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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ABUBAKAR MAY RUN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Defence lawyers challenged the legality of the war crimes case against Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba on Tuesday, arguing he was denied due process by being brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Bemba, a wealthy scion of a business empire and an opposition leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was brought to The Hague in 2008 to face charges of leading Congolese rebels into a campaign of rape and torture in the neighbouring Central African Republic in 2002-03.

Bemba is the highest-profile suspect brought before the ICC, the world's first permanent court established to try war crimes.

Bemba's lawyer argued that he was being tried at the ICC and not in Africa in order to keep him away from the region, and was denied due process. Arrested in Belgium in 2008, Bemba is being held at a detention centre in The Hague.

"We have irrefutable proof of the interference of politics in this case, particularly in sending Bemba to the ICC," defence counsel Nkwebe Liriss told the court.

Initially due to start on Tuesday, the trial was delayed to hear the defence's challenge of admissibility. Pending a ruling by judges on the challenge, the trial is due to start on July 5.

The ICC's prosecutor has charged Bemba with two counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war crimes for leading troops into the Central African Republic at the invitation of that country's president at the time, Ange-Felix Patasse, to put down coup attempts.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A landmine killed one person and wounded four on Tuesday in a rare attack on a mosque in an insurgent stronghold of the Somali capital, witnesses said.

They said the mine exploded as worshippers were going to the Abu Hureyra mosque in Bakara Market, an area used as a base by rebels fighting the government and African Union (AU) troops.

"We hear about explosions at mosques in Iraq, so this is an amazing thing to happen in Somalia," witness Abdallahi said.

It was not clear who was responsible for the attack in an area dominated by members of the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebel group and another insurgent militia called Hizbul Islam.

In another part of Mogadishu, a suicide bomber in a truck laden with explosives targeted a new AU base set up last week in the Shangani area north of the presidential palace, witnesses said.

Major Barigye Ba-hoku, spokesman for the AU force made up of soldiers from Uganda and Burundi, said the vehicle was blown up before it could ram into the new base.

"We have foiled the attempt, we have destroyed the would-be suicide car bomb. Two of our soldiers who destroyed the car sustained minor injuries," he told Reuters.

Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement and said it had killed some troops.

Insurgents have been fighting the Western-backed government in the Horn of Africa nation since the start of 2007. The rebel groups now control much of southern and central Somalia while the government is hemmed into a few blocks of the capital.

TUNIS (Reuters) - A Tunisian journalist whose six-month jail sentence for assault was condemned by international rights groups said after his release on Tuesday he was unbowed and would write a book about his experiences.

Taoufik Ben Brik was found guilty of attacking a woman motorist during an argument in the street. He and his supporters said the charges were concocted to punish him for his criticism of Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

"I will stay true to my courage," Ben Brik told Reuters in a telephone interview soon after he was released on completion of his sentence. "In the coming days I will start writing a book about this miserable story."

Ben Brik's case focused international scrutiny on human rights in Tunisia, a mainly Muslim country in North Africa that has been dominated by 73-year-old Ben Ali since he came to power 23 years ago.

Tunisian authorities deny any political motive behind Ben Brik's prosecution. Officials said assault on a woman was a serious offence and no one should be above the law.

The journalist said his experience in prison, where his relatives said he became dangerously ill, would leave a permanent mark on him.

"The damage has been done, and this damage will always cause me fear," he said from his home in the Tunisian capital. "Even though I am free, I never feel safe here."

Ben Brik said he would be soon be travelling to Paris, though he denied he would be leaving Tunisia permanently. He said France was "the only country that defended me", referring to the French government's criticism of his jail term.

Tunisia is particularly sensitive to European criticism because it is preparing to apply to the European Union for "advanced status," which could give it preferential trade terms.

Tunisia's economy is one of the most open in the region and it depends on tourists, including many from the EU, and growing investments from European firms.

Freedom of speech campaign group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement it was relieved Ben Brik had been released and was back with his family.

