20100416
africanews

Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, is set to host a film festival aimed at boosting Africa's self-image and identity. The festival's organizers hope it will spawn a community of African film makers specializing in using cinema for development.

The International Short Film Festival is the brainchild of award-winning Mauritanian film maker Abderrahmane Sissako and his wife, Ethiopian cinematographer Maji-da Abdi. The event will feature 100 films by and about Africa and Africans, each from five to 30 minutes long.

Sitting side by side in front of reporters, Sissako explained in French his vision of using cinema as a development tool, while Abdi translated to English.

"It is a continent about which a lot is said, but has very little opportunity to speak about itself. Africa does not have as much opportunity to tell its own stories. That is why I think images as a part of development is firstly 'cinema as a mirror of yourself'. Through a mirror one can correct oneself, one can doubt oneself. One can be proud of oneself as well," Sissako said.

Sissako and Abdi say African children growing up on a diet of Hollywood-style films may never see images that reflect their own world. They say Africa needs a home-grown film industry to raise its self-esteem and represent African ideals. "When hundreds of thousands of people rarely see their own picture on the big screens, that is where I talk of prejudice. A child can be proud to see that his father can be a pilot or a doctor. But when he never sees on his screens a representation of something that he can resemble him or his parents, so it poses questions even though he does not have them clearly stated in the head," they said.

Abdi, the festival's chief organizer, says film also has the ability to break down cultural barriers, and to allow people see their continent through African eyes.

"We are seen mostly on CNN and other news as sort of this poor victim, when there are many more aspects of people in each country that we need to show to ourselves and to each other. It is a pity that Ethiopians do not know about other African countries, have never heard their languages in a film or know the different cultures well. We have all seen, in a movie, the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, but nothing about our own continent," he said.

The film festival will run from June 14 through 19.

Winner of the prize for best East African short film will win an all-expenses paid trip to France for 10 days of cinematography training.

afrol News, 15 April - Cape Verde Prime Minister José Maria Neves held a high-level meeting in Brussels with European Commission leader José Manuel Barroso to finalise the last steps in negotiations about an Economic Partnership Agreement with the EU. Cape Verde is to benefit from new funding from the EU.

Prime Minister Neves was accompanied by Cape Verde's Foreign Minister José Brito, the National Director of Political Affairs and Cooperation and other senior diplomats from the archipelago. The mission on Tuesday met with the President of the European Commission to discuss and deepen a partnership agreement signed in Brussels last year, focusing on the issue of economic partnership, and also a mobility agreement.

Judging by the testimonies of participants in the meeting, the meeting was a success and achieved significant progress. Cape Verde is negotiating an economic partnership agreement with the European Union (EU) that will allow the West African archipelago to continue to enjoy favourable export conditions for its products to Europe.

Cape Verde until now has enjoyd the facilities granted to so-called least developed countries (LDCs), which exempts poor trade partners from customs duties for export to Europe.

But Cape Verde has seen a flamboyant economic development during the last decades, and a few years ago the UN redfined it as a middle income country, meaning that Cape Verde was to lose favourable LDC condition after a transitional period of three years. This period ends in December this year. The Cape Verdean government however hopes to extend the transition period for yet another year, and the Brussels meeting idicated its bid is being successful.

"We want to sign [the Economic Partnership Agreement] as soon as possible," stated Prime Minister Neves after the meeting. The new EU-Cape Verde agreement orginally should be reached within the regional framework of ECOWAS. But the LDC transition had complicated matters. Mr Neves said EU leader Barroso had been "aware and sensitive" on the matter, together seeking solutions or a smooth transition and a possibility to win time for Cape Verde.

Cape Verde has already achieved a special partnership agreement with the EU, handling both political and economic matters. With a separate Economic Partnership Agreement, Cape Verde further moves from ECOWAS towards the EU. After the LDC transition, Cape Verde aims at a deeper integration into the EU economy and market.

The Brussels meeting also addressed mobility and visa regulations. Cape Verdeans are about to obtain a special visa partnership with the European bloc. Mr Neves said that the Cape Verde-EU mobility partnership negotiations had seen "considerable progress," and he expected a signature of the agreement "later this year."

This agreement aims to create special facilities for obtaining visas for entry into the Schengen area for Cape Verde citizens, such as reducing the time for decision making in relation to the issuance of a visa or not, the establishment of preferential rates or total exemption of visas, among other issues. It was also an effective way to combat illegal immigration, according to Mr Barroso and Mr Neves.

According to information forwarded afrol News, the Brussels meeting also treated the possibility of a substantial increase of contributions by European Commission funds through the European Development Fund (EDF) to support Cape Verde's transition from a least developed country to a medium income country.

