The top United Nations human rights official voiced concern today over the risks to Guineans if the world body launches an investigation into the killing of at least 150 people last month when security forces opened fire on an opposition rally in the West African nation and raped some of the women protesters.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay is considering how to assist with an investigation, and make sure that it is credible, in view of the security and political situation on the ground, her spokesperson Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva.

He said Ms. Pillay is concerned about the harm that Guineans may suffer without the necessary security guarantees for witnesses and those who provide information about the violent suppression of the 28 September demonstration in the capital, Conakry, which she has characterized as a "blood bath."

The timing and format of an investigation mandated from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) would largely depend on the cooperation of the Guinean authorities, which have announced their own Commission of Inquiry, he added.

For now, Ms. Pillay is gathering information from various sources on the incidents, including the looting of homes of opposition leaders who had been arbitrarily arrested, and considering various models for a possible probe.

Army Captain Moussa Dadis Camara seized power of the West African nation in a coup in December 2008 after the death of Guinea's long-time president Lansana Conté.

Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region has accused Ethiopia of sending secret agents on a cross-border undercover operation in its territory.

The secret forces reportedly carried out a night raid in the central Somali town of Galkayp on Friday, assassinating two people.

Puntland Security Minister, Abdullahi Said Samatar told the BBC that the forces must have crossed over from Ethiopia's Somali region, also known as the 'Ogaden', where rebels are fighting the government.

"Our relationship with Ethiopia has always been good, but we cannot accept security forces intervening in this way," Samatar said, adding that the Somali government had already sent the other country a written objection.

Press TV correspondent in Somalia said that another person was also kidnapped in the incident.

The rebels in the Ogaden have been seeking independence for Ethiopia's Somali-speaking population since 1984.

Puntland has enjoyed good relations with Addis Ababa since it announced its semi-autonomous status in 1998 -- seven years after the collapse of the central Somali government.

Earlier in January, after a two-year occupation, the 3,000-strong Ethiopian forces finally withdrew from the Horn of African nation, following a deadly insurgents' war waged on both Ethiopian and Somali government forces.

However, since withdrawing, the US-backed Ethiopians have maintained a strong presence along the Somali border.

A petroleum tanker truck has exploded in southeastern Nigeria, killing at least 14 people and injuring five others, an official says.

Nigeria Road Safety Commission (FRSC) spokesman Ben Ekenna said that 12 bodies were badly burned in the explosion in Anambra state on Friday.

The truck leaked into a deep pothole which then attracted heat from the exhaust pipes of nearby cars and set off the blast, he added.

Ekenna admitted local roads were in a bad state and warned that "if something isn't done quickly, tragedies like this will happen again."

Accidents on Nigeria's poorly maintained inter-city roads are common, with trucks habitually driving at breakneck speeds.

The federal road safety body, FRSC, says that around 400 people are killed every month by road accidents in the country of 140 million people.

Country Chair of Shell in Nigeria, Basil Omiyi, has noted that Nigeria needs to use its abundant natural gas resources to grow its energy base.

Omiyi stated this during the Pan-African International Gas Conference in Abuja on Thursday.

He believes that developing the gas sector would help the country meet its growing domestic demand for energy and also generate export revenues that could be used to drive development locally.

According to him, "Nigeria is well positioned to continue to play an important role as gas supplier to the regional and international markets and huge investment and the right commercial framework will be required to actualise these aspirations.

"We also know that much of the world's gas is stranded in parts of North Africa, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, far from the market centres of Asia, Europe and the USA.

"Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG, has proven a viable means of reaching these markets consequently trading in LNG has grown dramatically since 2008," he said.

While noting that there was still considerable potentials for additional greenfield development in the country, he disclosed that "there are plans to expand the NLNG".
Relevant Links

Omiyi assured that Shell was committed to ending gas flaring in Nigeria, explaining that the oil giant does not embark on any new project without taking into consideration the economic value of gas.

He lamented that despite generating over 80 per cent of industrial gas used in Nigeria, the company makes little or no money from gas.

He said for the country to attract investment into the sector, there was the need to develop framework that recompense investors.

He stated further that by the end of the year the company would have enough gas to meet the 6n000mw of electricity needs of the country if all its gas was channeled solely to the power sector.

More than 60 Dakar schools are still flooded, and as the academic year begins in Senegal people displaced during the July-September rains are still sheltering in at least another 18 schools.

