PARIS (Reuters) - Two French aid workers were kidnapped on Sunday evening in the northeast of the Central African Republic, the latest in a string of kidnappings in the region.

They were seized in the town of Birao on the border with Chad and Sudan, Christian Lombard, co-director at French aid organisation Triangle, told Reuters on Monday. Two other French aid workers have been kidnapped in the past few weeks, in Chad and Sudan's Darfur.

France's foreign ministry said in a statement it "condemns this latest criminal act which once again hits aid workers in a region where their assistance to the population is crucial," and demanded the aid workers be released.

It said its crisis unit was in close contact with the concerned parties, without saying who had carried out the kidnapping.

Earlier this month, a Frenchman working for the International Committee of the Red Cross was kidnapped by armed men in Chad, leading the charity to temporarily suspend its activities in the region.

In October, another French citizen working for the ICRC was kidnapped in Sudan's Darfur region. Both aid workers are still being held captive, the ICRC said.

The Central African Republic is one of Africa's poorest and most isolated countries, with a weak government struggling to end several years of internal rebellions.

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Authorities unsealed terrorism-related charges on Monday against eight defendants they said recruited young Somali-American men to return to their homeland to fight for an Islamist militant group.

The charges said men were recruited in Minneapolis mosques to fight for al-Shabaab, which the United States accuses of being al Qaeda's proxy in the Horn of Africa nation.

In all, authorities have charged 14 people with recruiting, training or financing travel for young Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, which is home to some 50,000 Somalis.

About 20 young men, all but one of Somali descent, have left the Minneapolis area since September 2007 to train with and fight for al-Shabaab, authorities said.

U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones said all were recruited to fight in Somalia, and there was no indication any had been directed to come back to the United States to launch attacks on U.S. soil.

"The sad reality is that the vibrant Somali community here in Minneapolis has lost many of its sons to fighting in Somalia," Jones said.

"These young men have been recruited to fight in a foreign war by individuals and groups using violence against government troops and civilians," he said.

Five of those charged in a superseding indictment are not in custody and are believed to be outside the United States.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Khartoum's U.N. envoy, rejecting a bleak U.N. assessment of the situation in Sudan's conflict-torn western Darfur region, said on Monday it was time for international peacekeepers to prepare to leave.

Saying it omitted key information, Sudan's U.N. ambassador, Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, criticized the latest report about Darfur by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, which says Khartoum has broken a deal on deploying the peacekeepers.

"One big fact should be the focus of the report -- that the war is over," he told Reuters. "With peace in sight, the U.N. should, in coordination with the African Union and Sudanese government, plan for an exit strategy."

The U.N.-AU mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, has been fraught with difficulties. For nearly two years, the mission's commanders have faced bureaucratic delays and other obstacles in deploying the 26,000 peacekeepers approved by the U.N. Security Council.

Ban's new report says there are now close to 20,000 troops and police deployed in Darfur, the site of what U.N. officials say is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.

The report also accuses Sudan of harassing and limiting movements of UNAMID personnel in breach of an agreement with Khartoum on their deployment.

"The repeated incidents of government officials preventing access to UNAMID patrols are a direct violation of the Status of Forces Agreement with the government of the Sudan and a serious impediment to the mission's capacity to implement its mandate," Ban said in the report.

The harassment included bureaucratic delays, warning shots fired at UNAMID, weapons pointed at convoys and Sudanese army helicopters flying low over UNAMID "in a threatening manner."

KHARTOUM, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Sudanese government is committed to peacefully solving the Darfur conflict, Ghazi Salahuddin, adviser to the Sudanese president, said on Monday.

Following talks with a visiting delegation of the African Union's Peace and Security Council (AUPSC), he said "we have affirmed to the delegation seriousness of the government, and its commitment to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Darfur through intensifying political efforts and the Sudanese-Chadian relations."

"We have briefed the delegation on the situation in Sudan generally, and responded to their queries on the country's political issues, including the referendum on self-determination for south Sudan," Salahuddin said.

