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Al Jazeera

A US-based rights group has urged Nigeria's vice-president to order an immediate criminal investigation into "a massacre of at least 150 Muslim residents" of a town in central Nigeria.

In a statement, Corinne Dufka, Human Rights Watch's (HRW) senior West Africa researcher, said the killings in Kuru Karama, 30km south of the city of Jos, required "the authorities to act now".

"Something extremely serious has happened in the town ... act now both to bring those behind these heinous crimes to justice and to protect both the survivors and those at risk of renewed violence," Dufka said.

"Vice-president [Goodluck] Jonathan's statement that the perpetrators will be prosecuted is a start. But now he needs to make sure the police conduct an immediate and impartial investigation."

Al Jazeera footage

Witnesses interviewed by Al Jazeera on Saturday said groups of armed men attacked the largely Muslim population of Kuru Karama in the morning of January 19 after surrounding the town, killing many as they tried to flee and burning many others alive.

Several villagers told our correspondent, Andrew Simmons, that they believed members of the armed groups to be Christians and showed him charred corpses, including those of young children and babies, in addition to dozens of bodies stuffed down wells.

The three main mosques of the town were burned and destroyed as well, according to HRW.

And one witness told HRW that at least one police officer participated in the attack, while another said the police abandoned their post shortly before the violence began, adding that the killings took place throughout the day, without police intervention to stop the violence, despite repeated calls to the police.

VP's pledge

Greg Anyating, the Plateau State police commissioner, told HRW that the reported death toll in Plateau State was false, and the police would issue "correct figures" on the number of dead in a few days, following an inquiry.

In a televised address to the nation on January 21, Vice-President Jonathan, currently the acting president, pledged that the perpetrators of the violence in Plateau State and their sponsors would not evade justice.

"The federal government is determined to secure convictions of the perpetrators of this crime, no matter how highly placed," he said.

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press tv

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has condemned the deadly sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians that has plunged central Nigeria into chaos.

In a Saturday statement, Egypt's Brethren censured the recent clashes between Muslims and Christians in the central Nigerian town of Jos and demanded a swift end to the bloodshed.

"We ask the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African Union to intervene to stop such massacres of innocent people... and investigate the causes behind these clashes," the group's leader, Mohammed Badie, said.

"We want to remind the Nigerian people of the Muslim and Christian religious values that call for tolerance, coexistence and solidarity to confront the dangers facing Nigeria as poverty, unemployment and oppression," the statement went on to read.

Conflict broke out between Christians and Muslims last Sunday after Christian youth in the central state of Plateau protested the building of a mosque in Jos.

The violence later spread to nearby towns and villages where hundreds of people lost their lives.

Human Rights Watch says most of the people killed in these clashes have been Muslims.

The rights group says at least 364 Muslims have died in Jos as of Friday. Among the dead are 150 bodies recovered from the wells and sewage-pits of a village near the city.

Officials say some 60 other people still remain unaccounted for.

Nigerian security forces imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew following the incident.

Sectarian violence is reportedly common in the country. An estimated 400 people were killed in November 2008 in another incident of violence between Muslims and Christians.

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africanews

Somali Islamist group, Al-shabaab, have recaptured the country's central town of Baledweyne after fighting killed 10 people, according to local residents.
Somalian pirates in Eyl. Photo by Sheekh Aduun
The strategic town of Baledweyne, some 330 kilometers north of the capital Mogadishu in the Hiran region used to be controlled by moderate Islamist who took over the town from Islamists last weeks.

A resident Abdi Ali in Beledweyne told AfricaNews on Friday that a dozen were wounded after Al-Qaeda-inspired Al-shabaab fighters invaded the town and ousted moderate Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca.

"At least 10 people were killed and more than 25 others were wounded in fighting ," Ali told AfricaNews on phone.

At least 40,900 civilians have left thier houses in central Somalia, according to the UNHCR.

Beledweyn is a strategic town sharing borders with Ethiopia. It has witnessed a number of deadly clashes between insurgents and Somali government troops.

The fighting in Somalia has killed over 19,000 Somalis since 2007 and 1.5 million people displaced inside the country while another 560,000 civilians have registered as refugees in neighboring countries. Somalia is one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.

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africanews

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged the Africa Union to protect the continent's press freedom.
Media_Bill_Demo_Nairobi_Evans_Wafula
The organization named Somalia, Eritrea, Tunisia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gambia as the most worst countries for Africa journalists to work during 2009.