In addition, the West African archipelago may benefit from other funds such as the V-Flex (Vulnerability Fund) and also the framework of the EU to combat climate change under the Regional Indicative Programme for West Africa, PM Neves was told in Brussels.

afrol News, 15 April - Egypt's public debt remains high in comparison with many other emerging market countries and reducing the fiscal deficit and public debt should be a key objective for the country. This was the view of a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission visiting Cairo.

"While much of the debt is denominated in local currency, the maturity structure is short, creating an annual rollover requirement of 20 percent of GDP. To address this vulnerability and help spur private sector-led growth, the government has announced its intention to reduce the deficit to about 3 percent of GDP by 2014/15," the IMF noted.

The IMF also noted that Egypt had made significant progress in wide-ranging structural reforms that accelerated after 2004, saying reforms also reduced fiscal, monetary and external vulnerabilities, leaving some room to manoeuvre on macroeconomic policies in the event of negative shocks.

"Egypt weathered the global financial crisis relatively well and financial market pressures eased after the initial outflow. Equity prices plateaued in recent months, after having recovered over half of the losses since the April 2008 peak," the IMF mission found.

"Egypt's sovereign spreads tightened during 2009 and, in early 2010, remain well below their pre-Lehman levels. The temporary financial outflow was met mostly with a drawdown in the central bank's foreign currency deposits with commercial banks, reversing the build-up in 2006/07 and limiting the impact on the Egyptian pound and real economy," the IMF statement added.

The IMF further stated that the real economy held up relatively well in the face of weaker external demand, although the current account moved into deficit of 2.4 percent of GDP in 2008/09, as service receipts and remittances declined, and investment and activity softened in exposed sectors.

It further noted that growth still reached 4.7 percent in 2008/09, saying resilient domestic consumption demand, and production in the construction, communications, and trade sectors, helped sustain growth and the pick-up to nearly 5 percent in the first half of 2009/10.

"The government reacted quickly to the crisis by providing a sizable fiscal stimulus in the second half of 2008/09 based mainly on accelerating investment projects. Key fiscal reforms such as introducing the property tax, broadening the Value Added Tax (VAT), and phasing out energy subsidies were postponed," the assessment said.

The 2009/10 budget was said to continue to support economic activity and target a wider deficit of 8.4 percent of GDP, "largely reflecting a substantial projected cyclical fall in revenue (particularly from trade and Suez Canal traffic), as well as the impact of wage increases adopted before the crisis and higher post-crisis debt service costs," further noted the IMF.

As Egypt's recovery gains strength, the IMF further underscored the importance of shifting policies back toward fiscal consolidation and other reforms, adding that the Fund supported the Egyptian authorities' objective of reducing the fiscal deficit to about 3 percent by 2014/15, in light of the still high public debt and large financing requirement.

The IMF further encouraged Cairo authorities to make a substantive step to reduce the fiscal deficit at an early stage - to lessen vulnerability, boost confidence in the fiscal adjustment strategy, and speed the response of private investment.

The Fund also saw further reductions in inflation toward partner country levels as a key objective for the coming years, saying that continued short-term capital inflows could challenge monetary policy making, and encouraged continued increases in exchange rate flexibility.

afrol News, 15 April - The Sudanese government has been irked by reports by researchers from some human rights groups to the effect that the government is violating rights and restricting freedoms critical to a fair poll, including freedoms of expression and assembly.

"We are not asking for favours. Our stand is that these reports should be balanced and credible", the Sudanese government spokesperson at her country's Nairobi embassy, Somaya Sadig, said in a rejoinder to the reports released by the human rights researchers.

She stressed that incidents quoted by the human rights organisations that the conditions in Sudan were not yet conducive for a free, fair and credible election, were selective, unfair and isolated.

She charged that the human rights groups were not giving a true and genuine picture of the situation in the vast African nation and were misleading the world by deliberately misrepresenting the facts.

"The human rights groups are ignoring the whole true picture. Their claims that the Sudanese people will not be able to vote freely are baseless and unfounded. If you look at the situation critically, you will conclude that there is equality of chances made possible by the government for all the candidates to speak to the people freely", Ms Sadig pointed out.

She emphasised that there was a machinery organising the equality of access to the official media-radio and television. "Democracy is democracy. It should be given a chance and allowed to prevail. The government does not comprise of angels but it is giving everyone a chance to speak to the people and articulate their agendas in the run-up to the 11 April elections," Ms Sadig stated.

She cautioned that the human rights groups should not influence the free choice of leaders since the Sudanese people were mature to vote for representatives of their own choice.