The Sudanese official described the delegation's visit to Sudan as "exploratory," saying that the delegation would review progress in implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) inked between north and south Sudan in 2005 and the Darfur issue.

Rwandan Permanent Representative to the AUPSC and head of the delegation, Joseph Nsengiman, said that they have sensed the seriousness of the Sudanese government to resolve the Darfur issue and negotiate with the armed movements.

"We have received commitments from the Sudanese government as to realization of development and stability in Darfur and improvement of the security and humanitarian situations there," he said in a statement.

The AUPSC delegation arrived in Khartoum Monday on a three-day visit, during which they will hold talks with Sudanese officials, visit Darfur and south Sudan.

ANTANANARIVO, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The appointment of Madagascan national unity government was postponed indefinitely despite the schedule released on Saturday.

The four Madagascan political camps, respectively led by current president Andry Rajoelina, and former presidents Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy, could not reach agreement to appoint ministers of justice, basic education, mines and hydrocarbons.

The disagreement is notable between Rajoelina and Ravalomanana’s camps.

“We ask your blessing because we have to talk outside because of the absence of both country leaders, (including Ravalomanana and Ratsiraka),” co-president Fetison Rakoto Andrianirina from Ravalomanana's camp told the people of Miarinarivo, a city about 130 km west of the capital city, during his provincial tour on Saturday.

Quoted by L'Express, a French-language daily published on Monday, Andrianirina said the meeting between the four protagonists should take place this week.

But in the daily paper, the African Union special envoy, Ablasse Ouedraogo, proposed a video conference between the big four, saying that the meeting outside the country is not necessary.

Ouedraogo stressed “the need to solve this problem between Madagascans themselves,” saying a logistical and financial weaknesses of a meeting outside the country.

Special envoys of the International Contact Group would arrive in the country this week to inspect the problem of forming a national unity government, Ouedraogo said.

Rajoelina declared that “he will think about it” when he inaugurated on Saturday a road in Ambanja, 1,000 km northwest of Antananarivo.

“If the government could not be established, let the current ministers to continue their work because they are competent and do their duty,” said the president of the transition.

However, a transitional co-president Emmanuel Rakotovahiny, who is from Zafy’s movement, described Rajoelina’s purpose as illegal and against the agreements signed between Rajoelina, Ravalomanana, Ratsiraka and Zafy in Maputo on Aug. 6 and in Addis Ababa three months later.

The agreement in Addis Ababa stipulates that the transition, which should not last more than 15 months from August, is led by a president, Andry Rajoelina, and two co-presidents including Andrianirina and Rakotovahiny, while the government of national unity composed of 31 members is led by Prime Minister Eugene Mangalaza.

The International Contact Group on Madagascar is very concerned about the situation in Madagascar, fearing the protagonists may fight each others, blocking the formation of a new government, according to a statement published in the island country on Sunday.

Any delay of a new government affects the development of other important institutions of the transition, including the elections, national reconciliation and the resumption of cooperation with Madagascar’s international partners, said the statement signed by Rodney D. Ford, public affairs officer in the United States to Madagascar.

2009-11-23
(Xinhua) -- Sudan's National Elections Commission (NEC) on Sunday decided to delay the voting date from April 5 to April 11, 2010, the official Sudan News Agency reported.

According to the report, the delay is to give another week to the voters' registration period, which will end on Dec. 7, and by ruling that registration offices should remain open during the Eidal-Adha holiday from next Thursday to Sunday.

The report said that the NEC reviewed in its meeting remarks of the Sudanese political parties regarding the declared time table for the voters' registration, and after evaluating the registration results together with the difficulties some areas faced, the NEC decided to extend the registration period.

"The extension of the registration period necessitated the delay of the voting date," the report said.

The NEC hoped that after that procedure, the citizens would rush to exercise their rights of registration, and called on political parties and civil society forces to urge citizens to register, according to the report.

