Patients at Yola hospital in Adamawa state have been neglected

KANO, 25 September 2009 (IRIN) - A health worker strike in northern Nigeria’s Adamawa state has paralysed public hospitals, forcing patients to forgo medical treatment.

Most of the state’s 7,000 health workers, including nurses, specialists and administrators but not general doctors, began an indefinite strike on 25 June to protest the suspension of an improved salary structure by the state government, according to head of the health workers union Babangida Philibus.

People requiring medical care are frightened. Wada Jibrin broke his leg in a car crash on 16 July and requires continued orthopaedic care. “I’m praying that the strike is called off so that I can go back to hospital and continue receiving treatment. I fear I may lose my leg if the strike is prolonged because my case needs specialized care.”

Ahmad Abdulhamid, a physician at state-run Yola Specialist Hospital, told IRIN: “The industrial strike action has forced all in-patients to go back home because there is no one to nurse them here….We have been reduced to mere consultancy clinics where we only examine patients, diagnose their ailments and prescribe drugs for them to buy at drug stores.”

He said the situation is dire in public hospitals across the state. “Only a few patients who can afford high medical fees have moved to private clinics, while [most] have resigned to their homes hoping the matter is soon resolved and the strike suspended.”

Cholera response affected

Aliyu Sambo, head of the Nigeria Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), told IRIN the strike hindered the government’s emergency response to flood and cholera victims.

A cholera outbreak in August and September 2009 killed 70 people and left 746 hospitalized, according to Adamawa information commissioner Musa Bubakari.

The government relied on volunteers from NEMA and the Nigerian Red Cross to assist cholera victims in hospitals.

Union leader Philibus said: “The government should take responsibility for all the people who are suffering from sicknesses as a result of the ongoing strike because the government caused it. Deaths in the recent cholera outbreak could have been avoided were health workers not on strike.”

Access to adequate healthcare is poor in much of northern Nigeria according to the UN, and the country is not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals to reduce maternal mortality or improve maternal health. Life expectancy for Nigerians is 46.6 years.

Why the strike

The Adamawa state government on 9 June suspended a new salary package introduced in August 2008 for health workers in public hospitals. The package increased basic salaries for hospital staff from US$56 a month to $84, according to union head Philibus.

The state government says it is suspending the structure while it eliminates a problem of ghost workers in the health sector.

“The suspension of the new salary structure became imperative following mounting salary bills and allegations of a high number of ghost workers in the sector, in the face of dwindling government revenues due to the economic crunch,” Saidu Bobbo, permanent secretary in Adamawa health ministry, told IRIN. He said once the problem is resolved the new salary structure will resume.

Health workers have said they will strike until the government reinstates the higher wages. Philibus said the government should have consulted unions before taking action.


irinnews

25 September, 2009

Algeria delievered a formal request to the International Atomic Energy Agency to sign the Additional Protocol to the Convention on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, allowing the IAEA inspectors to conduct unannounced inspections in the two nuclear centers in Algeria in both Algiers and Djelfa, south of Algeria, Chakib Khlil, Minister of Energy and Mines says.

" The law on the peaceful uses of the nuclear energy, which also provides for the development of legal measures, which help Algeria take actions that make it a country which comply with the international obligations, and could exploit the peaceful applications of nuclear energy. Government will consider, before the end of this year, the bill to be ready at the beginning of next year, which allows the establishment of an Agency for safety and security of nuclear and other for research and production. The Additional Protocol which was approved by the IAEA in 1997 is the main international instrument to control the spread of the nuclear weapons, said Khalil.

" The Algerian nuclear centres will be subjected to continuous control with high level of transparency. The protocol allows the inspection of institutions that are not mentioned in the convention such as the reactors that are out of work and research centres, and also ensures the entry of the IAEA inspectors to the nuclear sites at a short time between two and 24 hours, in order to ensure the absence of nuclear activities and equipment that have not been announced".

