20091203

REUTERS - Ivory Coast should hold its long-delayed presidential election in late February or early March of next year, mediators aiming to end the political stalemate said on Thursday.

The new target date was included in a statement issued by the so-called Permanent Framework of Consultations (PFC) on Ivory Coast after a day of talks with the main political parties in the Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou.

The world's biggest cocoa grower missed on Sunday the latest in a long line of failed target dates for a presidential election aimed at drawing a line under a brief 2002/3 civil war that has split the country in two. Authorities cited technical problems including a dispute over the eligibility of about one million voters.

The timetable proposed by the PFC includes publishing a final voter list in January 2010 followed by the distribution of voter cards and the start of campaigning in February.

Analysts say delays to the poll have prolonged a deadlock dating back to the war that has prevented reforms to the cocoa industry and unnerved potential investors in west Africa's former economic hub.

Critics accuse President Laurent Gbagbo of deliberately delaying the election, something he has repeatedly denied.

Earlier on Thursday former colonial power France urged Ivory Coast in a statement to organise the poll as soon as possible.

20091204

AFP - Egypt has become a police state where citizens receive no protection from torture, human rights groups said in a report published on Thursday.

"The basic feature of human rights in Egypt today is the prevalence of a policy of exception in which those responsible for violations usually escape punishment amid a climate of impunity intentionally created and fostered for several decades," said the report by 16 Egyptian human rights groups.

"With this policy of impunity gradually becoming the norm, the prerogatives of the security apparatus have been expanded and Egypt has turned into a police state," the report said.

The rights groups, including the Hesham Mubarak Law Centre and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), lashed out at the state for its "systematic" use of torture.

"Egyptians enjoy no protection against torture -- a systematic, routine practice," they said. "Crimes of torture continue to be an everyday practice in police stations (as well as) prisons and even on public roads.

"In many documented cases, torture has resulted in death," despite the Egyptian government insisting they are isolated cases, the groups said.

The report said that torture is not limited to political activists but is applied to society's most vulnerable.

"Everyone who falls in the grasp of the police, particularly the poor, is in imminent danger of torture and bodily harm inflicted through various means, including beatings, kicks, floggings, burning with cigarettes, sexual harm... electroshocks to the feet, head, sexual organs and breasts, and hanging from iron bars or the door of the cell," the report continued.

Egypt has been operating under a state of emergency since the 1981 assassination of president Anwar Sadat, which has been renewed repeatedly since then despite protests from rights groups and regime opponents.

The report accused the government of exaggerating the danger of political Islam and of "manipulating religion and culture" to justify human rights abuses.

It said police have expanded the use of "collective and arbitrary" raids, citing waves of arrests following bombings like those that targeted Red Sea tourist resorts in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

But the practice is also applied to those wanted for non-political crimes.

"The security apparatus also commonly detains entire families as hostages to force wanted fugitives to turn themselves in," the report said.

The state of emergency allows for the detention of anyone who falls under the broad category of constituting "a danger to public security".

As a result, there are now around 12,000 to 14,000 detained persons "some of whom have been under detention for 15 years without charge or trial, although many have received numerous release orders."

The report, which also covers political and religious freedoms, has been handed to the UN Human Rights Council, EIPR director Hossam Bahgat told AFP.

KIGALI (Reuters) - Lawyers for former Congolese warlord Laurent Nkunda said on Tuesday they had filed a motion in Rwanda's Supreme Court seeking his release from house arrest.

Nkunda has been held in Kigali since January after he fled the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, where he is accused of committing various crimes during his five-year rebellion in the mineral-rich east.

"My client has the right to know why he has been arrested, why he is detained and how long this illegal imprisonment will last," lawyer Stephane Bourgon said in a statement, adding there was no valid arrest warrant or charges against Nkunda.

Rwanda says his detention, seen as part of a deal to mend relations between former foes Rwanda and Congo, is fundamental to regional peace. Both countries began working together on energy projects on Lake Kivu earlier this year.

