20100108

DAKAR (Reuters) - World number one aluminium producer RUSAL is gearing up for an initial public offering in Hong Kong later this month.

One of the key supply centres for its smelters is Guinea, a small West African country in the grip of severe political uncertainty since a failed attempt to kill its military junta leader in December.

RUSAL says Guinea, which holds two-thirds of the world's bauxite deposits is of "high strategic importance" as it aims for self-sufficiency in raw materials.

IS RUSAL ABLE TO OPERATE NORMALLY?

The government banned RUSAL from exporting for almost a week in September during a tax dispute, but the other interruptions to, or reductions of output last year, were the result of strikes or RUSAL's own decisions.

Junta chief Captain Moussa Dadis Camara was hostile toward foreign mining firms. But since he was evacuated to Morocco for treatment following a December 3 assassination bid, political involvement in the mining sector has halted.

This week, acting head of state Sekouba Konate said Guinea will move to civilian government which, if successful, would effectively take Camara out of the picture. A post-Camara administration may in time want to review mining contracts, but its highest immediate priority would be to hold the country together while preparing for elections.

A RUSAL executive in Guinea said this week said investors would be reassured by a discussion with the government.

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KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda and France have turned over a new leaf in relations marked by a "dark history", the two countries' foreign ministers said, following a dispute over events surrounding Rwanda's 1994 genocide,

Previously, both governments had traded accusations and recriminations over their respective roles during the genocide in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

In his first visit to Rwanda since the two nations restored diplomatic ties in November, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Paris wanted to help Rwanda in a number of areas including health, trade and technology.

Rwanda severed relations with France three years ago after a French judge accused some of President Paul Kagame's top aides of shooting down the former president's plane in April 1994, an event that triggered the genocide.

Rwanda vigorously rejected the indictments, and accused the French government of training and arming the militias responsible for the violence, as well as harbouring top genocide suspects including Agatha Habyarimana, widow of the former president.

"We don't forget the past, but the most important thing is to think about the future," Kouchner told reporters in Kigali. "We are going to develop many projects."

Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo and her French counterpart said the outstanding indictments were the concern of their judicial systems and independent of politics.

"We need to turn over a new leaf after a dark history and work towards a stronger relationship in future," Mushikiwabo said late on Thursday.

20100108

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's government on Thursday halted the sale of diamonds from its controversial Marange fields, saying the process would only go ahead under international supervision.

State media had earlier quoted the chairman of a joint venture firm set up by the government and two South African companies as saying diamond auctions would start on Thursday, but a senior government official said the announcement was premature.

"There was no auction today, no sale of diamonds," Thankful Musukutwa, permanent secretary in the mines ministry, told reporters.

"The government observes and is committed to the administrative decision of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme ... that all shipments from all production sites in the Marange area will be subject to examination and certification by a KPCS monitor."

Musukutwa said the government and the KPCS, which regulates the global diamond trade, were in the process of engaging a monitor to oversee the diamond sales.

"There will be no sales or exports of Marange diamonds until all government regulations and KPCS stipulations have been met."

Rights groups accuse security forces of committing widespread abuses to stop thousands of illegal diamond miners who descended upon the poorly secured fields in the eastern part of the country and have been pushing for a ban on Zimbabwean diamonds.

20100108

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's vice president on Thursday urged citizens of Africa's most populous country to provide better guidance to its youth after one of its own was accused of trying to blow up a U.S. airliner.

The OPEC member is desperate to convince the world Nigeria is a safe place and that its 140 million citizens should not be punished for the actions of suspected plane bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

"Yes we have our social problems but certainly not suicide bombing. This is completely alien to Nigeria," Vice President Goodluck Jonathan told a news conference in the capital Abuja.

Since Monday the United States has implemented tighter security measures for Nigerian air travellers, prompting warnings from Nigeria that this could jeopardise bilateral ties.

People flying from Nigeria to the United States must undergo the same checks now as people from Iran, Afghanistan and Cuba.

The United States is Nigeria's largest trade partner by far, accounting for nearly 45 percent of its exports, mainly crude oil, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Abdulmutallab, 23, was indicted by a U.S. grand jury on Wednesday on six counts related to the Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound airliner carrying nearly 300 people.

Jonathan, who has been representing President Umaru Yar'Adua at official functions while the leader is in hospital overseas, urged "improved guidance and support for Nigerian youths, particularly those in the creative arts and sports".