Post-flood clean-up operations are under way but some Dakar residents say they are frustrated by what they say is the government's slow response.

"The state comes and writes a lot of notes, but there is zero action," said Seynabou Niass, who is living in a flooded two-room house in Darou Rahmane. Most of her belongings have been ruined.

Abdoulaye Faye, president of the flood response committee in the Wakhinane Nimzatt neighbourhood, said he had hoped for more from the government. "The major actions we expected have not happened. This is a catastrophe and people are still in great need."

Marcel Mendy, spokesperson for Senegal's Interior Ministry, said that under a US$4.5-million emergency plan the government is working to pump water from flooded zones, rid standing water of mosquito larvae and provide free health services at medical posts set up in affected areas.

Faye said the available pumps were not powerful enough.

However, even the best pumps will not meet all the population's needs, according to Abdou Diouf, programme manager at ENDA-Graf, an organization working on community development in Dakar's suburbs. ENDA-Graf conducted a flood impact survey in Thiaroye, a flooded area outside Dakar.

"As an actor on the ground, I can say that we need more than just water pumps. We need humanitarian action," Diouf told IRIN. He said communities need food aid and assistance in disinfecting their neighbourhoods.

Meanwhile, inhabitants of flooded neighbourhoods are doing what they can to empty the water out of their homes, most of them using buckets.

Hygiene concerns

Hygiene conditions in some areas of Dakar are "worrying", according to an Oxfam report on flood impacts and response. "In a certain number of houses the level of water is from a few centimetres to over a metre, and pit latrines are sunk and the sewage water is mixed with the flood water."
Relevant Links

To date Dakar has not seen an outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera, but malaria and skin infections are widespread, with some cases of diarrhoea, according to Oxfam, other aid agencies and government health officials.

Aid agencies, with government help, have distributed emergency kits including mosquito nets, blankets and water sterilization tablets. UN agencies have provided medical and other materials and help with logistics and coordination.

Senegal Education Minister Kalidou Diallo told state media that the 68 schools that remain flooded would be cleaned up by end of October.

THE agricultural sector for South Africa and some of its neighbours like Namibia faces quite a prosperous future over the next five years, economists told a conference in South Africa last week.

The annual Agricultural Outlook Conference was held in Pretoria and attended by representatives of Namibian agricultural organisations.

According to independent economists Mike Schutzler and Evans Janovsky of Absa Bank's agribusiness section, the recession has reached its lowest turning point and the economy will start growing by one to two per cent for 2010 and 2,5 to 2,7 per cent for the next five years.

"Higher producer prices experienced in 2008 together with the lower input costs had a positive influence on the agricultural sector in South Africa which should do well for the next five years," said Janovsky. Schutzler and Janovsky expect that the maize price will move sideways until 2012, beef prices will increase slightly upwards to R22 to R25 per kg for A Grades. Mutton prices would move sideways whilst milk prices might increase and weaner prices most probably also increase in 2010 in order to build stock for the 2010 World Soccer Cup in South Africa.

This is good news for Namibian farmers who produce a lot of weaners.

According to the latest newsletter of the Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU), its president Ryno van der Merwe, the chairman of the Livestock Producers Organisation (LPO), Kay-Dieter Rumpf, and Hannes Grobbelaar of the Agronomic Producers Association (APA) attended the Pretoria meeting.

The conference was opened by South Africa's Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Pieter Muller, who spoke about the influence of the current political landscape on South African agriculture.

According to him the South African government shows real appreciation for the contribution of commercial agriculture towards food security.
Relevant Links

"The South African government also realises that the emerging sector must be actually supported in order to develop into full and equal commercial farmers," Muller stated.

The conference was held under the theme 'The Challenge Of Change' and the emphasis was mainly on the possibilities of expanding farming to other African countries.

Several visits have been made to African countries such as the Congo, Kenya, Ghana and even Egypt, and the general feeling in these countries was that South African farmers are welcome in their countries in order to stimulate agricultural development.

Large supermarket chains like Shoprite are already visiting numerous African countries and in spite of difficult circumstances, especially with regard to infrastructure, a number of opportunities have been created for local farmers to produce meat for them, delegates heard.

