20091205

JOHANNESBURG, Dec. 5 (Xinhua) -- Namibia's ruling SWAPO party clinched its fifth straight landslide victory in last week's presidential and parliamentary elections and President Hifikepunye Pohamba was re-elected, the South African Press Association cited Namibia's Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) as announcing on Friday evening.

SWAPO won 74 percent of the votes against 11.4 percent for the newly-formed Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), the ECN said.

The RDP, which was formed by former cabinet minister Hidipo Hamutenya and other former SWAPO stalwarts two years ago, had been expected to make far greater inroads, but still became the official opposition of the country.

The RDP has said it suspected the ECN of tampering with the results, saying the slow counting of votes from the November 27-28elections made it suspicious, the report said.

The RDP and seven other opposition parties said they would institute legal actions against the ECN for alleged irregularities.

In the presidential poll, Pohamba won a little over 76 percent of the votes, giving him a second five-year term. Hamutenya trailed in second place with around 10 percent.

The former liberation movement SWAPO has ruled Namibia, an country of around 2 million people, since 1990. The party is popular among many voters for maintaining peace and stability among the 13 ethnic groupings in the country.

20091205

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - A 68-year old German photographer is expected to appear in a Cape Town court following hoax threats against the draw for next year's soccer World Cup, South African police said on Saturday.

The German, who cannot be named until he is officially charged, was one of two people arrested on Friday for separate false bomb threats.

"The two suspects arrested in connection with bomb threats are still in police custody," national police spokesman Vishnu Naidoo said.

"Both suspects are likely to be charged with contravening the Explosives Act by making fake bomb threats. The German will appear in court on Monday unless he makes an urgent bail application," Naidoo said.

One of the main entrances to the Cape Town Convention Centre, where hundreds of dignitaries and soccer stars appeared to attend the final draw, was clogged on Friday when the photographer dropped a bag he claimed contained a bomb and fled.

A 45-year-old South African man was also arrested after making two hoax calls warning of a bomb at Cape Town's international airport.

Naidoo said no incidents of violence or criminality were reported at a World Cup draw street party attended by a larger-than-expected crowd of an estimated 50,000 local and foreign fans.

Police had anticipated a modest 15,000 fans would converge on Long Street, the scene of the main final draw party.

"This was a fantastic opportunity to implement strategies and it was executed successfully," said Naidoo. Police had deployed 1,000 members to ensure safety.

20091205

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - An estimated one million World Cup tickets were made available on Saturday in the latest phase of sales for the 2010 finals amid fears not enough tickets were being bought by the South African hosts because of the cost.

About 90 percent of the previously available tickets have been sold, but FIFA and local organisers are having to implement an aggressive marketing campaign to entice more sales to locals.

South African residents have bought just over half of the 674,403 tickets already sold in the first two phases of sales, soccer's governing body said.

"What we have to do now is to keep that passion and support for the World Cup alive, not just in terms of what happens on the field but also in terms of selling tickets," South Africa 2010 chief executive officer Danny Jordaan said after Friday's draw in Cape Town.

The slower pace of sales in South Africa contrasts with the demand for the last finals in Germany, where an average of six applications were received for each available ticket.

Jordaan said his compatriots had a habit of buying tickets for sports events at the last minute, though prices have been set much higher than that normally paid by South African fans.

The cheapest World Cup ticket is US$20 while to attend local premier league matches costs around US$3.

The tickets released on Saturday would be made available through a random ballot with international fans applying though the Internet, while locals could make applications at bank branches. Applications close on January 22.

20091205

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - The security chief for next year's soccer World Cup promised on Saturday the event would be safe, despite South Africa's reputation as one of the most violent countries in the world.

South Africa has 50 murders a day, more than the United States with six times the population, and high rates of rape and other violent crimes.

These statistics have aroused concern over the safety of around 450,000 visitors expected for the soccer spectacular.

But the event security chief, Deputy National Commissioner Andre Pruis, told reporters: "My message is, come to a safe World Cup."

Pruis said South Africa had successfully guarded more events over the last nine months "possibly than another other security commander in the world would secure in their lifetime."

