20091224

ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana's President John Atta Mills is refusing to accept traditional Christmas gifts such as hampers this year because they may be efforts to corrupt him, a spokesman said on Thursday.

It is common practice in Ghana for individuals and businesses to send hampers packed with gifts to friends and people in authority during the festive season.

While some gifts signify traditional sharing, others are given out in appreciation of past or future favours -- something Mills's government has vowed to stamp out since he became leader of a nation set to become Africa's next oil producer in 2010. "He has made it clear that it was not his disposition to accept Christmas hampers and other gifts," said presidential spokesman Mahama Ayariga, adding that disappointed gift-bearers had handed some presents out to presidential staff instead.

"(Mills's) disposition is that you never know what is in the mind of the giver of the gift, so it's always better not to accept them," Ayariga said.

Mills, who assumed office in January on a pledge to wage a "relentless war" against corruption, is generally regarded, even by his critics, as a modest leader and not corrupt, compared to his predecessors.

However, his present-snubbing was not praised by everyone.

Vitus Azeem, the head of Ghana Integrity Initiative, the local chapter of Transparency International, said the president's actions would do little in stemming corruption among fellow government officials.

"His campaign would have been more meaningful if he had given out specific directives to his ministers and other top officials to also turn away the hampers and the goats driven to their homes and offices," said Azeem.

Opposition to the president's initiative also came from James Agbagana, a traditional chief, who warned that he was going too far with his anti-corruption drive as he might destroy the Ghanaian tradition of hospitality in the process.

20091224

LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambia's main opposition leader on Thursday said his party would renationalise Zambia's fixed line operator, Zamtel, if elected in 2011, because the decision to privatize the company is not in the best interest of the country.

India's Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd , Angola's Unitel and Libya's LAP Green Networks on Wednesday submitted bids to acquire between 51 and 75 percent of the stake in Zamtel.

However Patriotic Front (PF) party president Michael Sata said the sale of Zamtel was unacceptable because apart from it being a strategic organization, the new majority stake owners were likely to close the rural branches and concentrate on urban areas.

"Those bidding for Zamtel are doing so at owner's risk. The PF in government will reverse the decision to privatise Zamtel. Even if it is sold we will renationalise it," Sata told Reuters in an interview.

Sata said parliament would decide the conditions of Zamtel renationalisation.

Zamtel's revenue for the year to end-December was $100 million. It is Zambia's only licensed fixed-line provider of voice and data communications and has performed poorly despite its monopoly rights.

Sata said Zamtel had performed badly because the government owed it a lot of money.

"If the government paid all the Zamtel bills, Zamtel would be very viable. The government owes Zamtel trillions of kwacha and that is what has created problems," Sata said.

20091224

RABAT/TINDOUF (Reuters) - Western Sahara independence activist Aminatou Haidar said Moroccan police had surrounded her house and kept her under house arrest since her return to her desert homeland after a hunger strike in Spain.

She vowed to step up her struggle for human rights in the former Spanish territory despite what she called Moroccan repression.

Moroccan officials said Rabat was committed to respecting human rights in Western Sahara and elsewhere in the country. They declined to comment further on Haidar's case.

A tract of desert the size of Britain which has lucrative phosphate reserves and potentially offshore oil, Western Sahara is the scene of Africa's longest-running territorial dispute.

Last week, Haidar, a 43-year-old mother-of-two ended a month-long hunger strike in a Spanish airport in protest at Rabat's refusal to let her back into Western Sahara unless she declared her loyalty to the Moroccan king.

Morocco let her return home after the United States, Spain and other countries intervened.

Haidar's fasting focused international attention on Western Sahara's dispute in a way rarely seen in the 35 years since Morocco annexed the territory after Spain pulled out.

"The siege is continuing. I'm under house arrest. Family members and neighbours have problems visiting me. Shops in my neighbourhood are suffering from the siege," Haidar told Reuters by telephone from Rabat late on Wednesday.

20091224

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A Namibian court has ordered authorities to release election documents to opposition parties contesting the results of last month's presidential and parliamentary vote, a party official said on Thursday.

Eight opposition parties have rejected the election result, which handed the ruling SWAPO party a landslide , although analysts said their protests were unlikely to have much impact.

Libolly Haufiku, spokesman for the Rally for Democracy and Progress which won 11.31 percent of the vote, said the court had allowed for the opposition to examine materials such as rejected ballots and reports from polling stations, but not the counted ballots themselves.

