KINSHASA, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of the wreckage on Lake Maindombe in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hit more than 40 and survivors numbered 257, local radio reported on Sunday, citing a local official.

Maindombe district commissioner Medard Amundala told the radio that it was difficult to give the final death toll since the search by the Red Cross was still on and therefore no one can say exactly how many people were found on board the boat without concrete evidence.

"At the moment, there are 45 dead people spread on the village sand at Isendiya Ndamba. Close to 33 bodies were recovered in the locality of Kwamuth. They are still lying on the lake. Four bodies have already been buried at Kotemenge. Seven bodies were buried at Inongo and one body was buried at Isongo," he declared.

After a boat owned by the SODIFOR company of the DRC capsized on Nov. 25 on Lake Maindombe, there have been conflicting reports about the death toll.

The Red Cross office in the country reported 73 deaths and 276 survivors, while a witness of the accident, Ewuya Bokana, talked on radio about 90 deaths and approximately 350 survivors.

Amundala, who had paid a visit to the scene of the wreckage, called on the provincial and national authorities to come to the aid of the survivors who are camping at Inongo, the district headquarters.

According to local authorities, no information has been presented to them whether the boat was prohibited from transporting people.

The district authorities have decided to launch an investigation to determine the cause of the wreckage.

AFP - Three Spanish humanitarian workers were kidnapped in northwestern Mauritania on the road linking the capital Nouakchott to the city of Nouadhibou, officials and aid workers said.

The three Spanish nationals, "two men and a woman, were travelling in a car, the last vehicle of a convoy that was heading from Nouadhibou to Nouakchott" when they were attacked on Sunday afternoon, a Spanish diplomat said.

The convoy had earlier delivered aid to Nouadhibou and was transporting donations that they intended to drop off in various towns along the route, the diplomat added.

A Mauritanian security source confirmed the kidnapping, adding the kidnappers fired several shots to force the vehicle to stop and then took the Spaniards away in a 4x4 vehicle.

A spokesman for the Spanish humanitarian group Barcelona-Accio Solidaria confirmed the three were members of their association and named them as Albert Vilalta, Alicia Gamez and Roque Pascual.

"The found all the supplies only the people were gone," said the spokesman, adding "we don't know anything more, if they were bandits or had any political motives."

A Spanish humanitarian worker based in Mauritania, Montse Bosch, was able to speak by telephone with some of the other members of the aid convoy following the kidnapping.

"A group of armed men stopped and then took them, leaving their vehicle in place and without touching any of the supplies, luggage or money contained in the car," she said.

Bosch said Barcelona-Accio Solidaria is part of the Caravana Solidaria, or Solidarity Caravan, which distributes aid in Mauritania and other African countries in the region.

The attack took place near the town of Chelkhett Legtouta, 170 kilometres (106 miles) north of Nouakchott, according to the Mauritanian security source.

Mauritanian army units in the area were searching for the kidnappers, the source added, and reinforcements had been sent to the area.

Mauritania, a vast country of three million people, has been hit by a number of attacks since 2007 claimed by the north African branch of Al-Qaeda.

The incident came days after a French citizen was kidnapped in the northeast of neighbouring Mali, which according to a Malian security source are being held by Al-Qaeda militants.

Several Westerners have been kidnapped in recent months in Africa's Sahel region and transported to northern Mali before being freed.

In June, however, the Al-Qaeda militants announced on a website that they had beheaded Briton Edwin Dyer because London would not meet their demands. It was believed to be the first time the group had killed a Western hostage.

MALABO (Reuters) - Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema won 96.7 percent in the central African's election, according to provisional results on Monday of a poll widely criticised for falling short of democratic standards.

The figure was published on the government's website after returns from around a quarter of voting stations. Obiang came to power in the oil-producing central African nation 30 years ago and is now set for a further seven-year term.

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's main opposition party demanded a fixed schedule for staging the presidential election on Sunday, the latest in a string of missed target dates for a poll that is now over four years late.

