Nov 21, 2009
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain has offered refugee status to a Western Saharan activist on hunger strike in the Canary Islands, to allow her to return to Morocco and end an embarrassing diplomatic incident.

Aminatou Haidar went on hunger strike this week after Morocco refused her entry and made her get back on a plane back to the Canary Islands as she tried to return to the Western Sahara, a territory which has long sought independence from Moroccan control.

She says the Moroccans took away her passport, a charge Morocco denies. The Moroccans said she had refused to recognise her Moroccan citizenship on an official form.

In a communique which followed talks by Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos with Moroccan officials in Rabat, Spain's foreign ministry said it would offer Haidar refugee status papers which would serve as a passport and allow her to travel back to Morocco.

There was no immediate comment from Haidar, a prominent campaigner for the independence of the Western Sahara from Morocco. At the start of the present incident, she had boarded a plane in the Canary Islands for the Western Sahara on her way home after accepting a peace prize in New York.

Morocco took control of most of the Western Sahara in 1975 after Spain withdrew from the desert territory, and fought a low-level war against Sahrawi independence movement Polisario until the United Nations brokered a ceasefire in 1991.

Morocco is now offering limited autonomy for the resource-rich territory while Polisario, backed by Morocco's neighbour Algeria, is holding out for a referendum with independence as one option.

On November 6, Morocco's King Mohammed said it was time for action against traitors threatening Morocco's "territorial integrity", a clear warning to Sahrawi independence activists.

Nov 21, 2009
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict met artists from around the world in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday and urged them to inject spirituality into their work, saying contemporary beauty was often "illusory and deceitful".

The Pope told the gathering of hundreds of painters, sculptors, architects, poets and directors, held beneath the vaulted ceiling of the chapel painted by Michelangelo, that he wanted to "renew the Church's friendship with the world of art".

"Beauty ... can become a path towards the transcendent, towards the ultimate Mystery, towards God," Benedict said.

The Vatican said it invited some 500 artists to the event, regardless of religious, political or stylistic allegiances.

More than 250 accepted, mostly from Italy, including singer Andrea Bocelli and award-winning film composer Ennio Morricone.

Amongst the other guests were Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid, whose Maxxi modern art museum has just opened in Rome, and F. Murray Abraham, the American actor who won an Oscar for his role as Salieri in the Mozart film, Amadeus, in 1985.

The Pope told them that in a world lacking in hope, with increasing signs of aggression and despair, there was an ever greater need for a return to spirituality in art.

"Too often ... the beauty thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful ... it imprisons man within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy," he said.

Nov 21, 2009
KIGALI (Reuters) - Survivor groups from Rwanda's 1994 genocide say they may stop sending witnesses to the U.N. tribunal in Tanzania, in protest at the court's recent acquittals of two genocide suspects.

The groups, who provide many of the witnesses for the trials, say they will not cooperate unless the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) reverses its decision to release Hormisdas Nsengimana and Protais Zigiranyirazo.

"The ICTR should sit down and revise their decision ... if there are no other positive decisions taken, the relationship is cut off," Freddy Mutanguha, general secretary of IBUKA, an umbrella group for survivor organisations told Reuters at a protest in Kigali.

The ICTR has convicted 39 of 47 cases heard. It released Nsengimana this week saying it did not have enough evidence to convict the Catholic pastor of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Tanzania-based court also freed Zigiranyirazo citing serious factual and legal errors.

Egide Kayinamura, 21, whose whole family was killed during Rwanda's 100-day massacre in 1994, was one of around 200 protestors who marched to the ICTR branch in Rwanda's capital late on Friday.

"Personally I feel very very sad because of the results. we don't accept the decisions. We feel very sad that they let those people free," Kayinamura told Reuters.

Nov 21, 2009
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt will not allow its citizens living abroad to be humiliated, President Hosni Mubarak said in an address to parliament on Saturday, in an apparent reference to a spat with Algeria over a World Cup qualifier.

"We do not allow anyone to humiliate them (citizens abroad)," Mubarak said to applause from the assembly.

Egyptian media have said Algerian fans assaulted Egyptians after winning a tie-breaker match in the Sudanese capital to qualify for the World Cup finals in South Africa in 2010.

"Clearly, the dignity of the Egyptian people is the dignity of Egypt," Mubarak said as at least two parliamentarians waved national flags. "And Egypt will not take it lightly when it comes to honouring the dignity of its people."

Demonstrators gathered for a third day near the Algerian embassy in Cairo on Saturday, but numbers had declined from previous days amid a heavy security presence.

Mubarak was speaking to both houses of the Egyptian legislature at the opening of its fifth and final session ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for next year.

In the speech, he highlighted the achievements of the parliament since 2005 and proposed it focus on social and healthcare reform in the coming session.

Algeria has rejected Cairo's charges it did not protect Egyptians there, though Algerian fans damaged the Algiers headquarters of Egypt-based Orascom Telecom's mobile subsidiary between the Cairo game last Saturday and the Sudan playoff on Wednesday.

Before that, Egyptian fans pelted the Algerian team's bus with stones, injuring players, and some fans were hurt in scuffles on the day of the Cairo qualifier.