Some Sudanese political parties, including the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, demanded extension of the voters' registration period, arguing that the period was not enough for the registration of the voters.

The staging of a general election in 2010 was one of the key chapters of a peace deal struck in 2005 to end a 22-year civil war between Sudan's southern region and the Khartoum government in which two million people died.

KINSHASA, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- The population of the Buburu locality, situated in the Bomongo territory in the Equateur province of the Democratic republic of Congo (DRC), deserted their homes on Friday and Saturday to take refuge on the other side of the Congo river in Impfondo of the Republic of Congo, fleeing the approaching armed youths of Enyele tribe, who are hunting down their enemies of Boba tribe.

The population ran away from this area after being informed that the security forces as well as the humanitarian organizations had fled after learning of the approaching Enyele youths, a resident of Buburu confirmed.

An official in charge of external relations of the UNHCR in Kinshasa, Francesca Fontanini, also told Radio Okapi that aid workers had temporarily closed down the UNHCR offices in Buburu.

"Our staff was consequently evacuated on Thursday with the partners, they arrived in Impfondo on Thursday evening. They told us that Buburu town was empty with none of its citizens because of the threats of attacks," he declared.

"Currently, we have about 37,000 Congolese refugees on the other side of the Ubangi River in the Republic of Congo. It's very important to secure the zones where the refugees are camping," he added.

Meanwhile, provincial deputy Jean-Faustin Mokoma called for calm. The official was elected from the Kungu territory and is acting as coordinator of the Alliance for Presidential Majority (AMP) to the provincial assembly of Equateur,

"At this moment, we are asking the central government to do whatever is possible to bring back peace in the troubled zones. We also appeal to our Enyele brothers and other assailants to understand that all the crimes they are committing will not forever go unpunished," he declared.

In the madness of hunting down their Boba tribe enemies, the armed Enyele youths on Wednesday attacked the localities of Sabasaba and Lobondo in the Bomboma district.

The rapid response unit of the police repulsed this attack, causing six deaths of the assailants and four civilians among the Bomboma villagers.

The situation remains calm in the troubled Dongo, where the Enyele youths began their rebellion on Sept. 30, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which sent an inspection team to Dongo on Friday and Saturday.

However, the team said it saw a ghost town with many houses burnt down and corpses still lying in the streets.

Seraphin Kazadi, who led the mission, indicated that the humanitarian priority is "to burry all the corpses still lying along Dongo streets, clean up the place to avoid an outbreak of epidemics and take humanitarian assistance to the zones for the return of refugees.

YAMOUSSOUKRO, Cote d'Ivoire, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Simonne Ehivet Gbagbo, Cote d'lvoire's first lady and the first vice-president of the ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), proposed a three-point strategy at the weekend for campaigns leading to the long-awaited presidential elections.

The three points include the record of President Laurent Gbagbo's rein from 2000 to 2009, the communication around the war that the country has experienced since Sept. 19, 2002 and the explanation of Gbagbo's manifesto.

The first lady said, "The assessment might be negative not because the party (FPI) was brought to power through the ballot, but because this party did not carry out its ambitious and revolutionary program for the society."

"We have to make some propositions since we have governed in a war, with difficulties and we have had little results and we cannot deny this to our adversaries and to some of our supporters," she said.

She also suggested that there should be a candid discussion with figures to help, to convince the population on the development and modernization of society and the nation.

"It's important that we know who caused the war in Cote d'lvoire ..., and how we are going to manage this war," said the first lady, who also demanded an open discussion on the war and an explanation on who did what.

Cote d'Ivoire has postponed the planned Nov. 29 polls, in latest in a series since 2005, when President Gbagbo's tenure expired. But both politicians and the UN peacekeeping mission in the West African country remain confident about the holding of the vote soon.

LAGOS, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- French Ambassador to Nigeria Jean-Nichel Dumond says his country will assist Nigeria in mitigating the effects of climate change on the people and environment.