Lagos — As the world celebrates the World Sight Day , 29.25 million women have been reported blind globally according to statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"Out of the purported 45 million blind people worldwide, women account for about 65 percent, which is 29.25 million," Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris said at a news conference to mark the day, adding that another 269 million people were visually impaired, while 85 percent of these people suffer from avoidable blindness that could either be prevented, or treated and cured.

The commissioner explained that a further breakdown of statistics shows that about 2/3 or 65 percent of the people are women, most of whom are the elderly who live in developing countries and are more often than not ignorant of the avoidable problems that led to their getting blind.

The theme of this year's World Sight Day: is Gender and Sight-Equal Access to Care, evolved as a result of the fact that more women are going blind worldwide and are prone to blindness due to ignorance.

"Most of these women are blind from correctable cataract disease. Cost of treatment is a significant primary barrier to the use of cataract surgical services. As a result, Lagos State is addressing this issue by offering the elderly free cataract surgical services in our hospitals. Blindness due to cataract alone, can be reduced by 11 percent if women were to receive cataract surgery at the same rate as men.

"As the world marks the World Sight Day, the need for all stakeholders to reach-out to women and girls in our communities with a view to counselling families to take informed decisions and ensure that the needs of women and girls are not neglected for cultural and economic reasons has been stressed.
Relevant Links

"Above all, adopting approaches to improve the use of eye care centres by women and girls will not only reduce gender inequity, as a Millennium Development Goal in blindness and vision loss, but will also have a significant benefit to the family, the community and to the society at large.

"Go out there and help women overcome blindness. Men should gear up towards removing the barriers that have been preventing women from accessing eye care centres in form of advice, encouragement, financial support among others, while women on their part, should endeavour to seek information about eye care services in order to know what to do about avoidable eye problems that usually lead to blindness."

Idris also disclosed that 2.8 million people were blind in the south-west zone of the country, adding that in Lagos State, the government had put a machinery in motion to curtail the rate at which people are going blind.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran and Sudan are seeking to bolster mutual cooperation, a senior Iranian lawmaker announced on Wednesday.





"In a meeting with the Sudanese speaker, the two sides conferred on important regional issues and the bilateral relations specially the necessity for the activation of parliamentary friendship groups," Head of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi told FNA about his trip to Sudan.

Boroujerdi reiterated that the Iranian delegation also held a separate meeting with Sudanese President Umar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir and submitted him a message from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Bashir appreciated the Islamic Republic of Iran for its positions and stressed further expansion of ties (with the country)," he added.

Noting that Sudan is one of the largest African countries, Boroujerdi urged for growth and expansion of relations between the two countries, given the Sudanese officials' interest in Iran.

As militant groups in the Niger Delta respond to disarmament supervised by the Federal Government, there is strong indication that some unidentified groups are raising rebel squads in certain parts of the country.

This indication is heightened by the recent seizures of ammunition and gun training kits made by two commands of the Nigerian Customs Service.

The two commands, Apapa area one and the Kirikiri Lighter Terminal (KLT), at separate operations, intercepted containers containing ammunition of various calibers.

While disclosing the results of the command's anti-smuggling operation in Lagos, Customs area controller (CAC) of the Apapa Area one command, Akinade Adewuyi, said 21 containers amongst which was a 40-feet container containing 5,218 live ammunition of various calibers, books of instructions on arms practice among others, were seized.

The 40 feet container, which was declared as personal effects, turned out to contain ammunition and other household items during examination.

According to Adewuyi, who was newly posted to head the command after the former Olufemi Taylor, was promoted to the rank of assistant comptroller general, the items in the container included a carton of gun cleaning kit with accessories and chemicals, two boxes of gun assembling tools and a small bag of gun powder.

Others were reloading scales and other precision tools, 539 empty shells of various calibers, 5218 live ammunitions of various calibers, target practices accessories and books of instructions on arms practice among others.

"The irony of these seizures is that while government is doing every thing possible to ensure peace in the nation through amnesty to the militants and their subsequent surrender of their arms and ammunition, some people are busy importing unauthorised ammunition," Adewuyi declared.

The controller said that the container has been detained for contravention of Schedule 4 of the Common External Tariff pending further investigation, adding that the clearing agent and one other suspect have been arrested and are currently in detention and helping the Command in their investigations.

He said further that the suspects and the offending items will be handed over to the appropriate government agencies when "we conclude our own investigations."