"The court ruled in our favour for us to be able to do a proper audit ... the process already started today," Haufiku told Reuters.

He said the parties were "working 24 hours" to gather enough evidence ahead of a January 4 deadline to submit a new request to have the election result annulled.

"If we have the evidence we need ... we would either ask for a recount of the ballot or a re-run of the elections," he said.

With 75.27 percent of the vote, SWAPO easily secured the two-thirds majority that gives it the chance to change the constitution at will.

The vote also returned President Hifikepunye Pohamba for a second term in the mineral-rich southern African country, a major producer of uranium and diamonds.

Three African observer missions have declared the elections transparent, peaceful and fair, although some recommendations were made to improve the counting process, media balance, and the accuracy of the electoral roll.

20091224

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's two main parties on Wednesday said parliament will review a disputed law on a referendum on independence for the south, hoping to avert political crisis after harsh criticism from Washington.

Parliament passed the law even though the main southern party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), walked out of the assembly objecting to an amendment allowing southerners living in the north to vote in the January 2011 referendum.

SPLM officials insist the referendum must go ahead and analysts agree any scent of deceit hanging over the process could reignite the north-south civil war that raged for two decades and killed some 2 million people. A return to hostilities could destabilise much of east Africa.

The United States criticised the National Congress Party (NCP), which dominates the north, for passing the referendum bill on Tuesday, accusing it of undermining the 2005 peace deal that ended the civil war and brought the two rival parties into a fragile coalition.

"We agreed in principle to return the law to parliament," said senior NCP official Ibrahim Ghandour, adding the two parties were still in talks on "editing" the law.

SPLM Deputy Chairman Riek Machar told reporters the parties had agreed to remove the amendment and return the bill to parliament on Monday. The speaker of the house had not yet signed the law, he said, so parliament could still legally change the text.

BREAK-UP

The southern rebel SPLM took up arms over ideological, ethnic and religious differences with the mainly Muslim north and the conflict was fuelled by the discovery of oil fields, mostly in the south.

ABIDJAN, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- Guinea's military junta marked the first anniversary of takeover of power on Wednesday, with its interim leader vowing to end the political crisis by an early vote without promising to give up the rule, according to reports monitored here.

Defense Minister Sekouba Konate, who is currently at the helm of the junta, made a speech at a military camp in the capital Conakry, appealing for national reconciliation and an early presidential election to end the political standoff between the junta and the opposition and with the international community.

The junta's No. 2 advocated the West African country's first free and democratic elections in history, falling short of pledging the regime's departure from power, the key to a solution to the crisis and the root cause of the Sept. 28 clash, in which the United Nations said more than 150 people were killed by soldiers.

The world body on Monday accused the military junta of committing the anti-humanity crime in its Sept. 28 crackdown after weeks of a probe into the case.

Guinea's situation is complicated with junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara shot and wounded early in the month by his aide de camp, Aboubakar Toumba Diakite, who said Camara wanted to make him a scapegoat.

Konate, temporarily took over the leadership after Camara was flown to the Mohammad V Military Hospital in Rabat, Morocco. Although the junta has repeatedly said he is recovering and will soon return to Conakry, his condition remains a misery.

No breakthrough has been made in negotiating a power surrender to civilians since the international contact group on Guinea intensified its efforts after Camara left the country.

In the middle of the month, the group met with members of the ruling National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD) in Guinea in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, trying to persuade it to honor the original commitment by Camara to take no part in the future elections and reach a compromise with the opposition.

Camara went back on his promise in August, triggering the bloody clash with the opposition.

During the Ouagadougou talks, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, president of the ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) Commission, proposed the deployment of an intervention force to Guinea to protect the civilian population and prevent the crisis from spilling over into neighboring countries.

While the CNDD delegation agreed that "the discussions will continue and at an opportune time," the opposition expressed hope that "this will be an occasion of solving all the problems once and for all so that we can get the country out of the crisis."

The military led by Camara took power on Dec. 23, 2008 hours after the death of then president Lansana Conte, who also launched a coup d'etat following the death of Sekou Toure in 1984.

Guinea is under international and regional sanctions for its return to democracy and the constitutional order.

GOZ BEIDA, 23 December 2009 (IRIN) - Days after a UN convoy was attacked in eastern Chad, humanitarians and security officials are debating how to prevent kidnappings and carjackings that persist despite the presence of a multi-million-dollar UN-led peacekeeping force.