The U.S. ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna, Gregory Schulte, visited Algeria last year officially and signed the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

However, Khalil confirmed that Algeria had nothing to hide from the eyes of the IAEA adding that Algeria is working to develop its peaceful nuclear program which is fully transparent. " All the simple equipments are controlled by the IAEA inspectors at any moment". It is the first time Algeria responded on the doubts that had been promoted a week ago in Paris on the Algerian peaceful nuclear program, as Khalil stressed that Algeria has nothing to hide.

The Algerian nuclear program returned to the surface again in the recent days on the occasion of publishing a book titled "The black market for the bomb", published in Paris and written by Bruno Tartri, a research professo rat the French Strategic Research and an expert in the nuclear issues. In his book he devoted an entire chapter to what he called "The Algerian Nuclear ambitions".

Khalil criticized those who promote this non innocent discussions, saying that there are countries which have nuclear programs for military purposes and atomic bombs, but they did not bother to sign any agreements on the prevention of the the nuclear proliferation and even more, they have not been subjected to pressure in order to force them to sign the main or additional protcols of the AEIA.

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25 Sep 2009

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has accused the 'imperialist' West of seeking his ouster via the imposition of sanctions and creation of a dictator's image of him.

Speaking to CNN on Thursday ahead of his speech at the UN General Assembly, Robert Mugabe lashed out at the US and the UK for the placing economic sanctions on the sub-Saharan country, exacerbating Zimbabwean drought which has turned the so-called breadbasket of Africa into a state with food problems.

The 85-year-old leader depicted himself as a pioneer on the anti-imperialism front and charged the West with implicating him of authoritarianism.

He also rejected economic and power-sharing predicaments in Zimbabwe and blamed the Western economic embargoes for opposition in the South African state.

"The sanctions must be lifted. We should have no interference from outside," he told CNN.
"The continued imperialist interference in our affairs is affecting our country adversely," added the Zimbabwean president.

When asked about his land reform policies that pushed white farmers out of their properties, Mugabe riposted, "Zimbabwe belongs to the Zimbabweans, pure and simple," adding elsewhere, "They (the white settlers) occupied the land illegally. They seized the land from our people."

"They are British settlers," he went on to say and describing them "citizens by colonization, seizing land from original people and indigenous people of the country."

Mugabe also denied charges of vote-rigging in 2008 presidential election when his ZANU-PF party regained control dashing hopes of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC party) and said, "Elections don't go all that smoothly all the time in many countries."

"Look what happens elsewhere. They didn't go smoothly here, look at what happened during the first term of Bush," he retorted, referring to the controversial 2000 US presidential election where the Democratic candidate Al Gore lost to the then President Gorge W. Bush in a tight race to the White House.

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25 Sep 2009

In two interviews following his contentious address at the UN General Assembly, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi rejects a two-state solution to the conflict in Middle East.

Qaddafi told Time magazine and Aljazeera network that he deemed that the UN Security Council's efforts for a lasting peace between Palestinians and Israel were futile.

"There is no way to have these two states so close, because they are already integrated. Two million Palestinians live in Israel, Gaza is isolated … torn apart and isolated. Israel should get rid of their nuclear weapons - the Muslim countries will not recognize Israel as long as they have nuclear weapons - and these problems would be done," he told Aljazeera.

When asked whether his 'one-state solution' could not be interpreted as opposing a Jewish state and his views on the legitimacy of such a state, Qaddafi instead talked of a worldwide 'persecution' of the Jewish people spanning history.

"I am keen and anxious for the safety of both the Jews and the Palestinians. The position that we are in, the road that the world is going on, would lead to the destruction of the Jews," Qaddafi told Time editors Romesh Ratnesar and Michael Elliott on Thursday.

"We know that they're not that big. Unfortunately, they were persecuted by all nations."

Citing the unjust persecution of Jews by the Romans and King Edward I and the Holocaust, Qaddafi said, "Once seeing the history like that we can only but sympathize with them as Jews."