Dumond disclosed this in Lagos on Sunday, saying the move was to ensure a sustainable environment that would strengthen closer diplomatic ties between the two countries.

According to him, climate change had become a global challenge in the developing countries and that it deserved assistance from the developed nations to tackle the problems associated with it.

Dumond said France would work closely with Nigeria in mitigating the effects of the climate change.

"France has always taken into account the interest of developing countries, especially Nigeria. Nigeria will be one of the countries to suffer more from climate change," the News Agency of Nigeria quoted him as saying.

"We are, therefore going to work closely with the government in having mitigated and adaptive structures on ground that will promote our diplomatic ties while the climate change lasted," he said.

The envoy added that relations between the countries of the world would be affected with the prevailing climatic condition and stressed the need for the developed countries to support the less developed.

"Climate Change would lead to increase in pollution, transmission of diseases through unclean water and contaminated food as well as compromise in agricultural production in developing countries," he said.

The envoy expressed optimism that adoption of forestation renewable energy, energy conservation and phasing out of the ozone depleting substances would mitigate the effects of climate change.

He said France would use her position in the European Union (EU) to make a case for Nigeria during the global meeting on climate change in Copenhagen in December.

LAGOS, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- More than 400 pipelines have been destroyed in Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta region in the last two years, the Lagos-based Vanguard newspaper reported on Monday.

Citing Joseph Dorgu, chairman of the Pipeline Professionals' Association of Nigeria (PLAN), the report said the vandalism was caused by militants in the region.

He said one way the nation could consolidate on the peace brought about by amnesty was to allow all sections to demonstrate integrity and transparency.

According to him, the action of the militant group was triggered largely by the absence of integrity in the system.

He added that the government should engage the employable group in the region, suggesting dialogue at all times in conflict resolution.

Dorgu also called for a strong electoral process that would produce popular leadership at all times in the country as another way to avert tension in the region.

The Niger Delta is an unstable area where inter-ethnic clashes are commonplace. Access to oil revenue is the trigger for the violence. Over 300 foreigners have been seized in the Niger Delta since 2006. Almost all have been released unharmed after paying a ransom.

Attacks and bunkering on oil pipelines in the Niger Delta have cut Nigeria's output by around a fifth in recent years, helping push world oil prices to record highs since the beginning of 2006.

The unrest in the region has forced many international firms to flee the area. The government mobilized the Nigerian army and coast guard in an anti-banditry operation.

In June, the Nigerian government offered amnesty to gunmen in the oil rich Niger Delta region, urging them to lay down their weapons by Oct. 4 in a bid to end unrest, which has cost Africa's top oil exporter billions of dollars in lost revenue.

More than 8,000 Nigerian armed youths gave up their weapons and embrace amnesty offered by the Nigerian government in the most concerted effort yet to end years of fighting in the oil-rich producing region.

The South African Police Service has signed a R55 million agreement with the Norwegian embassy to support a police-training project in Sudan.

According to the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, the funds earmarked for the project will be divided in three parts: 70 percent will be spent in the Southern Sudan, 20 percent in Darfur and 10 percent in Khartoum.

The department believed that this project will greatly assist in creating a more secure and safe environment in Sudan especially Southern Sudan and Darfur.

"The police project will also assist towards the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) by strengthening the police forces in Southern Sudan."

The agreement, signed together with the National Treasury, follows a memorandum of understanding between South Africa and Sudan signed two years ago.

It aimed to provide assistance in the field of safety and security in support of the CPA between the north and south of the Sudan, the Darfur Peace Agreement and overall security capacity building.

As a result, the Norwegian Embassy was consulted for financial assistance on the implementation of the memorandum.

"The partnership of Norwegian finance and South African expertise is an example of what could be achieved to address the shortcomings in Africa with creative solutions."

BuaNews

Mauritanian banks and a businessman have agreed to repay "illicit transfers" made from the central bank in 2001 and 2002, a judicial source said Friday.
"The managing directors of banks and a businessman have appeared before the prosecutor of the republic in the case of the illicit transfers by the Central Bank and have agreed to repay the sums that are due," the source said.