Since March nearly 3,000 UN-trained international troops have been working with Chadian military and national police to boost security near camps housing more than 500,000 refugees and Chadians displaced from fighting in Sudan, Central African Republic and Chad.

Armed assailants have stolen dozens of humanitarian vehicles in 2009, killed a driver and government official and are holding an international aid worker kidnapped on 10 November.

On 21 December bandits attempted to kidnap two UN contractors and steal a civilian vehicle in a UN convoy travelling with a Chadian security escort.

Short on escorts

Because of eastern Chad’s security classification, the UN requires the use of armed escorts for its humanitarian staff.

Laurette Mokrani, head of the UN Children Agency's (UNICEF) office in Goz Beida, 220km south of the aid hub in Abéché, told IRIN the difficulty of scheduling escorts makes it increasingly difficult to act quickly. "It used to be that if there was an emergency in the field, we could send out a team immediately, which is not the case now if we cannot get an escort."

During the most recent polio vaccination campaign in October, supervised by UNICEF and World Health Organization (WHO), requests for military and police escorts went unanswered for weeks, according to WHO surveillance expert for eastern Chad, Mohammed Mohammedi.

Troops are insufficient to provide all requested escorts, said Gavin Egerton, liaison officer for the UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT); Egerton patrols in and near Goz Beida. "This is all a juggling act. Even if it is only one vehicle we escort, we need up to 50 persons – at least a platoon [35] – and four armed personnel carriers to provide sufficient coverage. We try to accommodate as many requests as possible based on our patrol plan."

Half-staffed

MINURCAT's deputy commander, Ger Aherne, told IRIN a half-staffed force is better than no force at all. “If we weren't here, there would be a security vacuum. Who would facilitate humanitarian activity?”

The UN force's annual budget – drawn up for a planned force almost twice the size of the current one – is US$691 million. But even at the envisioned 5,200-strong military force, it would still not be enough to secure eastern Chad, said Aherne. "The area we have to patrol is 1,000km by 450km – are you seriously suggesting 5,200 troops, or even 10,000, could fully secure that area?"

French research and training group, Emergency Rehabilitation and Development (URD), noted in a working document on humanitarian space in eastern Chad: "Armed escorts cannot provide absolute protection and could even constitute...a heightened risk of violence because DIS [détachement intégré de securité, a UN-trained and financed Chadian security force] has been attacked several times."

URD director, François Grünewald, told IRIN that MINURCAT should avoid costly convoys and increase the use of small aircraft. "The banditry calls for mobility, not a heavy platoon snaking through the desert."

Aherne told IRIN that with advance notice about humanitarian operations, MINURCAT can look into preventative deployment – securing an area and placing it under watch even before the arrival of humanitarians, without requiring the mission to travel with an escort.

Impunity

Impunity is the real problem, Aherne told IRIN. “The responsibility for security in Chad rests with the Chadian government…There needs to be better justice and policing.”

The government’s military liaison to NGOs, Yaya Oki Dagashe, told IRIN security threats have been exaggerated. “You [media] keep on saying there is a bandit taking a car, there is someone stealing something – that does not mean the country is on fire.” He said in addition to the UN forces, Chadian police and military police, Chad has deployed army forces to the border. “We are doing everything we can to stop criminality.”

But URD director Grünewald told IRIN impunity is widespread. “It is rooted in ethnic allegiances, organized banditry, petty crime, political insurgency and honour-based vendettas. What some see as banditry, others see as honour.”

20091223

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday accused Sudan's ruling party of undermining the fragile peace process, a sign that U.S. offers of increased engagement with Khartoum are failing to bring results.

The State Department said the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), which dominates the north, had reneged on a deal setting conditions for a January 2011 independence vote in the oil-rich south, a move that could spark new political hostilities.

"Reneging on the agreement ... undermines the peace process, jeopardizes Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) implementation and risks sparking renewed hostilities between the parties," the department said in a statement.

It also expressed deep concern about Sudan's revised national security act, which it said contained no new measures for accountability of the security services ahead of the independence vote and a separate national election next year.

"For elections to be credible, it is incumbent on the regime to demonstrate in word and deed that this law will not be used to arrest and detain political opponents," the statement said.

"The government of Sudan must also make immediate and significant improvements to the electoral environment, including permitting peaceful demonstrations, ending press censorship and allowing opposition voices to be heard."

The Obama administration in October renewed economic sanctions on Khartoum but also offered new incentives to end violence in Darfur and the semi-autonomous south.