"The Arabs actually were the ones who gave them the safe haven and the protection along all these areas when they were persecuted. As recent as '48 or '49…the Jews were there in Libya. There was no animosity, no hatred between us," added the leader known for his eccentric ideas and behavior.

He added that the Jews had somehow blended into the Libyan communities, "spoke Arabic, wearing Libyan uniforms, Libyan clothes."

Asked for a direct answer to the question he said, "We have to serve God, or guarantee the safety of the Jews. And this can be done by them accepting the Palestinians, recognizing the Palestinians, accepting that fact that they should live with the Palestinians in one state, together."

The leader, who assumed control following a coup in 1969, addressed the United Nations during its annual meeting for the first time on Wednesday in a 95-minute speech that broke UN protocol, and at one point ripped up a copy of the UN charter and threw it at officials.

His country assumed the rotating presidency of the UN General Assembly on September 15, giving rise to concerns in Switzerland over an outrageous motion he filed to the international body asking for the demolition of the Alpine country over recent disagreements.

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DAKAR, 24 September 2009 (IRIN) - Lawyers and rights activists are calling on the African Union's human rights body to move its headquarters out of The Gambia after President Yahya Jammeh on national television threatened human rights defenders and said he would kill anyone collaborating with them.

“African leaders must stand up and draw a line and say this is unacceptable," Chidi Odinkalu, legal adviser with the Africa Open Society Justice Initiative, told IRIN. "We cannot defend human rights internationally if our leaders are going around threatening people [with death]."

In a speech televised on 21 September President Jammeh said: “If you think you can collaborate with so-called human rights defenders and get away with it, you must be living in a dream world. I will kill you and nothing will come of it.”

He continued: “We are not going to condone people posing as human rights defenders to the detriment of our country. If you are affiliated with any human rights group, rest assured your security and personal safety will not be guaranteed by my government. We are ready to kill saboteurs.”

The Gambia hosts the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, which hears cases brought by human rights defenders from across the continent.

“It is extraordinary," Odinkalu told IRIN. "When presidents begin to threaten death and killing on people who defend human life and human rights it reflects a system with a total absence of accountability.”

“This is not the first, second or third time he has issued threats [but] there is a chilling dimension to this threat. It is indiscriminate and it is directed at the whole world...The human rights situation in Gambia...is intolerable.”

Lawyers from the Open Society Institute and the Coalition for an Effective African Court on Human and People’s Rights have signed a petition to be sent to the African Union on 28 September, calling on the Commission to stop holding sessions in The Gambia until the matter is resolved, and for civil society organizations to refrain from attending any sessions.

“Such comments by a public official are simply contemptible, as well as in violation of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights," said a communiqué accompanying the petition. "But Jammeh’s threat is even more cynical considering that the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights maintains its headquarters in the Gambian capital city, Banjul."

The Commission, charged with promoting and protecting human rights throughout the continent, was established in 1986 by the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and set up its headquarters in Banjul in 1989.

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Sep 25, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi held "a friendly meeting" this week with relatives of some victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, he said in a CNN interview.

"It was a friendly meeting and encounter. I offered my condolences for the relatives who lost them," Gaddafi said in excerpts of the interview released on Friday.

Libya has formally accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and has paid billions of dollars to families of the victims.

Gaddafi was in the United States this week, speaking in New York to a United Nations meeting.

During the interview for "Fareed Zakaria GPS," which is to air on Sunday, Gaddafi was asked whether he regretted any possible role that Libyan officials might have played in the airplane bombing that killed 270 people.

He responded, "No one will support an action like that." Gaddafi went on to compare it to a 1986 U.S. military raid against Libya that killed around 40 people, including Gaddafi's daughter. "Whether it is Lockerbie or whether it is the '86 raid against Libya, we are all families ... terror in all its forms is a common enemy to all of us."

The U.S. military action, ordered by then-President Ronald Reagan, came after the bombing of a Berlin nightclub that was blamed on Libya.