20100108

RABAT (Reuters) - Fourteen members of an Islamist radical group which seeks to spread jihad, or holy war, to Spain's Andalusia region were jailed on Thursday for plotting attacks against Moroccan targets, state news agency MAP said.

A criminal court in Sale, the twin city of Rabat, sentenced Rachid Zerbani, the leader of the Fath al Andalus (Andalusia Conquest) group to 15 years in prison, the agency added, quoting a court statement.

The 13 other members received sentences of four to 10 years for charges that included stockpiling explosives for attacks on state targets, collecting money to buy weapons and undermining state security and public order.

Court officials were not immediately available to confirm the report.

MAP said the cell had links with other radical Islamists in neighbouring Algeria and Mauritania as well as in France, Spain and countries in the Middle East.

The cell had planned to blow up unspecified tourism landmarks in the southern Atlantic city of Agadir and a Moroccan military barracks in Laayoune, the main city in Western Sahara, MAP added.

Morocco has been on alert against radical Islamists since 2003 when suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca.

Police in the north African country say they have broken more than 60 cells of Islamist extremists since then, with over 2,000 jailed following trials.

Some of the other busted cells have names linked to Andalusia like Jound al Andalus (Soldiers of Andalusia) or Taliaa al Andalus (Advanced Guards of Andalusia).

Andalusia is a rallying cause for Islamist extremists in Morocco and elsewhere who want to return the territory to Muslim rule.

20100108

NIAMEY (Reuters) - Niger's military has "neutralised" an unidentified armed group it says killed seven soldiers and one civilian in clashes near the Mali border last week, Interior Minister Albade Abouba said on Thursday.

"The group of attackers was neutralised and our defence forces also took prisoners, recovered weapons and ammunition," Abouba told reporters at a news conference.

He said security forces had killed 11 of the gunmen, but declined to say how many had been taken prisoner and would not give details of their nationalities.

The fighting in the uranium-rich central African nation adds to tensions in a region where Tuareg rebels and al Qaeda cells are active.

Four Saudi Arabian travellers were killed in an apparent botched hostage-taking on December 28 near the border with Mali. Four other foreigners -- three Spaniards and one Frenchman -- are believed to be held hostage in Mali by al Qaeda.

LUANDA, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- The African Nations Cup will go ahead as planned despite Friday's deadly gun attack on the Togo team buses which killed the driver and injured nine, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) said.

"Our great concern is for the players, that's our key priority, but the championship goes ahead," Souleymane Habuba, CAF's communications director, insisted.

Two days before the start of the tournament, gunmen fired on the Togo team as they crossed the border from Congo-Brazzaville to the province of Cabinda.

The driver was killed and nine injured in the attack claimed by the Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC).

Habuba said CAF's vice-president had set off from the Angolan capital of Luanda to Cabinda to find out at first hand what had occurred.

"We need to know all the facts about what's happening on the ground, we haven't got them all yet. We can't give a full reaction from reports that we have got from the media."

According to Habuba, Togo, in contrast to the other 15 teams, had chosen to travel by road rather than flying.

"CAF's regulations are quite clear, teams are required to travel by air, not road," said Habuba.

"We had a meeting of all the teams this morning, or at least almost all of them - Togo didn't show up, and it was only later on Friday afternoon that we heard via information from the media that they had been the victims of an attack."

Virgilio Santos of the local organising committee said "we asked all the delegations to tell us how and when they were coming, as well as the players' passport numbers. Togo was the only team not to reply and they didn't tell us they were coming by road."

Habuba said CAF would make further comment on the shooting once they had more details.

LUANDA, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Angola on Friday vowed to beef up security measures at the African Nations Cup, after a deadly shooting attack on Togo's soccer squad en route.

"We are going reinforce and strengthen all security mechanisms for the event so that we have all the conditions which will guarantee success, tranquillity and the security of people and their property," sports minister Goncalves Muandumba said on the state news agency Angop.

The driver was killed and nine were injured, including two players when their bus crossed into the province of Cabinda from Congo-Brazzaville for their opening match there.

The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) claimed responsibility for the attack.

Cabinda was one of four Angolan cities hosting the CAN.

LONDON, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Togo captain Emmanuel Adebayor said that many of his teammates want to quit the African Nations Cup after a gun attack on a team bus, killing one and wounding nine in Angola on Friday.

The Manchester City striker told BBC Radio Five Live in Britain that he would convene a meeting to discuss with teammates.