Allegations that if President Omar al-Bashir is re-elected, it would have been a fraudulent exercise, were "both laughable and baseless" since the Sudanese people have every right to vote for a person of their choice whether or not he has been indicted by the ICC or not, Ms Sadig said in a no statement.

The government, she noted, had guaranteed freedom of expression, association and assembly but it was unfortunate that the observations of these tenets had been ignored by the human rights groups.

Ms Sadig dismissed as untrue claims by the Human Rights Watch that the Sudanese authorities throughout the country were failing to uphold standards agreed with the African Union in March.

The US-based rights group in a thorough March report had concluded that "political repression and other rights violations ahead of the April general elections in Sudan threaten prospects for a free, fair, and credible vote." Human Rights Watch researcher Georgette Gagnon found an unfavourable situation both in North and South Sudan, concluding conditions in the country were "not yet conducive for a free, fair, and credible election."

20100415
press tv

Eight Red Cross workers kidnapped by an armed group in the Democratic Republic of Congo are set to be released Thursday “without condition.”

Adrien Idi Amin, who is a leader of the Union of the Congolese People for Revolution, an offshoot of the Mai Mai militia, said that the seizure of the aid workers had been a mistake, AFP reported, quoting UN-sponsored Radio Okapi.

The eight, including seven Congolese and one Swiss national, had been seized by the Mai Mai Yakutumba rebels in the South Kivu town of Fizi last Friday afternoon.

The kidnapping came after Amin's men "thought that the vehicle coming from Minembwe was carrying enemy forces", Radio Okapi said.

Mai Mai is a general term for domestic defense forces that normally consist of pro-government factions in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The group was formed to resist Rwandan Hutu forces that fled into DR Congo after the genocide and controls its own territory in the region.

The region has been the scene of violent clashes that have resulted in the displacement of thousands of civilians in recent months.

20100415
press tv

An alarming new report by a renowned aid and development charity says sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is becoming rampant and "normal."

The Oxfam International study, published on Thursday, underscores a 17-fold rise in civilian-committed rapes between 2004 and 2008, roughly 38 percent of the total assaults in the four-year period.

"These findings imply a normalization of rape among the civilian population," reads the report, based on a survey of 4,311 female rape victims in South Kivu province.

This is while much of the sexual assaults in the country are still perpetrated by armed groups. The army and militia are said to have raped tens of thousands of women, with 60 percent of the victims subjected to the horrors of gang-rape.

While filed and forests are also considered dangerous, 56 percent of the affected women were raped in the privacy of their own homes by "armed combatants." The brutal crimes were usually committed in front of their spouse and children.

Some 12 percent of the women involved in the study said they had been sex slaves with some being held hostage for years.

According to the same study, the number of rapes — 150,000 in the past 12 years —saw a dramatic rise during military activities, with more than 9,000 people, including men and boys, raped in 2009.

Eastern Congo, torn by conflict since the mid-1990s, has been a hotspot of Congolese and Rwandan militancy formed in the wake of the genocide in Rwanda.

As rape is highly stigmatized in the culture of eastern Congo, the victim's ordeal is often multiplied by physical, psychological and social consequence including spousal abandonment, the report concludes.

The shocking revelation comes months before the UN is considering leaving the country.

20100415
allafrica

Lagos — Nigerian-duo of Obafemi Martins and John Utaka alongside Didier Drogba and John Mensah are among African football stars that are to appear on a television show to be aired across the continent before the World Cup in June.

The 30-minute documentary which is targeted on how African players live their lives abroad is called "Footballers Lives", and will take viewers into the private homes of the players as they live abroad mostly in Europe. The exclusive personal access to the top African players means viewers of the show will get to see what the players eat and wear as well as how they live with their families. The show is produced in the UK by the African ethnic football media production company, LogikMedia, along with two African football journalists. Each player also gains unprecedented access to the facilities at their clubs including the dressing rooms, stadiums and other exclusive club events as well as how they prepare for matches. The players will also reveal what music they listen to, how they connect with Africa when they are in Europe and how they entertain themselves.

Another section of the programme makes time for exclusive personal interviews with the players to answer burning questions on their club careers and national team careers. Meanwhile, the initial show features exclusive trips to Ghana defender John Mensah's house and his club Sunderland in England. South Africa defender Aaron Mokoena will also appear in the show as well as Salomon Kalou of Ivory Coast and Benjani Mwaruwari of Zimbabwe. Ghanaian striker Razak Pimpong takes his turn at his Danish side Viborg and also goes home to expose the comic family starring his 2-year-old son Malik. In the programme on Laryea Kingston, his children also poked fun at him and he revealed some exclusive Black Stars secrets. Future shows will visit Black Stars' captain Stephen Appiah, Asamoah Gyan, Michael Essien and Sulley Muntari as they live with their clubs in Europe. LogikMedia is well known for the television production of most of the African matches played in Europe including Ghana's 4-1 defeat of arch rivals Nigeria in 2007 in London as well as Ghana's thrashing of Jamaica in Leicester.

