the president, a traditionalist who practises polygamy and has three wives, had acknowledged in a legal document being the father of a child with Sonono Khoza, 39.

Khoza, the daughter of Irvin Khoza who heads the local organising committee for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, gave birth to a girl in October last year.

"Zuma acknowledges that the child is his and accepted full responsibility", the source said. Sonono Khoza has undertaken not to speak to the media, the source added.

The presidency has said previously that Zuma has 19 children.

Zuma's spokesman was not available for comment.

Zuma married for the fifth time last month, taking Tobeka Madiba as his third current wife. Multiple marriages are allowed in South Africa and form part of Zulu culture, but the practice has drawn criticism from HIV/AIDS activists.He defended polygamy at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. Asked whether he treated all his wives equally, Zuma replied: "Absolutely, totally equally".

He is also married to Sizakele Zuma, 67, his first wife who he wed in 1973, and Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma who he married in 2007.

He was previously married to Home Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma whom he divorced in 1998 and Kate Mantsho-Zuma who committed suicide in 2000.

The ANC has backed Zuma accusing the media of "making a mountain out of nothing" and calling the criticism "disingenuous" and "unjustified".

"There is nothing wrong with what the President had done. There is nothing shameful when two adults have a relationship."

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The militant youth wing of South Africa's ruling ANC reiterated on Monday that it would push for the nationalisation of local industries starting with mines, saying investors afraid of the process were not welcome.

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema has been one of the most vocal campaigners for a more leftist economic policy under President Jacob Zuma, demanding among other issues that the state should assume majority ownership of mines.

The country's mines minister said last year that South Africa would not nationalise mines, although the African national Congress said it would allow debate on nationalisation.

South Africa is the world's biggest producer of platinum and one of the top producers of gold, although the influence of mining on GDP has declined, particularly as gold reserves become exhausted.

Malema said the youth movement had drafted proposals to be presented to the ANC later this year, including amendments to the mineral and petroleum resources development act "wherein the state should own not less than 60 percent of the shares".

"Our position is that banks are going to be nationalised (but) we want to start first with the mines. Our position is inspired by the Freedom Charter," Malema told a media briefing.

The Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955 by the ANC and parties representing South Africans marginalised under apartheid.

"If there is an investor who is afraid of our restructuring, they are not welcome," Malema said.

In a statement, the youth league said nationalisation should be accompanied by a thorough transformation of state-owned enterprises, adding that it would involve expropriation "with or without compensation".

The comments are likely to further unnerve investors already worried that Zuma could give in to pressure from labour union and communist allies who helped him to power last year and are demanding a swing to the left, away from existing pro-business policies, as payback.

"If any investor leaves here ... other investors are going to come," Malema said on Monday. "Investors must be aware we have a strong communist friend China... They will invest here, they will mine here."

Local media reported last month that top ANC officials were pushing for the state to take over ownership of South Africa's central bank, one of the few in the world to still be owned by private shareholders.

Zuma said in a TV interview last month that talk about debating controversial economic policy points between the ANC and its allies should not worry investors because nothing has been decided about policy.

Zuma would not say what his personal position is on nationalisation, only that the matter has not been discussed widely by the alliance.

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Financial Times

Aggrey Majok raps the corridor wall within his south Sudanese university and listens like a piano tuner as it returns a dismaying metallic clang rather than the reassuringly dull thud of concrete.

Shaking his head, the professor blames the building’s frailty on an unusual and unhappy deal under which his institution was created by an oil company from just beyond the European Union’s eastern reaches.

“They are poor quality,” he laments, gesturing to the red-painted rooms of the courtyard around him. “They cannot last for ever.”

The short but turbulent relationship between the Moldovan company Ascom and Prof Majok’s Dr John Garang Institute of Science and Technology is a cautionary tale of how oil companies’ social projects can go awry, particularly in countries where there is little transparency. The initiative to build the university – supposedly a gesture of Ascom’s goodwill to the remote and impoverished area where it is hunting for crude – has instead dissolved into accusations that the company has paid too little attention to local needs and wishes.