"I don't think they will be ready to give their life. We will discuss everything as a team and we will take a decision that we think is good for our career, is good for our life and good for our family," said Adebayor.

Two players suffered wounds and the driver was killed as gunmen fired at the Togo team's vehicles when they crossed into the Angolan province of Cabinda from Congo-Brazzaville.

The injured players were goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale and defender Serge Akakpo.

Adebayor told the BBC: "Most of the players want to go back to their family. No-one can sleep after what they have seen today. They have seen one of their team-mates have a bullet in his body, who is crying, who is losing consciousness and everything.

"So we will have a good meeting tonight, everyone will go to their room, they will rest and we will see tomorrow morning. We will make a decision which is good for our life."

Togo was due to play its first match in the tournament against Ghana in Cabinda on Monday.

The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) claimed responsibility in a statement.

LUANDA, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Togo's national soccer team for the African Nations Cup tournament in Angola on Friday, killing the driver and wounding nine, including two players.

Togo officials confirmed the wounded players were Serge Akakpo, who plays for Romanian first division side Vaslui, and reserve goalkeeper Kodjovi Obilale, who is with French fourth division team Pontivy.

The other casualties were training, medical and administrative staff.

The bus just entered the Angolan enclave of Cabinda, where a three-decade long war has been staging, when it came under heavy gunfire for several minutes.

The Front for the Liberation of Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) claimed responsibility for the attack.

The attack happened two days before the start of the 2010 African Nations Cup, and five months before the soccer World Cup in South Africa.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) said the tournament would still go ahead despite the attack.

"Our first priority is the safety of the players but the tournament will go ahead," CAF spokesman Suleimanu Habubu said in Luanda.

The Angolan government said it would beef up security so the tournament, due to run from Jan. 10-31 in four provinces including Cabinda, could proceed peacefully.

Soccer's world governing body FIFA offered its "utmost sympathy" to the Togo team after the attack.

LUANDA, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Gunmen opened fire on the coach carrying Togo's national football team to the African Nations Cup in Angola Friday, killing the driver and wounding nine others, including two players, a Togo official said.

The bus had just entered Cabinda province in northwest Angola when it came under heavy gunfire for several minutes, Winny Dogbatse, a senior Togo official was quoted by the Reuters as saying.

"The response from the (police) escort meant the damage was limited and there are now nine injured people in hospital," he said.

The tournament is expected to kick off Sunday and run until Jan. 31. Togo was due to play Ghana on Monday, one of six group matches.

The separatist group the Front for the Liberation of Enclave of Cabinda (FLEC) has claimed responsibility for the attack.

But Antonio Bento Bembe, the Angolan minister in charge of affairs in Cabinda, said it was not the work of FLEC rebels. "FLEC no longer exists, the attack comes from certain individuals who want to cause problems for us," he told the Reuters.

He called the attack "an act of terrorism."

The Confederation of African Football said Friday the tournament will open on Sunday as scheduled.

JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- The popularity of South African President Jacob Zuma increased in his first months of office, with his rating from minority white voters more than doubling, a survey showed on Friday.

On a scale from zero to 10, Ipsos Markinor pollsters said Zuma's ranking jumped from 6.1 to 7.6. The survey of 3,500 South Africans was carried out between October and November.

"Although his rating among black people also increased, the increase among minority groups is the most notable," said the pollsters.

The greatest shifts were among minority Indian, mixed race and white voters, with the latter rising from just 2.3 to 5.4 points.

Black South Africans, who make up some 80 percent of the population, gave Zuma a rate of 8.2. The ruling ANC marks its 98thanniversary on Friday with Zuma to address a rally in Kimberley on Saturday.

LAGOS, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- The listing of Nigeria as a security risk state by the United States amounted to a harassment of Nigerians, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka said on Thursday.

The U.S. had on Sunday listed Nigeria among 10 countries classified as security risk states. It said that passengers travelling to the U.S. from the 10 countries and four others classified as 'sponsors of terror' would face tougher security screening.

The U.S. decision came after an attempted terrorist attack by a23-year-old Nigerian, Umar AbdulMutallab, on a Delta Airlines plane at Detroit International Airport, Detroit, Michigan on Christmas Day.

Soyinka told reporters in Lagos that the decision of the US to include Nigeria on the list of countries whose citizens would undergo extra security screening at US airports is punishment to innocent Nigerians.