At Congo's invitation, Rwanda sent 3,500 troops across the border in January to help fight Hutu militia, regarded as the root cause of a 15-year-old regional conflict in which about 5.4 million people have been killed.

The government in Kigali says several legal and political issues needed to be resolved before Nkunda can be extradited. In late 2008 the United Nations accused Rwanda and Congo of supporting opposing rebel groups in Congo's east.

WINDHOEK (Reuters) - Namibia's ruling SWAPO party was heading on Tuesday for another big election win, with a two-thirds majority that gives it the power to change the constitution looking likely as more votes came in.

Initial results from just over 10 percent of the 1.18 million registered voters show the South West Africa People's Organisation, a former guerrilla movement that led the arid state to independence in 1990, leading with 70 percent.

The electoral commission said final results from last week's presidential and parliamentary vote would be published on Tuesday but counting has been delayed, and analysts said it may take until late this week to get the final count.

SWAPO's sternest political challenge yet comes from the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), which split from the ruling party in 2007, and holds 10 percent of the votes cast.

"By any standards, it will be a landslide victory ... and although it's too early to say if SWAPO will get the two-thirds, the RDP, by Namibian standards, will be a strong opposition," said Graham Hopwood, director at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Namibia's politics have been dominated by SWAPO since independence and opposition parties struggled to make an impact.

Altogether, 72 National Assembly seats are up for grabs in Namibia, one of Africa's wealthier states because of diamond and uranium exports. In 2004 elections SWAPO won 55 seats and needs to secure 48 seats to retain the two-thirds majority.

SWAPO has managed to keep most of its traditional support in the central-northern regions, where 60 percent of the population live, but some votes went to RDP.

TRIPOLI/GENEVA (Reuters) - A Libyan court handed 16-month jail terms to two Swiss businessmen for visa offences, a Libyan judicial source said on Tuesday, in a move likely to prolong a damaging rift between the two countries.

The men have been held in Libya since July 2008 following the arrest in Geneva of a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on charges of mistreating two domestic employees.

Libyan prosecutors charged the two businessmen last month with visa irregularities, tax evasion and failing to respect rules governing companies working in Libya.

The case has outraged many Swiss and the government has come under criticism for its handling of the affair. Swiss media have described the two businessmen as "hostages".

A Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed the Libyan ruling in an email to Reuters. He said the sentences were handed down for alleged visa irregularities and that the two businessmen were at the Swiss embassy in Tripoli.

Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz visited Tripoli in August and issued a public apology to Libya for the arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi and his wife in a Geneva hotel.

But Merz failed to secure a return home for construction company employee Rachid Hamdani and Max Goeldi, Libya head of Swiss-Swedish electrical engineering conglomerate ABB.

The Libyan government says the businessmen's case and that of Hannibal Gaddafi are not linked.

TUNIS (Reuters) - A Tunisian court handed a reporter a three-month prison sentence on Tuesday for broadcasting images of another person without their consent, the second journalist to be imprisoned in the north African country in a week.

Zouhair Makhlouf, an online journalist and member of the opposition Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), was arrested in the run-up to a presidential election on October 24.

Makhlouf had published a video report on news Web site Essabil about environmental and social problems in the seaside industrial area of Nabeul, 50 km southeast of the capital Tunis.

A local craftsman featured in the video filed a complaint, saying Makhlouf had broadcast his image without his permission in conditions that offended his dignity.

Makhlouf was jailed and ordered to pay 6,000 Tunisian dinars in damages.

"The prosecution case has been completely fabricated, as it was in journalist Taoufik Ben Brik's trial," press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said in a statement during the trial. "The charges against Makhlouf are absurd and contradictory."

Ben Brik, a staunch critic of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's government, was handed a six-month prison term on November 26 for beating up a woman on the street. His lawyers said he was the victim of a police operation to entrap him.

The case triggered a rare moment of tension with Tunisia's ally France after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he was disappointed at Ben Brik's arrest.