The Kirikiri Lighter Terminal (KLT) Command intercepted a double barrel gun and 90 rounds of ammunition being smuggled into the country, even as it arrested one suspect believed to be an agent to the importer.

The weapons were hidden in a carton inside a 40-footer container at the SVD bonded terminal under the command.

Deputy Controller of Customs in charge of enforcement, Aliyu .T. Tukur, revealed that the two luxury cars ( a jeep and Honda) and other personal belongings, which are not contraband in the container but they have been detained because they were imported with the contraband consignment.

Tukur said the incident was reported to the customs headquarters and were directed to hand over the double barrel gun and the ammunition, as well as the case file to the port police for further investigation.

Receiving the items, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) in charge of Port Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Mohammed Jimoh, promised that the police would carry out a thorough investigation to ascertain the truth, noting that those found guilty would be charged to court for justice to take its course.

Other containers intercepted by Apapa Command were arrested through intelligence network which indicated that the consignee was trying to move the containers to Inland Container Depot Kano as Industrial Raw Material.
Relevant Links

On examination of four randomly selected containers, they were found to contain Saba premium grade vegetable cooking oil in 25 liter jerry cans. The consignment was imported from Singapore but the Product was manufactured in Malaysia.

Adewuyi said further "You will recall that importation of refined vegetable oil contravenes Section 5 Schedule 3 of the Common External Tariff 2008- 2012. The containers have since been seized and the suspects have been detained pending further investigations.

"It is indeed saddening to note that while citizens of other nations are working concertedly to tackle the global economic downturn, some unscrupulous Nigerians are busy importing vegetable oil from Malaysia who incidentally borrowed their palm kernel seeds from Nigeria in the '60s."

A leading Egyptian cleric, Mohammed Seyyed Tantawi, has banned face veils in the girls' classrooms and dormitories of al-Azhar University in Cairo.

The decision to ban the Egyptian teachers and students from wearing face veil came four days after Tantawi said that the face veil "has nothing to do with Islam."

He said on Thursday that his decision to impose a partial ban is based on a 1996 constitutional court ruling that granted education officials the right to regulate Islamic attire in schools. He also said the goal was to "spread trust, harmony ... and the correct understanding of religion among girls."

The majority of scholars say this trend is merely a custom that dates back to tribal, nomadic societies living in the Arabian desert before Islam.

The decision seems to be setting the stage for the government to ban the face veil in public institutions.

Al-Azhar University is a segregated school, and men and women's classrooms are separated.

Somalia's main rebel groups say recent fighting over strongholds in the country's south has ended following an agreement.

The agreement was signed between Al-Shabaab and Hizbul-Islam groups on Wednesday, a Press TV correspondent reported.

“Today (Wednesday) we are, hereby, clearly and loudly informing our Muslim brothers that we have signed significant agreement with our brothers Hizbul-Islam,” Sheikh Hussein Ali Fidow, the head of Al-Shabaab's political affairs and regional relationship told reporters.

In the past two weeks, fighter of the two groups have clashed in the strategic southern port of Kismayo, 500 kilometers from Mogadishu, which was formerly shared by the two.

Sheikh Mohammed Ma'alim Ali, Hizbul-Islam's press secretary, confirmed the ceasefire, adding that a committee has been set up specifically to look into the causes of the disagreement in Kismayo.

The two groups joined forces against the new UN-backed government in Mogadishu, but remain poles apart in ideology. While Hizbul-Islam favors politics, Al-Shabaab seeks a strict interpretation of Islamic law across the nation.

Nigeria's leading anti-government militia has pledged to re-launch attacks on oil and gas projects 'soon.'

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) slammed an amnesty offer by President Umaru Yar'Adua, in a Wednesday statement, and promised renewed attacks on the oil installations after a three-month ceasefire, meant to restore peace in the southern oil-rich regions of Niger Delta.

The MEND guerrillas condemned the recent offer asking the fighters to lay down their arms and censured those who embraced the government disarmament proposal.

"Most of those who participated in this fraud were rented by the government in the hope that real militants would be persuaded to emerge," the militants said in their latest declaration.

The development comes in the aftermath of new government efforts to uproot militancy and help revive the teetering oil sector in Africa's largest producer of fossil fuels.