He said the extra security screening at the airports could make a lot of Nigerians having engagements in other countries, especially in the US, to cancel their trips, adding that he was already thinking along that direction.

While acknowledging that the Nigerian government may have its pitfalls, Soyinka said the decision of the US would affect the citizens more and not the government.

"Agreed, we have our internal problems as a country, but they would have looked at other ways of dealing with the problem," the Punch quoted the respected playwright and social analyst as saying.

"Apart from harassment, many people may decide to cancel their trips. I am already revisiting my dairy to put off some trips," he said.

While condemning in totality the terrorist attempt by AbdulMutallab, Soyinka said when faced with that kind of situation, leaders of both countries ought to have opened communications link.

On the possibility of the US to rescind its decision on Nigeria, Soyinka said it was, but condemned the National Assembly for issuing a seven-day ultimatum to the US government.

He said such a decision was absurd, expressing hope that the National Assembly would see the absurdity in its action when it resumes sitting next week.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House was poised to release a report on Thursday that top aides said will shock Americans about security lapses that allowed a Nigerian man to come close to blowing up a Detroit-bound airliner on December 25.

President Barack Obama was to outline steps the U.S. government is taking to try to shore up airline security, mindful of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States involving hijacked airliners.

The White House was due to release a declassified review of what went wrong to allow the Christmas Day bombing attempt in which Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, is accused of trying to detonate explosives sewn into his underwear.

By releasing the review, Obama may be seeking to limit the political damage to his administration ahead of expected congressional committee reviews of the attempted attack. Obama already has acknowledged a security "screw-up."

White House national security adviser James Jones told USA Today of the report: "Once people read it, I think, there's a certain shock to it. ... The man in the street will be surprised that, you know, these correlations weren't made."

What was shocking, said another official, was the fact that various strands of intelligence were available that, if put together properly, would have made clear that the bombing suspect should have been put on a "no-fly" list preventing him from boarding.

Among the lapses was the fact that Abdulmutallab's father had gone to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria and told officials that his son had taken up radical views. This information was never properly acted upon.

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Artillery shells killed at least 11 people in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Thursday after rebels fired mortar bombs at the presidential palace and guards there returned fire, witnesses said.

Heavy fighting regularly rocks the port city, where the Western-backed government controls little more than the palace, the airport, sea port and a few streets in between.

Residents said Islamist rebels opened fire on the hilltop Villa Somalia palace, prompting a volley of shells in return that mostly struck the Yaqshid district of northern Mogadishu.

"We have so far collected 11 dead bodies and 34 people who were injured in the shelling," Ali Muse, coordinator of the city's ambulance service, told Reuters by telephone.

"All these people were injured or killed in various districts in the north of Mogadishu. The death toll may rise because the shelling is still going on sporadically."

Somalia has had no central government for 18 years, and efforts to install one have been undermined by an insurgency led by the al Shabaab rebel group, which Washington accuses of being al Qaeda's proxy in the failed Horn of Africa state.

Fighting has killed 19,000 Somalis since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes, triggering one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies.

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ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana's President John Atta Mills said on Thursday his policy priority for 2010 was the ongoing effort to guide the West African country's economic recovery from high inflation and twin deficits.

Mills' administration, which took office last January after a razor-thin election victory, has been battling to get the inflation rate, over 20 percent for months, under control.

"We are on the right road to recovery and I am sure that very soon this will begin to reflect in the pocket of Ghanaians," Mills told a press conference to mark the first anniversary of taking power.

Year-on-year inflation fell to 16.92 percent in November, its fifth consecutive monthly fall, though still above the government's year-end target of around 15 percent.

Ghana's public deficit was was estimated at 10.2 percent of national output in September, and the official target is to narrow that to 3 percent in the medium term.

"When you bring inflation from 24 percent to about 15 percent, you're not telling the world that you've reached the end of the road and therefore we can live happily thereafter," Mills said.

Ghana, a major cocoa and gold producer, expects its public finances to be boosted by revenue from oil exports from the Jubilee field, due to come on stream in the final quarter of this year.

London-listed Tullow Oil, one of the stakeholders in the field, said on Wednesday work was on track for a late-2010 startup .

20100107

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudanese aid agencies must be helped to fill in the huge gaps left in Darfur's aid operation by the expulsion of 13 humanitarian organisations last year, Oxfam America said on Thursday.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in March last year for war crimes in Darfur. He responded by expelling the major aid agencies from Darfur, leaving a hole in the world's largest humanitarian operation.