The story of the institute is a tiny but telling example of how a growing international class of opaque and largely unsupervised oil companies – from small operators such as Ascom to large Chinese and Russian multinationals – risk becoming agents of conflict in unstable countries such as Sudan.

As Rosie Sharpe, author of a report on Sudan’s oil industry published last year by Global Witness, the campaign group, puts it: “Companies are key players in a drama that, if the oil wealth is not fairly managed, could end very messily indeed.”

Sudan’s secretively run 500,000-barrel-a-day oil industry has – since the formal end of civil war in 2005 – been mostly the domain of enigmatic wildcat outfits such as Ascom and big Chinese businesses that are helping to satisfy Beijing’s ever-growing hunger for crude. Ascom’s owner, Anatol Stati, is one of the richest businessmen in Moldova, where he has been involved in a protracted feud with Vladimir Voronin, the president.

Unfortunately for Ascom, its attempt to build a place of learning in one of the poorest and most remote areas of the world seems to have produced more rancour than respect. Professor Majok says the wrangling over the adequacy of the two-year-old Garang institute outside the town of Bor has been so intense that the complex shut down for seven months last year.

On a tour of the institute, Mr Majok passes a library with no books, on his way to a sports pitch rendered almost unusable by husks of maize like those drying on great racks nearby. He gestures to a clump of tents where the students sleep.

“These are the so-called ‘hostels’,” he says.

He gives equally short shrift to the subjects offered by the teachers imported by Ascom from Moldova. He scoffs at the irrelevance of courses in pharmaceuticals technology and in forestry and public gardens to a subsistence society trying to recover from a 50-year post-independence history dominated by war.

“We are not going to eat gardens,” he says.

The question of who ultimately ends up paying for the institute is also moot. Prof Majok and Kuol Manyang Juuk, the governor of the surrounding state of Jonglei, say they have been told that south Sudan’s semi-autonomous government is liable to pay back the $2.5m (€1.8m, £1.6m) construction costs to Ascom but both add that they have not seen any contract confirming this to be the case.

The mystery does not end there: officials at the south Sudanese oil ministry declined to be interviewed, as did Ascom. Neither the company’s spokesperson in south Sudan nor its head office in Moldova responded to requests for comment.

Ascom instead referred the Financial Times to Gabycon, a Moldovan construction company that built the Garang institute.

Gabycon’s camp outside Bor was guarded by south Sudanese former rebel soldiers lounging in camouflage gear on a metal bedstead.

Grigore Talpa, the company’s director-general, explained he was unaware of the complaints about the institute and found them “surprising”.

The apparent unravelling of an oil industry community project away from the public gaze is hardly unique to Sudan or to wildcat companies. Western multinationals have been heavily criticised for years for their records on pollution and social development in little-visited regions of countries ranging from Nigeria to Ecuador. Yet – thanks to pressures ranging from stock market disclosure rules to nongovernmental group campaigns – little bits of stories can sometimes be pieced together. Even such limited checks on behaviour are scarce or nonexistent in the cases of many small oil businesses, or of the resource companies from China and other emerging economies that are increasingly active across the world.

For now, Prof Majok is trying to pick up the pieces from what has been, whatever the full story, a chastening encounter with the murky world of oil.

“Maybe the problem is with us,” he reflects. “Because we were not very careful about what we were getting.”

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Financial Times

A surprise intervention at the weekend by Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations secretary-general, has drawn warnings from senior officials in south Sudan that any outside efforts to influence a referendum next year could lead to further conflict.

Mr Ban told an African Union summit at the weekend that he would “work hard” to avoid the secession of south Sudan following the referendum.

South Sudan’s regional government quickly decried that as an attempt by the UN to influence the outcome of the referendum it is meant only to administer.

