South Africa, Soshanguve: Salvation
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With South Africa starting a new fire in Africa, what would save Africa, education?
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CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (AFP) – The pope on Sunday urged the world not to be “indifferent” to the Horn of Africa famine, as the African Union prepares to host a donors conference for victims on August 9.
Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the suffering of millions in the region hit by its worst drought in decades in an address to hundreds of pilgrims at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, just outside Rome.
“We must not be indifferent to the tragedy of the hungry and the thirsty,” the pontiff said following the weekly Angelus prayer.
“Many brothers and sisters in the Horn of Africa are suffering these days from the dramatic consequences of the famine, aggravated by war and the lack of stable institutions,” he said, calling for “compassion” and “fraternal solidarity”.
The United Nations has declared a famine in two regions of southern Somalia but the effects of the drought have been felt more widely across the war-torn country, as well as in parts of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.
“It is an immense task. In this time of holiday, let us not forget to open our hands and our hearts to come to the aid of those who need it,” the pope said.
“Let us give food and share our bread with the needy,” he added.
The deputy chair of the African Union meanwhile said the body will host a donors conference bringing together African heads of state, members of regional economic blocs and international organisations in Addis Ababa on August 9.
“I ask the African continent… to look hard at how they can contribute to alleviating the suffering,” Erastus Mwencha said in a statement released Friday.
“Around the globe, everyone must dig deep into their pockets to rescue the people of Somalia from the abyss they find themselves staring into,” he added during a one-day visit to Somalia's war-torn capital Mogadishu.
The AU has donated $500,000 to address the crisis in the Horn of Africa but the United Nations said on Friday a total of $2.48 billion was required in order to reach the 12.4 million people affected.
Ongoing violence between Somalia's Islamist al-Shebab militants and pro-government troops has exacerbated the food crisis.
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) started an airlift of food aid into the capital Mogadishu last week despite battles in the city.
Relief efforts have been hampered by the combat, as well as a ban on some humanitarian agencies by Al-Shebab which controls much of southern Somalia.
The Vatican's official daily, Osservatore Romano, said there was “a race against time” to save the people of Somalia and said the international community should take a more active mediation role between rival Somali clans.
“If international players do not manage to do this, then even a massive humanitarian effort by UN agencies, including the WFP's airlift, and by non-governmental organisations will at best slow the emergency,” it said.
US President Barack Obama on Friday called for an international response to avoid a “looming humanitarian crisis in Eastern Africa”.
“I think it hasn't got as much attention here in the United States as it deserves,” he said after meeting with four African leaders in Washington.
The Shebab rebels have denied there is a famine in Somalia, saying the crisis is being exploited by external enemies.
Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage has claimed that local Muslims are adequately addressing the drought crisis, saying in a speech on rebel radio that there is no need for assistance from “an outside enemy or non-Muslims”.
He said the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have been streaming across the Somali border into the mainly Christian countries of Ethiopia and Kenya in search for food were being lured there “so that their faith can be destroyed”.
Battered by a relentless civil war since 1991, the plight of Somalis has often been referred to as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Nearly half of Somalia's estimated 10 million people are believed to be in need of aid.
TRIPOLI (AFP) – Libya has accused NATO of killing more than 1,100 civilians in its air strikes in support of rebel forces since the end of March.
Libyan prosecutor general Mohamed Zekri Mahjubi told foreign journalists in Tripoli he was seeking to prosecute NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Libyan courts for “war crimes”.
“As NATO secretary general, Rasmussen is responsible for the actions of this organisation which has attacked an unarmed people, killing 1,108 civilians and wounding 4,537 others in bombardment of Tripoli and other cities and villages.”
Apart from war crimes, Mahjubi accused Rasmussen of trying to kill Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, “deliberate aggression against innocent civilians” and of “the murder of children.”
Also, the NATO chief stood accused of “trying to overthrow the Libyan regime” and replace it with a rebel movement under its control to “take over the wealth” of oil-rich Libya.
On Wednesday, Libyan rebels repulsed loyalists who had retaken the desert hamlet of Gualish and chased them to the outskirts of Asabah, shelling the town from nearby hills, an AFP correspondent said.
The rebel breakthrough came as an insurgent commander downplayed talk of a political solution, saying Kadhafi refuses to go.
Dug in on the hills above the town on the highway to Tripoli, the rebels were firing heavy and small arms and loyalist troops were responding with Grad rockets, said the correspondent, embedded with the rebels.