"However, we repeat that these six months of detention were six months too long, since it is clear that Taoufik was the victim of a case that was made up from start to finish," RSF Secretary-General Jean-Francois Julliard said in the statement.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt is to hold a partial legislative vote in June, a first step in a round of elections that will test whether the political establishment will grant opposition groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood more say.

President Hosni Mubarak, who has not said whether he will stand for a sixth term next year, has issued a decree calling elections for 88 members of the Shura Council, essentially an upper house of parliament, said Fathi Ragab, deputy head of the council's constitutional and legislative committee.

The Shura Council reviews laws before handing them to the lower People's Assembly for a final vote.

Nominations for candidates will be accepted from May 5, and the vote will take place on June 1, Ragab said.

Mubarak has the right to appoint 88 members of the council and the remainder are elected, in two blocks of 88 serving overlapping terms.

"All members who have served a six-year term will be replaced ... (Those candidates) must run again or be appointed to a second term," Ragab said.

Most members of the council are affiliated with Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party or independents.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the non-violent Islamist group that has long been the biggest opposition threat to Mubarak's government, is seeking seats in the council after its members were blocked from running in the last Shura election in 2008.

"Some candidates were even unable to file their applications to run," said Hussein Ibrahim, a member of the People's Assembly affiliated with the Brotherhood.

"This time, we are seeking to gain 17 seats," he said.

Candidates from the Brotherhood will be forced to run as independents, as they do in the lower house, because the group is officially banned.

Egyptians are due to elect a new People's Assembly late this year and to vote in presidential polls in 2011, a possible turning point for the Arab world's most populous nation as it struggles to lift economic growth and modernise.

How the Brotherhood fares in the Shura vote will be a further indication of what to expect in the People's Assembly. Politicians linked to the group now control a fifth of seats there, by far the biggest opposition bloc.

"The possibility of the Brotherhood winning or losing (in the Shura race) is highly dependent on the security forces and ... how they confront them," said Nabil Abdel Fatah, from the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

Over the last few months security forces have detained dozens of members of the Brotherhood, which says it wants to set up a democratic Islamic state by peaceful means.

CAIRO (Reuters) - In arid Egypt, officials have long angered fellow Nile Basin countries by clinging to colonial-era water treaties giving it rights to the lion's share of water flowing down the world's longest river.

But upstream nations desperate for development are hoping to break with the past, threatening to shut regional heavyweight Egypt out of a new pact and potentially deepening an already bitter struggle for water resources across this parched region.

"This is a crisis in Egypt's relations with Nile Basin countries," said Gamal Soltan, head of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

The feud could also upset the balance between poor upstream nations and Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, where climate change threatens a fragile farm sector and population growth may outstrip water resources as early as 2017.

The latest chapter in the long-running feud over waters from the Nile, worshipped as a deity in ancient Egypt, came when upstream countries declared after a water meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh this month that they would launch separate talks since Egypt and Sudan refused to revise water pacts dating to 1929.

"Egypt's historic rights to Nile waters are a matter of life and death. We will not compromise them," Moufid Shehab, minister of legal and assembly affairs, told parliament after the talks.

The 1929 deal, brokered on one side by British colonial powers in Africa, gives Egypt 55.5 billion cubic metres a year, the biggest share of a flow of some 84 billion cubic meters.

It also gives Cairo the power to veto dams and other water projects in upstream countries that include six of the world's poorest nations.

"We will not sign on to any agreement that does not clearly state and acknowledge our historical rights," Egyptian Water Minister Mohamed Nasreddin Allam said after the meeting.

But analysts say Egypt, eager to style itself as a leader of both Arab and African nations to enhance its global clout, must improve ties with upstream countries that in the future may take on greater economic and commercial importance.

"Egypt has tried in the past to complicate the issue ... They are dragging their heels," Shimeles Kemal, spokesman for the government of Ethiopia, source of the Blue Nile.

Egypt and Sudan "are pushing for a position that would negate everything we've achieved in years of talks and negotiations", said Isaac Musumba, Uganda's state minister for regional cooperation.