President Laurent Gbagbo was due to hold an election in 2005 but has cited a variety of technical problems in going ahead with the poll, most recently plagued by confusion over whether around 1 million residents are eligible to vote.

Analysts say the delays have prolonged a political deadlock dating back to the 2003 civil war that is stopping vital reforms to the world's largest cocoa industry and unnerving potential investors in West Africa's former economic powerhouse.

"Since October 2005, our country has been governed by a president without a mandate," Alphonse Djedje Mady, general secretary of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) told supporters at a meeting in Abidjan.

Mady called on other parties to join it in demanding that the Ivorian electoral commission rapidly set a new election target date and ensure it was finally met.

PDCI candidate and former president Henri Konan Bedie is tipped as Gbagbo's nearest rival, with former prime minister Alassane Ouattara closely behind him.

No new date has been set for the election after it was acknowledged this month that the poll would not go ahead as planned. Some observers predict that it could take months to resolve the inevitable disputes over voter eligibility.

BUJUMBURA (Reuters) - Burundi's FNL political party has elected former rebel leader Agathon Rwasa as its candidate for the 2010 presidential elections.

The tiny central African country of 8 million people is emerging from more than a decade of civil war that killed 300,000 people.

"If I am lucky enough to be elected president of the republic, I will govern for every Burundian regardless of ethnic or political group to which someone belongs," Rwasa told reporters late on Sunday.

"The time of taking power by force is over. Now is the time for dialogue and democracy," he said after a two-day meeting of FNL leaders.

Former president Domitien Ndayizeye has also been chosen by his FRODEBU party as candidate.

The Palipehutu Forces for National Liberation (FNL) was Burundi's last rebel group. It had been fighting to end years of political dominance by the Tutsi ethnic group in the tiny central African nation.

During implementation of the peace deal, FNL insisted on the political name "Palipehutu", which means party for the liberation of Hutus. The government rejected the demand, saying Burundi's constitution does not allow parties with ethnic affiliations.

PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - Commonwealth states representing a third of the world's people said on Sunday momentum was growing towards a global climate deal, but nagging doubts remained over funding levels and degrees of commitment.

Seeking to successfully tip the outcome of U.N. climate talks on December 7-18 in Copenhagen, the group of more than 50 nations from across the world made the climate change issue the centerpiece of a three-day summit in Trinidad and Tobago.

They declared firm support for an "operationally binding" deal to be achieved in Copenhagen that would cover tougher greenhouse gas emissions targets, climate adaptation financing for poorer nations and transfer of clean-energy technology.

The Commonwealth group, which welcomed Rwanda as its 54th member, called for a full legally binding climate treaty to be adopted "no later than 2010" and insisted fast funding be made available to poor states to counter the global warming threat.

Commonwealth leaders hailed the consensus achieved in their Port of Spain Climate Change Declaration as improving the odds for a comprehensive agreement in Copenhagen and as proof that their geographically diverse group was a viable institution.

"There is heavy traffic on the road to Copenhagen. The good news is that it is converging and hopefully moving purposefully into a single lane," Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma said in comments closing the Port of Spain summit.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the presidents of Denmark and France, had participated in the Commonwealth summit, adding weight to the group's climate deliberations.

"I have no doubt it will make an impact on Copenhagen," South African President Jacob Zuma told reporters.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Africa will have a record total of six teams in Friday's draw for the World Cup finals and there are high expectations for the continent.

Five nations went through the qualification process and hosts South Africa were given an automatic berth for the first finals on African soil.

The emergence of top-class players such as Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto'o and Michael Essien has led to the continent's increased sense of expectation.

Cameroon will be competing at an African-record sixth finals and Nigeria play for the fourth time.

Algeria and South Africa have been to two previous World Cups but the region's best hopes could rest with Ghana and Ivory Coast, who both participate for only the second time.