Asabah is strategically located 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of the capital, serving as the last barrier between the rebels and the garrison town of Gharyan.
Earlier on Wednesday, the pro-Kadhafi troops had caught rebels off guard and attacked Gualish, which the insurgents captured a week earlier, seizing nearly all of it.
But rebels poured in from surrounding villages and besieged the hamlet, driving the loyalists out and chasing them up the road toward Asabah, some 17 kilometres (11 miles) away.
As the fighting raged in the Nafusa Mountains, a rebel commander in the area said a peace deal was “impossible” because Kadhafi refuses to step down.
“Up to now it is impossible to get a political solution. Kadhafi wants to stay; the rebels don't want,” said Colonel Juma Brahim, head of the rebels' operational command for the region.
“To the last moment Kadhafi is looking for a peace solution because he is weak, all the soldiers and equipment are coming to our side one by one,” Brahim told AFP.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, said at a joint news conference in Washington with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Kadhafi's “days are numbered” after signs of advances on the field by rebels.
“Although neither of us can predict to you the exact day or hour that Kadhafi will leave power, we do understand and agree that his days are numbered,” the chief US diplomat said.
“We will continue to work closely with our international partners including Russia to increase the pressure on him and his regime,” Clinton said.
Lavrov played down differences with Clinton over Libya, saying: “We have less misunderstanding with the United States than with some European countries.”
“We are united in that we have to start a political process as soon as possible,” Lavrov said. “We have different channels, official and not so official.”
However, the Russian foreign ministry said earlier Wednesday that Moscow would not take part in upcoming discussions on Libya to take place later this week in Turkey, which has also seen itself as a mediator in the conflict.
On Tuesday, French and Libyan officials talked up the chances of negotiating Kadhafi's withdrawal from power and an end to the conflict still wracking the country after months of military stalemate.
Before the latest counter-attack, the rebels in the Nafusa Mountains already faced a tough task in trying to take Asabah, even with allies inside the town fomenting revolution and spies providing intelligence on enemy positions.
While they have been buoyed by a clutch of victories in the mountains, Asabah is home to prominent families close to the regime.
It has a large military base and a population faithful to the regime. The Libyan leader felt comfortable enough to have a country house there.
Since the rebels took Gualish on July 6, they have been awaiting “the green light from NATO” to advance.
“We don't know when but there will be a battle,” said Brahim, the rebel colonel.
I
LONDON (AFP) – Defence Secretary Liam Fox on Sunday warned that Islamist militants may have been behind last week's assassination of rebel Libyan military chief General Abdel Fatah Yunis.
Fox told BBC Radio that the death, attributed by the British press to Al-Qaeda elements within the rebel movement, remained a mystery but that militant influence within Libya was inevitable.
“It's not yet clear who actually carried out the killing,” he said.
“Of course there are going to be militants in Libya — there are militants right across the whole of the Middle East — it would be a great surprise if there weren't some in Libya itself,” added the defence minister.
Britain last week recognised the rebels' National Transitional Council (NTC) as the legitimate Libyan government and Fox vowed Britain would continue to back the group despite the assassination.
“There has always been a mixture of people who make up the opposition forces in Libya…and it will be for the Libyans themselves to sort out exactly how any power structure develops post-(Moamer) Kadhafi,” he continued.
“We've known from history that there have been radical elements there.
“The aim will have to be as we move into the development phase and we go into the growing of the democracy in Libya, to ensure that these people are marginalised — but to pretend they're not there would be unrealistic.”
A deadly clash broke out in Libya's rebel stronghold of Benghazi in the wake of Yunis's murder, as the Kadhafi regime said Sunday it was in contact with rebel leadership members.
Four rebels were killed in the clash with a pro-Kadhafi group in Benghazi overnight, a rebel spokesman said.
The Kingdom of Lesotho is made up mostly of highlands where many of the villages can be reached only on horseback, by foot or light aircraft.
During the winter shepherds wearing only boots and wrap-around blankets have to contend with snow.
While much of the tiny country, with spectacular canyons and thatched huts, remains untouched by modern machines, developers have laid down roads to reach its mineral and water resources.
Major construction work has been under way in recent years to create the Lesotho Highlands Water Project to supply South Africa with fresh water.
Resources are scarce – a consequence of the harsh environment of the highland plateau and limited agricultural space in the lowlands. So, Lesotho has been heavily dependent on the country which completely surrounds it – South Africa.