While critics said the new policy was not tough enough, U.S. officials stressed there would be significant consequences if Khartoum failed to make democratic changes.

20091223

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Uganda will soften its proposed anti-gay legislation, but the government denied on Wednesday that it was bowing to an outcry in the West over a controversial bill that could have seen homosexuals put to death.

Ethics and Integrity Minister Nsaba Buturo told Reuters that the revised law would now probably limit the maximum penalty for offenders to life in prison rather than execution.

"There have been a lot of discussions in government ... regarding the proposed law, but we now think a life sentence could be better because it gives room for offenders to be rehabilitated," he said in an interview.

"Killing them might not be helpful."

Uganda, long a darling of donors for its stable economy and widespread economic reforms, has come under intense pressure from Western nations to ease its anti-gay stance.

Under the original proposal "serial offenders", and those who commit "aggravated homosexuality", faced a death sentence.

Now the east African nation appears to have heeded condemnation from Western governments as well as international Christian and community leaders.

Buturo denied the change in government attitude had been forced by Western censure. "It's really out of our consultation with various groups, including religious leaders. It has nothing to do with external forces," he said.

20091223
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Comments by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that President Laurent Gbagbo is expected to win Ivory Coast's election next year have provoked an angry reaction from Ivorian opposition politicians.

Kouchner was quoted by French media on Monday as saying that Gbagbo was in line to win the vote, which is seen as crucial to reuniting a country deeply divided by a 2002-3 civil war.

The polls have been repeatedly delayed since 2005 but are now scheduled for around the beginning of March next year.

"I think the Ivorian head of state, Laurent Gbagbo, is expected to win it," Kouchner was quoted as saying.

In comments published on Wednesday in the state-owned Fraternite Matin, Sanogo Mamadou, secretary to opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara's party, condemned the remarks.

"It's not France who elects the Ivorian president and Bernard Kouchner is not an Ivorian voter," he wrote.

"If he'd said the opposite, the French embassy would have been trashed," he added, referring to the pro-Gbagbo "Young Patriots" who attacked French property and citizens in late 2004 after French peacekeepers destroyed Ivorian war planes.

France's close relationship with various leaders of its former colonies has often caused resentment.

Gbagbo's party, despite having accused France of backing rebels trying to oust him in the past, was more conciliatory.

"That a foreign minister from a country like France says Gbagbo will win ... should help sceptics to realise that he really is going to," said Sokouri Bohui, Gbagbo's party secretary.

20091223

GENEVA (Reuters) - Campaign groups from around the world, including many from Africa, have urged the United Nations to restore the post of U.N. rights monitor to the Democratic Republic of Congo, saying the situation there is dire.

The Geneva-based U.N. Watch said a total of 50 groupings had signed the appeal to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and human rights chief Navi Pillay.

The appeal, issued late on Tuesday, said signatories were "appalled to learn of the serious violations committed by the Congolese government in recent weeks" which they said included summary executions, torture, arbitrary arrests and rape.

They said a permanent U.N. monitor should be able to help remedy what they called "the dire situation" in the mineral rich country, where various national, local and outside factions are fighting in the east.

The Congo monitor -- formally called a special rapporteur -- was abolished by the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva in March 2008 at the request of the Congo government, backed by the developing country majority in the body.

A new report on the situation in the former Zaire by a U.N. Group of Experts is to be discussed by the Security Council in New York, and the appeal signatories said it showed the situation there was "increasingly precarious".

The group's report, the appeal said, "describes unchecked impunity and a complete lack of transparency regarding government exploitation of national resources".

In an earlier report, U.N. monitor on extrajudicial execution Philip Alston said civilians in the east, often the target of rebels, "have also been gang-raped or shot to death by the Congolese army ... which is supposed to protect them".

On Monday, the international humanitarian group Doctors without Borders put violence against civilians in the east of Congo as number one on its list of the world's worst 10 humanitarian crises.

The African human rights groups signing the appeal included bodies from Congo itself and its neighbouring Congo Republic, Nigeria, Liberia, Cameroon, Senegal, Zambia and Burkina Faso. Others included groups in Europe, the United States and Mexico.

20091223

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Foreign donors must invest hundreds of millions of dollars and better coordinate an array of Congolese military reform plans before the United Nations can start cutting back on its vast but troubled peacekeeping force.