“It is not the responsibility of the UN to help the people of the south to take either decision [in the referendum],” Luka Biong Deng, minister of presidential affairs in south Sudan’s regional government, told the Financial Times.

The UN chief’s views have been echoed by others. Diplomats fear a vote for independence would resonate in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and elsewhere.

Sudan’s north-south civil war ended with a peace deal in 2005 and the country is preparing for two watershed events: next January’s referendum on southern independence and this April’s national elections.

But on the ground in Malakal, the dust-blown riverside capital of Upper Nile, one of the south’s oil-rich states, relations remain tense between the two armies that live on either side of a dividing line.

The Sudanese Armed Forces of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s Islamist president, and the mainly Christian former rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army were supposed to merge under the peace deal that ended a 22-year war that left 2m dead. But Malakal is a glaring example of how mistrust on fundamental issues – politics, religion, tribe – is preventing some of the so-called joint integrated units from working.

Twice since 2006 it has been shaken by gunfire in fighting between the two armies sparked by visits to the town by Gabriel Tang, a northern general and war-time nemesis of the SPLA.

In clashes last February 30 civilians and as many soldiers were killed, according to Human Rights Watch. In November 2006 the death toll was 150.

Some in Malakal fear the next flashpoint will be the April elections, Sudan’s first in 24 years.

Most Sudanese are enthusiastic about the polls. But western diplomats say the process will be too messy – millions of illiterate people will vote in areas where safeguards against fraud are limited – and that it is not worth the risk of fresh violence so close to the independence referendum. Others argue that Mr Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Darfur, will let the referendum take place only if the election gives him a degree of legitimacy.

The poll is important to diplomats who want to negotiate a deal between elected elites in north and south Sudan that would give the south de facto independence.

Analysts say any attempt to block full independence would trigger renewed war. Michael Miakol, a priest in Malakal, says: “If the south Sudanese choose to make a separation then no one can go against it. I don’t know why the [UN] secretary-general wants to question that.” But Gatluak Deng Garang, a former southern ally of Mr Bashir and former governor of Upper Nile, links the continued presence of SAF troops to what is beneath the ground.

“The northerners will want to occupy the oil areas, definitely,” he says. “They will never leave the oil to the south . . . if I were a northerner, I would not let the land go.”

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france 24

AFP - An exchange of heavy mortar fire between African Union forces and Islamist insurgents in Mogadishu left at least 12 civilians dead and scores wounded, officials and medical sources said Monday.

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aljazeera



Nigeria's main armed group has said it was not directly responsible for the sabotage of an oil pipeline that forced Royal Dutch Shell to shut down three pumping stations in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.

The Movement for the Emancipaton of the Niger Delta (Mend) said they did not attack the Trans-Ramos pipeline that is run by Shell's Nigerian subsidiary.

"Mend was not directly responsible," the group said in an email to Reuters news agency on Monday.

"It was certainly a response to our order to resume hostilities by one of the various freelance groups we endorse," the statement said.

Shell said on Sunday the sabotage had caused some oil to spill into the Niger delta's creeks and that it was in the process of recovering spilled crude.

"We are monitoring the situation and will issue a statement [on our investigation of the sabotage] when appropriate," Lieutenant-Colonel Timothy Antigha from the joint military taskforce responsible for policing the Niger delta, said.

On Saturday Mend called off a three-month-old ceasefire in the Niger delta and threatened to unleash "an all-out assault" on Africa's biggest oil and gas industry, saying it could no longer trust the government to negotiate demands for greater control of the region's natural resources.

Mend's threat to resume hostilities could not have come at a worse time for Nigeria.

Umaru Yar'Adua, the Nigerian president, has been in hospital in Saudi Arabia for more than two months and has failed to formally transfer powers to Goodluck Jonathan, the vice-president, raising fears of a constitutional and political crisis in the country.

Selling out

Shell said on Friday it was selling its stake in three Nigerian onshore oil licences.

The oil company said it remained committed to Nigeria and the move was part of its "active management" of global interests, but some analysts believe the decision will have been coloured by the country's political environment and continued insecurity.