While U.S.-Libyan relations have warmed somewhat in recent years, the U.S. Senate this week condemned the "lavish" welcome home ceremony last month for the convicted Pan Am bomber, Libyan agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, who was released from a Scottish prison.

Sep 25, 2009

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO said on Friday it had decided to resume full cooperation with Mauritania in the Mediterranean Dialogue security forum, citing political progress after July presidential elections.

Last week the International Monetary Fund said it was ready to restart its relationship with Mauritania suspended last year after a coup by now President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. The European Union has also said it may be ready to rekindle ties.

Aziz was sworn in as president in August after a poll that opponents said was fraudulent but which former colonial power France and others have said paved the way for re-engagement with the Islamic state.

NATO said its 28 members took their decision "following the political process opened in the country by the presidential elections".

The Mediterranean Dialogue forum was launched in 1994 with the aim of enhancing regional security. It groups NATO states with seven non-NATO countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.

NATO is keen to step up security cooperation with Mauritania given al Qaeda militant activity in the country.

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Sep 25, 2009

ASMARA (Reuters) - Eritrea said on Friday the hunting of al Qaeda suspects in Somalia by U.S. and Ethiopian forces had crippled peace efforts in the Horn of African nation.

Washington and the United Nations accuse the Red Sea state of sending arms and other support to Somali insurgents battling the country's U.N.-backed government -- something Asmara denies.

"We don't see eye to eye with Washington and some countries in the region, especially Ethiopia, on the solution to the problem (in Somalia)," Yemane Ghebremeskel, director of the Eritrean president's office, told Reuters in an interview.

"(Their focus on terrorism) is single-minded, it is exaggerated, it is overblown. It overshadows all other aspects and issues," he said.

Some analysts and security agencies fear Somalia -- with its long coastline and lack of effective government -- has become a safe haven for militants, including foreign jihadists, who use it to plot attacks in the region and beyond.

U.S. special forces killed one of Africa's most-wanted al Qaeda suspects in rebel-held southern Somalia last week, risking further inflaming anti-Western sentiment in the nation.

Somalia has been mired in civil strife since warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Fighting has killed at least 18,000 civilians since the start of 2007.

Yemane urged Washington and its allies to push for a more inclusive peace process, including talks with al Shabaab rebels who the United States says are al Qaeda's proxies in Somalia.

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Sep 25, 2009

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - It often attracts the epithet "powerful", but on the evidence of this week's triennial conference, the only truly powerful thing about the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is its rhetoric.

For four days, leaders of the union body that played a key role in the anti-apartheid struggle berated their red-shirted comrades about the perils of bourgeois capitalism and the need to "build working class power in all sites of power".

Yet its stamp on policy is more noticeable by its absence, even though COSATU sees new president Jacob Zuma as "its man", having backed him in a 2007 internal putsch against the avowedly pro-business Thabo Mbeki as head of the ruling ANC.

With an election not due again until 2014, analysts say the ANC is only likely to pay lip-service to its junior partner in an alliance that also includes the Communist Party, another anti-apartheid actor with an identity crisis 15 years after the end of white minority rule.

"The ANC are 'open to the debate' -- that is often the terminology used -- but that doesn't necessarily translate into the policy shifts that are demanded by the unions," said Mike Davies of political risk group Eurasia.

"None of it has really moved the agenda."

South Africa's steady economic evolution since apartheid from mining and manufacturing to business services -- finance and real estate now account for 20 percent of GDP, the biggest slice -- also points to waning long-term union influence.

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Sep 25, 2009

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria intends to keep its October 4 amnesty deadline, the defence minister said, rejecting a request from rebel leaders in the oil-producing Niger Delta for more time for peace talks before handing over their arms.

President Umaru Yar'Adua has offered an unconditional pardon to militants who give up arms by the deadline, the most serious attempt yet to resolve years of unrest which has prevented Nigeria from pumping above two-thirds of its oil capacity.