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At a glance
Politics: Ruling party of Prime Minister Mosisili won early elections in February 2007, called after some of its MPs crossed the floor. Polls in 1998 led to violence; peacekeepers restored order
Economy: Lesotho depends on South Africa as an employer, and as buyer of its main natural resource – water. Textile exports have been hurt by the erosion of trade concessions, but appear to be expanding again
International: Lesotho is surrounded by South Africa
Over the decades thousands of workers have been forced by the lack of job opportunities to find work at South African mines. South Africa has on several occasions intervened in Lesotho's politics, including in 1998 when it sent its troops to help quell unrest.
The former British protectorate has had a turbulent, if not particularly bloody, period of independence with several parties, army factions and the royal family competing for power in coups and mutinies. The position of king has been reduced to a symbolic and unifying role.
Lesotho has one of the world's highest rates of HIV-Aids infection. A drive to encourage people to take HIV tests was spurred on by Prime Minister Mosisili, who was tested in public in 2004.
Poverty is deep and widespread, with the UN describing 40% of the population as “ultra-poor”. Food output has been hit by the deaths from Aids of farmers.
Economic woes have been compounded by the scrapping of a global textile quota system which exposed producers to Asian competition. Thousands of jobs in the industry have been lost.
Africa Unite
Image by Walt Jabsco
This week sees the start of the celebrations of 50 years independance for Ghana from British rule. Ghana was the first sub Saharan African country to break it’s ties from Britain in 1957.
This week also sees me finally taking down my Ghana flag from the middle room door which has been up since last summer’s World Cup.
BENGHAZI (Reuters) – Rebel forces fought gunmen loyal to Muammar Gaddafi in eastern Libya on Sunday in the latest incident to undermine the insurgents' grip in territory they hold.
The clashes renewed opposition fears that Gaddafi's agents had infiltrated the area, days after the mysterious killing of the rebel military commander.
The assassination of General Abdel Fattah Younes, apparently by gunmen on his own side, has hurt the opposition just as it was winning broader international recognition and making gains against Gaddafi's forces in the Western Mountains and elsewhere.
Rebel spokesman Mahmoud Shammam said clashes had broken out when rebel forces attacked a militia that had helped some 300 Gaddafi loyalists break out of jail near Benghazi on Friday.
At least six rebels were killed in the fighting with the militia, whose members appeared to be experienced and armed with machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades and explosives.
Inside the barracks where they were holed up, rebels found more than 400 weapons, Libya's green flag and photos of Gaddafi.
“At 8 a.m., the barracks was brought under control. Thirty men surrendered and we took their weapons,” Shammam told reporters. “We consider them members of the Fifth Column.”
The clashes reflect growing fears within the opposition that Gaddafi loyalists are exploiting the lawlessness that prevails in the east, which is awash with weapons and armed gangs, some secular or Islamist rebels, some vigilantes and some criminals.
The fighting took place as speculation swirls over the murky circumstances of Younes' death. The 67-year-old general's record as Gaddafi's interior minister before his defection in February, made him the target of suspicion among many in the opposition.
Some Libyans suspect his execution was ordered by rebel leaders for treason, many say he was killed by Gaddafi spies, and others suggest a rebel splinter group had acted alone.
In an apparent effort to avert a feud, rebels named Suleiman al-Obeidi, a member of Younes' tribe, as acting military chief.
Whatever the truth, the infighting among militias in Libya's east deepens concerns among the rebels' Western backers, keen to see them prevail in a five-month-old civil war but frustrated by their lack of unity and worried over Islamist influence.
Keeping up diplomatic pressure on Gaddafi, Britain said on Sunday it would take part in the NATO air campaign for as long as it took and Germany expelled a Libyan diplomat.
REBELS TARGET GADDAFI STRONGHOLDS
The rebels, who rose up against Gaddafi in February, have seized swathes of the country but are poorly equipped and still far from ousting him, despite support from NATO airstrikes.
On Sunday, rebel tanks pounded Gaddafi troops in Tiji, some 200 km (125 miles) southwest of Tripoli, inching one km closer to the last government stronghold in the Western Mountains.
“We are going to take Tiji, I know it. And that will clear the way for us to head to Tripoli eventually,” said fighter Naji Shayboukh, who was holding a home-made rocket-launcher.