Ben Ali, re-elected last month with 89.62 percent of the vote, responded by attacking "foreign interference".

20091202

GENEVA (Reuters) - Marine scientists warned the World Trade Organisation on Tuesday that the world's seas were in peril and called for a new WTO deal to discourage over-fishing.

"The health of the world's oceans is hanging in the balance," they said in a letter to WTO chief Pascal Lamy, citing World Bank estimates that $50 billion a year is lost globally to poor fisheries governance and over-exploitation.

Subsidies of the fishing sector are an often-overlooked target of the WTO's Doha Round, which would slash government aid programmes for nearly all farmed and manufactured goods.

As part of that global accord, which has met some resistance from nearly all the WTO's 153 members, countries are seeking ways to reduce incentives to use polluting fuel and deplete vulnerable fish stocks.

Oceana, a lobby group based in the United States, said on Tuesday a potential fisheries agreement could be spun out from the Doha agenda, which requires full consensus across all politically sensitive negotiating areas to be clinched.

"I think the fisheries negotiations are one of few issues that have made steady progress in the Doha Round," Oceana's Courtney Sakai said, suggesting success in fishing could provide a model for trade talks in other areas such as clean fuels.

"The world's fish need a WTO deal, not necessarily a Doha deal, and soon," she said. The soonest a Doha deal could be clinched is next year, but doubts are growing about whether that 2010 goal is achievable.

Oceana estimates that 63 percent of fish stocks worldwide require rebuilding, while more than 1 billion people depend on fish as a key source of protein.

20091201

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua's condition is improving after treatment for a heart ailment in Saudi Arabia and he will return home soon, the country's ruling party said on Monday.

Yar'Adua, 58, went to Saudi Arabia suddenly a week ago for medical checks after complaining of severe chest pains.

He is being treated in the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah for acute pericarditis -- an inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart that can restrict normal beating -- but is responding well to treatment, officials have said.

"Reports reaching us have it that the president is improving steadily and will soon return to continue the good work he is doing," the People's Democratic Party (PDP) said in a statement.

Yar'Adua has travelled to Saudi Arabia in the past for treatment for a chronic kidney problem, raising questions about whether he will be fit enough to stand for a second term in 2011 elections in Africa's most populous nation.

Pericarditis usually lasts one to three weeks, but is treatable with drugs or, in extreme cases, surgery. About 20 percent of pericarditis patients have a recurrence within months, according to the American Heart Association.

20091201

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua's condition is improving after treatment for a heart ailment in Saudi Arabia and he will return home soon, the country's ruling party said on Monday.

Yar'Adua, 58, went to Saudi Arabia suddenly a week ago for medical checks after complaining of severe chest pains.

He is being treated in the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah for acute pericarditis -- an inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart that can restrict normal beating -- but is responding well to treatment, officials have said.

"Reports reaching us have it that the president is improving steadily and will soon return to continue the good work he is doing," the People's Democratic Party (PDP) said in a statement.

Yar'Adua has travelled to Saudi Arabia in the past for treatment for a chronic kidney problem, raising questions about whether he will be fit enough to stand for a second term in 2011 elections in Africa's most populous nation.

Pericarditis usually lasts one to three weeks, but is treatable with drugs or, in extreme cases, surgery. About 20 percent of pericarditis patients have a recurrence within months, according to the American Heart Association.

20091201

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.S. envoy to the United Nations sharply criticized Khartoum on Monday over a U.N. report that accused the Sudanese army of harassing and threatening international peacekeepers in Darfur.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his latest report on the U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, that limits on the freedom of movement of UNAMID personnel violated an agreement with Khartoum on their deployment and made it difficult to protect civilians.

"The United States is particularly concerned about ... the secretary-general's report of some 42 instances in which UNAMID personnel and patrols have been denied freedom of movement and access," U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters after a meeting of the Security Council on Sudan.

"These quite directly and seriously contravene the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement the government of Sudan has committed to," she said.