These included general and local elections last April, the inauguration of president Jacob Zuma, the Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament -- moved at short notice to South Africa because of security fears in India -- last June's Confederations Cup, a dress rehearsal for the 2010 tournament, and the Champions Trophy cricket competition.

The list concluded with Friday's World Cup draw, which Pruis said had been totally free of incidents despite 50,000 people pouring into a giant street party, more than three times the expected number, and the challenges of guarding the event itself, attended by a string of celebrities and politicians including Zuma.

20091205

CAIRO (Reuters) - Nineteen people have been rescued out of about 30 believed to be on an Egyptian ferry that collided with another ferry and broke apart, officials said on Saturday, a day after the accident.

The two craft hit each other near Rashid city in Beheira governorate in north Egypt.

Initial reports had suggested several dozen passengers and crew may have been missing as the exact number of people on board was unclear. Figures provided on Saturday suggested about 11 were still missing.

One was a passenger ferry that broke apart during the accident while the other, carrying both passengers and cars, overturned causing no injuries or fatalities.

"It is expected that the total number of passengers on the boat that broke is 30," Beheira Governor Mohamed Sharawy told Reuters.

Six of the 19 rescued passengers were injured and were transferred to Rashid hospital in Beheira, the governor said.

"The 15 people on the other boat were all rescued," he added.

Another regional official gave similar figures.

Public river ferries in Egypt can sometimes be crowded and total numbers being carried are not always recorded, making an accurate count of the missing difficult.

20091205

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Two Rwandan peacekeepers were shot dead and one wounded in Sudan's Darfur region on Saturday, in the second deadly attack on their contingent in 24 hours, their force said.

"They were distributing water in a displacement camp when at least one armed man walked up and opened fire without warning. Two of the peacekeepers were killed on the spot," the spokesman for the joint U.N./African Union UNAMID force Kemal Saiki told Reuters.

20091205

KHAYELITSHA, South Africa (Reuters) - On a brand-new soccer field in South Africa's second-largest township, teenage boys and girls kick balls and run round hurdles in games soccer authorities hope will help them avoid the scourge of AIDS.

The centre, officially launched by soccer's world governing body FIFA on Saturday, is the first of 20 "Football for Hope" hubs to be formed across Africa, meant to use the power of football to help children overcome the continent's multitude of social problems.

"There is no need to play football... if you don't do anything for the health of the young people," FIFA President Sepp Blatter said at Saturday's ceremony.

Six of the centres will be in South Africa, the host of next year's World Cup, the rest across the continent.

In Mali and Ghana, they will focus on anti-discrimination, in Rwanda on the building of peace after a devastating genocide in 1994, in Kenya on the environment and health, and in Namibia on social integration.

In Khayelitsha, the centre will be managed by Grassroot Soccer, an organisation founded by former professional football players from neighbouring Zimbabwe.

"We have lost many friends to HIV/AIDS back in Zimbabwe and we know how much it has devastated the society there and how no one was talking about it and realised what a powerful tool football could be," said the organisation's managing director, Kirk Friedrich.

Grassroot Soccer trains coaches, many of them also young people, and in addition to combating AIDS, tries to improve underprivileged children's self-confidence and give them access to resources that will help them get out of the slums.

20091205

CONAKRY (Reuters) - Guinea's capital was on edge on Saturday following a botched assassination attempt on the head of the ruling junta, with residents bracing for further violence between out-of-control army factions.

Pickup trucks carrying heavily armed soldiers moved through the quiet streets of the normally bustling city searching for suspects in the attack, with shops open only part-time and most residents staying indoors.

"The situation is very dangerous. If the president dies of his injuries, that could open the path to violent conflict in this country. This could even mean ethnic clashes," said Kemoko Kaba, a real estate broker in Conakry.

Guinea's mineral wealth has attracted billions of dollars in investments from international miners Rio Tinto, Anglo Gold Ashanti, and RUSAL -- none of which have reported any impact to operations from the instability.

Renegade soldiers on Thursday shot and wounded junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara in a sign of divisions in the army since he took power in a December 2008 coup after the death of strongman leader Lansana Conte.