Peter Voser, the chief executive of the Anglo-Dutch company said recently the company no longer relied on Nigeria for its growth.

Yar'Adua was the driving force behind the amnesty programme last year which saw thousands of armed fighters hand over their weapons.

Community leaders had warned his prolonged absence was stalling the programme and forcing former fighters to re-think their participation.

Attacks by armed fighters and disgruntled community members on Nigeria's oil sector in the past few years have prevented it from producing much above two-thirds of its capacity, costing the country about $1 billion a month in lost revenues.

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aljazeera



Anti-government fighters have fired mortar bombs at the presidential palace in the Somali capital, prompting return fire by troops that killed at least 16 people, medical officials and residents say.

Residents and medical officials said on Monday that several bombs hit Mogadishu's northern Suqa Holaha, or livestock market, district.

"At least 16 people died and 71 others were wounded in four districts of Mogadishu," Ali Yasin Gedi, vice-chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation, told the Reuters news agency.

The latest clashes come days after fighters fired mortar bombs on the presidential palace to disrupt a ceremony marking President Sharif Ahmed's first year in office.

More than 30 people were wounded in the fighting, Ali Muse, the head of the ambulance service in Mogadishu, said.

Fighters from al-Shabab, which the US says is al-Qaeda's proxy in Somalia, routinely fire at the hilltop Villa Somali palace from other parts of Mogadishu.

Troops at the palace often launch shells back.

More AU troops

At an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital on Friday, Ali Jama Jangeli, Somalia's foreign minister, called for more AU forces to help about 5,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi who are currently based in Mogadishu.

Earlier, African leaders attending the summit expressed concern over the deteriorating situation in Somalia, saying it had posed an enormous threat to world peace.

The delegates also criticised the international community for turning a blind eye to the Somalia crisis.

The foreign ministers of Kenya and Sudan backed the call for more troops, with Djibouti saying it would send 450 soldiers soon.

But Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, al-Shabab's spokesman, called on Djibouti to reconsider its decision.

"We warn the Djibouti government and strongly recommend that it not send its troops here, otherwise there will be bad consequences for it," Rage said in Mogadishu on Sunday.

Violence has killed at least 21,000 people in the failed Horn of Africa nation since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes, sparking one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.

Somalia has had no central government for nearly two decades, leading to the rise of warlords, heavily armed militias and pirates terrorising shipping mainly in the Gulf of Aden.

Western security agencies say the country has become a safe haven for fighters who are using it to plot attacks across the region and beyond.

allafrica

Warri — GENERAL Overseer of Proof of Christ Ministries Intl., Apostle Noel Eduje has urged christians not to hide problems that affect their lives particularly spiritual problems from their pastor as doing so will not help matters.

Apostle Eduje gave this advice during the celebration of the church anniversary at the weekend at the church headquarters situated at Okuokoko, Warri, Delta State .

Apostle Eduje enjoined christians to develop good relation with the man of God who will counsel and pray with them adding that everyman of God, called and ordained by God is anointed for signs and wonders and equally loaded with peoples blessings but you have to get close to him to tap these blessings.

The church minister who took his sermon from Exodus 6:6-9, Jeremiah 3, 3:8, Psalm 30:7, Isaiah 62:4, Matthew 7:7-15 said that with God all things are possible. According to him "let us begin to relate our problems to our pastors. Not all the problems you can solve by praying at home. When a problem is persistent or too big for you to handle, then you need to seek solution from God through your pastor. God told the Israelites that I am Yahweh your God, who deliver you from the hands of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as possession".

He noted that some of the reasons why Christians lack control over their blessings as fear of past failure and powerless Christians pattern, adding that some Christians tried to cast out demons but could not because their Christian life was a powerless one.