"It impedes UNAMID's ability to protect civilians and do its vital work. It is utterly unacceptable, as are the threats by the government of Sudan against UNAMID."

Sudan's Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem dismissed the events described in Ban's report as a "few isolated incidents."

He also contradicted Ban's characterization of the security situation in Darfur. Ban said violence continues across Sudan's remote western region of Darfur and civilians remain at risk from both government and rebel forces.

"There has been a halt to fighting and an improvement of security in Darfur," Abdalhaleem said.

20091201

ANTANANARIVO (Reuters) - Madagascar's embattled president on Monday rejected an invitation to meet his political rivals in Mozambique later this week to break a deadlock over the make-up of a power-sharing government.

Andry Rajoelina, who seized power in a March coup, said reconvening the Indian Ocean nation's leaders abroad once more would waste money, and suggested a video conference instead.

"The negotiations are over. We are now in the phase of implementing the agreements," Rajoelina told reporters.

The country's three other political leaders have accepted the invitation to travel to Maputo from December 3-4 from the lead mediator, former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano.

Rajoelina and former presidents Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy signed a new power-sharing deal in Ethiopia earlier this month, a fresh attempt to end months of political turmoil in a country increasingly eyed by investors for its oil and mineral resources.

But they have failed to agree on who takes which cabinet posts.

Emmanuel Rakotovahiny, one of two co-presidents named under the Addis Ababa deal, said negotiations were stalled over 11 ministries, with Justice at the heart of the bickering.

The education and communication portfolios and the ministry of mines are also sources of conflict.

If the impasse holds, Rajoelina says the government he unilaterally set up in breach of an earlier deal brokered in August will remain in place.

20091201

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Nigerian soccer player Stephen Worgu, who was sentenced to 40 lashes in Sudan after being convicted of drunk driving, said on Monday he would move to Europe if he got a suitable offer.

"If there's an offer from Europe then I will (move)," Worgu told Reuters by telephone. "It's not like I want to kill myself here."

Worgu, 20, signed a contact with one of Sudan's top two clubs, Al Merreikh, last year. He was the top scorer in the 2008 African Champions League.

The Nigerian said he would not move to another club in Africa.

"But if it is (an offer) from Europe then it is a good opportunity to show off my talent," he said.

Worgu, a Christian, was convicted this month of drunk driving in Sudan, ruled by Islamic sharia law. He denies the charge and the sentence has been delayed pending an appeal.

20091201

PARIS (Reuters) - An Algerian man who had been detained at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo in Cuba since 2002 has been transferred to France, the French Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

The ministry named the man as Saber Lahmar and said he had been cleared of all terrorism charges by courts of justice in several countries including the United States.

The statement said that by agreeing to host Lahmar, France was contributing to President Barack Obama's efforts to shut down Guantanamo, which has long been denounced by U.S. critics as a place where human rights were routinely violated.

"We have chosen to support the implementation of President Obama's decision, which meets with a long-standing expectation of the European Union," the French ministry said.

Lahnar was the second detainee taken in by France. Another Algerian, Lakhdar Boumediene, was transferred in May.

The statement said French authorities would make every effort to help Lahmar integrate into French society.

"After seven years of incarceration at Guantanamo, Mr Lahmar can at last resume a normal life," it said.

Obama pledged to close Guantanamo by January 22 but has acknowledged that his deadline would likely be missed because of political and diplomatic obstacles.

The prison camp was set up in 2002 under Obama's predecessor George Bush to house terrorism suspects, but quickly drew international condemnation because of harsh interrogation techniques and judicial processes that were deemed unfair.

20091201

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police shot and killed an African migrant on Tuesday as he tried to slip across the Sinai peninsula desert border to Israel, a security source said.

Egyptian police have stepped up efforts in recent months to control the frontier with Israel following an increase in human trafficking through Egypt. At least 17 migrants have been killed at the border since May, the latest one two weeks ago.