Camara was evacuated for medical treatment in Morocco and could require surgery due to multiple gunshot wounds, Burkina Faso President Blaise Campaore, whose presidential plane was used to transport Camara, said on Friday.

There was no public update on his health on Saturday.

Rising instability in the West African nation, the world's top supplier of aluminium ore bauxite that has moved from crisis to crisis in recent years, threatens to spill over into a region scarred by a rash of civil wars.

(Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seeks to appoint veteran Nigerian diplomat Ibrahim Gambari, who recently served as top envoy to Myanmar, as the new head of the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

A release by the United Nations Information Centre in Accra and copied to the Xinhua News Agency said Gambari's appointment as the Joint Special Representative of the mission, known as UNAMID, would be effective on Jan. 1, 2010.

He also served as Special Adviser on the International Compact with Iraq and other political issues since March 2007, the same year he was appointed Special Envoy to Myanmar.

The release said prior to that, Gambari was the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs. He was also the Special Adviser on Africa and headed the UN mission in Angola.

From 1999 to 2002, he served as Nigeria's Ambassador to the UN.

UNAMID has been in place in Darfur since the start of last year to try to quell the fighting and humanitarian suffering that has engulfed the region since 2003.

At least 300,000 people are estimated to have died from the conflict and another 2.7 million people remain displaced from their homes.

At full deployment, the mission -- the UN's largest -- is expected to have some 26,000 troops and police officers, but as oflate October, only 19,000 uniformed personnel have been deployed.

The release said earlier this week, a senior UN peacekeeping official warned that the security situation in the war-ravaged Sudan region continued to be unstable, voicing his "extreme concern" over the fate of two abducted UNAMID staff members.

"Car jacking and attacks on humanitarian workers have continued," Assistant-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Edmond Mulet told the Security Council, reminding the 15-member body that the international staff members, who were kidnapped over three months ago, were still in captivity.

Mulet noted that the opening of a new round of UN-backed talks on Nov. 17, in the Qatari capital of Doha, aimed at bringing peace to Darfur, coincided with an escalation of armed clashes involving rebel militia in the region.

He said a number of groups in Darfur, including the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and SLA/AW, continued to express concern over the holding of national elections, slated for April 2010, before a peace agreement was reached.

(Xinhua) -- Madagascan Transitional President Andry Rajoelina threatened his political opponents on Friday to take his responsibility, if their decision would be unpleasant.

"I'll take my responsibility if the three political camps take a decision contrary to the interests of the nation during their meeting in Maputo," said Rajoelina in a statement he signed on Friday.

Rajoelina took this position because he decided not to go to Maputo, the Mozambican capital, with the three political camps, each led by former presidents Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy to resolve the deadlock in the formation of the transitional government.

The three political camps, except that of Rajoelina, have been in Maputo since Thursday and planned to return to the Indian Ocean island country after their meeting on government formation with the International Contact Group.

While proposing to hold a videoconference, Rajoelina decided not to travel to Maputo, saying that it was a shame for him to settle abroad a disagreement on the sharing of some seats between the four protagonists.

Supporters of Rajoelina had a presentiment that the goal of three former presidents in the meeting outside the country was to gather their force to uproot Rajoelina's power.

However, Ravalomanana's camp argued on Wednesday to convince Rajoelina that the Maputo meeting was aimed at resolving the deadlock in the formation of an inclusive transitional government with an equitable distribution of ministerial posts and the establishment of transitional institutions.

Ravalomanana's camp said that the scheduling of elections, the establishment of the Independent National Electoral Commission, the establishment of a monitoring team of all agreements signed by the four protagonists and the operationalization of the co-presidency and presidential council were among other the key issues to be addressed during that last negotiation in Maputo.

(Xinhua) -- Two passenger ferryboats collided Friday on the Nile River in northern Egypt and at least eight people went missing, reported Egypt's MENA news agency.

The following is a chronology of some major ferry accidents occurred in Egypt in recent years:

Dec. 22, 2007 -- A minibus fell into the Nile River as it was trying to board a ferry to move passengers from the eastern bank of the river to the western bank in southern Egyptian governorate of Minya. At least 13 people were killed.