World soccer body FIFA has opened disciplinary proceedings against Egypt regarding the Cairo incidents.

Nov 21, 2009
ANTANANARIVO (Reuters) - Madagascar's political leaders will meet next week to break the deadlock over the make-up of a unity government called for in power-sharing deal, one of the country's two co-president said on Saturday.

African nations and foreign donors say the establishment of a unity government and a roadmap to fresh elections are essential for the international community to re-engage with the diplomatically-isolated Indian Ocean island.

"We must not hide from the population that the process is difficult. There are different obstacles along the way," co-President Fetison Andrianirina told reporters.

The Indian Ocean island's leaders will meet outside Madagascar next week to hammer out who takes which key ministerial posts, he said.

No details were given on where or when the meeting would take place.

President Andry Rajoelina, former presidents Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy signed a new power-sharing deal in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa earlier this month.

Negotiations are stalled over who takes Justice and Foreign Affairs ministries. Agriculture, Communication and the Ministry of Mines are also sources of conflict.

Observers say holding the Ministry of Communications could prove a powerful tool in the run up to a presidential election which must be held by late November next year under the terms of the deal.

BANJUL, Nov 21 (IPS) - The Beijing Platform for Action in 1995 set out an agenda to address gender equality in priority areas, including poverty, education, and health care. It also committed governments to address violence against women, equitable access to economic resources and decision-making power.

"Overall, there has been progress made, but we are not yet there," said U.N. Under-Secretary General Dr Abdoulie Janneh at the opening of a regional review of progress implementing the Beijing plan.

Six hundred people from 43 African countries took part, including gender experts, civil society organisations, and government officials were present in the Gambian capital, Banjul for the review.

There was good news with respect to women's representation in government. Participants were encouraged by the growing number of women in powerful political positions in Africa.

Liberia has the continent's first female head of state, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and women serve in senior positions in several other countries as speakers of parliament, prime ministers and vice-presidents, including the host for the conference, the Gambia, whose vice president, Aja Isatou-Njie-Saidy, attended every session.

A variety of affirmative action measures including quotas have helped six countries elect parliaments comprising at least 30 percent women; Rwanda's legislature has the highest proportion of women in the world, with 56 percent of members of parliament being women.

Fatou Kargbo, director of Gender and Children Affairs in Sierra Leone, said her country had seven ministers and deputy ministers, 18 parliamentarians and about 45 percent of local councillors were female.

"In the whole of Africa," Kargbo added," we have the first and only female brigadier. Our deputy inspector-general of police is a women; our chief justice is a woman, two of the regional police heads are women"

But Kargbo pointed to the constitution as an obstacle to electing women. "We are now campaigning for proportionate form of election that will give women more chance to be in parliament."

The Fifteen-Year Review of the Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in Africa Synthesis Report, produced by the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa to cover 1995-2009 says that despite the immense achievements made with women's representation in politics, there are still stiff challenges ahead to meet the 50/50 target.

"Leadership and decision-making positions are still closed, and would require creative and innovative measure if the number of women is to increase."

The Sudanese minister for women's affairs, Agnes K. Lasuba, said for women to be included in the top levels of decision-making in her country would take a long time.

"After emerging from the (decades-long civil war), we have taken an affirmative approach," Minister Lusaba said. "But we have our constitution and other issues of tradition and custom tend to undermine our endeavor. It would be done but slowly."

Another area of qualified success for Africa is increased gender parity in primary school education. Thanks to measures like free and compulsory education, more than 60 percent of African countries have already reached the gender parity target.

However many girls fail to progress to higher levels of education. The synthesis report is also critical of education content as being irrelevant to the job market, and a perceived deterioration in the quality of education across the continent.

The synthesis report is critical of progress on women's health. Budgets for health have generally increased, and sexual and reproductive health programmes have been created.

But in terms of HIV/AIDS, women remain disproportionately affected by the pandemic, accounting for 60 percent of people living with AIDS.

Africa's rate of maternal morbidity, the proportion of women in Africa who face serious complications during pregnancy, remains the highest in the world.

"Although all countries report that they have established programmes of action, this has not yet translated into substantial gains in fighting maternal mortality and other women’s reproductive rights and health challenges. This is caused primarily by the inadequacy of medical personnel and limited access to emergency obstetric care."

There appears to be little good news in the area of reducing poverty for African women. The Synthesis Report says governments need to do more to reduce poverty. "So far, there is no evidence to show that existing policies and strategies have curbed the feminisation of poverty in Africa."

And with the global economic downturn, the trend is expected to grow worse.

"The global economic crisis is likely to hit African women on two fronts," the synthesis report says. "First, it arrests capital accumulation by women; second, it is drastically reducing African women’s individual incomes as well as the budgets they manage on behalf of their households, with particularly damaging consequences for the girl-child."

Another important area of concern is the escalating rate of violence against women. Nearly every country has taken steps to enact or strengthen of legislation protecting women, but there remain significant weaknesses in implementation, as well as in laws covering violence within the family.

Fatou Kargbo, director of Gender and Children Affairs in Sierra Leone, said her country had developed five acts of parliament, in addition to ratifying numerous international and regional protocols aimed at protecting women from violence.