About 14 rebels were killed and more than 20 wounded, hospital sources said, in a second day of heavy fighting on the front near Zlitan, some 160 km (100 miles) east of Tripoli and the largest town between rebel-held Misrata and the capital.
In the past 48 hours, rebels have advanced about 3 km toward Zlitan but have yet to solidify their gains.
Television footage obtained by Reuters showed what appeared to be buildings in Zlitan's eastern suburb of Zdou. The footage also showed heavy fighting, with rebels using machine guns against Gaddafi's troops.
“We have advanced well and God willing we will be in Zlitan soon,” said Ibrahim Buwathi, 24, who had a shrapnel wound in his shoulder and was awaiting treatment at the hospital.
About 20 explosions rocked the nearby rebel-held city of Misrata overnight in an apparent attack by Gaddafi loyalists.
Libyan rebels also said they had moved closer to Brega, and were now positioned 5 to 7 km from the east of the oil town.
Fighting at Brega had slowed over the past two weeks as the rebels struggled to defuse hundreds of thousands of mines planted by Gaddafi's forces.
Rebels said they planned to advance soon on Brega, where some 3,000 heavily armed government troops remain positioned.
LIBYA'S WILD EAST
The longer the war drags on, the further eastern Libya appears to slip into lawlessness, raising questions about what kind of Libya could emerge if Gaddafi goes.
Many rebels had been uncomfortable working under Younes, a man who had been so close to Gaddafi for 41 years, and rebel sources said on Thursday he had been recalled over suspicions he or his family were secretly in contact with Gaddafi.
Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Younes had been killed by Fawzi Bu Kitf, head of the Union of Revolutionary Forces, a federation of armed rebel groups that works with the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council.
Moussa also accused Ismail al-Sallabi, head of the Feb 17 Brigade, an armed group that falls under the Union umbrella, of involvement in the assassination.
Both have said the had no knowledge of plans to assassinate Younes and that his killers had acted alone.
Rebel sources told Reuters that a field commander called Mustafa al-Rubh, from an armed group called the Okbah Ibn Nafih Brigade, had been sent to the front at Brega to arrest Younes and bring him back to Benghazi for questioning by three judges.
Rubh, who is not under arrest but is being questioned over Younes' death, said he had taken the military leader to a location outside of Benghazi, where he was due to hand him over.
From here, no one appears able to explain what happened.
Some rebel sources said another militia, called Obaida Ibn Jarrah, intervened, took Younes by force and killed him.
(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy in Hawamid; Mussab Al-Khairalla and Ayman al-Sahili in Misrata; Missy Ryan in Tripoli; Joseph Nasr in Berlin; Souhail Karam in Rabat; writing by Lin Noueihed; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
(This story has been corrected in paragraph 17 to show number of rebels killed and wounded is about 14 and 20, respectively)
Equatorial Guinea is a small country off West Africa which has recently struck oil and which is now being cited as a textbook case of the resource curse – or the paradox of plenty.
Since the mid 1990s the former Spanish colony has become one of sub-Sahara's biggest oil producers and in 2004 was said to have the world's fastest-growing economy.
However, few people have benefited from the oil riches and the country ranks near the bottom of the UN human development index. The UN says that less than half the population has access to clean drinking water and that 20 percent of children die before reaching five.
The country has exasperated a variety of rights organisations who have described the two post-independence leaders as among the worst abusers of human rights in Africa.
Francisco Macias Nguema's reign of terror – from independence in 1968 until his overthrow in 1979 – prompted a third of the population to flee. Apart from allegedly committing genocide against the Bubi ethnic minority, he ordered the death of thousands of suspected opponents, closed down churches and presided over the economy's collapse.
His successor – Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo – took over in a coup and has shown little tolerance for opposition during the three decades of his rule. While the country is nominally a multiparty democracy, elections have generally been considered a sham.
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At a glance
Politics: President Obiang seized power in 1979; rights groups have condemned his rule as one Africa's most brutal; he faces a “government in exile” and a separatist movement
Economy: Equatorial Guinea is sub-Saharan Africa's third biggest oil producer. Oil earnings are allegedly stolen by the ruling elite
International: Equatorial Guinea and Gabon are in dispute over islands in potentially oil-rich off-shore waters
According to Human Rights Watch, the ''dictatorship under President Obiang has used an oil boom to entrench and enrich itself further at the expense of the country's people''.