Oct. 14, 2007 -- Also in the governorate of Minya, the ramp connecting a ferry to the land collapsed as people were rushing to get on and off the ferry. Some of the scores of passengers fell into water, and at least 10 of them drowned.

Aug. 18, 2007 -- A boat in which a wedding party was going on sank at night at its moorings in the Nile River, south of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, injuring at least six people.

Feb. 3, 2006 -- The worst tragedy in the Egyptian maritime history occurred on this day. A ferryboat sank in the Red Sea as it was en route from Saudi Arabia to the Egyptian Red Sea port of Safaga, some 600 km southeast of Cairo, killing some 1,033 passengers and injuring about 385. The accident was blamed on fire.

June 20, 2006 -- A small ferry capsized in the Nile River in Asyut, a riverside city in southern Egypt, killing eight out of nine Egyptians on board when the small boat was crossing the river.

(Xinhua) -- About 50 people went missing after two passenger ferryboats collided Friday on the Nile River in northern Egypt, said local Nile News TV.

Earlier, Egypt's MENA news agency said that only eight people were missing.

One Ferryboat was capsized while the other was badly damaged near the Egyptian northern city of Rosetta, according to MENA.

More than 50 people were on board of the two ferryboats, Nile News TV said, adding that six people were injured and a number of people were rescued.

Rescue efforts are under way and the accident is under investigation, Beheira Governor Mohamed Sharawi told MENA.

As one of the worst maritime disaster in Egypt, Al-Salam 98 ferryboat, carrying some 1,400 passengers, caught fire and sank into the Red Sea en route from Saudi port of Dhaba to the Egyptian Red Sea port of Safaga in February 2006. A total of 1,034 people, most of them Egyptians, died in the accident.

(Xinhua) -- Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba has been re-elected after winning 75 percent of the vote in last week's elections, the South African Press Association cited the official results as saying on Friday. Enditem

(Xinhua) -- The United Nations has predicted that the world economy would bounce back next year with a global growth rate of 2.4 percent, but warned of a risk of a double-dip recession if the wrong policies are implemented.

"We're not out of the woods yet," said Rob Vos, Director of Development Policy and Analysis from the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), ahead of the launch next month of the "World Economic Situation and Prospects 2010" (WESP).

A statement issued by the United Nations Information Centre in Accrad on Friday and copied to the Xinhua News Agency, said the UN report credited massive policy stimuli injected worldwide since late 2008 for the expected rebound.

It recommended that the stimuli continued at least until there were clearer signs of a more robust recovery of employment growth and private sector demand.

"This is an important turnaround after the free-fall in world trade, industrial production, asset prices, and global credit availability which threatened to push the global economy into the abyss of a new Great Depression in early 2009," the UN report said.

It noted that while an increasing number of countries showed positive growth since the second quarter of 2009 and the recovery momentum continued to build in the third quarter, "because of the steep downturn in the beginning of the year, world gross product is estimated to fall by 2.2 percent for 2009".

The report warned that "the recovery is uneven and conditions for sustained growth remain fragile".

It noted that firms have mainly begun to restock inventories, rather than respond to stronger consumer or investor demand.

The report also cautioned against potential risks from a widening United States deficit and mounting external debt which could cause a "hard landing of the dollar and cause a new wave of financial instability."

"We're not so much concerned if the dollar weakens further," Vos told reporters at UN Headquarters in New York. "What we're concerned with the volatility. That's bound to upset markets and will make markets more reluctant to supply credit."

According to the report, economic growth next year would be strongest in developing countries, particularly in China and India, which were expected to grow at 8.8 and 6.5 percent respectively.

However, it said this growth should not be interpreted as progress in poverty reduction.

While fewer developing countries in 2010 are expected to suffer declining per capita incomes, fewer countries would also achieve the threshold economic growth rate of three percent or more, the minimum needed to ensure substantial poverty reduction.

The report will be released in entirety on Jan. 15, 2010.

WESP is an annual publication produced by DESA, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the five UN Regional Commissions.