Upstream states have invited Egypt and Sudan to take part in the new deal -- whose legal standing would be uncertain -- but on their terms. "We hope to convince them," said Christopher Chiza, Tanzania's deputy minister of water and irrigation.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Talk of such a deal triggers alarm in Egypt, where Nile waters feed a farm sector accounting for a third of all jobs. Egypt, unlike upstream nations, cannot rely on rain and gets 87 percent of its water needs from the Nile.

Climate change and rising sea levels could also swallow much of the slim, fertile Nile Delta in Egypt, already the world's largest wheat importer, and cost it $35 billion this century, the United Nations has estimated.

Large-scale projects reclaiming arid land or building dams in upstream nations could further strain water use in Egypt, while increased upstream farming could bring more pollution.

But even if upstream countries ink the new deal, which could take place as early as May 14, they may not have the financial muscle in the near term to build dams and other projects that would allow them to siphon more water from the Nile.

"Practically, even if those countries sign a framework agreement without Egypt, its effects won't be lasting ... how are (upstream countries) going to stop the flow of water?" said Safwat Abdel-Dayem, secretary general of the Arab Water Council.

"It's premature to say they will build dams so we will lose water and (Egyptian) agriculture will be slashed," he said.

Globals donors and banks could be unlikely, for one, to provide the finance needed to build upstream water projects for fear of getting tangled in a regional diplomatic spat.

Analysts say a new treaty could nonetheless boost investments in African nations' land reclamation projects, and help attract foreign investment in upstream farmland.

"It would seem that a new deal, provided it covers an extended period and is enforceable, could be good for potential investors," said Aziza Akhmouch, an analyst with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

"It would reduce current uncertainty about the future availability of water."

SOFT POWER

The conflict threatens to further dilute the sway of Egypt, perched at the nexus of Arab and African worlds, in the region.

"Egypt has lost a great deal of its influence in Africa, and has run (through) a lot of its cards," said Sharif ElMusa, a water politics expert at the American University in Cairo.

Egypt should not seek to stick to historic water treaties, it should focus on bilateral talks with each country or take its case to an international arbitrator, Soltan said.

"We need more holistic policies including other policy areas branching into economic, cultural, and political ties," echoed Osama Ghazali Harb, head of a liberal opposition party.

The government may be taking heed. It has pledged doubling funds for development projects with upstream nations.

It is also trying to enforce better management at home. Egypt has cut back on water-intensive crops like rice, a key export, but could see a 47 percent drop in maize output.

Experts say Egypt is not moving fast enough to cut its dependence on the Nile or shift the diplomatic focus from divvying up water to how to better use it across borders.

"If you can create larger benefits from the water, there are often opportunities to create a positive sum game," said Mark Giordano of the International Water Management Institute.

LIBREVILLE (Reuters) - Six months into his administration, Gabon's President Ali Bongo is struggling at home to implement his reformist agenda, while presenting an investor-friendly international face.

Bongo won an election last year on a pledge to turn Gabon into an emerging economy, replacing his late father who ruled the central African country for four decades. Opponents said the vote was unfair and accused Bongo and the ruling PDG party of imposing a dynasty.

Bongo has made reforming government and lessening the country's dependence on oil his priorities. For years the country of just over a million people has laboured under a bloated bureaucracy and government run on a system of patronage, giving ministers and officials little incentive to work.

Gabonese people say they have become used to government that does not govern, but Bongo's team wants to change this.

"The real problem is ... fighting the old system. The objective is to say, 'here is a new system to induce people to execute measures'," said an adviser to the president.

Part of that system will be a performance review, due to take place within the next month, when Bongo will ask ministers to show their achievements. A short-lived strike earlier in April by oil workers brought output almost to a standstill, and has focused attention on the oil ministry.

"The oil strike means it's more pressure on the ministry of hydrocarbons," the adviser said.

REFORMS HELD UP

Bongo -- or 'Ali', as most Gabonese refer to him -- is a reformer who has trimmed the number of ministries and is streamlining the civil service. Still, analysts say he is having a tough time dragging inefficient government bodies with him and needs outside assistance to make his ideas work.