20100415
allafrica

Dakar — The United Nations Office for West Africa (UNOWA) organized the second annual regional consultation with United Nations (UN) regional directors and resident coordinators based in the sub-region.

The key UN stakeholders in West Africa examined ways to strategically improve the coordination of their efforts promoting stability and development in the sub-region. They discussed how to reinforce synergies between their different mandates and existing mechanisms to better tackle major challenges in the sub-region.

"To adopt a comprehensive regional approach beyond national responses when examining stability in West Africa is a guarantee for the UN's action to become more efficient," said Mr Djinnit, Special Representative of the Secretary General for West Africa. "Thanks to its values and principles, the UN can play a unique facilitation role between governments, donors, civil society in order to better respond to the needs and expectations of the population," he added.

The participants at the meeting therefore highlighted conflict and crisis resolution as a priority to be addressed notably through collaboration with regional organizations. They also insisted on the need to ensure continuous financial support to the emergency and development phases in order to develop sustainable solutions to structural problems in West Africa and to avoid repetitive crises such as in the Sahel region.

The UN representatives emphasized the primary responsibility for peace, development and security matters lies with governments, supported by the readiness of the UN system, through cooperation with regional organizations. They encouraged the governments to ratify international and regional legal instruments related to good governance and to implement them with the full support of the UN system.

Since elections periods are considered as potential times of unrest, the participants agreed to document and to share lessons learned in order to optimize the UN's support to democratic and transparent elections.

The participants recognized drug trafficking and organized crime as a major threat to peace and stability in the sub-region. They urged the governments affected to promote good governance practices, especially in the security sector and to take strong actions to fight corruption and impunity, which facilitate the proliferation of criminal activities. They emphasized the need for a coordinated approach between the countries within the sub-region. They welcomed initiatives, such as the West Coast Initiative (WACI), already launched in support to the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS) Regional Plan of Action adopted at the Praia conference. They called on donors to honor their pledges to finance the implementation phase of the Regional Action Plan. Furthermore, they stressed the need to also support development programs to provide impoverished, unemployed and vulnerable populations with sustainable alternatives.

The participants raised serious concerns with regard to the urgency of the food and nutritional crisis in the Sahel. They called on donors to urgently respond to the various appeals, including the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) to address the needs of vulnerable populations in Niger, Chad and specific areas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania. Beyond the emergency response, they highlighted the need to tackle the structural causes of the repeating crises in the region through an increase in resources allocated to sustainable development and risk reduction.

West Africa deserves the full attention of the international community. Together in coordination with regional actors such as ECOWAS and the African Union (AU), we will be stronger to support conflict prevention and initiatives towards better stability in the sub-region," concluded Mr Djinnit, on behalf of the participants at the UN strategic consultation.

20100415
allafrica

A new, multi-drug resistant strain of salmonella discovered in Africa is spreading and affecting the weakened immune systems of HIV positive individuals on the continent, according to a recent study. The study was conducted in Malawi by scientists from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and built on past research that ascertained that the African salmonella strain is quite aggressive and genetically resembles the strain of salmonella that causes typhoid fever.

Salmonella is a public health threat all over the world, and is often transmitted through bacteria in contaminated food. Salmonella found in developed countries causes diarrhoea, and is usually not dangerous for the average person. The type of Salmonella that causes typhoid fever is caused by bad sanitation and is more harmful and is found in less developed countries.

The study concluded that the bodies of HIV positive patients provide a good environment for Salmonella bacteria to grow because there are less immune cells to combat it. According to Dr. Melita Gordon, Senior Lecturer and Consultant in Gastroenterology at the University of Liverpool, who helped conduct the study, "the bacteria hide intracellularly in both the blood and bone marrow, and persist after the acute infection has resolved." The persistence of the bacteria makes the new strain invasive and quite dangerous, as it may develop more and more resistance to antibiotics through time and exposure inside the body.