Brazilian great Pele and former England manager Walter Winterbottom predicted Africa would produce a World Cup winner by the end of the 20th century but the region is still waiting to get a team to the semi-finals.

The best performance by an African side has come from Cameroon and Senegal, almost 12 years apart.

Senegal created several shocks en route to the quarter-finals in 2002 while Cameroon brought a charismatic charm and a bruising bite to their run to the last eight in 1990 before bowing out in extra time to England.

LONDON (Reuters) - Simon Mann, a British mercenary jailed for plotting against the government of Equatorial Guinea, has said South Africa tacitly supported a failed 2004 coup in the oil-rich African nation.

Mann, who was released from prison earlier this month, told the BBC he believed that the operation had the unwritten consent of South African intelligence.

"South Africa wanted to be in," he said, according to extracts of an interview to be broadcast on Tuesday. "In fact, I was told: 'Get on with it.'"

"Because, if they are very good friends of the new government, it would be of great benefit to South Africa because they know perfectly well that billions of dollars are at stake," 57-year-old Mann said.

Educated at Eton, Britain's top private school, the ex-special forces officer was arrested in Zimbabwe along with 70 other mercenaries en route to Equatorial Guinea aboard a plane.

Extradited to Equatorial Guinea, he was sentenced in July 2008 for conspiring to topple President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. He was pardoned on health grounds, having served just over one year of a 34-year sentence.

During his trial, Mann portrayed himself as a pawn of international businessmen he said were trying to seize power and named the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as being involved -- an allegation Mark Thatcher has denied.

In the BBC interview, Mann said he got on well with Mark Thatcher, at one point his neighbour in South Africa, describing how Margaret Thatcher would come and stay in a cottage in the garden of her son's house.

"I always sat next to her at dinner parties," he said. "She liked me. We even went on holiday together."

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali pirates warned on Monday they would kill the crew of a Chinese bulk carrier if China's navy attempted to wrest control of the vessel from them.

In a statement read to Reuters over the phone, one of the pirates holding the 25 crew members of the coal ship De Xin Hai, seized in mid-October, said they had heard the Chinese navy was planning a rescue mission.

"We know they have arrayed their warships in Somalia waters to attack us," pirate Nur said, reading the statement from on board the ship.

"There have been negotiations between us and the Chinese to release the ship and we are not ignorant about their deception.

"We are telling them not to gamble with the lives of the Chinese teenagers in our hands. Honestly, we will kill if we are attacked."

Earlier this month, one pirate said his gang and owners of the vessel were discussing a $3.5 million ransom.

The Chinese bulk vessel was hijacked with 76,000 tonnes of coal and is owned by the Qingdao Ocean Shipping Co.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States and other world powers should impose sanctions on key members of the Sudanese government for refusing to end violence in Darfur and south Sudan, a report by an anti-genocide group said on Monday.

Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem reacted angrily to the report, calling the Enough Project, a Washington-based anti-genocide group, "war mongers."

The Enough Project's report said there was a risk of a new civil war and warned that nationwide elections next year and a 2011 referendum on whether the oil-rich and semi-autonomous south should secede from the Khartoum-led north would not be free and fair.

The report placed the bulk of the blame on the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was indicted in March by the International Criminal Court for suspected war crimes in Sudan's remote western region of Darfur. The report called for sanctions.

"Without a firm response from the international community, led by the United States, full-scale nationwide war is inevitable," said the report, written by Enough Project co-founder and former U.S. State Department and National Security Council official John Prendergast.

"This should involve a special outreach effort to China because of the vulnerability of its oil investments should war resume in the South," the report said. "The United States must, then, organize and lead a multilateral diplomatic surge in Sudan aimed at negotiating and consolidating national peace."

It recommended "multilateral asset freezes aimed at key members of the NCP who have enriched themselves as a result of the oil boom of the last decade in Sudan." The report also supported travel bans and denying Khartoum access to the debt relief it has been lobbying for.