"There are lots of good ideas and reforms announced, but there is not enough technical capacity, there is not a culture of implementation," said one Western diplomat.

The opposition, which squandered a chance to really test loyalty to the PDG in the 2009 election when it fielded around 20 candidates and splintered support, is beginning to coalesce.

A new party, the National Union, brings together five of the presidential hopefuls, but heavyweight Pierre Mamboundou and his UPG party are outside it, and in the run-up to by-elections for around a dozen seats in June, it is not gaining critical mass.

"Ali Bongo wants to reign without sharing," said Joseph Nambo, a member of the National Union, who argued that Bongo won the election illegitimately, and thus has no mandate to govern.

"Almost seven months after he took power, Gabon has made a great leap backwards in all aspects," Nambo said.

Still, an opposition based on challenging the 2009 election fails to engage the public. Trouble flared only very briefly after the election result was announced, and passions are unlikely to be stirred by the same protests almost a year later.

Most Gabonese, when asked if they have complaints about Bongo's administration, say they disagree with a law that compels the tin-topped roadside bars, as popular in Libreville as they are all over Africa, to close at 10 p.m.

"This is not a polarised country, politics is not a matter of life and death," the diplomat said. "June is an opportunity for the opposition to make its case to the public, but it's already late April and we've seen nothing in the way of a campaign."

"YES, YES, YES"

Neither foreign delegations nor people close to Bongo see the June vote as a particularly tough test for the president, who continues to push a pro-investment policy that encourages diversification from oil, the country's economic mainstay.

"Any operator who can bring something to the country will be allowed to invest, it's an open door policy," the presidential adviser said."

Still, potential investors say the sluggish pace of work in the torpid tropical capital, and the bureaucratic entanglements it involves, make doing business a headache.

"It's so slow," said a visiting foreign executive in the agriculture sector. "People say 'yes, yes, yes' then you go away and nothing happens."

Bongo's team argues the reforms they say the country needs are a long-term project.

"If it were that easy, it would have been done before. He's only been president for six months," said the presidential adviser. "It takes time, it can take more than a mandate."

ABUJA (Reuters) - An obscure Nigerian youth group said on Sunday it will carry on campaigning to elect Acting President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 national polls despite his request that it stop.

The race to be leader of Africa's most populous nation is wide open since ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua is unlikely to seek re-election. Elections are due by April next year.

The Northern Youth Movement for Positive Change began posting political posters, saying "Goodluck is the Positive Hope for Nigeria", throughout the capital Abuja on Friday.

Jonathan, who has not ruled out running in 2011, denied any connection to the youth group's campaign and urged them to stop.

"The acting president has not authorised any group to produce or paste campaign posters for him," said spokesman Ima Niboro on Sunday.

"He warns those behind the circulation of these posters to desist from the act because it is capable of causing distractions."

The youth group, which confirmed having no connection to Jonathan, said it believed the acting president has already proven to be a good leader since assuming executive powers in Yar'Adua's absence two months ago.

"We believe (Jonathan) can deliver. There are no fuel queues and light and electricity are normal," Dogara Bassa, the group's secretary, told Reuters.

CONTINUE TO CAMPAIGN

Despite the acting president's request to stop its campaign, the group plans to put up political posters in Kano, Bauchi and other major northern Nigerian cities.

Bassa said it receives funding from the group's members, which he claimed number hundreds of thousands. This could not be independently verified.

Former military leader Ibrahim Babangida, who ruled Nigeria from 1985-1993 and is known locally as "IBB", is so far the only major politician to announce his intention to run for president as the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) candidate.

His campaign posters, saying "IBB, We Believe", can also be seen throughout Abuja.

The PDP, which has won every presidential election since Nigeria's return to democracy just over a decade ago, has not yet chosen its presidential candidate.

The party's presidential campaign headquarters in Abuja still prominently displays a political billboard from Yar'Adua's successful run in 2007.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Clashes between south Sudan's army and Darfuri Arab tribes killed 58 people, raising tension along the border with the north of the country as results of the first open elections in 24 years are released, officials said on Sunday.