Somalia alone recored nine deaths of journalists by unknown gunmen while 19 other journalists are still held incommunicado in Eritrea jails, for their professional work, IFJ said.

The agency has urged the AU to take collective efforts to save journalists in the continent as to protect the Africa press freedom.

Speaking to Reuters in Addis Ababa, Aidan White, secretary general of the IFJ, said "This report outlines in clear, bold terms the scale of the crisis that faces journalists across the continent".

"The report intends to inform and sensitize African Governments, decision makers, and especially the African Union to prioritize press freedom and freedom of expression as a key component for good governance democracy and national development," the IFJ report stated.

White said that Africa Union needs to show that its members are committed to press freedom. "They're not now. The situation in Africa is intolerable", he added.

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KINSHASA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo's parliament approved spending limits in the 2010 budget on Saturday that were demanded by President Joseph Kabila to try to ensure the country qualifies for more debt relief.

"There were 92 of us, 82 voted yes and 10 abstained," Damien Ilunga of the majority Unified Lumubist Party (PALU) told Reuters of the vote on spending controls in the upper house of parliament. The lower house voted the same way on Thursday.

Ilunga said the assembly had complied with Kabila's instructions to cut spending on public sector wages and divert funds earmarked for an increase in parliamentarian salaries to other workers, including police and military.

Kabila asked for changes amounting to some $675 million, including transfers to local authorities which have yet to be implemented. The total size of the 2010 budget is estimated at around $6 billion.

The move comes after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last month that Congo's external debt was unsustainable even after it won a $550 million loan. The Fund urged the government to take extra measures in order to win further debt relief.

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KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's former southern rebels said on Saturday they would boycott elections in a key oil-producing state over concerns about fraud, ratcheting up the pressure less than three months ahead of voting.

The former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) planned to boycott "all elections" in the central state of Southern Kordofan, the party's candidate for state governor Abdel Al Aziz Adam Al Hilu told reporters in Khartoum.

The April elections across Africa's largest country were promised under a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war.

Southern Kordofan -- the site of oilfields and important civil war battlegrounds on the undefined north-south border -- is set to be one of the most closely watched constituencies.

The former rebels said there had been widespread fraud during November's registration exercise, and that a census used to draw up constituency boundaries had missed out large areas occupied by SPLM supporters.

"This means the elections will not be fair ... We will not take part in these elections unless they repeat the census or redraw the geographical constituencies," Hilu said.

The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) has denied the fraud allegations and also dismissed the boycott announcement.

"This is more about the problems the SPLM is having in gathering support and their internal problems in Southern Kordofan," Ibrahim Ghandour, a senior NCP official, told Reuters, declining to go into further detail.

The SPLM has used boycotts before to push for concessions, walking out of parliament last year over democratic reforms.

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TUNIS (Reuters) - A Tunisian judge refused to free a journalist who says his six-month prison sentence for assault is politically motivated, and delayed a verdict on an appeal, a defence lawyer said on Saturday.

Judge Mohamed Ali Chouika said journalist Taoufik Ben Brik must stay in jail awaiting the appeal decision on January 30, lawyer Radhia Nasraoui said.

Ben Brik, arrested last October, was charged with beating up a woman during an argument in the street. He claims he is being punished for his criticism of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

"The harassment by the Tunisian regime against me has not stopped since 1990 and I'm the victim of a political issue, which all the world knows," Ben Brik told the appeal court.

His case has focused attention on the North African country's human rights record. Staunch ally France, which usually avoids public criticism of Tunisia's internal affairs, has voiced disappointment at the arrest.

Rights groups say the journalist, who has worked for several French newspapers and magazines, suffers from diabetes, chronic diarrhoea and a hormone disorder.

The authorities have insisted repeatedly that Ben Brik was guilty of a violent assault and should not be above the law.

Officials said he knocked the woman to the ground, punched and kicked her, swore at her and deliberately damaged her car.

Ben Ali, in power for 22 years, has insisted Tunisia is committed to respecting democracy and human rights.

He was re-elected to a fifth term in office last year with almost 90 percent of the vote. Many Tunisians credit him with overseeing stability and relative prosperity in Tunisia, which attracts millions of European tourists each year.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Top officials in South Africa's ruling ANC are pushing for the state to take over ownership of the country's central bank, one of the few in the world to still be owned by private shareholders, newspapers reported on Sunday.

The Sunday Times and Sunday Independent said ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe had presented a document to the party's top decision-making committee questioning why the bank was still owned by the private sector.

He had argued that the party should not shy away from looking at the state's role in the banking industry as a whole.