The problems, she said, persist due to a lack of human and financial resources to implement laws and policies. "Look, we are even supposed to be going to the provinces to monitor, but we could not," she said.

As for the causes of violence, Litha Musyami-Ogana, director of the African Union's Gender and Development Directorate, said these should not be looked for only in war and armed conflict, but in the unequal relationship between men and women. Many women lack economic power, and have to depend on men who take advantage of this to harm them.

"We also have an unhelpful justice system where the police do not take violence against women seriously. And courts are not as well helpful," Musyami-Ogana added. "We are caught in a system where violence against women is yet to be appreciated as criminal."

In the end, it is a familiar refrain: policies and programmes need to be backed and implemented by governments if they are to have full effect.

"The time to revisit our habits and actions is now," said Lalla Ben Barka, deputy executive secretary of UNECA, " because women are still bearing the brunt of all types of shortcomings, crises, wars, and conflicts."

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PORT-LOUIS, Nov 21 (IPS) - "We lived like fishes in the water. We were not lazy. We worked hard. We lived a very natural way of life by eating fish and green vegetables and fruits that was abundant in the forests. Nature was our refrigerator."

Rita Bancoult lived on Peros Banhos, one of the islands forming the Chagos archipelago 1,000 kilometres north of Mauritius. This small set of islets were considered part of Mauritius until they were detached from its territory just prior to independence from British colonial rule in 1968.

One of the islands, Diego Garcia, was ceded by colonial ruler, Britain, to the United States and transformed into a military base.

The people of the Chagos - 2,500-strong at the time of their exile in the 1970s, and today numbering 8,600 - was forcefully displaced and brought to Mauritius. Others were sent to the Seychelles.

"My navel is buried there," 74-year-old Bancoult says of her lost homeland.

"The small hospital that was built there opened only when a woman had to give birth because Chagossians fell rarely ill," she recalls.

Sixty five year-old Aurélie Talate remembers the fresh fish and vegetables she ate. "We did not know about frozen food nor money," she told IPS.

Thrown into the rough suburbs of the Mauritian capital Port-Louis, the Chagossians - particularly the women - battled to be allowed to return home, immediately after their arrival, causing days and weeks of disturbances in the capital.

This went on for several years. Some were beaten by the riot police, arrested and imprisoned but they never stopped claiming their land. Instead of a return, they received some financial compensation from Britain and land from Mauritius on which to start a new life.

Forty years later, they still live in poverty. Many of them are jobless and they become easy prey to drugs and prostitution.

Olivier Bancoult was four when he was brought to Mauritius together with his mother, Rita. He created the Chagos Refugees Group in 1983 to defend the rights of his community.

"Instead of living in poverty here, let us go back to our land," he says.

Talate will be the first one to do so if the British allows her. "I’ll go even if I have to walk on my hands", she says, arguing that life is no paradise for Chagossians in Mauritius.

The Chagos Refugee Group has been struggling for two decades to regain its homeland, staging numerous public demonstrations and hunger strikes in Port-Louis, and petitioning the British government and international organisations.

Three times the community won their cases in UK courts, most recently in 2007. But in a split judgment in October 2008, the House of Lords, the final Court of Appeal in the United Kingdom, ruled in favour of the British Government, finally blocking this route home for the displaced people.

The Chagossians have appealed to the European Court for Human Rights, and Bancoult is not discouraged.

"Even if many of our elders have died, the youth wants to go and see the land of their forefathers," he told IPS.

U.S. anthropologist and professor David Vine has published a book called "Island of Shame" which relates how the Chagossians lived before their exile, how the U.S. and UK governments conspired against these people, and how they are today suffering from poverty and sadness in Mauritius.

Vine says he is ashamed about what his government did to the Chagossian people. He has sent a copy of his book to US President Obama in the hope that he'll help Chagossians return back to their homeland.

But the key to the Chagos resides with the British government, which placed the archipelago under the rule of the BIOT (British Indian Ocean Territory).

Gillian Merron, Under-Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs told the UK Parliament in April that "we deeply regret the forced resettlement of Chagossians and the hardship that resulted from it."

She added: "We do not seek to justify those actions and do not seek to excuse the conduct of an earlier generation. However, the truth is that we have to look forward. We cannot turn the clock back."

Mauritius is mainly concerned by its sovereignty over the Chagos. For years, it has been claiming it at the level of the United Nations. The island is now seeking an amicable settlement of this long-standing dispute with the UK through discussions that have started early this year.

In 2006, a hundred Chagossians were allowed to go and have a look at their land. They came back in tears.

"Our houses lie still there; we have found many of our tools lying around. But most distressing is that our cemetery where our grand parents are buried is in a pitiful state," Bancoult told IPS.

But Fernand Mandarin, leader of the Comité Social Chagossien, another group that was formed later, is sceptical. "I do not think all Chagossians would be happy to go back," he observes, claiming that the younger generation, though poor, is used to modern living in Mauritius.

"They would go and settle down in Britain if they can, as some of our friends have done with the British passports they secured in 2001. But not in the Chagos."