Sudan's oil-producing south was allowed to keep a separate army and form a semi-autonomous government in a 2005 peace deal ending more than two decades of civil war with the north.

Southerners will vote in a referendum on January 9, 2011 on independence.

"There was movement from the Rizeigat (tribe) and from the SPLA (the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army). I can't tell you who attacked who first but they clashed," Rizeigat Arab tribal leader Mohamed Eissa Aliu told Reuters from South Darfur.

"It happened on Friday and those killed from the Rizeigat were 58 and 85 injured," he said, adding the attack was in Balballa, South Darfur, which borders Western Bahr al-Ghazal in the south.

The SPLA said they were attacked by the northern army (SAF) in Raja, a remote part of Western Bahr al-Ghazal state, near where at least 5 officials from the dominant northern National Congress Party (NCP) and four others were killed by an SPLA soldier during five days of voting which began on April 11.

"Our company came under attack from the SAF forces yesterday afternoon," SPLA spokesman Malaak Ayuen said late on Saturday. "The SAF was using four land cruisers with mounted machine guns." He could not give further details.

A SAF spokesman denied any involvement but confirmed the SPLA attack on the Rizeigat in Darfur, calling it "a clear violation of the (peace deal)."

The north-south border there is one of many disputed areas yet to be demarcated.

On Sunday, the SPLA said it had been attacked for a second time in Raja and had been forced to retreat.

"They reinforced themselves and launched another attack and occupied the place," Ayuen said on Sunday.

Of the around 100 SPLA troops in the area, 47 had reported back with the others likely still in the bush, he said.

Results of the elections, marred by boycotts in the north and opposition accusations of fraud, are slowly being announced after days of delays.

The NCP and the ex-southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) are expected to form a coalition government as both parties look set to maintain their respective dominance in the north and the south.

The international community is concerned that only 8 months before the 2011 plebiscite on independence, issues like the demarcation of the border, grazing rights of nomadic tribes and citizenship have not been agreed.

The north-south civil war, Africa's longest, has raged on and off since 1955. It claimed 2 million lives mostly through hunger and disease and destabilised much of east Africa.

The south, which follows mostly Christianity or traditional religions, fought the mainly Muslim north over issues including oil, ethnicity and ideology.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank's private-sector lender expects to invest $16 billion this fiscal year in emerging countries to spur economic growth amid a tepid global recovery that has pushed millions of people into poverty, its chief executive officer said on Saturday.

"I think we would do $16 billion including financing mobilized from other parties," Lars Thunell, chief executive officer and executive vice president of the International Finance Corp (IFC) said on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund's spring meetings.

This is an increase of $1.5 billion from 2009 after an additional 64 million people worldwide fell below the poverty line due to the global economic crisis.

Thunell said consumer goods sectors in emerging countries with large and young populations is where he sees most of the investment going.

"It is not only in traditional sectors like extracting (commodities) or infrastructure, but on local consumption. You see it in China and Africa. What you call the base of the pyramid is a major business opportunity," Thunell told Reuters.

He pointed to sites in western China as one area where this is happening.

Thunell also said interest in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Rwanda, marred by war, has risen as the political risk profile of these countries improve.

"You have much less conflicts and wars in Africa. You have a new generation of leaders such as the president of Rwanda that understand that the private sector is very important," Thunell said.

Earlier this month the IFC partnered with sovereign wealth funds and pension funds from Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and South Korea in an $800 million fund to invest in companies in Africa and elsewhere as part of the corporation's strategy to tap the growing investment opportunities in frontier markets.

JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - The Nigerian military fired in the air to contain violence in the central city of Jos on Saturday, after the killing of a Muslim man triggered a rampage by an angry mob, an army spokesman and witnesses said.

Four others died in the unrest, underscoring continued tensions in the region at the crossroads between Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south. Sectarian clashes have killed hundreds of people this year.