Sudan's U.N. envoy Abdalhaleem rejected the report.

MALABO (Reuters) - Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema won 96.7 percent in the central African country's election, according to provisional results on Monday of a poll criticised for falling short of democratic standards.

The figure was published on the government's website after returns from around a quarter of voting stations. Obiang came to power in the oil-producing nation 30 years ago and is now set for a further seven-year term.

"Provisional results -- overwhelming victory for the candidate of the PDGE (ruling party), Obiang Nguema Mbasogo," the website said of Sunday's election, using Obiang's full name.

The provisional result was just short of Obiang's 2002 score of 97.1 percent and will come as little surprise to analysts and critics who noted the lack of credible rivals, and the lack of access to the elections for foreign media.

Obiang is seen pursuing his goal of transforming the tiny country of 650,000 into a major energy producer despite mounting human rights concerns.

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PARIS (Reuters) - France and Rwanda have agreed to restore diplomatic relations, severed since 2006, the Elysee Palace said on Sunday.

Claude Gueant, chief of staff at the French presidency, met Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Sunday in Kigali where they agreed to resume relations, the palace said in a statement.

In Kigali, Rwanda's Foreign Minister Rosemary Museminali told reporters the move was the start of a process of normalising relations.

"(This) is a culmination of the discussions we have had ... and we believe is the beginning of building newer, stronger and better relations than we've had," she said.

Kigali cut diplomatic ties with Paris in 2006 after a French judge accused Kagame and several officials of involvement in the assassination former President Juvenal Habyarimana.

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ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Irish singer and activist Bob Geldof returned to Ethiopia this week 25 years after arousing a global response to its 1984 famine and said climate change could undo progress the country had seen since then.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi will represent Africa at next month's U.N. climate change talks in Copenhagen. Meles has become the continent's most outspoken leader on climate and blames European pollution for the 1980s disaster.

"The resilient Ethiopians I have met tell of two types of change over the last 25 years," Geldof told Reuters by email.

"They tell of famines avoided, diseases fought, roads, dams and mobile phone networks built, children in school and immense economic growth. But then there is the negative, unwelcome change -- that of the climate," Geldof wrote.

Some climate experts have called for rich countries to pay up to $100 billion annually to counter the effects of global warming on Africa.

"It is having a terrible impact on their economy and their communities," Geldof said. "What is happening to them now, science says will happen to the rest of us in the near future should we not change as these Africans are being forced to do."

Geldof's Band Aid charity in 1984 brought together pop stars of the day and provoked a massive outpouring of charity as governments and individuals contributed a total of $144 million.

More than 1 million Ethiopians died in 1984. A quarter of a century on, foreigners are still feeding them in huge numbers.

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WINDHOEK (Reuters) - Four Namibian opposition parties including the main challenger to ruling SWAPO complained on Sunday of voting irregularities in the country's two-day presidential and parliamentary elections.

First results were expected to be known about midday, with President Hifikepunye Pohamba and his South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) forecast to win a fourth five-year term, but by mid-afternoon no numbers had been reported.

The Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), seen becoming the official opposition, said some ballot papers lacked an identification stamp, making them invalid, and the ink identifying voters was removable in some cases, allowing people to vote twice. The voters roll was also contested.

"There are a lot of people who have been deprived of their right to cast their votes by the recklessness of the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN)," Jesaya Nyamu, secretary-general of the RDP, told Reuters.

Three other parties, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, the Republican Party of Namibia and the South West Africa National Union also raised concerns about irregularities and SWAPO's youth league asked the ECN to investigate.

"The process is going to be credible because there are observers here but the irregularities still need to be addressed. SWAPO will win, but we want to win credibly," youth league leader Elijah Ngurare told Reuters.

The ECN did not say whether the matter would be addressed.

"The politics are over, let's count the votes now," ECN director Moses Ndjarakana said.

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MALABO (Reuters) - Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema looked to extend his 30-year rule over the central African oil nation on Sunday in a poll widely criticised for falling short of democratic standards.