But rebel leaders Ateke Tom and Government Tompolo, who are commanders in the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), urged Abuja last week to extend the deadline by three months to allow for dialogue on demands including a partial withdrawal of military forces from the area.

"To all those in doubt, the deadline for amnesty is Sunday, October 4, and the government does not intend to extend it," Defence Minister Godwin Abbe told amnesty participants at a ceremony in Nigeria's oil hub Port Harcourt on Thursday.

"Anybody or group of militants who fail to surrender their arms after the expiration of the amnesty period will be on his own after the October 4 deadline," he added.

MEND, responsible for attacks that have wrought havoc on Africa's biggest energy industry over the last three years, extended a two-month-old ceasefire last week by 30 days.

The militant group said it would allow more time for talks but threatened attacks on the oil industry if substantive negotiations were not held.

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Sep 25, 2009

RABAT (Reuters) - The resignation of Libya's top energy official is a setback for foreign oil companies that saw him as an ally in an insular, unpredictable north African country whose leader once threatened full-scale nationalisation.

Yet such a move remains unlikely as Libya is just beginning to reap the benefits of foreign investment and expertise that it spent years trying to lure, analysts say.

Mystery over the timing and the reasons for Shokri Ghanem's departure from National Oil Corporation (NOC) only underlined the opaque decision-making process that made him so useful to international oil companies (IOCs).

As if to underline the risks, Libya scuppered the sale of Canadian oil exploration firm Verenex to China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) by blocking the deal and forcing its own purchase of Verenex at a lower price.

Verenex put itself up for sale after striking oil in the desert country's concession Block 47. NOC had been contractually obliged to match CNPC's offer and analysts said the Verenex debacle probably helped to trigger Ghanem's resignation.

"While overseeing the progressive tightening of IOCs' terms, Ghanem attempted to insulate the oil sector from political pressure and establish a predictable environment for IOCs," said Wolfram Lacher of Control Risks Group. "His departure raises the risk of further damaging decisions at NOC."

Others warned against over-estimating the impact of Ghanem's departure.

"At the end of the day, Libya wants to leverage its oil wells for positive economic benefits. While the specific details of that process might change, the overall framework is fairly consistent," said Robert Tashima, regional editor at Oxford Business Group.

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Sep 25, 2009

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo reaffirmed on Friday that much-delayed elections would be held in the West African country on November 29, despite problems with the publication of voter lists.

Ivory Coast's election commission confirmed last week that it had missed a deadline to publish provisional voter lists and political parties warned that the world's top cocoa grower may miss another poll date.

The publication of the lists, initially delayed in late August, is a crucial step toward holding the poll aimed at ending a seven-year crisis, during which rebels have controlled the north and the country's economy has stagnated.

But in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Gbagbo said the election process had "entered an irreversible phase."

"The presidential election date is fixed for November 29, 2009. There is no longer any political obstacle to holding the ballot," he said. He did not refer to the voter list issue, according to an official text of his speech.

Questions of nationality and who will be eligible to vote are sensitive in Ivory Coast. They were among the reasons cited by the rebels, now known as the New Forces (FN), in fighting a 2002-2003 war against Gbagbo.

The conflict has since died down but polls, first due in 2005, have been repeatedly delayed in a tortuous peace process amid accusations that the belligerents were profiting from the status quo while most Ivorians suffered.

Analysts say Ivory Coast needs to hold a successful poll to reclaim its spot as one of West Africa's most vibrant economies and stable nations. Many of the reforms needed to improve the cocoa sector also hinge on the vote taking place, they say.

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Sep 25, 2009

GENEVA (Reuters) - Fresh donations of H1N1 vaccines are expected to swell a global stockpile created to ensure poorer nations have good supplies to contain the swine flu pandemic, a top United Nations health official said on Friday.

Dr. David Nabarro, the U.N. coordinator for fighting new emerging flu varieties, told reporters several richer states were likely to join nine which have agreed to share their own vaccines with developing countries.