Instead, the group vowed fortified campaign against the government and said, "MEND considers this next phase of our struggle as the most critical," referring to the expiration of a government-brokered truce that will end next week.

"In this next phase, we will burn down all attacked installations and will no longer limit our attacks to the destruction of pipelines," MEND's statement read.

MEND launched an anti-government movement in late 2005 and has been vying for power via attacks on oil and gas plants.

Nigeria's central bank has estimated the damage inflicted on the oil and gas works by the group at about USD one billion per month.

Cairo will suspend its cooperation with France's Louvre Museum until it sends back stolen Pharaonic steles belonging to Egypt.

Louvre Museum bought the Egyptian steles in 1980 although French officials knew the artifacts were stolen.

Egyptian officials called on the Louvre Museum to return the country's stolen Pharaonic steles, AFP reported.

They are suspending all cooperation with the world's most visited museum until it returns stolen Pharaonic steles, said Antiquities Chief Zahi Hawass.

“We made the decision to end any cooperation with the Louvre until they return the five steles,” Hawass said, adding that decision had been made two months ago.

Egypt's move will affect conferences organized with the museum, as well as work carried out by the Louvre on the Pharaonic necropolis of Saqqara, south of the capital Cairo.

One of the most wanted suspects in the Rwandan genocide, which left some 800,000 people dead, has been arrested in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

Former intelligence chief Idelphonse Nizeyimana stands accused of organizing the killing of thousands of ethnic Tutsis — including the revered former queen during 100 days of slaughter in 1994.

Nizeyimana was arrested while travelling to Kenya through the Democratic Republic of Congo and was immediately flown to Arusha, Tanzania, to face trials in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Ugandan police said Tuesday.

Officials in Tanzania are yet to confirm the arrest, but described Nizeyimana as one of their most wanted targets.

According to the tribunal, he is charged with setting up roadblocks where people carrying Tutsi ID cards were hacked to death with machetes, and helping draw up death lists of Tutsis.

He also allegedly ordered soldiers to kidnap a group of refugees, including 25 children and two priests from a convent, who were never to be seen again.

One of his units is believed to have killed Queen Rosalie Gicanda, widow of King Mutara III who died in mysterious circumstances in 1959 shortly before the Rwandan monarchy came to an end.

According to human rights reports, Hutu soldiers took the 80-year-old queen along with several other women from her house and shot her dead behind the national museum in the south-eastern town of Butare.

Two days later, the queen's mother was also murdered.

Most of the former Rwandan military and Interahamwe militia members responsible for the genocide fled to Rwanda's giant western neighbor, DR Congo, after Tutsi rebels came to power in July 1994 and ended the carnage.

Their presence in eastern Congo sparked a war and a humanitarian catastrophe that has killed at least 5.4 million people over the past decade.

Andry Rajoelina remained as president following power-sharing talks.
Madagascar's feuding political parties have reached an agreement on the top three posts in an interim government.

"We now have the three posts that were missing in Maputo," Ange Andrianarisoa, head of one of the four delegations at power-sharing talks, told reporters, referring to previous talks in Mozambique.

"The president is Andry Rajoelina, the vice-president is Emmanuel Rakotovahiny, and the prime minister is Eugene Mangalaza."

Rajoelina toppled Marc Ravalomanana in a coup in March, triggering months of political turmoil on the Indian Ocean island that is increasingly eyed by foreign investors for its oil, nickel, cobalt, gold and coal resources.

Foreign governments branded the political power grab by 35-year-old Rajoelina as unconstitutional while international key donors suspended their aid to Madagascar worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mangalaza, the man picked as prime minister on Tuesday, is close to former president Didier Ratsiraka but is considered politically neutral. He is a professor of social anthropology.

Libya has called for an emergency Security Council meeting to discuss a UN report that found Israel guilty of war crimes during its offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Libya circulated a letter on Tuesday on behalf of the UN Arab group requesting an emergency meeting of the body to consider the report by the UN Human Rights Council's Gaza war commission, Libyan deputy ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi told AFP.

The independent fact-finding mission headed by former international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone released a report last month mainly accusing Israel of committing war crimes, including deliberate targeting of civilians, during the three-week Gaza war.

Arab diplomats said the Security Council was to hold consultations on Wednesday to decide whether to hold a formal meeting on the Goldstone report.