But Bancoult says the community can cohabit with the U.S. military base where some 12,000 people live "until the archipelago is freed."

His plan, submitted to the British government in 2007, envisions that plenty of jobs can be created for the community in a fishing industry to be set up there. The archipelago is reputed to have lots of fish in its lagoon.

"About 25 foreign fishing companies are presently engaged in this activity around the Chagos. Britain is getting 1.7 million pounds annually from them as fishing licences. Why can't it use this money to set up an industry?" Bancoult asks.

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JOHANNESBURG, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Everyone who follows Namibian politics knows who is going to win the elections in the vast, mineral-rich, sparsely populated country on the west coast of Southern Africa on Nov. 27-29.

Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba, who attracted 76.4 percent of the presidential vote in the previous elections in 2004, is certain to triumph, along with his South West African People’s Organization (Swapo), which attracted 76.1 percent of the votes for the National Assembly in 2004.

Although 12 opposition parties will contest next weekend’s polls, it is turning into a two-horse race between Swapo and the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), with the Swapo horse well in front.

President Pohamba has been criss-crossing the country, reminding voters of his party’s struggle credentials and spreading a message of steady, peaceful development.

Swapo, which fought a liberation war against apartheid South Africa, has convincingly won all elections so far since independence in March 1990. It currently holds 55 of the 72 Assembly seats up for grabs. The only question is whether Swapo will be able to achieve its target of winning all 72 seats.

The next biggest party, the Congress of Democrats, won 7.29 percent of the vote last time to secure five seats, while the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance pulled 5.11 percent to be allocated four seats.

This time Swapo is adamant that it is on track to get 100 percent of the vote, according to the party's publicity secretary, Jerry Ekandjo.

Namibia expert John Grobler said in an article carried by this week’s Mail & Guardian newspaper that the RDP is the only party that stands any chance of breaking Swapo's political stranglehold over the voter-rich central northern regions, and in particular in the most densely populated region of Ohangwena.

Its staging of rallies, especially in Outapi in the neighboring Omusati region, the political heartland of former president Sam Nujoma, has seen violence break out between RDP and Swapo supporters.

Like the Congress of Democrats (CoD), the RDP is a breakaway faction of Swapo members, formed into a political party in 2007 under former Swapo stalwarts Hidipo Hamutenya and Jesaya Nyamu.

The RDP has borrowed heavily from U. S. President Barack Obama's campaigning methods, with door-to-door campaigning. Grobler says this election promises to be different in some material respects: unlike previous elections, this time votes will be counted at the polling stations, with results to be posted outside the same venue. This method was followed in last year’s elections in Zimbabwe.

This practice in itself is expected to curtail any election rigging, which opposition parties allege happened in 2004.

The Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN) has backed down from handing the tender to print the ballots to a Swapo-owned company. The ballots will now be supplied by a South African printing firm instead.

At the same time, the ECN has revised its claimed figures of registered voters down from 1.36 million to a more modest 960 000 voters, a difference of 400 000 voters. But even this figure remains questionable: informed sources suggest that the real number of registered voters is closer to 820 000.

Namibia covers 824,295 square km with a population of just over 2 million. Namibia is rich in diamonds, uranium, copper, zinc and lead.

PRESIDENT Mugabe and his delegation returned home on Thursday from Rome, Italy, where they attended the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s world food security summit that saw the developing world calling for concerted efforts to end global hunger.

President Mugabe, who was accompanied by First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe and several senior Government officials, was welcomed at Harare International Airport by Vice President Joice Mujuru, Media, Information and Publicity Minister Webster Shamu, Minister of State for State Security Sydney Sekeramayi and service chiefs.

President Mugabe addressed the summit on Tuesday and called for the developed world to scrap subsidies on agriculture, which he said had led declining food production in developing countries.

He briefed the summit on the cocktail of homegrown measures Zimbabwe has taken to avert food insecurity.

The leaders, including Libya’s Brother Leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, said the West had proved it was not committed to fighting global hunger by snubbing the food summit.

The three-day summit ended on Wednesday with leaders imploring the Western world to invest more in agriculture.

It is projected that more than 9,1 billion people the world over will battle hunger by 2050.

FAO director-general, Mr Jacques Diouf, said the summit marked "an important step towards the achievement of our common objective — a world free from hunger".

He, however, said it was deplorable that although world leaders had made a declaration to fight hunger, the summit had not set any tangible targets and deadlines to spur implementation of the resolutions.

FAO had proposed setting a target of 2025 for the total eradication of hunger globally and increasing official aid to agriculture to US$44 billion per year to boost production in developing countries.

The money would have been largely invested in rural areas.

The leaders made several commitments. They affirmed a pledge to renew efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger by 2015 and eradicating hunger from the world at the earliest date.

They also pledged to improve international co-ordination and the governance of food security through a profound reform of FAO’s Committee on World Food Security, which would become a central component of the Global Partnership for Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition.

They agreed to include stakeholders from both the public and private sectors and non-governmental organisations and elevate to ministerial level the Committee on World Food Security to enable it to co-ordinate international efforts against hunger as well as take rapid and informed decisions on global food issues.