The amount in question and the names of the bank chairmen involved could not be divulged because of "the secrecy of the inquiry," added the source, who said that the meeting took place on Thursday.

President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz raised the case during his campaign for election on July 18 and spoke of the sum of "more than 15 billion ouguiyas" (almost 39 million euros / almost 58 million dollars).

A large part of the money is believed to have gone to top officials in the regime of Maaouiya Ould Taya (1984-2005) and to companies linked with the banks involved in the affair, according to security sources.

Mauritanian police on Sunday questioned the managing directors of the banks concerned about the illicit transfers, less than a week after the arrest of the former governor of the Central Bank who held the post in 2001 and 2002.

These measures are part of a major anti-corruption campaign launched by Ould Abdel Aziz. This operation has unearthed cases of large-scale embezzlement and has already led to the sacking of several highly-placed officials in state-run companies.

africagoodnews

The absence of strife in the oil-rich Niger Delta has led to an increase in Nigeria's electricity supply because gas supplies to power plants have increased, a company spokeswoman said last week.
Electricity

"Power supply is now 3,330 megawatts and we hope to increase it to 3,500 megawatts by next week," Efuru Igbo of the state-run Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) told AFP.

These 3,300 megawatts for a population of more than 140 million people still remain extremely low, compared to the 43,000 megawatts produced by South Africa for a population a third the size of Nigeria's.

Five months ago, national power supply was a paltry 1,400 MW, which was far from adequate for Africa's most populous nation.

Igbo said the past few weeks have seen an improvement in supply of gas to power plants across the country as a result of an end to violence in the Niger Delta, following an amnesty deal proposed by President Umaru Yar'Adua.

Movements active in the Niger Delta have for years attacked oil pipelines and other installations, claiming to represent the interests of the people in the southern region who do not benefit from the oil income.

In June, President Umaru Yar'Adua decided to offer an amnesty which saw thousands surrender their arms.

The main rebel group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, declared an indefinite ceasefire on October 25 to allow talks to go ahead with the government.

At the peak of the unrest, Nigeria, the world's eighth largest exporter of crude, saw its oil output slashed by a third.

Nigeria's power production dropped to 1,400 MW in June after unidentified attackers blew up a pipeline in the southern oil city of Warri, disrupting gas supply to the Nigerian Gas Company, which supplies PHCN.

Businesses run mainly on diesel-powered generators while most Nigerians go for days, even weeks, without power.

Critics are saying that a government plan to raise power supply to 10,000 megawatts by the end of December is unrealistic.

Sapa-AFP

Microsoft plans to make its newly-released Windows 7 operating system available in 10 African languages - including five of South Africa's official languages - by the end of 2011.

Vis Naidoo, of Microsoft South Africa, said computer technology in local languages offers more opportunities. "UNESCO-funded research in 2006 showed that development and learning is only possible through languages familiar to the people. There's tremendous empowerment in working in your own language," said Naidoo in a report in itnewsafrica.com.

Naidoo added: "Translation teams from South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia have already started translating Windows 7 and the upcoming Office 2010 productivity suite into languages like Sesotho sa Leboa, Setswana, isiXhosa, isiZulu, Afrikaans, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, kiSwahili and Amharic."

The report said in South Africa, the Microsoft LLP team has worked closely with government, universities and local language experts like the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) and Web-lingo to create freely downloadable language interface packs (LIPs) so that indigenous language speakers can access Office 2007, Windows Vista and XP in their mother tongue - isiZulu, isiXhosa, Sesotho sa Leboa and Afrikaans.

"Translating software to an indigenous language means more than just linguistic translation. Localisation - adapting to a particular language, culture and preferred ‘look and feel'- requires that idiomatic expressions be adjusted so the software appears as if it were first developed within the local culture," said Sihawukele Ngubane, Chair Professor at PanSALB.