The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council decided on Friday to delay until March a vote on a resolution that would have condemned Israel's non-cooperation with the investigation and pass on the report to the Security Council.

The decision was made under pressure from the United States, Israel's closest Middle East ally, the European Union and Russia and was welcomed by the Palestinian Authority delegation.

A Libyan UN envoy, Ahmed Gebreel, said his country, which currently has a Security Council seat, had requested a meeting 'because of the seriousness of the report and because we think it's too long to wait until March'.

A statement by the Palestinian observer mission at the United Nations said it fully supported the Libyan request for a Security Council meeting.

This is while the US has been taking advantage of its veto power in the Security Council to block any action or statement against Israel.

Armed men have assassinated a top Hizbul-Islam leader along with guards and two civilians shortly after the group made a pact with Al-Shabaab fighters.

At least eight people including five guards, a woman and a child lost their lives along with an unnamed Hizbul-Islam leader on Friday after unknown armed men sprayed their convoy with bullets in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The killing of the Hizbul-Islam member follows a recent agreement between Somalia's warring guerillas in which Al-Shabaab and Hizbul-Islam groups reportedly sealed a deal to unite in their anti-government campaign.

“Today (Wednesday) we are, hereby, clearly and loudly informing our Muslim brothers that we have signed a significant agreement with our brothers Hizbul-Islam,” Sheikh Hussein Ali Fidow, the head of Al-Shabaab's political affairs and regional relationship had earlier told reporters.

In the past two weeks, fighter of the two groups have clashed in the strategic southern port of Kismayo, 500 kilometers from Mogadishu, which was formerly shared by the two.

The two groups maintained differences in the activities, with Hizbul-Islam favoring politics and Al-Shabaab seeking an armed campaign in the nation.

Ugandan authorities have released Somalia's state minister of defense, Yusuf Mohamed Siad, after he was mistakenly detained overnight in the capital Kampala.

Siad's entry to Uganda by road from neighboring Kenya raised suspicions of security officials in the East African country, which is currently hosting a regional security meeting and is about to celebrate its independence day. Siad was supposed to enter Uganda by plane.

"He was released this morning (Wednesday). He was held comfortably through the night," said army spokesman Felix Kulayigye. "Once we realized who he was, he was not treated as a prisoner."

"We followed him up. After the arrest was made he was identified as a minister," he explained. "Certainly he should have come by air. He should have notified us and traveled as a visiting foreign official."

Asked whether Siad would be staying in Uganda or return home, Kulayigye said, "I don't know what his plans are, but he is now a free man."

Siad recently ditched a militant group to join the embattled UN-backed Somali transition government and is now the state minister for defense, a position that saw him going at loggerheads with his former allies.

Uganda has about 2,000 troops that make up the 5,100-strong African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which is in charge of shoring up the fragile government in Mogadishu from powerful militants.

At least 20 al-Shabaab fighters have been killed in clashes with Hizbul Islam fighters in the suburban Afmadow Town located 120 kilometers to the south of Kismayo.

The clashes left dozens injured while 21 others, including an al-Shabaab commander, were captured in Afmadow.

Al-Shabaab fighters launched an attack on Afmadow near Kismayo on Tuesday morning, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Hizbul Islam fighters also blocked roads five kilometers south of the town.

Fighting between Hizbul Islam and al-Shabaab erupted last week over control of the key southern port of Kismayo, where al-Shabaab rulers established an administration independent of Hizbul Islam.

Both rival factions have been fighting jointly since May to topple the Somali interim government in the capital, Mogadishu.

Tehran, Oct 3, IRNA -- A joint committee of Iran and South Africa will be set up in near future, said caretaker of Iran’s Trade Development Organization.
Babak Afqahai said in a meeting with several officials of South African Trade and Industry Ministry that the committee will seek to identify both sides’ commercial potentials.

Compiling drafts of commercial agreements and following up their implementation are among the duties of the committee, he said, adding that Tehran and Johannesburg will pave the way for developing commercial ties.

So far ten meetings of Iran-South Africa Joint Economic Commission have been held, Afqahi added.

Director of South Africa Trade and Industry Ministry’s Investment Development Office, Younes Hossein, underlined development of economic ties with Iran.

He proposed that each country would select 20 superior domestic goods and expand mutual business on them.

He further announced the imminent visit of South African officials to Iran during which they will discuss trade issues.