A mob began rioting after the body of a Muslim man, who had apparently been strangled, was dumped in a sack on a main street, according to the military taskforce (STF) set up to police Jos and the surrounding area after clashes in January.

"When the Muslims discovered the body, they took to the streets and barricaded roads, stabbing passers-by indiscriminately," STF spokesman Donald Oji said, adding that three of those attacked had later died in hospital.

A fifth body was later discovered by soldiers on the other side of the city, he said.

Fierce competition for control of fertile farmlands between Christian and animist indigenous groups and Muslim settlers from the north have repeatedly sparked violence in central Nigeria's "Middle Belt" over the past decade.

Security forces say they have the situation under control, maintaining a night curfew in Jos. But killings have continued, raising fears of a repeat of clashes between Muslim and Christian mobs which killed hundreds in January and March.

Sporadic violence killed at last nine people last week, seven of them discovered in shallow graves around 30 km (20 miles) south of Jos. Residents said they were killed after stopping at a roadblock set up by a local gang.

KHARTOUM, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Death toll from the continued clashes between Rizeigat tribe and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in South Darfur State in western Sudan rose to 58.

The clashes erupted on Friday and "are still ongoing," 58 people were killed and 87 others wounded, Mohamed Iyssa Elaio, chairman of Rizeigat tribe's Shura (consultation) council, told Xinhua.

"The casualties are expected to rise," he added.

The incidents took place at Bulbula area, some 200 km south of Matariq town in the South Darfur State.

Saturday's report said 17 civilians were killed and 11 others wounded during the clashes.

The SPLA is the military wing of the former rebel Sudan People' s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which became one of the ruling partners in Sudanese government following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005.

2010-04-25
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Clashes between south Sudan's army and Darfuri Arab tribes killed 58 people, raising tension along the border with the north of the country as results of the first open elections in 24 years are released, officials said on Sunday.

Sudan's oil-producing south was allowed to keep a separate army and form a semi-autonomous government in a 2005 peace deal ending more than two decades of civil war with the north.

Southerners will vote in a referendum on January 9, 2011 on independence.

"There was movement from the Rizeigat (tribe) and from the SPLA (the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army). I can't tell you who attacked who first but they clashed," Rizeigat Arab tribal leader Mohamed Eissa Aliu told Reuters from South Darfur.

"It happened on Friday and those killed from the Rizeigat were 58 and 85 injured," he said, adding the attack was in Balballa, South Darfur, which borders Western Bahr al-Ghazal in the south.

The SPLA said they were attacked by the northern army (SAF) in Raja, a remote part of Western Bahr al-Ghazal state, near where at least 5 officials from the dominant northern National Congress Party (NCP) and four others were killed by an SPLA soldier during five days of voting which began on April 11.

"Our company came under attack from the SAF forces yesterday afternoon," SPLA spokesman Malaak Ayuen said late on Saturday. "The SAF was using four land cruisers with mounted machine guns." He could not give further details.

A SAF spokesman denied any involvement but confirmed the SPLA attack on the Rizeigat in Darfur, calling it "a clear violation of the (peace deal)."

The north-south border there is one of many disputed areas yet to be demarcated.

On Sunday, the SPLA said it had been attacked for a second time in Raja and had been forced to retreat.

"They reinforced themselves and launched another attack and occupied the place," Ayuen said on Sunday.

Of the around 100 SPLA troops in the area, 47 had reported back with the others likely still in the bush, he said.

Results of the elections, marred by boycotts in the north and opposition accusations of fraud, are slowly being announced after days of delays.

The NCP and the ex-southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) are expected to form a coalition government as both parties look set to maintain their respective dominance in the north and the south.

The international community is concerned that only 8 months before the 2011 plebiscite on independence, issues like the demarcation of the border, grazing rights of nomadic tribes and citizenship have not been agreed.

The north-south civil war, Africa's longest, has raged on and off since 1955. It claimed 2 million lives mostly through hunger and disease and destabilised much of east Africa.

The south, which follows mostly Christianity or traditional religions, fought the mainly Muslim north over issues including oil, ethnicity and ideology.