"Why have we been reluctant to even open the discussion on the role of the state in the banking industry," the newspapers reported him as saying in the document that was supported by some executive committee members.

"Including discussing the fact that the South African Reserve Bank is one of less than five central banks in private hands in the world."

The Reserve Bank is owned by shareholders, who are entitled to appoint half of the board of directors. Shareholdings are limited and liquidity tight.

But shareholders have no say in the day-to-day operations, or policies, of the bank. The governor and deputies are appointed by the president and are responsible for running the bank.

Accountable to parliament, it independence is protected by the country's constitution.

Changing the ownership structure of the central bank would not have a major impact on its operations but a move to more state control may raise fears of political interference in policy decisions.

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CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian company Concord International Investments aims to raise up to $750 million from Japanese investors seeking more exposure to Egypt's undervalued firms and growing economy, the fund manager's chairman told Reuters on Sunday.

"Right now we are in the process of launching a series of funds in Japan," Mohamed Younes said in a telephone interview.

Younes said the first, with $150 million to $200 million from Nikko Asset Management, would be launched by the end of the first quarter.

Nikko was owned by Citigroup until last year when a controlling stake was sold to Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co for $1.2 billion.

Concord will also open a private equity fund with $150 million and two other funds for listed securities with between $100 million and $200 million in the second half of 2010, Younes said, without naming the investors.

Younes said the firm identified Japan five years ago as a market ready to invest overseas again after a period of crisis, and that Egypt's fundamentals remained attractive.

"Four years ago we started our missionary work, knocking on doors and talking about Egypt," Younes said.

"What you are looking at is the growth rate for the economy, and at roughly 5 percent Egypt stands out. More importantly than that, the level of prices in Egypt is very low," he said.

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KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Repression of political opponents in both Sudan's north and semi-autonomous south is undermining the prospects for Sudan's first democratic elections in 24 years, Human Rights Watch said on Sunday.

After decades of north-south civil war, a 2005 peace deal shared power and wealth and enshrined democratic reform in Africa's largest country. It outlined elections set for April as well as a southern Sudanese referendum on independence in 2011.

But delays in implementing the deal have fuelled mistrust between the north and south. A law forced through last month by President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's dominant National Congress Party giving Sudan's feared intelligence services wider powers has further compounded matters.

"The Khartoum government is still using its security forces to harass and abuse those who speak out against the ruling National Congress Party," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch. "That is no environment for holding free, fair and transparent elections."

On Sunday in the latest of numerous accusations against the NCP, opposition presidential candidate Mubarak al-Fadil said national security forces had confiscated papers endorsing him from a party member in West Darfur.

Another opposition Umma Party parliamentary nominee Mohamed Abdallah Adouma said he was refused permission to hold a political forum in West Darfur.

"Unless emergency law in Darfur is lifted there cannot be an election there," al-Fadil said of Sudan's western region, now in its seventh year of a separate rebellion.

A national security source in West Darfur denied both charges and said political parties were free to hold forums.

"We would go to listen to their views," the source said.

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* ANC officials push for state to own central bank * Central bank owned by private shareholders

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Top officials in South Africa's ruling ANC are pushing for the state to take over ownership of the country's central bank, one of the few in the world to still be owned by private shareholders, newspapers reported on Sunday.

The Sunday Times and Sunday Independent said ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe had presented a document to the party's top decision-making committee questioning why the bank was still owned by the private sector.

He had argued that the party should not shy away from looking at the state's role in the banking industry as a whole.

"Why have we been reluctant to even open the discussion on the role of the state in the banking industry," the newspapers reported him as saying in the document that was supported by some executive committee members.

"Including discussing the fact that the South African Reserve Bank is one of less than five central banks in private hands in the world."

The Reserve Bank is owned by shareholders, who are entitled to appoint half of the board of directors. Shareholdings are limited and liquidity tight.

But shareholders have no say in the day-to-day operations, or policies, of the bank. The governor and deputies are appointed by the president and are responsible for running the bank.

Accountable to parliament, it independence is protected by the country's constitution.

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ABIDJAN (Reuters) - An Ivorian court ordered on Friday that nearly $50 million in compensation awarded to victims of a toxic waste dumping should be paid to a group claiming to represent them.

Oil trader Trafigura offered compensation to 31,000 Ivorians in September in an out-of-court settlement after the company's toxic waste was dumped in the country in 2006.

Lawyers representing the victims said 16 were killed and thousands fell sick because of the waste.