(Xinhua) -- A global development agency, ActionAid, warned on Friday that a weak deal in Copenhagen would be the worst possible outcome for the one in six people going hungry around the world today.

According to the agency, with just days to go before the start of talks scheduled to create a comprehensive agreement on climate change, the risk of a weak deal is very real.

"Any form of agreement that doesn't ensure that rich countries make ambitious cuts to their emissions and provide developing countries with billions of dollars of new money will fail to tackle climate change or reduce hunger," said Tom Sharman, ActionAid's Climate Justice Coordinator.

"Rich countries need to begin to repay their climate debt -- which has been building up since the industrial revolution -- by cutting their emissions by at least 40 percent by 2020 against 1990 levels," he added in a statement.

"They also need to come up with a minimum of 200 billion U.S. dollars a year by 2020 to enable developing countries to adapt to climate change and chart low-emission pathways out of poverty, including through investment in sustainable, climate-resilient agriculture."

Harvest failures due to increased droughts and floods have already helped to push more than a billion into chronic malnourishment.

Action to tackle climate change fairly and effectively is essential to stop hunger spiraling further out of control in coming years, ActionAid said.

With yields already forecast to decline by up to 50 percent in some African countries within the next decade, smallholder farmers who grow most of the food in developing countries are one of the most vulnerable groups on the planet.

"We urgently need a shift out of industrialized agriculture dependent on fossil-fuel based inputs toward low-input, climate resilient organic farming that reduces output of greenhouse gases," said Harjeet Singh, emergency advisor with ActionAid India.

Unless governments shift investment and focus towards sustainable, low-input farming, agricultural emissions are set to rise almost 30 percent by 2020, mainly due to increased fertilizeruse in the developing world, according to Britain's Stern Commission.

"There is still time for a climate-saving deal but Copenhagen will not produce one without a radical re-think by rich countries," added Singh.

And to make the point about climate debt, ActionAid's climate debt agents, dressed in red suits, will be on the streets of Copenhagen making their presence felt. Watch out for them.

Guinea has raised security levels in the capital, Conakry, after the country's de facto president survived an assassination attempt by the head of his own presidential guard.

Residents reported that soldiers were deployed to guard strategic points across the capital on Friday.

Moussa Dadis Camara, who took power in a bloodless coup last year, was only "slightly wounded" in the attack, the government said.

"The government can offer the assurance that the situation is under control," an official said on state television, following the attack on Thursday.

But Youssouf Bah, a Guinean journalist, told Al Jazeera that Camara had been shot in the head. Guinea's communication minister denied that the de facto president had received any head injuries.

Camara arrived at a Moroccan military airport on Friday and is expected to receive medical treatment, government officials told Reuters.

Officials identified Aboubacar Toumba Diakite, the head of the presidential guard and a close aide to Camara, as having opened fire on the president during a visit to a military camp in Conakry.

'In hiding'

Those who "orchestrated this insurrection will be punished", Idrissa Cherif, Guinea's communications minister said on Thursday, adding that Diakite "has been found".

But later reports said Diakite had gone into hiding.

"He is in a safe house," a source in Diakite's entourage said, and a military official confirmed the report.

The attack came as UN investigators in Conakry wound up an inquiry into a bloody crackdown by security forces on pro-democracy protesters gathered inside the capital's national stadium.

Diakite is accused of being the leading figure in the September 28 incident in which more than 150 people were killed and scores of women raped, according to witnesses.

Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege, reporting from Nairobi, said some sort of dispute had apparently broken out between Camara and Diakite over whether Diakite would be arrested in connection with the massacre.

One diplomat in the city said: "What we are hearing is that they either arrested [Diakite] or were going to arrest him and he shot at [Camara]. There is no doubt that this is linked to the investigation."

Political rift

Diakite, as well as Camara and several others, may face charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

The assassination attempt underscores the deep rifts within the military which took control of the nation of 10 million on Africa's western coast 11 months ago.

Camara had initially promised to quickly organise elections, but later said he planned to run for office himself in presidential elections scheduled for January 10, prompting the peaceful rally in September.

The government has denied all wrongdoing and blamed opposition leaders for going ahead with the banned protest.