The committee will be assisted in that task by an international high-level panel of experts. The leaders promised to reverse the downward trend in domestic and international funding for agriculture, food security and rural development in developing countries and significantly increase their share in public development aid.

herald

Harare City Council has set its parking enforcement teams revenue targets for fines from clamping and boasts that it made US$76 582 in the seven days from November 10 to 17 by clamping 585 vehicles and towing 184, well above the targeted US$60 000.

Over 20 vehicles were towed away on each of the days while more than 55 were clamped.

The penalty for towing is US$60 while parking for one hour while displaying a disc costs US$1.

For clamping a light motor vehicle, council requires payment of a US$35 fine.

Most councils round the world set revenue targets for total parking fee income, which could be 100 percent from fees if everyone obeyed by-laws to 100 percent from fines if no one did.

Council spokesperson Mr Leslie Gwindi suggested the high level of parking fines was evidence of a "carefree attitude" by motorists, saying while the municipality welcomed such revenue inflows it was better if drivers simply obeyed parking by-laws.

He said the errant motorists had an "I don’t care attitude", as they knowingly do things in breach of the law.

On the other hand, a number of motorists interviewed yesterday said the large amount of money that council was raking in from them was an indication of a "flawed system" rather than of negligence on their part.

The motorists said the city should make available more convenient parking lots to cater for people who work near Market Square and the Kopje area.

The Fourth Street and Park Lane parking bays charge just US$1 per day, while city parkades charge up to US$10 for 10 hours of parking over a normal working day.

There are no city parking bays or parkades in downtown Harare, and motorists have said this forces them to sometimes park illegally if they have no parking disks.

Mr Gwindi said the city would always implement its by-laws with a view to maintaining sanity on the roads.

"We will not let loose our grip. For as long as motorists ignore the law we have no choice but to discipline them through clamping, towing and ticketing where necessary," he said.

Vehicle clamping and towing has been in practice in Harare since 2003 but since then the culture of displaying parking discs has generally not caught on.

Members of the public have pointed out that at times parking discs are not available from authorised distributors.

Motorist Mrs Maidei Banda, who said her car was recently towed, said: "The system has flaws and they only impact negatively on drivers.

"Sometimes parking discs are not available and what are we expected to do then? Should we stop driving our cars?

"And there are very few car parks in the city. In downtown it is very hard to find parking. Council should rectify this situation instead of making a lot of money from us without providing any real service."

She said security was also very low and council should be using the money it is collecting to protect their cars from thieves and vandals.

"We are forced to pay money to touts to watch over our cars. This should be council’s responsibility. They are making money and so they should deploy more people to protect our cars."

A visit to the city parking lots at Fourth Street and Park Lane yesterday revealed several lot of empty bays, suggesting under-use by motorists who it seems would rather risk having their vehicles clamped and towed away than buy parking discs.

herald

Gaborone — When Kgomotso Mogami threw her name into the hat to contest the Gaborone Central parliamentary seat it was easy for many people to write her off.

It seemed so obvious she would lose the election. The reasons were not so difficult to find. She was just an ordinary councillor for the government ward in Gaborone, contesting against two men - Botswana's most popular parliamentarian, Dumelang Saleshando of the Botswana Congress Party (BCP) and the Botswana National Front (BNF)'s Kagiso Thutlwe, a former student leader.here

Mogami indeed lost the election, by a very wide margin. She polled 2,662 votes, less than half the incumbent Saleshando's 6,102 votes. She however beat Thutlwe, who polled 1,118 votes.

But now, a month after Botswana held its 10th General Elections, Mogami is still among the most talked about women. Despite losing the election, Mogami considers herself a winner. "I am ranking myself as a winner despite the fact that I am not in parliament," Mogami told IPS.

"I did pretty fine considering that I only had two weeks to prepare for the election. The numbers I got in just two weeks are much better than what my rivals, who have been there for five years, got. Being a woman, and having campaigned for only two weeks, I can safely say I won."

Mogami threw her name into the hat two weeks before the election when the existing candidate was suspended.

The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) had named its secretary general Gomolemo Motswaledi as the candidate for Gaborone Central. Motswaledi was, however, suspended before the elections, and recalled as the candidate for the region. All BDP members in Gaborone Central seemed reluctant to fill the void left by Motswaledi. Only Mogami was confident enough to submit her name in his place.

Within hours of the announcement of her candidature, Mogami was strongly criticised - both by members of the opposition and supporters of her own party loyal to Motswaledi. She was not moved, and went ahead with the campaign.

Some BDP members, frustrated that she was a member of the committee that initiated Motswaledi's suspension, mounted a campaign against her. This led the incumbent President Ian Khama to appoint an investigation in the matter.

Despite all these odds, Mogami was determined to prove her critics wrong.

"This (election) should show everyone that I have the political strength and I can deliver," she told journalists just before the elections began.

Many were quick to write her off, as her candidature was only registered less than a month before the election, when her opponents were campaigning for the better part of this year.

In a telephone interview with IPS less than a week before the country went to the polls, Mogami was busy on the campaign trail.