Obiang himself was quoted before the election as boasting he would better his 2002 score of 97.1 percent. He is seen pursuing his goal of transforming the tiny country of 650,000 into an energy major despite mounting human rights concerns.

"In recent weeks it (the government) has stifled and harassed the country's beleaguered political opposition ... (and) imposed serious constraints on international observers," New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement.

"There is no credible opposition to speak of," IHS Global Insight analyst Kissy Agyeman-Togobo said of the lack of serious rivals to Obiang's ruling PDGE party in the election. First results are due later on Sunday.

"Obiang is assured victory, perhaps even increasing upon his 2002 win," Agyeman-Togobo added in a commentary.

An eyewitness in the capital Malabo said turnout appeared weak. Soldiers guarded polling stations, some of which had not seen any voters by late morning. Many streets were empty after a temporary ban on car travel was imposed this week.

In Malabo, a source close to the international observation mission noted that few if any foreign media had been allowed into the country to cover the election.

Obiang came to power in a 1979 palace coup and has faced growing criticism that the country's vast oil wealth has not improved the lot of its citizens.

The country was ranked 12th from bottom in this year's survey of perceptions of corruption in 180 countries published by Berlin-based Transparency International.

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PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - The Commonwealth group of nations has admitted French-speaking Rwanda as its 54th member, a Commonwealth spokesman said on Sunday.

The decision was taken by leaders of the group, most of them former British colonies, at a summit in Trinidad and Tobago. It marked the latest expansion of the Commonwealth following the admission in 1995 of Mozambique, a former Portuguese territory in Africa.

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MORONI (Reuters) - Hundreds of mourners gathered in the Comoros on Sunday to lay to rest victims of the Yemeni airliner that plunged into the Indian Ocean in June.

"After the burial, the national grieving can end," President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi told weeping relatives.

Sambi said it had taken months to identify the 83 bodies recovered by search teams, with some corpses washing up hundreds of miles away on the Tanzanian coast.

One girl survived out of the 153 people on board.

The Yemenia Airbus A310-300 crashed as it attempted to land on the archipelago in bad weather. The cause of the crash is being studied by French accident investigators.

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HARARE (Reuters) - A lack of cash is likely to prevent Zimbabwe unveiling any major projects in its 2010 budget, but analysts say it could provide the impetus for the reforms needed to attract foreign aid to rebuild the economy.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti is due to present his 2010 budget on Wednesday -- the first full budget by the unity government formed 10 months ago to try to end a decade-long political and economic crisis in the southern African nation.

"This is a straightforward issue. The government is broke and is living hand to mouth," said veteran independent economist John Robertson.

"There is very little money for the pressing demands on the government and until they are able to get some massive help there is very little they will be able to do," he told Reuters.

"The positive side is that we may see greater movement towards reforms, more pressure to respect private property rights and an appreciation that the country needs massive international assistance and goodwill to realise its goals."

Zimbabwe is trying to reconstruct an economy that the government estimates contracted by nearly 50 percent from 2000-2008.

The global economic downturn and festering tensions in a ruling coalition between President Robert Mugabe and his arch rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, are not helping.

Biti -- a senior figure in Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) -- has promised a "growth oriented" budget, but the coffers are bare, and there is no sign of any significant aid on the horizon.

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PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - Commonwealth nations representing one-third of the world's population threw their weight behind accelerating efforts to clinch an "operationally binding" U.N. climate deal in Copenhagen next month, their leaders said on Saturday.

Leaders of the 53-nation Commonwealth meeting in Trinidad and Tobago used their summit to bolster a diplomatic offensive seeking wide consensus on how to fight global warming ahead of December 7-18 U.N. climate talks in the Danish capital.

"We believe ... the time for action on climate change has come. The clock is ticking to Copenhagen ... we believe that the political goodwill and resolve exists to secure a comprehensive agreement at Copenhagen," Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told a news conference in Port of Spain.