Trafigura, one of the world's biggest commodities traders, denies any wrongdoing over the waste, which was dumped around the Ivorian economic capital Abidjan after being unloaded from a ship, the Probo Koala, chartered by the company.

A group calling itself the National Coordination of Toxic Waste Victims of Ivory Coast (CNVDT-CI) appealed to have the compensation money funnelled through its own bank account, rather than paid to claimants directly.

Judge Antoine Ble, president of the Abidjan's main court, confirmed that magistrates at the court had ordered 22 billion Cfa francs to be paid into the group's bank account.

"The court of appeal ruled in favour of (the group). They can now disburse the funds and distribute them to their members," he told Reuters.

Martyn Day, the lawyer who brought a civil case against Trafigura that was dropped when the company settled out of court, was quoted in an Amnesty International press release as saying he feared some victims would be defrauded by the group.

"In 30 years of practice I cannot remember a more depressing Court decision. 30,000 Ivorians have been looking to get the compensation due to them. Now there is a very real chance they will not see a penny," he was quoted as saying.

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JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - Mosque and government officials have pulled more bodies from wells and sewage pits in a village near the Nigerian city of Jos, victims of what Human Rights Watch said appeared to have been a targeted massacre.

Four days of clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs armed with guns, knives and machetes killed hundreds of people in Jos and surrounding communities this week before Vice President Goodluck Jonathan deployed the military to contain the violence.

Muhammad Tanko Shittu, a senior mosque official organising mass burials in Jos, told Reuters on Saturday he had just returned from Kuru Jantar, a village also known as Kuru Karama or Kuru Gada Biu, where more than 200 bodies had been found.

"So many bodies were dumped into wells and were littered around, others were being evacuated by the federal authorities," he said. Both Shittu and Red Cross officials said they were still counting bodies and could not yet give an overall toll.

Some estimates have put the death toll at more than 400, although official figures have been much lower.

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said groups of armed men attacked the mostly Muslim population of Kuru Karama on January 19, burning some alive and killing others as they tried to flee. It urged Jonathan to order an investigation of "credible reports of a massacre of at least 150 Muslim residents".

"They were armed with cutlasses, guns, sticks and bags of stone. It was not the Christians from our community but those from outside who came," one 32-year-old resident of Kuru Karama, who was not named, told Human Rights Watch.

"The children were running helter-skelter. The men were trying to protect the women. People who ran into the bush were killed. Some were burned in the mosque and some went to the houses and were burned," he said.

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KIGALI (Reuters) - The Commonwealth will send a monitoring team to Rwanda's August presidential election in which incumbent Paul Kagame is likely to seek a second seven-year term, authorities said.

On his first visit to Kigali since Rwanda joined the 54-member organisation last year, Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma said the Commonwealth would assist in strengthening the central African country's electoral commission.

Mainly composed of former British colonies, the group will also help improve Rwanda's judiciary and provide training to the central African country's journalists.

"I have offered, that in the presidential election now coming up in August, we would be very happy to send a team," Sharma told journalists late on Friday.

Foreign affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo accepted his offer. The Commonwealth previously monitored 2008 legislative elections when Rwanda became the first country in the world to register a female majority in parliament.

New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch described it as peaceful but marred by "serious irregularities".

"We are thrilled to welcome a Commonwealth election monitoring group," Mushikiwabo said, "It is a way for us to interact even more in a specific area of interest both to the Commonwealth and us."

Rwanda is formally a multiparty democracy but in practice analysts say the real power lies in the hands of Kagame, the head of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party.

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Nigeria's Federal High Court on Friday gave the cabinet 14 days to determine whether the country's ailing president is capable of remaining in power.

Judge Dan Abutu ruled that the cabinet must reconvene to determine the fate of the presidential office. President Umaru Yar'Adua left Nigeria nearly two months ago to seek medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.

He has long been troubled by a kidney ailment, and doctors have said the 58-year-old is now suffering from acute pericarditis, an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart, the Associated Press reported.

While Nigerian law allows for a smooth transition of power from Yar'Adua to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, the president left without formally appointing an acting leader as the constitution requires.

The constitution puts Jonathan next in line, but it's unclear if the Muslim-dominated north would allow the Muslim Yar'Adua to be replaced with Jonathan who is a Christian.

The Nigerian presidency alternates between Christian and Muslim leaders, and Yar'Adua still has two years left in his term.

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press tv

The ethnic clashes that broke out last week in south Sudan's troubled Jonglei state has killed at least 24 people, a military spokesman said.