Dr. Gordon explained that, although this new salmonella strain does not appear to have an impact on healthy adults, it can be dangerous for children and HIV positive individuals, killing one out of four people who contract it. "The new strain causes invasive disease in many African children who are not HIV positive, but are susceptible because they are very young, and have anemia or are malnourished." By Rebekah Mintzer

20100415
allafrica

Sleeping sickness, a disease that is prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa and affects some of the poorest people in the world, may finally have a cure thanks to The Drug Discovery for Tropical Diseases program at the University of Dundee.

Tsetse flies carry the sleeping sickness infection, which is spread through bites leaving behind a parasite that attacks the central nervous system. Sleep becomes uncontrollable as the disease gets worse, and eventually leads to coma, which is fatal without treatment, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Professor Paul Wyatt and fellow researchers at the Drug Discovery for Tropical Diseases program have identified an enzyme that exploits a weakness in the parasite. "If we inhibit this enzyme it will have significant effects on many processes within the parasite, leading to the rapid death we see on treatment with our compounds," Wyatt told MediaGlobal. "We think the major effect though is on the process of replacement of the parasite's cell surface, which is rapidly replaced as part of its defense mechanism against the host immune system."

According to the WHO, sleeping sickness is an epidemic in 36 African countries and affects 60,000 people annually, and is part of a group of diseases known as "neglected tropical diseases." One sixth of the world's population suffers from one or more of the neglected diseases. These diseases have a low profile and low status amongst public health priorities.

Explaining why sleeping sickness goes overlooked Wyatt said, "Many of the countries are not politically stable so have multiple issues, have poor health care infrastructure, and are not set up to lobby for help." He also said that in recent years most of the focus has been on HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria. "Sleeping sickness is not the only neglected disease which requires greater attention and more drug discovery effort."

Although a clinical trial for a drug developed from the discovery is still 1.5 to 2 years away, Wyatt believes it will have significant advantages over current treatments. "Almost all of the current treatments are given by injection, either by infusion or into muscle," said Wyatt. "In addition, the current drugs are associated with significant toxicity, one causes deaths in 5 percent of patients, ...[and] deaths and complications are caused by infection due to the use of needles."

The new drug will be administered through an oral tablet, which "will be more suitable for areas with little or no health care infrastructure," Wyatt said. Sleeping sickness mostly affects people in isolated and remote areas and an affordable cure will make it easier to treat people in these secluded places. "A cure which will need limited resource to administer, a pill rather than injections...will be more attractive to charitable organizations [which will donate pills] for clinical use. Therefore the sufferers will not have to pay for the drug."

Once Wyatt and his team have an optimized compound, they will partner with Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi, Geneva) to carry out the pre-clinical and clinical development. "DNDi have experience taking sleeping sickness compounds through clinical development," he said. "Our efforts are focused on developing compounds which are simple and cheap to make, keeping down the cost of the final drug." Wyatt explained, "If we come up with a drug which is both efficacious and safe in the early and late stage, where parasites have entered the brain, a diagnosis through taking a sample of spinal fluid through a lumber puncture will not be needed, making treating the disease both easier and more attractive to the patients."

Making an inexpensive drug is important for Wyatt. "[People] cannot afford to pay for their drugs, so it is not an attractive disease for companies which need to make a profit to satisfy their shareholders."

MediaGlobal is an independent international media organization, based in the United Nations, creating awareness in the global media on social justice and development issues in the world's least developed countries.

20100415
allafrica

The effects of drought in the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa have prompted the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to issue a call for additional financial support in order to help 859,000 children under the age of five suffering from malnutrition. UNICEF currently only has half of the $50 million in funds necessary to carry out potentially life saving operations that will help feed children during this time of need.

Children are suffering from malnutrition all over the Sahel, a belt of savanna and grasslands south of the Sahara desert that is prone to droughts that thwart crop growth in the planting season, leaving less to reap come harvest time. Families in Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Chad, and Niger have become food insecure, unable to prevent children from becoming acutely malnourished.

"We are entering the 'lean season.' This is a predictable time, but this year it started earlier...and numbers [of people] needing help are rising." Martin Dawes of UNICEF West and Central Africa told MediaGlobal. The "lean season" of May to October, normally difficult for Sahel farmers because food stores are low and new crops are not available yet, has come four months early for residents this year.

Dawes stated that more preparations have been made this year than in 2005, the year of the last dramatic drought and food crisis in the Sahel area, which has improved the outlook somewhat. In 2005 the scope of the emergency was not understood early. "The governments involved are recognising the scale of the needs, there has been prepositioning of the therapeutic foodstuffs for the under-fives and as long as there is access and funding a deeper crisis should be averted," Dawes concluded. By Rebekah Mintzer

MediaGlobal is an independent international media organization, based in the United Nations, creating awareness in the global media on social justice and development issues in the world's least developed countries.

afrol News, 15 April - The quick eviction of more than 50,000 people living alongside Kenya's railways is being considered by the Nairobi government. Rights groups urge authorities to adopt "guidelines that conform with international human rights standards" before considering evictions.

