Long Way Down is a television series, book and DVD documenting a motorcycle journey undertaken by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, on which they rode south through 18 countries from John o’ Groats in Scotland to Cape Agulhas in South Africa via Europe and Africa in 2007. It is a follow-up to the Long Way Round trip of 2004, when the pair rode east from London to New York via Eurasia and North America.
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Puntland, an arid region of north-east Somalia, declared itself an autonomous state in August 1998.
The move was, in part, an attempt to avoid the clan warfare engulfing southern Somalia. Nevertheless, the region has endured armed conflict, and grabbed the world headlines with an upsurge in pirate attacks on international shipping in the Indian Ocean.
Unlike its neighbour, breakaway Somaliland, Puntland says it does not seek recognition as an independent entity, wishing instead to be part of a federal Somalia.
The region's leadership refused to take part in peace talks in Djibouti in 2008 that led to the formation of a new transitional federal government headed by a moderate Islamist PM, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, but later reluctantly recognised the new administration.
Sporadic fighting has broken out between Puntland and Somaliland over the ownership of the latter's Sool and Sanaag regions, which are claimed by Puntland on the basis of ethnicity. Violence also accompanied a political power struggle in 2001 between rival claimants to the Puntland leadership.
Livestock herding and fishing sustain the people – many of them nomads – of the drought-prone region. The money sent home from overseas workers is an important source of foreign exchange.
Since 2005, the region has become famous as the hub of a burgeoning piracy operation in the seas around Somalia, particularly in the Gulf of Aden, where the pirates prey on key international shipping lanes to and from the Suez Canal.
The issue has achieved a high profile internationally, and several states, including the US, France, Britain and China, have deployed warships to the seas around Somalia to protect shipping.
Piracy has brought vast amounts of money into the region, leading to accusations that the authorities are turning a blind eye to the problem. Puntland's leaders have frequently promised to curb the pirates' activities, but with little apparent success.
It is widely viewed a socially acceptable and lucrative lifestyle, and has attracted former fishermen, ex-militiamen and technical experts.
Many in Somalia defend the attacks on foreign ships as a justified response to illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste along Somalia's long and poorly policed coastline.
Puntland is a destination for many Somalis displaced by violence in the south; some of them attempt to make the sea crossing to Yemen.
The region's coast was hit by the December 2004 Asian tsunami; more than 300 people were killed and thousands lost their livelihoods.
The territory takes its name from the Land of Punt, a centre of trade for the ancient Egyptians and a place shrouded in legend. But the location of ancient Punt is still a matter of scholarly speculation.
Ghana was the first place in sub-Saharan Africa where Europeans arrived to trade – first in gold, later in slaves.
It was also the first black African nation in the region to achieve independence from a colonial power, in this instance Britain.
Despite being rich in mineral resources, and endowed with a good education system and efficient civil service, Ghana fell victim to corruption and mismanagement soon after independence in 1957.
In 1966 its first president and pan-African hero, Kwame Nkrumah, was deposed in a coup, heralding years of mostly-military rule. In 1981 Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings staged his second coup. The country began to move towards economic stability and democracy.
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In April 1992 a constitution allowing for a multi-party system was approved in a referendum, ushering in a period of democracy.
A well-administered country by regional standards, Ghana is often seen as a model for political and economic reform in Africa. Cocoa exports are an essential part of the economy; Ghana is the world's second-largest producer.
The discovery of major offshore oil reserves was announced in June 2007, encouraging expectations of a major economic boost. Production officially began at the end of 2010, but some analysts expressed concern over the country's ability to manage its new industry, as laws governing the oil sector had not yet been passed.
Early among African countries to decolonise, Ghana is now a stable democracy with lively elections
In July 2009, Ghana secured a 600 million dollar three-year loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), amid concerns about the impact of the global recession on poorer countries. The IMF said the Ghanaian economy had proved to be relatively resilient because of the high prices of cocoa and gold.
Ghana has a high-profile peacekeeping role; troops have been deployed in Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone and DR Congo.
Although Ghana has largely escaped the civil strife that has plagued other West African countries, in 1994-95 land disputes in the north erupted into ethnic violence, resulting in the deaths of 1,000 people and the displacement of a further 150,000.