The Sinai border is on one of the main routes for African migrants and refugees, almost all unarmed, seeking work or asylum in Israel. Egyptian police say the smugglers who ferry migrants to the border region sometimes fire on security forces.

The security source said police did not know the dead man's nationality, but he appeared to be in his early twenties. Eritreans are the largest group of people trying to cross into Israel from Egypt, but Ethiopians and Sudanese also make the trek.

Analysts and aid workers say the flow of migrants from the Horn of Africa through Egypt to Israel has increased in recent months as it has become more difficult to travel on other northward routes, such as via Libya to Europe.

20091201

WINDHOEK (Reuters) - Namibia's ruling party is expected to secure another five-year term on Tuesday following presidential and parliamentary elections, but its two-thirds majority could be under threat.

The electoral commission said the final results of last week's voting would be published later in the day, although counting has been subject to a series of delays.

Initial results from nearly 85,000 of 1.18 million registered voters in the arid state show the South West Africa People's Organisation, a former guerrilla movement that led the country to independence in 1990, leading with 67 percent.

SWAPO's sternest political challenge yet comes from the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), which split from the ruling party in 2007, and holds 11.6 percent of the votes cast.

Altogether 72 National Assembly seats up for grabs in Namibia, one of Africa's wealthier states because of diamond and uranium exports. In 2004 elections SWAPO won 55 seats and needs to secure 48 seats to retain the two-thirds majority.

"Even within SWAPO there is a very strong group which believes that the RDP is going to get a lot of votes ... If the RDP can get anything from 18 seats upwards, it would be goodbye to the two-thirds majority," said Nico Horn, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Namibia.

The two-thirds majority allows SWAPO to change the constitution.

In the presidential vote, President Hifikepunye Pohamba, who succeeded founding president Sam Nujoma, led with 68 percent, with RDP's Hidipo Hamutenya taking 12 percent.

20091201

LONDON (Reuters) - It is time to differentiate South Africa from other commodity producers as political factors look set to conspire to weaken the rand.

The price of gold, of which South Africa is a major producer, is clearly important to the rand. Gold has had a fantastic run and hit a record high of $1,194.90 last Thursday. But the pullbacks can be brutal.

The metal fell to $1,136.80 on Friday as investors sought safety in dollars on concerns over the Dubai debt crisis. The rand followed suit, falling two percent against the dollar to 7.6450 before rallying to 7.41 as European worries over Dubai eased .

Traders who feel the gold price is frothy should be looking to go long dollars against the rand, which has risen 21 percent versus the greenback this year.

At the same time, South Africa may be finding that their golden goose is running out of eggs. They may face "peak gold".

A widely-quoted South African Journal of Science article recently highlighted problems besetting the country's gold mining industry. South African gold output peaked in 1970 at 1,000 tonnes, some 75 percent of world production. In 2008, it mined 233 tonnes, around 10 percent of the world's gold supply.

According to the Journal article, South Africa's remaining recoverable gold reserves are only 2,948 tonnes. If South Africa's golden age is indeed ending, the rand will endure long-term structural weakness as a bulwark of the South African economy erodes.

But there are other more immediate factors that will weigh on the currency.

20091201

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Millions of voters could be left out of Sudan's first elections in 24 years because of a failure of authorities to persuade more people to register for the poll, international observers said on Tuesday.

The elections, scheduled for April next year, have already been marred by accusations of fraud and opposition parties have threatened to boycott them if democratic reforms are not passed before they take place.

International observers from The Carter Center said they were concerned poor publicity over the process had already hit the number of people registering to vote, warning some states might sign up fewer than half of eligible voters.

"Without civic education millions may effectively be disenfranchised by a combination of ignorance of the electoral process, mistrust of central authorities, and poor publicity of registration activities," a Carter Center statement said.

"Without specific attention to reaching those most distant from the process, the registration exercise will be undermined."

The ballot was set up under a 2005 peace agreement that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war in the oil-producing nation. But leaders from both sides remain at loggerheads over preparations.