Fighting erupted on Monday between rival tribes after a quarrel between two men in the Nuer settlement of Koul-Anyang in the state of Jonglei escalated, killing nine people, Major General Kuol Diem Kuol said Friday.

Kuol, a General with the southern Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA), added that the fighting climaxed on Thursday, "and this time it was more bloody."

While the clashes were originally between people from the Nuer ethnic group, the fighting later drew in the Dinka into action. As per information received, clashes on Thursday killed 15 Nuer , wounded 16 and another five have gone missing, Kuol said.

The death toll, however, is expected to rise further, the SPLA General said.

Ethnic clashes are frequent in southern Sudan. They are often sparked by cattle rustling and disputes over natural resources.

However, a string of recent raids, especially attacks on women and children, is threatening stability in the region ahead of general elections due in April.

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press tv

The leader of al-Shabab fighters in Somalia has threatened to attack Kenya following a crackdown on Somali nationals in Nairobi.

In a recording posted on the internet on Thursday, Ahmed Abdi Godane, also known as Sheik Mukhtar Abdirahman Abu Zubeyr, threatened the Kenyan government that the fighters will enter Kenya.

"We hit until we kill. We have the weapons," he said, Reuters reported.

Anger has been rising in Somalia since last week, when hundreds of Somali nationals were detained after a violent protest in Nairobi over the detention of Jamaican Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal in Britain.

Al-Shabab fighters' threats to attack Kenya is not a new phenomenon; however, this time they said that "we will not retreat."

Al-Shabab fighters 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 the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

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

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Somalia's main opposition fighters, Al-Shabab, have regained control of the strategic central Somali town of Beledweyene, witnesses say.

Heavily armed Al-Shabab fighters entered the key town in the Hiiraan region north of the capital Mogadishu on Friday with little resistance from pro-government fighters of Ahlu Sunnah Wal-Jama'a, a Press TV correspondent quoted locals as saying.

The fall of the town, over 330 kilometers north of the capital, comes as Ahlu Sunnah fighters continue to engage rival group Hizbul-Islam, positioned south of Beledweyne.

There are no exact figures on the casualties of the latest clash as residents give conflicting accounts of the number of fatalities.

Around 150 people lost their lives, in the past two weeks alone, in conflicts over control of the town, which sits across the border with Ethiopia and connects Mogadishu to northern parts of the country.

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JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigeria's Vice President on Thursday ordered the army to take over security in the central city of Jos and pledged the government would prevent further clashes after days of violence which has killed hundreds.

Goodluck Jonathan, who has been empowered by a federal court to perform executive duties in the absence of President Umaru Yar'Adua, ordered the army to take over security in and around Jos after days of clashes between Muslim and Christian gangs.

"I have today ordered the army to lead the security forces to take over the entire security of the affected areas, including those areas that are considered prone to risk," he said in a speech broadcast on state television.

It was Jonathan's first national address since a court ruled last week he could perform all executive duties in the absence of Yar'Adua, who has been in hospital in Saudi Arabia for the past two months but who has not formally transferred powers.

But the court said Jonathan could not be "acting president" and the opposition has questioned whether he is legally able to deploy troops, saying the constitution gives only the president that authority as commander-in-chief.

The vice president used executive powers for the first time earlier this week when he ordered troops into Jos to help police restore order.

"Let me assure all that the federal government is on top of the situation and that the crisis is being brought under control," Jonathan said.

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OSLO (Reuters) - Herders of cows or camels in arid northern Kenya can obtain a new type of insurance against drought from Friday, the first of its kind in Africa using satellites to gauge rainfall.

Project organisers hope to get about 1,000 households in the Marsabit district to sign up for insurance in coming weeks after a formal launch on Friday by microfinance group Equity Bank and African insurance provider UAP Insurance Ltd.

"If it's successful we will look further afield, in western Africa around the Sahel and southern Asia," project leader Andrew Mude of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) told Reuters.

Under the pilot project, pastoralists in Marsabit will be able to insure herds -- of cows, goats, sheep or camels -- against starvation during drought. Drought and lack of pasture are the main causes of livestock death in the arid region.

Pastoralists would get automatic payments for losses if satellite images of the region show vegetation fades from green -- shades of brown will gauge the severity of drought.

The use of satellites bypasses the traditional, more costly system under which insurers check reported livestock deaths before making payouts. That is almost impossible to judge in herds that wander over huge areas.

Still, risks include that some herders suffer bigger than predicted losses during droughts. In other cases, some herders might get payments when their animals have all survived.