Congo's President Joseph Kabila, who is likely to stand for re-election in 2011, wants the world body's largest peacekeeping force to have an exit strategy by mid-2010, the mineral-rich giant's 50th anniversary since independence from Belgian.

But Congo's continued reliance on U.N. troops to help tackle violence, whether a new rebellion in the west or years of sustained fighting in the east, underscores the failings of piecemeal efforts to turn rebel and pro-government armed groups into a cohesive national army.

"The lack of strong, disciplined security services is at the core of the conflict in the Congo," said Congo analyst Jason Stearns, who is writing a book on Congo's last two wars.

Despite deals to end the 1998-2003 war and a mostly peaceful election in 2006, which Kabila won with vows to consolidate peace, various rebellions simmer across Congo's east, where hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting and reports of widespread abuses by government troops.

Kinshasa's army of an estimated 150,000 soldiers regularly calls on the U.N.'s nearly 20,000-strong force for everything from training and food to fire support from helicopter gunships and help moving soldiers and ammunition during battles.

But Stearns said many in government have vested interests in keeping the army weak as it allows them to use units to protect mines and smuggling networks they run in the east.

"Any attempts at security sector reform must tackle this core problem - there is no sense in reforming isolated brigades and then inserting them into the same, corrupt system."

20091223

LONDON (Reuters) - Ships using the Indian Ocean will not receive the same level of naval protection from pirates as those in the Gulf of Aden because military resources are tight, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.

Somali pirates have made tens of millions of dollars in ransoms by hijacking ships in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia.

In a letter this month to maritime union Nautilus International and seen by Reuters, Miliband said pirates were focusing more on the Indian Ocean and operating further out at sea due to the success of naval operations in the Gulf of Aden.

"Ultimately, however, it will not be possible on practical and resource grounds to provide the level of military security and protection in the Indian Ocean as can be provided in the Gulf of Aden," Miliband wrote.

His comments were a rare public acknowledgement by a British politician of the limitations of the anti-piracy operation.

Foreign navies have been deployed off the Gulf of Aden since the turn of the year and have operated convoys as well as setting up and monitoring a transit corridor for ships to pass through vulnerable points.

But their forces have been stretched over the vast expanses of water including the Indian Ocean, leaving vessels vulnerable.

Britain's Royal Navy had deployed ships this year as part of the European Union anti-piracy force off the Horn of Africa country's coast. The EU mission numbers 7 ships at present.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Arab League chief and former Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa has ruled out running for president of Egypt in elections due to be held in late 2011.

Moussa, who had been tipped as a possible candidate, said in an interview published in Al Masry Al Youm newspaper on Wednesday it was not possible to mount a challenge.

"The question is, is it possible? And the answer is, the road is closed," he said.

Speculation has mounted over who will succeed 81-year-old President Hosni Mubarak, who is expected to seek another term in 2011, health permitting. Mubarak's 45-year son Gamal has been tipped as a possible successor.

Moussa, aged 73 and praised by many Egyptians and Arabs for criticism of both Israel and past U.S. Middle East policies, was quoted in October as not ruling out such a bid.

Analysts say constitutional rules make an independent nomination almost impossible.

If Moussa were to run as an independent, he would need the backing of 250 elected representatives across both houses of parliament and local councils -- all of which are dominated by Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party.

"I cannot join a party just because it would enable me to be nominated . . . it is against my principles and I consider this to be clear political opportunism," Moussa said.

Running as a independent was a "difficult matter or even impossible," he added.

PORT HARCOURT/YENEGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Security forces have deployed in two cities in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta in the past two days to disperse former militants protesting over the non-payment of amnesty allowances.

Activists say the government is not keeping the promises it made during an amnesty period earlier this year and that the region, which is home to Africa's biggest oil and gas industry, risks returning to violence.

More than half a dozen armoured vehicles and four truckloads of armed police deployed in the Amarata neighbourhood of Yenegoa, capital of Bayelsa state, on Wednesday to disperse former militants demanding stipends, a Reuters witness said.

The men said they were owed 300,000 naira each promised in return for laying down their weapons earlier this year, but that the government had failed to pay up.

Similar protests broke out in Warri, the main oil city in neighbouring Delta state, on Tuesday with scores of former fighters loyal to ex-militant leader Government Tompolo demonstrating outside the guest house where he is staying before they were dispersed by the security forces.

"The ex-militants are already feeling used and abandoned. Their allowances are not paid as and when due and they are blaming their leaders for their woes," said Akinaka Richard, head of Grassroots Initiative for Peace and Democracy, a rights group based in the main Niger Delta hub of Port Harcourt.