A breakaway, semi-desert territory on the coast of the Gulf of Aden, Somaliland declared independence after the overthrow of Somali military dictator Siad Barre in 1991.
The move followed a secessionist struggle during which Siad Barre's forces pursued rebel guerrillas in the territory. Tens of thousands of people were killed and towns were flattened.
Though not internationally recognised, Somaliland has a working political system, government institutions, a police force and its own currency. The territory has lobbied hard to win support for its claim to be a sovereign state.
The former British protectorate has also escaped much of the chaos and violence that plague Somalia, although attacks on Western aid workers in 2003 raised fears that Islamic militants in the territory were targeting foreigners.
Although there is a thriving private business sector, poverty and unemployment are widespread. The economy is highly dependent on money sent home by members of the diaspora. Duties from Berbera, a port used by landlocked Ethiopia, and livestock exports are important sources of revenue.
The latter have been hit by embargoes on exports, imposed by some Gulf countries to inhibit the spread of Rift Valley Fever.
Somaliland is in dispute with the neighbouring autonomous Somali region of Puntland over the Sanaag and Sool areas, some of whose inhabitants owe their allegiance to Puntland.
Somaliland's leaders have distanced themselves from Somalia's central transitional government, set up in 2004 following long-running talks in Kenya, which they see as a threat to Somaliland's autonomy.
Somaliland was independent for a few days in 1960, between the end of British colonial rule and its union with the former Italian colony of Somalia. More than 40 years later voters in the territory overwhelmingly backed its self-declared independence in a 2001 referendum.
Puntland, an arid region of north-east Somalia, declared itself an autonomous state in August 1998.
The move was, in part, an attempt to avoid the clan warfare engulfing southern Somalia. Nevertheless, the region has endured armed conflict, and grabbed the world headlines with an upsurge in pirate attacks on international shipping in the Indian Ocean.
Unlike its neighbour, breakaway Somaliland, Puntland says it does not seek recognition as an independent entity, wishing instead to be part of a federal Somalia.
The region's leadership refused to take part in peace talks in Djibouti in 2008 that led to the formation of a new transitional federal government headed by a moderate Islamist PM, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, but later reluctantly recognised the new administration.
Sporadic fighting has broken out between Puntland and Somaliland over the ownership of the latter's Sool and Sanaag regions, which are claimed by Puntland on the basis of ethnicity. Violence also accompanied a political power struggle in 2001 between rival claimants to the Puntland leadership.
Livestock herding and fishing sustain the people – many of them nomads – of the drought-prone region. The money sent home from overseas workers is an important source of foreign exchange.
Since 2005, the region has become famous as the hub of a burgeoning piracy operation in the seas around Somalia, particularly in the Gulf of Aden, where the pirates prey on key international shipping lanes to and from the Suez Canal.
The issue has achieved a high profile internationally, and several states, including the US, France, Britain and China, have deployed warships to the seas around Somalia to protect shipping.
Piracy has brought vast amounts of money into the region, leading to accusations that the authorities are turning a blind eye to the problem. Puntland's leaders have frequently promised to curb the pirates' activities, but with little apparent success.
It is widely viewed a socially acceptable and lucrative lifestyle, and has attracted former fishermen, ex-militiamen and technical experts.
Many in Somalia defend the attacks on foreign ships as a justified response to illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste along Somalia's long and poorly policed coastline.
Puntland is a destination for many Somalis displaced by violence in the south; some of them attempt to make the sea crossing to Yemen.
The region's coast was hit by the December 2004 Asian tsunami; more than 300 people were killed and thousands lost their livelihoods.
The territory takes its name from the Land of Punt, a centre of trade for the ancient Egyptians and a place shrouded in legend. But the location of ancient Punt is still a matter of scholarly speculation.
Long Way Down is a television series, book and DVD documenting a motorcycle journey undertaken by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, on which they rode south through 18 countries from John o’ Groats in Scotland to Cape Agulhas in South Africa via Europe and Africa in 2007. It is a follow-up to the Long Way Round trip of 2004, when the pair rode east from London to New York via Eurasia and North America.