On 21 March, Kenya Railways published a notice giving residents 30 days to pull down their structures and leave, or risk prosecution. Most of those affected are slum dwellers in parts of Nairobi. Now, government is considering if and how to implement this eviction order.

There are no sure estimates about the number of people being affected by the evictions. But a study commissioned by the Kenyan government in 2005 concluded that 50,000 people or more live or work within the Kenya Railway reserve in Nairobi alone and many thousands more use the tracks as a walking route to and from their residences. This population is likely to have increased since 2005.

Human rights groups today strongly protested the ample eviction plans. "People have been living and working on these lands for years and a thirty-day notice period is wholly inadequate," said Justus Nyang'aya, Director of Amnesty International Kenya.

"Without proper safeguards the proposed mass evictions will have a devastating impact on people's access to water, sanitation, food and schools and could well create a humanitarian emergency," Mr Nyang'aya added. "They will result in forced evictions, which contravene Kenya's obligations under international human rights laws."

While it is recognised that the Kenyan government is taking important steps to upgrade its railway system, for the tens of thousands of people living in the affected area, the demolition of homes and informal businesses is expected to be "socially and economically disastrous," according to the human rights group.

To date, no comprehensive resettlement or compensation plan has been announced and the government appears to have made no provision for those who will lose their homes, livelihoods, possessions and social networks as a result of the project.

Amnesty holds that, under international human rights law, "evictions should only be carried out as a last resort and only after all other feasible alternatives to eviction have been explored in genuine consultation with affected communities." Governments were also said to be "obliged to ensure that no one is rendered homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights as a consequence of eviction."

"Kenya's government is failing to deliver on its promise to put in place guidelines which comply with international human rights law regarding evictions and until it does it should halt all mass evictions of this nature," said Mr Nyang'aya. "To put 50,000 of your poorest and most vulnerable citizens at risk of homelessness is unacceptable," he added.

afrol News, 15 April - Kizza Besigye was today declared candidate for Uganda's 2011 presidential by the Forum for Democratic Change (FDG), the country's main opposition party. He will face President Yoweri Museveni in the polls.

Prior to today's vote in the Ugandan opposition party, there had been some tensions and much speculation whether Mr Besigye again would by the FDG's candidate in the presidential polls. Mugisha Muntu had made a strong campaign within the party to be nominated candidate.

But Mr Besigye won by what has been called "a landslide". He gained a majority at all the eight polling stations put up by the FDG around Uganda, the party today reports from its conference at Namboole Stadium.

The experienced party leader gathered 728 of the cast votes. Mr Muntu nevertheless was given a decent 115 votes. He immediately recognised defeat and promised to support Mr Besigye's presidential campaign.

Mr Besigye has been the opposition's main presidential candidate during the last two elections, none of which were seen as free and fair by observers. The incumbent, President Museveni, was declared winner of both, although this was forcefully challenged by the opposition, claiming Mr Moseveni had stolen the vote.

The FDG candidate is well known and a rather popular figure among Ugandans and is seen as the only person able to unite the opposition vote against President Museveni.

54-year-old Mr Besigye is a former colonel in the Ugandan army and has been heading the Ugandan opposition since 1999. After the 2001 elections, he was briefly detained and went into exile claiming his life was in danger in Uganda. He returned in 2005, only to be arrested again but released in time to stand candidate in the 2006 presidential elections.

According to official results, President Museveni won the 2006 polls with 59 percent of the votes, while Mr Besigye received 37 percent. While the Supreme Court of Uganda ruled that 2006 election was marred by intimidation, violence and other irregularities, it nevertheless decided to uphold the results of the poll.

afrol News, 15 April - Workers in the Gabon oil-industry have continued in the second day with their strike, despite a call by government for negotiations. Unions demand an end to discrimination of Gabonese labour.

The Gabonese workers started the mass action yesterday complaining mainly of expatriate workers being given preference by oil companies, over the locals.

The workers have also claimed that there are enough local workers who are capable and skilled enough to handle some of the positions that are being offered preferably only to foreigners at high costs for the industry.

The labour union spokesperson was quoted in the national radio in Libreville saying that the strike had affected all parts of the country, with other reports also pointing out that since yesterday, oil production has been greatly affected in Gabon at large.