Oxfam America was one of the small agencies left in Sudan which had to step up its work to fill the gap, but country director El Fateh Osman Adam said there was still much to do.

"We worked hard to address the immediate life-saving issues, provide water, sanitation," he told Reuters in an interview.

"If it was not provided we may have seen humanitarian catastrophe," he said. "But there are gaps in a number of areas, livelihood... protection... and nobody is talking about education."

In 2010 the agency's annual budget will reach $6 million, a massive jump from the 2008/09 funds of $1.5 million.

Sister agency Oxfam GB was one of the largest and oldest agencies working in Sudan before being expelled last year.

The crisis in Darfur, where mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglecting their region, prompted the world's largest aid effort.

20100107

ABUJA (Reuters) - A Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a U.S.-bound airplane on Christmas Day had been properly screened by airport authorities before boarding a flight in Lagos, the Attorney General said on Thursday.

A U.S. grand jury on Wednesday indicted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on six counts related to the attack on a Detroit-bound airliner from Amsterdam carrying nearly 300 people.

Abdulmutallab had transferred to that flight from a KLM flight from Lagos.

Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa said airport security footage showed the 23-year-old removing his shoes and going through a metal detector at Nigeria's busiest airport.

"The security agencies did all that was required under the law to ensure that Nigeria complied with international standards," he told reporters in Nigeria's capital Abuja.

The government has said Abdulmutallab spent less than 30 minutes in Nigeria during his journey, which began in Ghana.

He did not check in any baggage but was carrying a shoulder bag when he checked in for the KLM flight in Lagos, the head of Nigeria's Civil Aviation Authority said last week.

Aondoakaa invited U.S. authorities to view the footage and inspect security at the Lagos international airport.

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LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambia plans to start building a major $1.5 billion power plant next year, which is expected to boost generation capacity by 600 megawatts (MW) when completed in 2017, a senior energy industry official said on Thursday.

Increased investment opportunities in mining, its economic lifeblood, have raised Zambia's power demand, leading to an electricity deficit which authorities want to overcome by constructing new generation plants.

Israel Phiri, who heads a department charged with promoting private power investment in Zambia, said the government would engage the private sector to help build the Kafue Gorge Lower hydro power project in a two-stage tender process.

"This process is expected to last the whole of 2010 and if you want to talk about actual construction starting on site we are looking at 2011 and commissioning in 2017," Phiri told Reuters in an interview.

The tender aimed to find a potential developer and allow time for selected equity partners to raise funds for the project, to be financed through debt and equity.

Phiri said the government would put up $250 million for the project, with the private sector injecting a similar amount.

"It will be a mix (of) capital, the government felt that if it is a 100 percent independent power producer, then the large equity investment would restrict the pool of suitable bidders," Phiri said.

Phiri said the government participation would give confidence to the private sector and attract equity from a number of partners including Western donors, development banks and export and import banks.

20100107

CAIRO (Reuters) - Police used teargas and fired in the air to disperse Coptic Christians protesting a drive-by shooting on Thursday in front of a southern Egyptian church in which six Copts and a Muslim policeman were killed.

The shooting took place in the town of Nagaa Hamady after midnight mass on Coptic Christmas, which is celebrated on January 7. Another nine Copts were wounded, the Ministry of Interior said.

Police clashed with more than 1,000 protesters in front of the church, witnesses said. Members of the crowd smashed the fronts of two shops owned by Muslims before police pushed the crowd into the church grounds.

An unidentified gunman opened fire on a number of Christians in commercial areas at 11:30 p.m. Cairo time (21:30 GMT) on Wednesday, killing two people, the Ministry of Interior said in a statement.

Accompanied by other men, he then went to the church, where he opened fire from inside a private car, killing the others.

According to a preliminary investigation, the gunman was an Egyptian known criminal named Mohamed Ahmed Hussein, the ministry said. The shooting was related to the alleged rape of a Muslim woman by a Christian man in the same city more than a month earlier, it added.

The priest of the church where the shooting took place told Reuters the shooting was sectarian, and he blamed Egyptian police for failing to prevent it.

"This accident is a result of hard feelings between Muslims and Christians over the last month after the rumour of a rape of a Muslim woman by a Christian man," Father Corolos of Nagaa Hamady church said.

"There should have been more security provided to churches on this particular day, when many Christians gather to celebrate the holiday," he added.