"It is most likely that there will be other countries donating 10 percent of their H1N1 vaccine stocks," Nabarro said by telephone from New York during a break from meetings with already pledged and potential donors.

He declined to say who the new donors would be, indicating that announcements would be made by the countries themselves, probably after meetings he and other officials were holding with them on Friday and into the weekend.

Last week, vaccines were pledged to the U.N.-administered stockpile by Australia, Brazil, Britain, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the United States.

Drug makers can only produce enough H1N1 vaccine each year for half the planet, forcing each country to choose who will get the limited supplies, the WHO said on Thursday.

Mass vaccination programmes could start in Europe within weeks after European healthcare regulators recommended two swine flu vaccines for approval on Friday.

Poorer nations are especially vulnerable to the H1N1 virus because many are badly affected by HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, and have under-funded health services, U.N. and World Health Organisation (WHO) officials say.

Sep 25, 2009

MORONI (Reuters) - The president of the Comoros has presented a plan to the United Nations to convince the island of Mayotte to remain within the four-island Indian Ocean state with a separate administration, and not to become part of France.

"(I propose) the four islands of the Comoros archipelago remain a single, undivided nation ruled by the fundamental principle of one country, two administrations," Ahmed Abdallah Sambi told the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.

In March, Mayotte's 186,000 people voted overwhelmingly in favour of the island becoming an overseas French department -- a change in status that will end local traditions such as polygamy and Islamic courts.

Observers say the Comoros government has no leverage over Mayotte but Sambi is determined the four islands should remain a unified sovereign state.

France remains the biggest trading partner and provider of development aid to the Comoros, while more than 200,000 Comorians -- close to one third of the archipelago's population -- live in France.

The volcanic islands have a turbulent history, with some 20 coups or attempted coups since declaring independence from France in 1975.

Sep 25, 2009

DAKAR (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund urged Chad on Friday to curtail public spending and to better manage oil revenues in a first review since the central African country asked the IMF to begin monitoring.

Overspending on sectors including security means that Chad, which is looking to re-establish credentials with donors as oil revenues have taken a hit from the fall in world prices, will miss its 2009 financial targets, the IMF said.

The IMF warning follows a report the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank that said hopes of oil easing Chad's dire poverty have quickly been replaced by evidence of rampant corruption, increased rebellion and political repression.

Chad has agreed to an IMF Staff Monitored Program (SMP), which is meant to improve donor relations after a row over oil revenues, which were meant to be spent on the poor but analysts say have been directed to the military to fight eastern rebels.

"Implementation of the staff-monitored program has been uneven in the period through end-August," Christian Josz, IMF mission chief for Chad, said, adding that public spending had exceeded targets by "sizeable margins".

The IMF said that the authorities have agreed to take steps to reduce the gap between targets and actual spending in 2009.

"This will mainly entail some slowing of the pace of spending on non-priority investment projects," Josz said.

Chad is one of the poorest in the world and has experienced conflict for all but four of the past 30 years.

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Sep 25, 2009

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe accused Western countries on Friday of "filthy antics" aimed at undermining a power-sharing government forged in February under a pact with former rival Morgan Tsvangirai.

In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Mugabe said the United States and the European Union had refused to lift sanctions on Zimbabwe, and "some of them are working strenuously to divide the parties in the inclusive government."

"If they will not assist the inclusive government in rehabilitating our economy, could they please, please stop their filthy clandestine divisive antics," Mugabe said.

The United States imposed sanctions in 2003 on Mugabe and other prominent Zimbabweans accused of undermining democracy. The European Union imposed measures of its own.

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has long been a pariah in the West, blamed by critics for plunging his country, once the bread basket of Africa, into poverty through mismanagement and corruption.

In response, Mugabe has blamed the West for Zimbabwe's steep economic decline, saying sanctions were imposed to retaliate for the seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to blacks.