Gabonese oil workers have rather high salaries compared to colleagues in most other African countries. However, the costs of living in Gabon are sky-high as the country's economy has been driven by oil production for decades, and the many expatriates in Gabon have strongly contributed to imports and inflation.

Gabon is one of Africa's main oil producers alongside other producers such as Nigeria, Angola, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea and Congo Brazzaville, with an estimated production of over 230 barrels per day of crude.

Oil production in Gabon peaked in the 1990s, but is still substantial. Gabon is still attracting major exploration investments and new oil discoveries are regularly made onshore and offshore, mostly of minor size however.

Gabonese authorities, who faced a liquidity crisis four years ago and turned to the IMF for help and advice, have tried to lessen the country's dependence on oil over the last decade. But Gabon still heavily depends on its oil production, which is now halted by the strike.

Thu, 15 Apr 2010
alalam

Sudan's ruling party has said it is prepared to invite opposition parties into a coalition government as the African nation's general elections entered the last day of voting on Thursday.

Ghazi Salaheddin, an adviser to President Omar al-Bashir, said that his party, if victorious, would invite other parties to join the government.

"This is a critical moment in our history," Salaheddin said. "We are facing an important decision like self-determination in the south and we would like to garner as much support and as much consensus as we can."

The elections, which began Sunday, had to be extended by two days through Thursday due to problems with ballot deliveries and voter registration.

The African Union on Wednesday said there were no major problems with the poll and praised the peaceful nature of the vote.

Analysts say there is unlikely to be any significant problem around the election, but warned that any delay to a January 2011 referendum on independence for Southern Sudan, which was agreed in the 2005 peace deal that ended the north-south war, could lead to problems.

Thu, 15 Apr 2010
alalam

After five days of vote-casting, polling in Sudan's general elections officially ended on Thursday.

Polling stations closed at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) but people who were already inside at the time of closing were being allowed to vote.

Around 16 million registered voters had been asked to choose their president, as well as legislative and local representatives.

Southerners were also voting for the leader of the autonomous government of south Sudan.

20100415
aljazeera

Richard Goldstone, a former South African judge, has been effectively banned from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah which is to be held in Johannesburg next month.

Goldstone, who authored a UN report on the war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, has been barred by the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) from attending the event, South African and Israeli newspapers reported on Thursday.

"A very ugly feature of the response to the Goldstone report has been personal attacks like this on him and his family over a sustained period," Doron Isaacs, a Jewish South African, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

"This should not be seen as an isolated incident."

Tight lipped

An agreement with the family, that Goldstone would not be in attendance at the synagogue service, was reached after negotiations between the SAZF and the Sandton Shul, where the event is due to take place.

Avrom Krengel, chairman of the SAZF, who was reportedly not keen to reveal much, said: “We understand there’s a barmitzvah boy involved - we’re very sensitive to the issues; at this stage there’s nothing further to say.”

While Krengel said the SAZF had interacted on the matter with the chief rabbi and others, his organisation was “coming across most forcefully because we represent Israel”.

Goldstone was reluctant to reveal further details, and is reported to have said: "In the interests of my grandson, I’ve decided not to attend the ceremony at the synagogue."

A bar mitzvah is a coming of age event for a young Jewish boy, when he symbollically becomes a man.

"There is a belief amongst right-wing Zionist organisations that defaming and humiliating Jewish critics of Israeli policy, will set an example that would intimidate others into silence," Isaacs, co-ordinator of a community-based education NGO, said.

Isaacs led a Jewish youth movement that campaigned for a just resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

'A lot of anger'

Moshe Kurtstag, Rabbi and head of South Africa's Jewish religious court, said that he believed Goldstone had done a tremendous disservice not only to Israel but to the Jewish world.
"I know that there was a very strong feeling in the shul, a lot of anger."

Arthur Chaskalson, retired president of the constitutional court, said it was "disgraceful" to put pressure on a grandfather not to attend his grandson’s bar mitzvah.

"If this has the blessing of the leadership of the Jewish community in South Africa, it reflects on them rather than Judge Goldstone. They should hang their heads in shame."

David Saks, associate director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies told Al Jazeera that this was a SAZF issue and they were not prepared to make any statement.

"Israeli apologists in South Africa behave as they did under Apartheid when they failed to recognise the humanity of black people. They have no understanding of constitutional values or the humanity of Palestinians," Zackie Achmat, the renowned South African HIV/AIDS activist, said to Al Jazeera.

"The SAZF is not only ignorant of the Goldstone report but they have violated his rights to belief, family life and dignity."

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aljazeera

The number of sexual assaults in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has increased dramatically, according to a study by the UK-based aid group, Oxfam International.