Video Rating: 4 / 5
Earlier this week an entire town was burnt to the ground by the Lou Nuer fighters. Dozens died on both sides.
The United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator in South Sudan, Lise Grande, told the BBC that the UN was reinforcing its troops in Pibor to assist the South Sudanese army in defending civilians.
“We are very concerned by the scale of this,” she said.
“The UN is facing enormous logistical challenges – we still have no military aircraft, only civilian helicopters,” she added.
The church and surrounding homes were badly damaged.
Father Christopher Barde told AFP news agency the blast occurred as the Christmas morning service was ending.
“It was really terrible,” he said. “Some [wounded] people ran towards me [saying] 'Father anoint me'.”
Crowds grew angry over the attack and the slow response of the emergency services.
Reuters reports that thousands of youths have erected roadblocks on the road from the capital to the largely Muslim north, and are being tackled by security forces firing tear gas.
In Jos, a blast close to the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church was followed by gunfire that left one officer dead, government spokesman Pam Ayuba told the Associated Press news agency.
Two explosive devices found in a nearby building were disarmed as military were deployed to the site.
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Boko Haram: Timeline of terror
2002: Founded
2009: Hundreds killed when Maiduguri police stations stormed
2009: Boko Haram leader Mohammed Yusuf captured by army, handed to police, later found dead
Sep 2010: Freed hundreds of prisoners from Maiduguri jail
Dec 2010: Bombed Jos, killing 80; blamed for New Year's Eve attack on Abuja barracks
2010-2011: Dozens killed in Maiduguri shootings
Nov 2011: Co-ordinated bomb and gun attacks in Yobe and Borno states
Dec 2011: Series of bomb attacks on Christmas Day kills dozens
In pictures: Nigeria church attacks
Why can't Nigeria defeat Boko Haram?
In Damaturu, in the north-east, there were two explosions.
One was a suicide car bomb attack on a convoy of the State Security Service.
BBC correspondents say four people were killed there, including the suicide bomber.
There was also an explosion in the nearby town of Gadaka.
Damaturu and Gadaka are both in Yobe state, which has been the epicentre of violence between security forces and Boko Haram militants.
More than 60 people have died in fighting there this week.
A spokesman for Boko Haram, Abul-Qaqa, told local media it carried out the bomb attacks.
Boko Haram, which means “Western education is forbidden”, wants the imposition of Sharia law.
The group carried out an August 2011 suicide attack on the UN headquarters in Abuja, in which more than 20 people were killed.
It was also responsible for a string of bomb blasts in Jos on Christmas Eve 2010.
KINSHASA (Reuters) – A U.S. crackdown on so-called “conflict minerals” in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has backfired by pushing trade deeper into the hands of criminals, including at least one former rebel leader, a U.N. report said on Friday.
The finding underscores the difficulty faced by both the United States and Congo governments in choking off funding to eastern Congo's roving armed bands, believed responsible for thousands of rapes and killings of villagers.
In an effort to pressure Congo's rebels, the United States adopted a law last year requiring the Securities and Exchange Commission to write rules forcing companies to prove minerals they derived from Congo are “conflict free.”
But the rules have not been finalized due to wide opposition from companies and industry groups, creating uncertainty that has led international trading firms to virtually stop all purchases from Congo.
“(This) has mainly led to a loss of production and increased criminality, which I think everyone would agree is not a great result,” Gregory Salter, who worked as a consultant for the U.N. report, told Reuters.
Eight years after the official end of a war that killed more than 5 million people, Congo has struggled to tackle rebel groups and criminal elements within its own armed forces that haunt the densely forested east and enrich themselves on illegal mining.
Congo has some of the world's largest deposits of minerals including tin and coltan used in making cell phones and computers, but decades of conflict and corruption mean most of the population remains mired in poverty, a situation made worse by “conflict mineral” crackdown, the U.N. Group of Experts' report noted.
RWANDA SMUGGLING
“This refusal (by international companies) to purchase untagged material left many exporters … bereft of their main, or only customers, and therefore incomes,” the group stated.