The power-sharing government was cobbled together after a disputed election, but the pact between Mugabe and Tsvangirai has been beset with problems as their parties accuse each other of failing to fully implement the deal.

Zimbabwe says it needs $10 billion in foreign reconstruction aid. Western nations are reluctant to release cash without further political and economic reform promised as part of the power-sharing pact.

An EU delegation that visited Zimbabwe this month said it was waiting to see whether human rights abuses had ended.

25 September 2009

Maputo — The number of cases of HINI influenza (better known as swine flu) in Mozambique is continuing to rise.

The health authorities have now confirmed 31 cases of the disease. The Deputy National Health Director, Leonardo Chavane, told a Maputo press conference on Thursday that there are a further 79 suspected cases, including 14 children under 10 years of age.

The first cases of swine flu were reported in Mozambique in August, and to date it has caused two deaths.

Chavane said that so far none of the confirmed cases are serious enough to warrant hospitalization of the patient. "All the hospitals, particularly in the provincial capitals, have a small room where one or two patients can be hospitalized, if necessary, but so far this has not been necessary", he added.

Most of the cases have been notified in Maputo and the neighbouring city of Matola, said Chavane. Almost all of them are people who have recently visited South Africa, the country in the region most affected by swine flu.

Despite the gradual rise in the number of confirmed and suspected cases, the health authorities say there is no reason for panic, and recommend continued observance of preventive measures, through improving individual and collective hygiene.

To prevent the spread of the disease, the authorities recommend regular hand washing, and covering the mouth and nose whenever coughing or sneezing.

allafrica

ABUJA, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua arrived back in Abuja on Friday after a four-day trip to Saudi Arabia, one of his aides said.

"We have just arrived ... everybody is fine," said presidential aide Sanni Mohammed.

Yar'Adua has travelled to Saudi Arabia in the past to seek medical treatment for a chronic kidney problem, raising concerns about his health every time he returns to the Gulf Arab kingdom.

The presidency said this week's trip was a "working visit" to meet with King Abdullah and top Saudi government officials. The presidency did not comment on whether Yar'Adua had visited a hospital during the visit.

Nigeria and Saudi Arabia are among the world's top oil producers.

LAGOS, Sept 25 (Reuters) - A senior member of Nigeria's ruling party said on Friday corruption charges against him were politically motivated and pledged to back President Umaru Yar'Adua for a second term should he stand in 2011 elections.

Former Delta state governor James Ibori, a member of the Elders' Committee of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), was instrumental in Yar'Adua's rise to power in 2007 and is one of Nigeria's most influential and controversial politicians.

He is among several former state governors to have been charged by Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and several of his associates are facing money laundering charges in the United Kingdom.

"We believe that all of the charges bought in the UK and in Nigeria are politically motivated and are driven essentially by Nigerian politics," Ibori told Reuters in an interview.

"What really concerns me is the fact that the UK court seems to have been used ... by disgruntled political office holders to settle scores at home," he said.

LAGOS, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Nigerian interbank lending rates rose to 11.33 percent on average this week from 9.16 percent last week as demand for credit outweighed available naira cash in the system, traders said on Friday.

The secured Open Buy Back (OBB) closed higher at 8 percent from 7 percent last week and 200 basis points above the central bank's 6.0 percent benchmark rate.

Overnight closed at 11 percent against 9.5 percent, while call rose to 12 percent from 11 percent previously.

About 147 billion naira came into the system from the distribution of crude oil savings to federal agencies and repayments of matured treasury bills, but it was not enough to meet the strong credit demand, dealers said.

"The system was short by about 44 billion naira in spite of the inflows of 87 billion naira from the excess crude account and repayment of 60 billion naira in matured treasury bills," one dealer said.

Traders said funding for foreign exchange purchases remained the only major source of cash outflow from the banking system in the week.

But they expect an increase in borrowing costs between banks next week when forex and treasury bill auctions further drain liquidity from the system.