Direct translations
The implementation of the isiZulu version of the Microsoft Local Language Programme Interface enables KwaZulu-Natal'sKwaDukuza Resource Centre - the country's biggest digital village - to provide computer literacy training in local vernacular for members of the rural community. For the learners at the centre, this could not have happened at a better time.

"There are an estimated 13 million native isiZulu speakers in South Africa, more than 10 million of whom live in and around the KwaZulu-Natal province. As South Africa's 11th official language, isiZulu is the most widely spoken first language in South Africa (almost 24% of the total population) as opposed to the 8,2% whose first language is English," said Alan Govender, the centre manager.

"The isiZulu interface has been wonderful for us as it has brought more people from the rural areas to our centre, enabling them to make use of the programmes we offer. It allows people who are literate in isiZulu - but not English - to finally learn and understand the workings of a computer in their own language."

Microsoft plans to translate Windows 7 and Office 2010 into 59 local languages by the end of 2011. Its most popular software packages have already been translated into 101 languages - including include Azeri, Georgian, Macedonian, Uzbek, Bosnian, Punjabi and Kyrgyz.

Africa News

Libya signed a 71-million-dollar (47-million-euro) deal with the UN food agency on Friday to improve food security and sustainable development in the North Africa country.

The deal was signed in Rome by senior Libyan agricultural official Abu Bakr al-Mabruk al-Mansuri and Jacques Diouf, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN body said in a statement.

"The FAO is proud to become Libya's counterpart in implementing a number of strategic projects that will contribute to national sustainable agricultural development," Diouf said.

The FAO will provide technical support for a range of projects including pest control, animal vaccinations and coastal pollution.

The project is set to run until 2014.

africagoodnews

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Niger's capital, Niamey, calling for the resignation of President Mamadou Tandja.

Brandishing placards such as "Tandja must go" and "Down with the Destroyer of democracy,", demonstrators on Sunday called for former prime minister and opposition figure Hama Amandou to take the president's place.

The opposition disputes an August 4 referendum that allowed Tandja to stay in power until 2012, after he was supposed to step down in December after two five-year terms in a row.

"It is up to us to end this autocratic rule," Muhammad Bazoum, a leader of the opposition Coordination of Democratic Forces for the Republic (CFDR), told the rally.

Drastic moves

Tandja, 71, a former colonel in power for 10 years, also dissolved parliament and the constitutional court which had opposed the move.

The CFDR, which comprises political parties, human rights and labour organisations, has denounced the referendum as a "coup" and wants fresh elections to be organised.

The opposition boycotted October 20 legislative elections, after which the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) suspended Niger as a member and the European Union put a freeze on its development aid.

ECOWAS mediator Abdulsalami Abubakar held talks with President Tandja on Friday as part of the 15-nation bloc's efforts to resolve the crisis, Nigerien state television reported.

aljazeera

(Xinhua) -- Simonne Ehivet Gbagbo, Cote d'lvoire's first lady and the first vice-president of the ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), proposed a three-point strategy at the weekend for campaigns leading to the long-awaited presidential elections.

The three points include the record of President Laurent Gbagbo's rein from 2000 to 2009, the communication around the war that the country has experienced since Sept. 19, 2002 and the explanation of Gbagbo's manifesto.

The first lady said, "The assessment might be negative not because the party (FPI) was brought to power through the ballot, but because this party did not carry out its ambitious and revolutionary program for the society."

"We have to make some propositions since we have governed in a war, with difficulties and we have had little results and we cannot deny this to our adversaries and to some of our supporters," she said.

She also suggested that there should be a candid discussion with figures to help, to convince the population on the development and modernization of society and the nation.

"It's important that we know who caused the war in Cote d'lvoire ..., and how we are going to manage this war," said the first lady, who also demanded an open discussion on the war and an explanation on who did what.