Congo exports dropped by around 90 percent following the decision by firms not to accept minerals from the region, mining officials told Reuters earlier this year
“(It) appears to have increased the need for fraudulent operators to seek or accept military assistance in their mineral smuggling operations,” the report said.
A former rebel, who is now a general in the Congolese army, is implicated in illegal mineral trafficking, the group said.
Bosco Ntaganda, who is subject to an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes, controls the supply of minerals from the Congolese city of Goma into neighboring Rwanda, which has seen a rise in smuggling in 2011, the report said.
“The level of recorded domestic production of tin, tungsten and tantalum ores (in Rwanda) continues to be higher than industry analysts consider the real level of production to be… suggesting that material from the DRC is being smuggled into Rwanda, and then tagged as of Rwandan origin,” the report said.
Mineral exports from Rwanda are expected to reach $150 million by the end of 2011, up from $118 million in the last financial year between July 2010 and July 2011.
Last month Rwanda returned more than 80 tonnes of minerals to Congo and Rwandan officials have told Reuters that the tagging system, which allows minerals to be traced back to their mine of origin, is working at “nearly 100 percent.”
Congo's armed forces have faced repeated allegations of operating illegal mining rackets, and last year President Joseph Kabila suspended mining in the region for six months in an effort to demilitarize the industry.
Congolese Minister of Mines Martin Kabwelulu has dismissed accusations that the Congolese army were involved in illegal mining as “rumors” but said he backed the U.S. legislation to clean up the mining sector.
“For me the Dodd-Frank law is very good, because it stops the criminals from working,” he told Reuters by text message.
Salter said improvements had been seen in some areas of Congo, notably northern Katanga, but that when the SEC rules are eventually announced they must allow legitimate trade from the eastern provinces, despite heavy militarization of the region and instability there.
“There's been a lot of progress made but the missing piece in the puzzle is establishing legitimate supply routes,” he said.
(Writing by Richard Valdmanis)
The fortunes of Zimbabwe have for almost three decades been tied to President Robert Mugabe, the pro-independence campaigner who wrested control from a small white community and became the country's first black leader.
Until the 2008 parliamentary elections, Zimbabwe was effectively a one-party state, ruled over by Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF. A power-sharing deal has raised hopes that Mr Mugabe might be prepared to relinquish some of his powers, but in the meantime he presides over a nation whose economy is in tatters, where poverty and unemployment are endemic and political strife and repression commonplace.
Zimbabwe is home to the Victoria Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world, the stone enclosures of Great Zimbabwe – remnants of a past empire – and to herds of elephant and other game roaming vast stretches of wilderness.
For years it was a major tobacco producer and a potential bread basket for surrounding countries.
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At a glance
Politics: President Robert Mugabe, in office since 1980, agreed to an historic power-sharing deal with the opposition in September 2008, following months of political turmoil. Relationship has been troubled
Economy: Economy appears to be stabilising after years of crisis with rampant inflation, “de-industrialisation” and shortages of food and fuel. Agricultural production has shrunk
International: Hopes that political deal will alleviate international isolation
But the forced seizure of almost all white-owned commercial farms, with the stated aim of benefiting landless black Zimbabweans, led to sharp falls in production and precipitated the collapse of the agriculture-based economy. The country has endured rampant inflation and critical food and fuel shortages.
Many Zimbabweans survive on grain handouts. Others have voted with their feet; hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans, including much-needed professionals, have emigrated.
Aid agencies and critics partly blame food shortages on the land reform programme. The government blames a long-running drought, and Mr Mugabe has accused Britain and its allies of sabotaging the economy in revenge for the redistribution programme.
The government's urban slum demolition drive in 2005 drew more international condemnation. The president said it was an effort to boost law and order and development; critics accused him of destroying slums housing opposition supporters.
The former Rhodesia has a history of conflict, with white settlers dispossessing the resident population, guerrilla armies forcing the white government to submit to elections, and the post-independence leadership committing atrocities in southern areas where it lacked the support of the Matabele people.
Zimbabwe has had a rocky relationship with the Commonwealth – it was suspended after President Mugabe's controversial re-election in 2002 and later announced that it was pulling out for good.