The Commonwealth Climate Change Declaration pledged the group's backing for Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen in his efforts to secure wide attendance and commitment from world leaders at the Copenhagen climate talks.

"We pledge our continued support to the leaders-driven process ... to deliver a comprehensive, substantial and operationally binding agreement in Copenhagen leading towards a full legally binding outcome no later than 2010," the Port of Spain declaration said.

Tackling the issue of funding for poor nations' efforts to fight climate change and global warming, the Commonwealth also backed an initiative to establish a Copenhagen Launch Fund, starting in 2010 and building to $10 billion annually by 2012.

Rasmussen and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who joined the Commonwealth leaders' discussions in Port of Spain, welcomed the declaration from the group.

Ban said world leaders should "stay focused, stay committed and come to Copenhagen to secure a deal.

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Commonwealth nations, representing one-third of the world's population, threw their weight on Saturday behind accelerating efforts to clinch an "operationally binding" UN climate deal in Copenhagen next month.

AFP- Global climate talks to be held in Copenhagen got a big boost on the weekend when leaders representing a third of the planet's population put their full weight behind sealing a deal.

The heads of government of the 53-nation Commonwealth announced Saturday that a legally binding climate accord was "essential" and they backed the December 7-18 Copenhagen negotiations called to draft a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol.

The Commonwealth Climate Change Declaration, issued mid-way through a three-day summit in Trinidad, also hailed moves promoted by Britain and France to establish a 10-billion-dollar fund to help offset the cost to poor countries that cut carbon output.

That financing offer, combined with greenhouse gas emission cuts announced over the past two weeks by most of the world's biggest polluting nations, prompted leaders to swap skepticism for optimism.

"I remain fully convinced that it will be possible to reach an agreement in Copenhagen," Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, who will host the talks, said in Trinidad, where he was a special guest.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he believed there was momentum for a deal. But he cautioned that it was not yet certain that a treaty would emerge from Copenhagen for signing in 2010.

"We are united in purpose, we are not yet united in action," he said, urging world leaders "to stay focused, stay committed and come to Copenhagen."

So far, 90 leaders have confirmed they will attend the talks in the Danish capital, including US President Barack Obama, lifting them to the status of an important international summit.

"We, as the Commonwealth, representing one third of the world's population, believe the time for action on climate change has come," Australian Prime Minister Rudd said as he unveiled the Commonwealth agreement.

"We believe the political goodwill and resolve exists to secure a comprehensive agreement at Copenhagen," he said.

China, the United States, the European Union and Brazil have all announced greenhouse gas emission reduction targets designed to contain the level of global warming.

India remains the only big polluter still to declare its target, though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised on Saturday it would be unveiled soon and would be "ambitious."

For all the political determination and talk of consensus expressed at the Commonwealth summit, several points of contention remain that could prove divisive in Copenhagen.

The Commonwealth declaration, for instance, revealed that differences remain over whether global temperature increases should be constrained to below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) or to no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Such a range could mean the difference between survival and catastrophe for low-lying island states -- such as Commonwealth members the Maldives, Vanuatu and Tuvalu -- threatened by flooding from global warming.

Excessive action to rein in rising temperatures, though, could stunt economic growth not only in industrialized countries but also developing nations such as India.

The amount of money to be made available to poorer countries adopting environmental measures was also a subject of debate.

Although the Copenhagen Launch Fund evoked in the Commonwealth statement was hailed as a step forward, its 10 billion dollars a year was a fraction of the cash required to offset lost economic potential in many countries.

The European Union has estimated that 150 billion dollars would be required to compensate developing countries for restraint in factory pollution or deforestation.

Other nations, including Guyana, say the calculation is more like 300 billion dollars.

That highlights an argument developing nations are leveling at the long-established industrial states of Europe and North America: that their wealth was built on centuries of environmental damage, and it is up to them to bear the financial responsibility for fixing it.