Apostle Eduje affirmed that the all knowing God has solution to all your problems and has asked you to call on him and will answer you call unto me and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

He stated that God knows your problem, but that you have to ask him for solution through prayer and deliverance "And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me, and I will pardon them all their iniquities whereby they have sinned and whereby they have transgressed against me."

He encouraged Christians to speak out when they have problems or troubled mind by telling their pastors their problems who will help them take their problems to God in prayer adding that Christians should not die in silence as there are solutions to their problems.

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Calabar — The case of the alleged unconstitutional dissolution of the Cross River State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) held August 13, 2009 is billed for hearing again at the Federal High Court, Calabar on February 3, 2010.

On the January 13, 2010 hearing of the case, Suit No. FHC/CA/CS/101/09, counsel to the plaintiffs, Mr. Jacobs Dada described the dissolution of the legitimately elected executive of the Cross River State Council of NUJ as "unfortunate, sad and shameful that the national leadership of the union" led by Garba Muhammed "succumbed to external influence to annul a duly conducted election into the Cross River State Executive Council, an election they supervised and swore in the winners in tandem with the constitution of the union".

He told the presiding judge, Justice Ademola Adetokumbo that he had perused the entire constitution of the NUJ and found no where the national leadership of the union derived the powers to dissolve a duly constituted council executive or annul a conclusive election of officers who had been sworn into office for well over three months.

Dada noted that the constitution of NUJ allows a maximum of 21 days for all petitions and complaints pertaining election matters to be treated and reconciled after which period, any other complaints or petitions become unconstitutional.

"The act is dubious, objectionable and unconstitutional", Dada insisted noting that those who were presently occupying the various offices in the Cross River State council of NUJ were illegal occupants and should be vacated for justice to have not only been done but seen to have been done.

Generally, he prayed the court to among other things, the dissolution of the executive council of the Cross River State Council of NUJ because it is invalid, illegal, unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect whatsoever, an order directing the defendants to continue to recognize and accord all the claimants all the benefits, rights and privileges to which they are entitled to by virtue of that election and a perpetual order of injunction restraining the defendants from interfering in any manner with the tenure of office of the claimants or calling for or holding an election into the Cross River State Council of NUJ.

But counsel to the defendants, Mr. John Gaul Lebo in his defense, argued that the court had no jurisdiction to handle the matter.

Based on this argument, Justice Ademola Adetokumbo gave the counsel seven days to file his defense to justify his position and therefore adjourned the case to February 3, 2010.

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Harare — Zimbabwe has been elected to the most powerful African Union organ, the Peace and Security Council for the next three years at the ongoing AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The election was a major diplomatic victory for Zimbabwe in light of attempts by some Western nations to portray the country as a hotspot warranting inclusion on the UN Security Council agenda.

A council of AU foreign ministers, also known as Executive Council, conducted the elections at 4am, East African time on Saturday.

The election took place within the framework of the 14th Ordinary Session of the AU Summit of Heads of State and Government running from January 31 to February 2 2010.

President Mugabe, who is Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, and his delegation comprising Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi; Information Communication Technology Minister Nelson Chamisa among others are attending the summit.

The Security Council consists of 15 member countries elected for two to three-year terms on a regional basis, three representatives from Central Africa, three from East Africa, two from North Africa, three from Southern Africa and four from West Africa.

Other countries elected into the Security Council for three-year terms include Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Libya and Nigeria.

The new Peace and Security Council took over from the outgoing member-states that include Burundi and Chad (Central Africa), Rwanda and Uganda (Eastern Africa), Tunisia (Northern Africa), Swaziland and Zambia (Southern Africa) as well as Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali (Western Africa).

Director of the Legal Council at the AU Mr Ben Kioko said the Executive Council also elected 10 member states from the five regional zones of Africa for a two-year period.

"Burundi, Chad, Djibouti, Rwanda, Mauritania, Namibia, South Africa, Benin, Cote d'Ivoire and Mali have been elected for two years," said Mr Kioko.