2010-04-25
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - A group of developing countries, among the world's fastest growing carbon emitters, said on Sunday a legally binding global agreement to limit climate change needed to be completed by 2011 at the latest.

Environment ministers of the so-called BASIC bloc -- Brazil, South Africa, India and China -- met in Cape Town to look at how to fast-track a globally binding agreement that would bind rich nations to cut emissions and reduce global warming.

"Ministers felt that a legally binding outcome should be concluded at Cancun, Mexico in 2010, or at the latest in South Africa by 2011," the ministers said in a joint statement, referring to U.N. climate talks.

The Kyoto Protocol, which the United States did not agree to, binds about 40 developed nations to cutting emissions by 2008-12. U.N. climate meetings have failed to reach a legally-binding agreement on what happens post 2012.

More than 100 countries have backed a non-binding accord, agreed in Copenhagen last year, to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, but did not spell out how this should be achieved. It included a goal of $100 billion in aid for developing nations from 2020.

The United States supports the Copenhagen Accord but many emerging economies do not want it to supplant the 1992 U.N. Climate Convention which more clearly spells out that rich nations have to take the lead in cutting emissions and combating climate change.

Industrialised nations have been unwilling to take on new commitments beyond 2012 unless major emerging nations, such as India and China, also sign up.

"The question of Cancun -- right now it looks as if we will have to come back to Cape Town in 2011. There is no breakthrough in sight ... we have a long way to go," Jairam Ramesh, India's Environment and Forestry Minister told reporters.

2010-04-25
MONROVIA (Reuters) - Liberia is considering trying perpetrators of the worst crimes committed during its 1989-2003 civil war, in which child soldiers were recruited, women raped and thousands killed, the justice minister said.

Justice Minister Christiana Tah told Reuters a committee had been set up to review a report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) late last year detailing evidence of atrocities and that it would advise on whether prosecutions should go ahead.

Africa's oldest independent republic is still recovering from the war that left it in ruins.

But unlike neighbouring Sierra Leone, which swiftly set up an international tribunal to try war criminals in its closely intertwined conflict, Liberia chose to rebuild first. The twin conflicts killed about a quarter of a million people.

Trials could upset a delicate power balance in a nation that has kept peace partly by co-opting former combatants.

Some former warlords named by the TRC report have seats in the Senate. Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is being tried for war crimes in The Hague, but only for alleged involvement in Sierra Leone's war.

"The president set up a committee that includes myself and the head of law reform, because we want accountability. This is not over," Tah said in a weekend interview. "We'll review the report and advise the government on the way forward."

But Tah said no decision had yet been made on the issue.

"For those who committed the most serious atrocities they are recommending prosecution. That's one of the questions we have to examine. We'll try to do that as quickly as possible."

The TRC was established in 2005 to investigate war crimes.

Its report caused a storm last year when it said President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf should be banned from public office for 30 years for backing Taylor's rebellion. The incumbent admits she provided Taylor with money but says she was misled.

TRC president Jerome Verdier told Reuters even if the move towards trials went ahead it would be a drawn out process.

"It would take the next ten years to put all the resources in place to do prosecutions," he said.

"But this is something we cannot escape from. We cannot claim to have ended the conflict in the absence of justice."

2010-04-25
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, who has faced criticism that his love life is undermining safe sex campaigns, revealed test results on Sunday showing he was HIV negative.

Zuma, who has three wives, has generated controversy by fathering a child out of wedlock and admitting to having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman.

Critics have accused Zuma of taking a cavalier attitude to safe sex that is damaging government health campaigns in a country with one of the world's highest rates of HIV/AIDS.

"After careful consideration, I have decided to share my test results with South Africans," Zuma said at the launch of HIV/AIDS campaign at Natalspruit Hospital, east of Johannesburg.

"My April results, like the three previous ones, registered a negative outcome for the HI virus," he said.

South Africa has one of the world's heaviest HIV rates and has been accused by activists of dragging its feet on the disease which kills an estimated 1,000 people there every day.

At least 5.7 million of South Africa's 50 million population are infected.