Researchers from Harvard University in the US examined more than 4,000 cases of sexual assault from 2004 to 2008 and discovered that the number of rapes carried out by civilians had increased seventeen-fold.

The study, based at the Panzi hospital in the eastern city of Bukavu, which specialises in treating victims of rape, revealed that more than half of the victims were "raped by gangs of armed men and more than half of the aggressions took place inside homes".

Fifty-six per cent of the attacks were perpetrated by armed men inside family homes, nearly 16 per cent in fields and nearly 15 per cent in the forest, the report said, citing statements by the 4,311 women questioned.

Carried out for Oxfam by The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the report spoke of "the stigmatisation that the women are victims of in their families after having been raped and the difficulties they encounter in accessing medical care".

"Fewer than one per cent of the rape victims went to Panzi hospital with their husbands and nine per cent of them were abandoned by their partner," Oxfam said.

Violence escalated in the DRC after many Rwandan Hutus fled to the country following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Since then, the country has been embroiled in widespread conflicts between its army and Rwandan and Congolese militias.

'Wake-up call'

Around 20,000 UN peacekeepers have been deployed in the nation since 1999 to help stabilise it, but thousands are raped each year as sporadic fighting between the various armed groups continues.

Joseph Kabila, the DRC president, has asked the UN to withdraw its peacekeeping mission by 2011, but some UN officials have said they are reluctant to do so.

Krista Riddley, who directs humanitarian policies for Oxfam, said: "This is a wake-up call at a time when plans are being discussed for UN peacekeepers to leave the country.

"The situation is not secure if a woman can't even sleep safely in her own bed at night.'"

The Oxfam report reveals that many of sexual assault cases were carried out by armed men in the presence of the victim's families, including their children.

Susan Bartels, the chief researcher of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, said: "Sexual violence has become more normal in civilian life.

"The scale of rape over Congo's years of war has made this crime seem more acceptable."

afrol News, 15 April - Many South Africans returned home with disappointed faces after failing to secure cheap over-the-counter tickets to see the home soccer team in the nearing World Cup.

The over the counter World Cup ticket sales started this morning in all the major cities and town of South Africa, where local soccer fanatics formed long queues hoping to secure cheaper tickets to watch their soccer heroes. Tickets over the counter are selling for as little as US$ 20 for the lowest grade seats.

Reports across the country showed that some people actually slept at the selling points hoping to be the first to be served, but much to their disappointment.

However, tickets for other games than those of the host nation team were still said to be available for South African soccer fans.

The world football body, FIFA, had agreed to sell the remaining half a million tickets over the counter, a system which was said to be most favourable to the South African and other African soccer lovers. This decision was reached following complaints by many local fans that they could not get access to the online methods used for the ticket purchases.

South Africa, who is hosting the World Cup from 11 June to 11 July, for the first time on the African soil, is grouped with Mexico, France and Uruguay in the play-offs. Other African teams to compete in the 2010 Soccer World Cup are Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria.

afrol News, 15 April - Depending on which side of the law one is, the so-called indigenisation law in Zimbabwe has been suspended. But, that is not according to President, Robert Mugabe: "Laws are made to be effected and not shelved."

Mr Mugabe has dismissed as false claims, statements that the black empowerment law which was supposed to be effective today, is no more, saying it is only being delayed for more technical cabinet consultations.

The opposition coalition member of government had announced yesterday that the controversial law had been suspended to allow more consultations and inclusion of views from all stakeholders.

This was seen as a desperate bid by the ailing Zimbabwean unity government to amass international support and show a humanitarian face in its economic recovery programme, but since President Mugabe's response, more doubts have been cast on any progress that could be achieved by the unity government formed last February.

The new law, would make it illegal for foreign companies, foreigners as well as Zimbabwean whites to own more than 49 percent or majority stake in companies operating in Zimbabwe, unless such companies are only valued at less than US$ 325,000.

The law, which was passed two years ago in President Mugabe's ZANU-PF dominated parliament is said to be a way of empowering indigenous Zimbabweans, that excludes the white minority, born and brought up in the same country.

The controversial law also follows on the farm seizures in Zimbabwe, which forced white farmers out of their land, a move that has largely been blamed to cause the economic crisis that sunk Zimbabwe to its lowest deep about two years ago.

Zimbabwe, which gained independence in 1980 from Britain, was once Southern Africa's economic hub, but has since relegated itself to a mere economic shame and begging nation, after years of ill-advised economic and political policies.

Refusal by President Mugabe to step down even after an impressive challenge by the opposition, saw the country plunge further to a hyperinflation never seen before and a humanitarian crisis that caught the world's attention.