Cote d'Ivoire has postponed the planned Nov. 29 polls, in latest in a series since 2005, when President Gbagbo's tenure expired. But both politicians and the UN peacekeeping mission in the West African country remain confident about the holding of the vote soon.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's Alexandria Cotton Exporters' Association (Alcotexa) committed to sell 4,234 tonnes of cotton in the week that ended on November 21, Alcotexa official told Reuters on Monday.

The sales comprised 25 tonnes of Giza 87; 184 tonnes of Giza 70; 1,391 tonnes of Giza 88 and 2,634 tonnes of Giza 86, the official said.

The deal brings Alcotexa's export commitments for the 2009/10 season, which began in September, to 25,352 tonnes of cotton worth $54.8 million, the official said.

(Xinhua) -- The population of the Buburu locality, situated in the Bomongo territory in the Equateur province of the Democratic republic of Congo (DRC), deserted their homes on Friday and Saturday to take refuge on the other side of the Congo river in Impfondo of the Republic of Congo, fleeing the approaching armed youths of Enyele tribe, who are hunting down their enemies of Boba tribe.

The population ran away from this area after being informed that the security forces as well as the humanitarian organizations had fled after learning of the approaching Enyele youths, a resident of Buburu confirmed.

An official in charge of external relations of the UNHCR in Kinshasa, Francesca Fontanini, also told Radio Okapi that aid workers had temporarily closed down the UNHCR offices in Buburu.

"Our staff was consequently evacuated on Thursday with the partners, they arrived in Impfondo on Thursday evening. They told us that Buburu town was empty with none of its citizens because of the threats of attacks," he declared.

"Currently, we have about 37,000 Congolese refugees on the other side of the Ubangi River in the Republic of Congo. It's very important to secure the zones where the refugees are camping," he added.

Meanwhile, provincial deputy Jean-Faustin Mokoma called for calm. The official was elected from the Kungu territory and is acting as coordinator of the Alliance for Presidential Majority (AMP) to the provincial assembly of Equateur,

"At this moment, we are asking the central government to do whatever is possible to bring back peace in the troubled zones. We also appeal to our Enyele brothers and other assailants to understand that all the crimes they are committing will not forever go unpunished," he declared.

In the madness of hunting down their Boba tribe enemies, the armed Enyele youths on Wednesday attacked the localities of Sabasaba and Lobondo in the Bomboma district.

The rapid response unit of the police repulsed this attack, causing six deaths of the assailants and four civilians among the Bomboma villagers.

The situation remains calm in the troubled Dongo, where the Enyele youths began their rebellion on Sept. 30, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which sent an inspection team to Dongo on Friday and Saturday.

However, the team said it saw a ghost town with many houses burnt down and corpses still lying in the streets.

Seraphin Kazadi, who led the mission, indicated that the humanitarian priority is "to burry all the corpses still lying along Dongo streets, clean up the place to avoid an outbreak of epidemics and take humanitarian assistance to the zones for the return of refugees.

LAGOS (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell said on Monday gas output from its joint venture in Nigeria's western Niger Delta recovered to its highest level in two years last week after it was able to repair damaged pipelines.

The Anglo-Dutch giant said its SPDC joint venture produced a total of 512 million cubic feet of gas on November 18, significantly above previous average production levels of around 300 million cubic feet per day.

"We are pleased that all the gas has been used for domestic power generation and manufacturing, as these are key sectors for national economic growth," SPDC Managing Director Mutiu Sunmonu said in a statement.

The output is from four gas plants -- Utorogu, Ughelli East, Sapele and Oben -- the last two of which had not been producing since late last year because of militant attacks on pipelines.

An amnesty programme which offered militants in the Niger Delta a presidential pardon in return for handing over weapons has brought a period of relative stability in the region, with no attacks reported on energy infrastructure for several months.

Security experts warn the peace is fragile and that the gunmen may return to violence if they are not quickly retrained and found work.

Overhauling Nigeria's shambolic power sector has been one of the priorities of President Umaru Yar'Adua's two-and-a-half year old administration. Erratic power supply is one of the main brakes on growth in sub-Saharan Africa's number two economy.