The September massacre led the European Union and the African Union to impose sanctions on Guinea including weapons embargoes, visa bans and freezes on foreign bank assets.

Al Jazeera

Namibia's ruling party has won the majority of votes in the country's parliamentary polls, final results have shown.

South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) won 75.27 per cent of the vote and returned President Hifikepunye Pohamba for the second term in office after securing 76.4 per cent of the presidential vote, according to official results released on Friday.

The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), the ruling party's nearest rival, won 11.31 per cent of the vote.

The vote, which consisted of 107 contested constituencies, resulted from a final count of 811,143 votes, revealing a 54-seat win for SWAPO out of 72 possible seats in the National Assembly, just one less than its previous victory in 2005.

The RDP, which broke away from the ruling party in 2007, took eight seats.

Election results rejected

Earlier on Friday, the RDP and seven other opposition parties rejected the results of the elections and said they would file a court challenge.

The parties instructed their legal teams to institute proceedings against the Electoral Commission of Namibia "for contravening the electoral law of the country," they said.

While African observers of the elections have pronounced them free and fair, opposition parties also complained about not being adequately informed about the vote verification process.

Hifikepunye Pohamba, Namibia's re-elected president, has been in power since 2005 but his SWAPO party has maintained a majority of seats in parliament since the country received its independence from South Africa in 1990.

Namibia has enjoyed political stability and economic growth, but is struggling in the face of rising poverty, unemployment and widening cracks in its once highly regarded health care and school systems, further exacerbated by the global recession.

aljazeera

20091204



A spokesman for al-Shabab, a Somali group opposed to the country's transitional government, has denied responsibility for a suicide bombing in the capital that killed at least 23 people.

Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said on Friday that his group did not target civilians and accused the government of being behind the attack, which also injured at least 40.

"We declare that al-Shabab did not mastermind that explosion ... It is not in the nature of al-Shabab to target innocent people," Rage was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.

"We know that some so-called government officials left the scene of the explosion just minutes before the attack. That is why it is clear that they were behind the killing."

Three ministers were among those killed in the attack at a graduation ceremony for medical students in Mogadishu on Thursday.

Attacker 'wore disguise'

A suicide bomber disguised as a woman carried out the attack at the Shamo hotel, Dahir Mohamud Gelle, the Somali information minister, said.

A security official told the AFP news agency most of the dead were believed to be students.

Of the three ministers killed in the blast, one was a woman - Qamar Aden Ali, the health minister.

Ibrahim Hassan Adow, the minister for higher education, and Ahmed Abdullahi Wayel, the minister for education, also died.

Also among the dead were two journalists and two professors. More than 40 people were wounded in the attack.

Mohammed Ali Nur, the Somali ambassador to Kenya, told Al Jazeera: "What we understand is that someone blew himself up at the ceremony and the attack aimed to target government officials. We appeal to the international community to help our country in this time of need," he said.

Rashid Abdi, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera from Kenya that despite al-Shabab's denial of responsibility, a faction within the organisation could have carried out the attack without the knowledge of the rest of the group.

"This may have been a strategic mistake for them because civilians were casualties. There was a great deal of revulsion by the public, and the pictures coming out of Mogadishu have shocked many Somalis," he said.

"I think that is why al-Shabab may have rushed out a media statement saying they are not involved - because this will seriously undermine their credibility."

'Cowardly attack'

The UN Security Council condemned the attack, while calling on groups in Somalia opposed to the transitional government to disarm immediately.

A statement approved late on Thursday by all 15 council members said that it supported the Somali people "in their quest for peace and reconciliation" and the UN-backed government "as the legitimate authority in Somalia".

The African Union (AU) said that the "inhumane and cowardly attack would not deter the resolve and determination of the African Union to support the people of Somalia in their quest for peace and reconciliation".

Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, said in a statement: "I condemn in the strongest possible terms this cowardly attack against civilians including students, doctors and journalists."

Ashton also assured the transitional Somali government of the "EU's determination and commitment to support its efforts to fight extremism and reconstruct a peaceful Somalia".

Al-Shabab and other anti-government groups regularly attack government troops and AU peacekeepers, in efforts to force them out of the country.