"The (former militant) leaders themselves are beginning to feel that the government wants to turn their boys against them. Some of the ex-militants feel betrayed by their leaders and the amnesty committee that rehabilitation camps were not provided."

Militant attacks on the oil industry in the vast wetlands region have prevented the OPEC member from pumping much above two thirds of its 3 million barrels per day (bpd) production capacity, costing it an estimated $1 billion a month.

20091223

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on the Horn of Africa state of Eritrea on Wednesday because of aid that council members say it has given to Islamist insurgents in nearby Somalia.

A resolution supported by 13 of the 15 council members slapped an arms embargo and asset freezes and travel bans on Eritrea and individuals and firms to be designated by an existing sanctions committee. Those hit would include members of the country's leadership.

Libya, which has no veto in the council, voted against the resolution, while veto-holder China abstained.

20091223

HARARE (Reuters) - Swiss food company Nestle has suspended operations in Zimbabwe, complaining of harassment after it pulled out of a deal to buy milk from a farm taken over by President Robert Mugabe's family.

Nestle said it received an unannounced visit from government officials and police on December 19 and was forced to accept a milk delivery from non-contracted suppliers. Two of its managers were questioned by police and released without charge the same day.

"Since under such circumstances normal operations and the safety of employees are no longer guaranteed, Nestle decided to temporarily shut down the facility," the world's largest food group said in a statement.

The decision marks a setback for the unity government formed by Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, his old rival, in an effort to persuade foreign investors it is safe to return and help rebuild a state ruined by a decade of decline.

Addressing a joint press conference with Tsvangirai, where the former foes gave an upbeat assessment of the unity government, Mugabe said he did not have details of Nestle's plant closure, before joking: "You like their chocolates?"

Tsvangirai, however, expressed concerns over the development, which he said undermined efforts to rebuild investor confidence.

"It is unfortunate that this is happening at a time when we want to attract investment and create jobs. The (Industry and Commerce) minister is talking to all the directors so it (Nestle) opens and even expands," Tsvangirai said.

"Shutting down a plant is overreaction, which is unnecessary."

JOHANNESBURG, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- More than 200 illegal miners have been nabbed by South African police in the country's Mpumulanga province and more arrests are expected, the South African Press Association reported on Wednesday.

Capt. Leonard Hlathi said operations running over the last two weeks had now seen over 200 illegal miners arrested at Fairview mine in Barberton.

The arrestees include 38 teenagers ages 14 to 17 who were taken at the gold mine.

"The operation is continuing. It is suspected more people are hiding under there and mining security is busy receiving them."

Legal miners raised the alert on their illegal counterparts after reporting that "they have got people that they don't know underground," Hlathi was quoted as saying.

Those arrested underground are charged with trespassing. Those found coming out of the mine with gold are charged with the possession of illegal gold.

Hlathi said illegal miners spent long periods underground – up to three months. During this time they would not come up, but instead brought their own food and water to sustain them throughout the period.

Earlier this year, 19 bodies of illegal miners were retrieved at the Fairview mine.

JOHANNESBURG, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- A Canadian couple hiking in South Africa's Hermanus was stabbed before being robbed, the Western Cape police reported on Wednesday.

Inspector November Filander told the South African Press Association that two men stoned, stabbed and robbed the couple, a 59-year-old man and a 57-year-old woman, of their jewelry and digital cameras on Tuesday morning.

A group of hikers found the couple tied up with their shoelaces in serious condition and rushed them to hospital for treatment. Police searched the area, but did not find the robbers.

MANILA, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- A senior Somali government official assured Wednesday that they will do their best to facilitate the immediate release of the remaining 56 Filipino hostages being held by ransom-seeking pirates off Somalia.

"We're working hard to ensure the release of the seafarers. We'll do the best we can do," visiting Somalia Deputy Prime Minister Abdurahman Aden Ibrahim Ibbi said in a press briefing here.

Since late 2008, more than 200 Filipino seamen have been abducted by ransom-seeking pirates off Somali waters.

As a policy, the Philippine government does not negotiate nor pay ransom to kidnappers. But it gives ship owners the free hand in negotiating for the release of abducted Filipino sailors.

The Philippines is the world's biggest source of ship crew. Over 350,000 Filipino sailors, or about a fifth of the world's seafarers, are working in oil tankers, luxury liners and passenger vessels worldwide.