"The PSC protocol gives the specific roles to the regions to elect their representatives. It sets out a certain criteria to be used in the elections and submits the names for those to be elected for the three-year term. This is the process that was followed," Mr Kioko said.

He said that the candidates were elected in strict adherence to the current laws governing the election of new members to serve in the council. The council members are tasked to discuss and pass various resolutions regarding peace and security matters, including imposing sanctions against member-states where there is an unconstitutional change of government.

The Peace and Security Council was established five years ago. The 14th Ordinary Session of the AU Summit, which was officially opened yesterday by Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi, is being held under the theme: "Information and Communication Technologies in Africa: Challenges and Prospects for Development".

United Nations Secretary-General Mr Ban Ki-moon also graced the official opening of the summit yesterday.

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Kigali — President Paul Kagame has appealed to African governments and business leaders to work harder to harness the potential of broadband technologies that are essential in today's global business.

Kagame was speaking at the African Union (AU) Summit of Heads of State that begun yesterday in Addis Ababa.

This year's summit is discussing how the continent can benefit more from the use of ICTs.

In his keynote address to the summit, Kagame said that there's need to harness the potential of ICTs to generate greater prosperity for the African continent.

"Information and Communication Technology has already enabled Africa to make a tremendous leap in delivering public and private sector services, and in improving lives generally," Kagame said.

"But we are still at the very early stage of harnessing its potential to generate greater prosperity by connecting our continent to global networks of business, knowledge and productivity."

He said that while mobile technology has blossomed, the growth of internet infrastructure has not kept pace with the continent's developmental needs.

"Government and business leaders have to recommit to the implementation of our ICT consensus - we should work even harder to replicate the success of mobile cellular technologies in order to harness the potential of broadband technologies that are essential in participating in global business," Kagame said.

Kagame said that to achieve this, there's need to empower institutions and other regional bodies.

"We should empower our institutions, including the African Union Commission and regional bodies to supervise and monitor this vital task. This is because leveraging the various ongoing national initiatives requires a more coordinated regional and continental approach," he said.

He used the successful rollout of mobile telephony in Africa as an example on how ICTs can change the continent tremendously.

In 2009, the number of Africans with access to telephony stood at 280 million compared to 11 million in 1998.

"This growth was driven by African mobile operators whose combined investment since 2007 amounted to nearly three billion Dollars," the President said.

However, he said that Africa is still a consumer of ICT products and services - as opposed to creating goods and innovative solutions. "We are not yet engaged significantly in more accessible multi-billion dollar markets of ICT-based outsourcing, most of which currently goes to other parts of the world."

"If we are to open this vast global market to Africa, we have to rapidly deploy first-rate broadband technologies, enact enabling policies and train a world-class professional workforce," the President told the AU summit.

At the summit Malawi's President Bingu Wa Mutharika was elected as the new Chairman of the African Union taking over from Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.

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Thomas Lubanga’s defense case opened this week with his lawyers declaring that prosecution witnesses were coached, and that the witnesses who claimed to have been child soldiers never were.

Catherine Mabille, the lead defense counsel, said on Wednesday that they would ask judges to discontinue the case after producing16 witnesses who will, among others, show that all the witnesses presented by the prosecution as former child soldiers were bogus.

She said the witnesses, and in some cases their parents, deliberately lied to court, and that they were helped by agents of the Office of The Prosecutor to fabricate their testimony.

“The defense intend to show that six of them were never child soldiers, the seventh lied about his age and the conditions in which he enrolled, and the eighth never belonged to the UPC (Union of Congolese Patriots),” she said.

Lubanga, whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) alleges was the founder of UPC, is accused of enlisting, conscripting and using child soldiers in armed conflict during 2002 and 2003. The ICC also charges that Lubanga was the commander-in-chief of the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC), which used child soldiers in inter-ethnic fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The defense that it would not be possible to ensure a fair trial when a significant part of the trial was based on fabricated evidence. “How can judges carry out their roles, that is to say seeking out and establishing the truth, if the testimony that they have heard are the result of concerted efforts to deceive them?” Mabille asked.