The corruption watchdog Transparency International has put Equatorial Guinea in the top 12 of its list of most corrupt states. Resisting calls for more transparency, President Obiang has for long held that oil revenues are a state secret. In 2008 the country became a candidate of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative – an international project meant to promote openness about government oil revenues – but failed to qualify by an April 2010 deadline.
A 2004 US Senate investigation into the Washington-based Riggs Bank found that President Obiang's family had received huge payments from US oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and Amerada Hess.
Observers say the US finds it hard to criticise a country which is seen as an ally in a volatile, oil-rich region. In 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hailed President Obiang as a “good friend” despite repeated criticism of his human rights and civil liberties record by her own department. More recently President Barack Obama posed for an official photograph with President Obiang at a New York reception.
The advocacy group Global Witness has been lobbying the United States to act against the President Obiang's son Teodor, a government minister. It says there is credible evidence that he spent millions buying a Malibu mansion and private jet using corruptly acquired funds – grounds for denying him a visa.
Equatorial Guinea hit the headlines in 2004 when a plane load of suspected mercenaries was intercepted in Zimbabwe while allegedly on the way to overthrow President Obiang.
CAIRO (AFP) – The head of the Cairo Criminal Court has vowed a speedy trial for ousted president Hosni Mubarak, the official MENA news agency reported on Sunday.
Judge Ahmed Refaat said Mubarak's trial, which starts on Wednesday, would be aired live on Egyptian television to “reassure people of the (credibility of the) process”.
The trial would be “held daily until its conclusion,” he said in a statement that comes in response to the widespread public belief that the opening hearing would be immediately adjourned.
Mubarak faces trial with his two sons Alaa and Gamal, former interior minister Habib al-Adly and six of his deputies, and businessmen Hussein Salem.
They are all accused of corruption, and of ordering the killing of anti-regime protesters during the uprising that toppled Mubarak in January-February.
Infrastructure in South Sudan's capital, Juba, is basic
Then a huge turnout in the south's independence referendum seemed to banish Mr Bashir's scepticism and here we are – about to see a new flag being raised amidst a little uncertainty about the musical credentials of a new national anthem.
So Africa will line up to congratulate this new child that has been so long in the womb, emerging from a difficult pregnancy that kicked and screamed or killed and maimed for decades.
South Sudan in recent years has had some powerful midwives – from US presidents to Hollywood actors.
And, of course, China – the biggest importer of Sudanese oil.
‘Angels of mercy’
They all joined forces to get the warring factions to the peace table and to let South Sudan decide her own future.
But Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, together with every African capital that hosted the stateless ones, have reason to watch Africa's largest country splitting up after 50 years of conflict and millions dead.
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Rebel armies are circling the new child with menacing intent ”
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And what will Africa's advice to the newborn be?
If Libya's Col Muammar Gaddafi was not so preoccupied by the conflict in his own country, he may well have made one of his generous donations to improve the roads in the south's capital, Juba, set up a few hotels and suggest how best to maximize the newborn's oil wealth.
And just what do you give a child with so much potential wealth?
Ordinarily, such a child would be surrounded by friends – true ones and false ones – and powerful allies would patrol the skies to ensure a safe transition to adulthood.
“Angels of mercy” would also set up bases in tiny Juba to deliver advice and aid, while scholarships would rain down on South Sudanese youth.
South Sudan fought for decades for independence
Meanwhile, the new government ministers would criss-cross the capitals of the world to stamp their country's existence on our collective memory.
The romance of independence, of course, can lead us up the garden path into all manner of imaginings.
The realities are stark and scary – much of Sudan's oil is in the south, the borders are yet to be drawn to the satisfaction of all, rebel armies are circling the new child with menacing intent, and this child born of war is finding it difficult to put down the guns.
‘Dinka power’
Already, violence in Abyei – the disputed border region which is a rich source of water during the dry season – has displaced thousands of people, and the United Nations has decided to deploy 4,200 Ethiopian troops to the area to keep the peace.
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This new baby will keep us all awake for some time”
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Then there are the South Sudanese rebel factions who seem newly armed and newly uniformed – of course, the north claims to knows nothing about this.
The rebels are crying foul over the fact that the Dinka ethnic group hold much of the government positions in the south and have been spending more on the army than on health and education.
But should any of this stop us celebrating a new nation?
In just over 50 years of changing winds, this addition to the African family of nations is probably overdue.
If you are a cynical observer you should probably just raise your glass and hold your breath – this new baby will keep us all awake for some time to come, but it is here now, there is no denying that.
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