Al-Shabab and allied groups control much of southern and central Somalia and want to impose their version of sharia, or Islamic law, in the country.

Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991, when Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown by armed groups who then turned on each other.

aljazeera

20091204

REUTERS - A spokesman for Somalia’s al Shabaab rebels denied on Friday that the group was behind a suicide bombing at a graduation ceremony in the capital that killed at least 22 people, including three government ministers.

Students and their parents were among the dead in Thursday’s attack, the worst in the failed Horn of Africa state for five months.

Suspicion had fallen on the al Shabaab insurgent group which is battling the Western-backed government to impose its harsh interpretation of Islamic law across the country.

“We declare that al Shabaab did not mastermind that explosion ... we believe it is a plot by the government itself,” al Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told reporters. “It is not in the nature of al Shabaab to target innocent people.”

Rage said serious political rifts had emerged between senior figures in President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s fragile administration, which controls just a few areas of Mogadishu.

“You know there is a power struggle ... that has been going on a long time,” he said.

“We know some so-called government officials left the scene of the explosion just minutes before the attack. That is why it is clear that they were behind the killing.”

The United States accuses al Shabaab, the only Somali rebel group to have launched suicide attacks in the past, of being al Qaeda’s proxy in the drought-ravaged country.

Western security agencies say Somalia has become a safe haven for militants, including foreign jihadists, who are using it to plot attacks across the impoverished region and beyond.

New offensive

Witnesses said Thursday’s bombing at the city’s Shamo Hotel was carried out by a man disguised as a veiled woman.

He entered the ceremony, packed with graduates of Benadir University’s medical school, their relatives and government officials before approaching the podium and blowing himself up.

In June, al Shabaab said it was behind a suicide bombing in Baladwayne town that killed Somalia’s security minister and at least 30 other people. Then in September it struck the heart of the African Union’s main military base in Mogadishu with twin suicide car bombs, killing 17 peacekeepers.

Ahmed’s government had been preparing for a broad new offensive against the rebels in recent weeks, and Thursday’s carnage looked sure to heighten its frustration over delayed pledges of military and financial support from Western donors.

Fighting has killed at least 19,000 Somali civilians since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes. The chaos has also spilled offshore, where heavily armed Somali pirates have made tens of millions of dollars in ransoms.

Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke denounced Thursday’s attack as “beneath contempt”, but he said it would not deter the government from fighting the extremists.

“The loss of our ministers is disastrous, but it is an outrage to target the graduation of medical students and kill those whose only aim in life was to help those most in need in our stricken country,” Sharmarke said in a statement.

“This extremist violence is no different from that which we see in other troubled parts of the world, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and we call for urgent help from the international community to prevent the further rise of al Shabaab.”

20091204



REUTERS - Two Nile river passenger ferries collided on Friday in northern Egypt, with up to 38 people feared missing when one boat broke in half and the other overturned, security and ambulance sources said.

They said at least a dozen people survived the accident near the northern city of Rachid, but there were contradictory reports over how many people may have gone missing.

Security sources put the number of missing people at between 14 and 38, while Egypt's official state news agency quoted the governor of Beheira province as saying that six to eight people were missing. Security sources had earlier put the number at 80.

Public river ferries in Egypt can sometimes be crowded, but authorities do not always record passenger numbers, making an accurate count of the missing difficult.

The two ferries were heading to Rashid city. One was a passenger ferry that broke apart during the accident while the other, carrying both passengers and cars, overturned causing no injuries or fatalities.

A series of road, rail and sea accidents in Egypt in recent years have triggered an outcry over the government's handling of transport safety.

In February 2006, a ferry in the Red Sea caught fire and sank en route to Egypt from Saudi Arabia, killing 1,034 of the 1,400 people on board, many of them poor Egyptians.

An Egyptian appeals court in March this year found the owner of the ferry guilty of manslaughter and sentenced him to seven years in jail, reversing an earlier court decision exonerating Mamdouh Ismail, a member of Egypt's upper house of parliament.

Transport Minister Mohamed Mansour resigned in October over a train crash south of Cairo which killed 18 people.