The Carter Center urged Sudan's National Elections Commission (NEC) to increase publicity and funding for teams signing up voters across Africa's largest country, saying current figures showed most states might miss registration targets.

It said there were concerns over the turnout for registration in western Darfur territory as well as the east, south and the central Kordofan regions.

Registration was due to end after a 30-day period on November 30 but was extended for one week following concerns about low turnout and public awareness.

20091201

MISUNGWI, Tanzania (Reuters) - In remote northwest Tanzania, two parents sob for their 10-year-old albino son, who was beheaded to stop him screaming by men who then hacked off his leg in front of his father.

The family had previously tried to have their boy registered at a school where many albinos shelter but he was refused entry because it was full. His murder at the end of October marked an end of a three-month lull in the killings.

"When he was born I thought what kind of child is this, but then he turned out to be fine and happy," said Mwakami Kilijiwa, standing over the fresh grave of her son Gasper, who was buried in concrete so killers cannot return and steal his bones.

"I had been scared (for him) ever since another albino child was killed in a nearby village a few years ago."

An estimated 200,000 albinos live in Tanzania, although fewer than 8,000 have registered officially.

Ash, a pastor-turned-businessman who was bullied and beaten as a child for being albino, helps distribute sun screen, hats and sunglasses to albino children who risk cancer because their skin lacks protection against the hot African sun.

"This child died because of government refusal to take him into the school," he told Reuters.

"More needs to be done to provide security in the communities where albinos now live in terror," the International Federation of the Red Cross said in a report last week.

20091201

HARADHEERE, Somalia (Reuters) - In Somalia's main pirate lair of Haradheere, the sea gangs have set up a cooperative to fund their hijackings offshore, a sort of stock exchange meets criminal syndicate.

Heavily armed pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa nation have terrorised shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia through the Red Sea.

The gangs have made tens of millions of dollars from ransoms and a deployment by foreign navies in the area has only appeared to drive the attackers to hunt further from shore.

It is a lucrative business that has drawn financiers from the Somali diaspora and other nations -- and now the gangs in Haradheere have set up an exchange to manage their investments.

One wealthy former pirate named Mohammed took Reuters around the small facility and said it had proved to be an important way for the pirates to win support from the local community for their operations, despite the dangers involved.

"Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 'maritime companies' and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking," Mohammed said.

"The shares are open to all and everybody can take part, whether personally at sea or on land by providing cash, weapons or useful materials ... we've made piracy a community activity."

Haradheere, 400 km (250 miles) northeast of Mogadishu, used to be a small fishing village. Now it is a bustling town where luxury 4x4 cars owned by the pirates and those who bankroll them create honking traffic jams along its pot-holed, dusty streets.

20091201

WINDHOEK (Reuters) - Namibia's ruling party was heading on Tuesday for a big election win but results so far showed the two-thirds majority which gives it the power to change the constitution is under threat.

Initial results from nearly 92,000 of 1.18 million registered voters in the arid state show the South West Africa People's Organisation, a former guerrilla movement that led the country to independence in 1990, leading with 64 percent.

SWAPO is widely expected to secure another five-year term following last week's presidential and parliamentary elections. But the two-thirds majority that it has held since 1995 is less certain due to the emergence of a stronger opposition party.

The electoral commission said the final results of last week's voting would be published on Tuesday but counting has been subject to a series of delays.

SWAPO's sternest political challenge yet comes from the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), which split from the ruling party in 2007, and holds 12 percent of the votes cast.

"By any standards, it will be a landslide victory ... and although it's too early to say if SWAPO will get the two-thirds, the RDP, by Namibian standards, will be a strong opposition," said Graham Hopwood, director at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Namibia's politics have been dominated by SWAPO since independence and opposition parties struggled to make an impact.

Altogether 72 National Assembly seats up for grabs in Namibia, one of Africa's wealthier states because of diamond and uranium exports. In 2004 elections SWAPO won 55 seats and needs to secure 48 seats to retain the two-thirds majority.