The first witness to appear for the defence told court that although his son never served in any military group, an organization which had promised to give the boy a job later started passing him off as a former child soldier.

The unnamed organization also duped the child’s mother and uncle into believing it would offer a scholarship to the boy, said the witness, adding that this organization apparently had offices in the north-eastern Congolese town of Beni and in the capital Kinshasa.

It was not clear from the testimony – most of which was given in closed session – whether the son of the first defence witness had appeared as a prosecution witness and claimed to have served as a child soldier.

Earlier on Wednesday, when the witness first testified, he said throughout 2002 and 2003, he was at home with his son and that at no time did the boy serve in any military group.

He said that in 2007 his rebellious son ran away from his home and started staying with an aunt. It was while he was there that he met the staff of the unnamed organization, who were later to claim that he had been a child soldier.

When prosecutor Manor Sachdeva asked the witness the name of that organization, defence counsel Marc Desalliers protested.

“The witness has just said he did not know the name of the organization and my learned colleague asked him immediately afterwards whether he knew the name of the organization. Once more I object to the fact that he is ignoring the answers given by the witness.”

Judge Adrian Fulford reminded then reminded the prosecutor that the witness had already answered that he knew neither the name of the organisation nor of the officials who took in his son.

Desalliers had earlier made a similar objection when Sachdeva repeatedly asked the witness whether he had indeed not seen his son since the boy left home in 2007.

To protect his identity, the witness testified out of public view and his voice was distorted in court transmissions of his testimony. Defense lawyers said at the start of the testimony that while they had earlier expected the witness to testify in public, he had later indicated that he wanted to have protective measures for security reasons. This witness will continue giving evidence on Monday next week.

The defense has said its evidence will show that prosecution witnesses were encouraged to lie on a number of very specific points, in particular their name, the name of their parents, and the schools they attended.

“This was done so that it would be more difficult to verify the information relating to them. They were encouraged to lie about their age and the fact that they allegedly belonged to an armed group so as to qualify for the charges against Mr Lubanga,” Mabille said.

Mabille said the defense did not intend to show that there were no minors amongst the ranks of the FPLC. But they would show that Lubanga did not take part in recruiting child soldiers; instead, he worked amidst great difficulties to demobilize the child fighters who were in FPLC.

“The defense witnesses will tender evidence to the effect that Thomas Lubanga the political leader played no active role in the creation of the UPC military forces and in no way did he take part deliberately in a common plan to recruit minors,” Mabille said.

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Defending Champions, Egypt will today clash with Ghana's Black Stars in the final of the Nation Cup, Angola 2010. The encounter billed for the 11 de Novembro Stadium, Launda is expected to bring out the best in both teams.

The Pharaohs go into the all important match with only one intention, to defend their status as African champions after the 4-0 whitewash of rival Algeria in Thursday's semi-final cracker.

Speaking on the final match, skipper of the side, Ahmed Hassan, said he is optimistic Egypt will give their Ghanaian foes more of the same silky smooth football which prides them as kings of Africa.

"Against Ghana we will continue to play as we have started. We don't care how they play, we are here to defend our title, and we'll do everything to succeed.

"Our 4-0 win over Algeria has proved we are the best team in Africa, without argument."

On his part, Ghana coach Milovan Rajevic is confident his team will continue to hold their own despite Pharaohs pedigree.

"I'm not concerned about playing beautiful game, but playing for results. It is the result that counts not possession.

"We came here to compete and not to play entertaining football. The most important thing is the result and not possession. This we hope to do against Egypt," Rajevic added

Indeed, today's climax will be a fascinating clash between the defending champions whose defence and attack is rock solid and the Black Stars' mix of Under-20 world champions thrust into the spotlight with a smattering of experienced players.

Egypt, who stretched their record-breaking unbeaten run at the Nations Cup to 18 games after Thursday's win over Algeria, have won six titles while Ghana have won four times.