"I got into it because I knew I have what it takes for the challenge," said Mogami. "All I can say is that I am geared for the election. My chances of winning are actually even greater than those of Motswaledi."

Eventually the election was won by Saleshando, the firebrand BCP spokesperson, who also won the seat in the last 2004 election.

But Mogami's defeat was not as easing as merely losing to the opposition. When she put her name forward to fill Motswaledi's post, many in the opposition and within her own party were quick to write her off.

And so Mogami faced opposition on both sides - on the one she had to face her BCP and BNF rivals, on the other she faced disgruntled members from within her own party. But her situation is typical of the internal fights that characterised Botswana parties in the run-up to the elections.

A Botswana National Front (BNF) council candidate, Rhoda Sekgororoane said the circumstances leading to Mogami's candidature painted an incorrect picture of women in politics. Mogami is an executive member of the Botswana Coalition for Women in Politics (BCWP).

"The political situation in that area is volatile as people are still hurt by what happened to Motswaledi. She will be thoroughly beaten at the polls," said Sekgororoane, a former BCWP vice-president, before the elections.

While the politicians were tussling, euphoria gripped ordinary citizens as D-Day fast approached. A drive on the dusty streets of Botshabelo in Selebi Phikwe and Old Naledi in Gaborone was enough evidence of the excitement ahead of the October elections.

Red, yellow and green posters for the BDP, BNF and BCP, respectively, were all over the place.

"It is very difficult to predict how things will go in this election," said Rodrick Othusitse, a plumber in Broadhurst, which falls under Gaborone Central just before the voting. "The infighting in the BDP and BNF is unprecedented. There (was) a time when I thought I would not vote because of the way things were going. How can you have party leaders always indicating right, but turning left, or not turning at all?"

Internal fights are not a problem of the BDP. The main opposition BNF also spent the better part of the year fighting court battles against suspended members. In one of the high profile cases, the BNF suspended the outgoing MP for Gaborone South, Akanyang Magama and his team of prospective councillors.

Magama challenged the party's leadership in court, and won the case - forcing the party leadership to launch him as their candidate. In the view of Debra Otlhogile, a hairdresser in Old Naledi in Gaborone, this already caused confusion among many voters, and led to the BNF's demise.

"For (a long while) the BNF leadership told us that Magama would not represent the party in the elections as he was suspended," said Otlhogile. "We were surprised when (BNF leader Otsweletse) Moupo held a rally and announced that Magama's suspension had been lifted and that he would now represent the party. This just shows you these politicians take us for granted."

The pre-election bickering within the party cast doubts over the BNF's preparedness to retain some of its strongholds. The party recorded a significant decline in popularity, although it remains the main opposition.

More than 700,000 citizens registered for this year's elections, a record high in the country's electoral history. There are 57 contested parliamentary seats and 490 council wards.

Khama shrugged off competition from Moupo and BCP leader Gilson Saleshando to retain the presidency. The Botswana Alliance Movement (BAM) did not field a presidential candidate as part of its working relationship with the BCP that the parties do not contest against each other.

The MELS movement and the Botswana People's Party (BPP) did not field presidential candidates after failing to raise the required number of nominations. Political parties are required to collect 1000 signatures of registered voters to support a presidential nomination. The BDP won the presidency and retained its majority in Parliament, capturing 45 of the 57 contested seats.

The party got an additional four members through presidential appointments. The BNF got six parliamentary seats, thus retaining its role as the main opposition with 22 percent representation in Parliament. The BCP won five seats, accounting for 19 percent. All opposition winners were men.

But for Mogami the election was an eye opener for women in Botswana politics.

"I believe all the women who contested parliament did well although only two managed to win. Those who won they did so with very wide margins. Those who lost also put up a good fight. I rank them as successful."

Only two women, Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi and Botlogile Tshireletso were elected into parliament. Two other women, Lesego Motsumi and Dorcas Makgato-Malesu were appointed as specially elected MPs. Another woman, Margaret Nasha was named the country's first ever female Speaker of the National Assembly.

At her inaugural speech, Nasha said life in parliament was going to be tough for the four women, who have to raise their voice against 58 men.

"I cannot, however, pretend it is not a bitter sweet moment for me in view of the fact that there are only four women members in this parliament of 62 (members), including the president," said Nasha last month. "Four women against 58 men is indeed an unfortunate reversal of the gains we made in women's representation in politics and gender equality generally."

But for Mogami and other women, the battle begins now. "I am now mobilising other women to take up the challenge in the next election. I am not only mobilising them, I am also educating them on the various challenges they have to look out for," Mogami said.

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In late October, the Puntland government arrested five men of Ogadeni origin. These men came to Puntland using Somali travel documents provided by Somali authorities in Yemen.

Puntland and Ethiopian security personnel, invited by Puntland authorities, interrogated the prisoners. One of the prisoners, Abdi Mohamed Hassan also known as “Abdi Teerso” was handed over to Ethiopian security. Another prisoner died while in custody. An elderly man from Puntland was arrested by Puntland authorities after he publicly criticized the government.

This is not the first time Puntland authorities have harassed, tortured, killed, and handed over men of Ogadeni origin to Ethiopian security. Over a year ago, two senior members of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) were handed over to Ethiopian security by a Puntland minister. They came, with the permission of Puntland authorities, to discuss the murder of an elder.

In June 2009, I invited President Abdirahman Mohamed Mohamud (Farole) of Puntland to testify before my Subcommittee on Somalia. After the hearing, I discussed a number of issues with him, including the targeting and the handing over of Ogadenis to Ethiopian authorities. I was assured then that this would not happen again and that the government would reach out to this community.

In an effort to resolve the recent detention of the five men, I called the President of Puntland to discuss my concerns and strongly urged him to release them without delay. I even proposed that the men be sent to another country where they will be safe. A week passed and nothing happened.

In mid-November, I met again with the President of Puntland and his Interior Minister in Kenya to urge them to release the three men still in detention in Puntland. Again, he pledged to find ways to pardon the prisoners. In fact, Puntland authorities are now threatening non-Puntland Somalis to leave some areas within 48 hours.

I strongly condemn this abusive and dictatorial behavior and demand the immediate release of the prisoners. I also call for those responsible for the killing of the prisoner and intimidation of Ogadenis to be held accountable, including senior officials who authorized these measures. Failure to act quickly on this matter will have serious consequences.

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(Xinhua) -- Yemen's Interior Ministry said Friday that Somali pirates have seized a Panamanian cargo ship off southeast coast of Yemen at the Gulf of Aden.

The ministry said in a statement that the Panamanian-flagged ship called Red Sda Sbirt left Aden port late Thursday and was intercepted by the pirates after sailing about 36 nautical miles off the Yemeni port of Balhaf.

The multinational coalition task force had sent one of its military boats to the specific area where the hijacking took place in an attempt to save the ship, the Yemeni coast guard was quoted by the statement as saying.

The statement mentioned neither the exact time of the attack nor the number of the crew aboard the hijacked ship.

(Xinhua) -- The City of Cape Town is ready to host the final draw for the 2010 soccer World Cup next month, mayor Dan Plato said on Friday.

"The city will be pulling out all stops to demonstrate its professionalism, creativity and expertise through this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he said. The event was a "dream becoming a reality".

The draw takes place on Dec. 4 and will determine the match schedule for the 32 teams participating.

It will take place at the Cape Town International Convention Center and be broadcast to 200 countries. Plato said a series of celebratory events leading up to it had been planned.

On Nov. 29, the traditional switching on of festival lights in Adderley Street in the city center would take place. About 100,000locals and visitors are expected to attend the carnival-themed event. The street would be turned into a pedestrian zone.

Two days later, Plato will hold a welcoming ceremony for FIFA delegates at the Noon Gun on Signal Hill.

A street party, themed "Cape Town loves Football" will be held in Long Street in central Cape Town at the same time as the draw.

On Dec. 5, 500 international journalists are set to continue the party, as a beach function is held in their honor at Maidens Cove.

NAIROBI, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The five member states of the East African Community (EAC) on Friday signed the protocol on the establishment of a common market within the block in Arusha, Tanzania.

The signing of the protocol by Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi is the second landmark step of the block toward integration.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete hailed the signing of the protocol as a great step, according to reports reaching here.

EAC has already had a functional Customs Union which was established in January 2005.

Negotiations on the proposed Common Market began 18 months ago and was expected to be concluded by December 2008. But thorny issues had prolonged the negotiation process which pit Tanzania against four other member states.

The negotiations had been bogged down in three areas, namely national identification document, access and use of land and permanent residence.

Heads of EAC member states concluded the draft EAC Common Market Protocol in Kampala, Uganda in September this year.

Under the Common Market, a series of measures will be taken to integrate the regional market, including achieving a full-fledged Customs Union, eliminating tariff barriers, non-tariff trade barriers and technical trade barriers, allowing the free flow of goods, services, capital and persons, adopting Common External Tariff, introducing harmonized product standards, as well as harmonizing finance, trade, monetary, education, employment and labor policies.

Upon implementation, citizens of the five nations will be free to have cross-border travel without visas.

It is widely considered that the implementation of the Common Market will bring the region into a new stage of development, with increased regional trade, more foreign investment and better regional economic competitiveness.

Upon implementation, citizens of the five nations will be free to have cross-border travel without visas, enabling a free movement of labor, which is expected to optimize the distribution of human resources within the bloc and boost economic development, analysts say.

According to the protocol, companies and firms in one member state will receive equal treatment in other member states, creating a new wave of opportunities for business expansion.

Moreover, establishment of the Common Market is expected to speed up integration and inject new energy for the economic development of landlocked countries such as Rwanda and Burundi.

KINSHASA, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- A Boeing 727 of the African Aviation Company (AAC), an airline company of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), experienced a mishap while landing Thursday at the Goma international airport in North Kivu province and ended its course near the Nyiragongo volcano.

According to the Congolese news agency, some parts of the airplane were damaged, but the passengers on board including North Kivu Governor Julien Paluku survived the accident with only 10 of them suffering light injuries.

Two passengers suffering from shock were also rushed to a hospital for the United Nations mission in the DRC (MONUC).

Governor Paluku declared later in the day that his health status should not raise any worries. He attributed this accident to the wrong estimation by the pilot as the runway had been reduced to close to 1,000 meters by the volcanic lava.

ABIDJAN, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Operations in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI) has completed the distribution of the provisional electoral lists to all centers across the country in preparation for the eminent polls, a UN source said.

"The mission has completed the distribution of the electoral lists; on Nov. 13, all lists had been deposited to the regional or communal electoral commission centers," ONUCI spokesman Hamadoun Toure told a press conference on Thursday.

Having started on Nov. 11, the operation mobilized "several means especially an aircraft, three helicopters and 300 vehicles," Toure said, adding that "more than 400 civilians and military personnel were deployed to cover more than 206 routes."

"ONUCI is worried about the technical and logistical delays, the display of the electoral lists, and would therefore hope that the display which is anxiously being waited for by the population is organized by the independent electoral commission (CEI)," the spokesman added.

Even though consultations are going on with the introduction of the new communication and information technologies including mobile and fixed telephone and Internet for about a week now, the provisional electoral list should be publicly displayed in order to begin resolving the contentious electoral issues.

About 5.3 million Ivorians have been registered on the electoral list with slightly above a million people "who were negatively cross checked" and still waiting for the determination of their status.

The electoral contentions will be sorted out in 38 days before the publication of the final electoral list, the distribution of the voter cards, the national identity cards and the opening of the campaign for the presidential election which has been waited for since 2005.

Because of accumulated delays in the execution of the timetable, the election which was initially fixed for Nov. 29 will have "slight change" to a date likely to be known in the coming week, officials said.

2009-11-20
(Xinhua) -- Spain has released 3 million euros (4.5 million U.S. dollars) to support a joint program for "childhood, nutrition and food security" in Niger, the government announced.

The financial aid, which was signed on Wednesday in the Niger capital Niamey, is one of the programs being supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

"These funds are expected to give better results centered on the improvement of the nutritional situation and reinforcement of Niger's food security," the coordinator of the United Nations System (UNS) in Niger, Khardiata Lo N'diaye, declared during the accord signing ceremony.

She pointed out that the management of these funds will be done by three bodies, which will include the national directorate committee composed of the UNS coordinator, the Spanish ambassador and a director from Niger's prime minister's office; a technical management committee bringing together UN agencies; and a coordination unit for the program from the prime minister's office.

2009-11-20
(Xinhua) -- The Sudanese Foreign Ministry summoned Thursday the Egyptian ambassador in Khartoum Afify Abdul-Wahab to protest against Egyptian media's accusations of Sudan's failure to protect the Egyptian soccer fans.

Sudanese State Minister for Foreign Affairs Ali Karti conveyed to the Egyptian ambassador Sudan's complete rejection of the words adopted by some Egyptian media organs to offend Sudan in an unacceptable manner, according to a statement by the Sudanese Foreign Ministry.

"Instead of appreciating Sudan's great preparations and its security plan which brought the great sport event to a safe end, some of these (Egyptian) media used an individual incident as a pretext to offend the Sudan and its people," the statement said.

The Sudanese official demanded the Egyptian ambassador to correct the "image" and to urge the Egyptian media to cease their campaign against Sudan and stop offending its people.

Earlier in the day, Khartoum police spokesman Mohamed Abdul-Majeed al-Tayeb said, "We reaffirm that the Sudanese police, in cooperation with other security forces, have remarkably succeeded in preserving the security during and after the playoff match. No cases of death or serious injuries were reported among the fans of the two teams."

On Wednesday, Khartoum hosted the Egyptian and Algerian soccer teams in their World Cup qualifier playoff during which Egypt was defeated 1-0 and lost the chance to advance to the World Cup finals in South Africa next year.

Egypt recalled on Thursday its ambassador to Algeria due to Algerian soccer fans' assaults against Egyptian nationals in Sudan after the match.

Nov 20, 2009
DAKAR (Reuters) - South Africans are amongst a group of mercenaries working for Guinea's military junta, according to security sources and copies of emails seen by Reuters on Friday.

The bulk of them have been sent to the West African nation by Dubai-based businessmen, the sources said. As well as military training, their job is to ensure the arrival of arms acquired by the junta from Ukraine in defiance of an arms embargo.

Guinea's military regime is facing international sanctions and demands that it hand over power to civilian rule after a September 28 crackdown on opposition protesters in which witnesses said more than 150 people were killed and women were raped.

South Africa announced this week it was checking reports that its nationals have been hired to train a force for Guinea's junta, and there have been separate reports that Israelis and Ukrainians are involved in helping the government.

"They couldn't get enough people to do the job, so that is why there is a mix of people doing the job," said Henri Boshoff, a military analyst who served in the South African army, citing information in intelligence circles.

"(The South Africans) were very desperate. They are not being very well paid."

Two security sources also said that South Africans were currently in Guinea.

"There are definitely South Africans and they don't seem too shy," said one source with contacts in Guinea's private security sector, adding they had been hired to train a militia loyal to junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara at a former U.N. refugee camp in Guinea's east.