KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said Friday tensions with South Sudan over oil transit payments could lead to war between the two countries.

Asked in an interview with state television whether war could break out with South Sudan, Bashir said: “There is a possibility.”

He said Sudan wanted peace but added: “We will go to war if we are forced to go to war.”

“If there will be war after the loss of oil it will be a war of attrition. But it will be a war of attrition hitting them before us,” he said.

South Sudan took away much of Sudan's oil production when it split away from Khartoum as an independent country in July. Oil is the lifeline of both economies.

The landlocked South still needs to export its crude through the north's port and pipelines. But the two countries went their separate ways without agreeing how much South Sudan was going to pay Sudan to use its oil infrastructure.

The crisis came to a head when Khartoum said in January it had seized some southern oil as compensation for unpaid fees. South Sudan responded by shutting down oil production.

Bashir accused Juba of shutting down the oil flow to provoke a collapse of the Sudanese government. Khartoum has been fighting an economic crisis since the loss of southern oil, sparking small protests against high food prices and corruption.

Bashir said it was clear Juba did not want to reach an oil deal after his southern counterpart Salva Kiir had refused to sign during a meeting with him a proposal made by the African Union in Addis Ababa last week.

“They (the South) didn't sign and they will not sign,” Bashir said, adding that Khartoum was entitled to 74,000 barrels of day of southern oil. Juba pumped 350,000 bpd prior to the shutdown.

“This is our right,” he said.

There was no immediate comment from Juba. Kiir said on Thursday he had rejected the deal in Addis Ababa because it would have required the South to pay billions of dollars to Khartoum and keep exporting crude through Sudan.

South Sudan wants to develop an alternative pipeline to Kenya to bypass Sudan's facilities but oil insiders are skeptical the project is viable.

ECONOMIC CRISIS

Bashir said the economic situation was difficult for Sudan this year but the country would boost current oil production of 115,000 bpd by 75,000 bpd. Sudan's current output serves only domestic consumption.

Bashir said Sudan would also export gold worth $2.5 billion this year and expand the agricultural sector to compensate for the loss of oil. Experts have expressed doubts that raising gold exports and other plans to diversify the economy will offset the loss of oil revenues of $5 billion booked in 2010.

They say economic diversification has been hampered for years by corruption, misplanning and a U.S. embargo in place since 1997 for hosting militants such as Osama bin Laden in the past.

Apart from oil, the north and south also need to mark the 1,900 km (1,200 miles) long border and find a solution for the disputed region of Abyei. Khartoum also wants Juba to share Sudan's external debt of $38 billion.

Both countries regularly trade accusations of supporting rebels on each other's territory.

To read an analytical story about the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan double click on: [ID:nL5E8D136T]

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing and Khalid Abdelaziz)

Source

Botswana, one of Africa's most stable countries, is the continent's longest continuous multi-party democracy. It is relatively free of corruption and has a good human rights record.

It is also the world's largest producer of diamonds and the trade has transformed it into a middle-income nation.

Botswana protects some of Africa's largest areas of wilderness. It is sparsely populated, because it is so dry. The Kalahari desert, home to a dwindling band of Bushman hunter-gatherers, makes up much of the territory and most areas are too arid to sustain any agriculture other than cattle.

The advocacy group Survival International says Bushmen have been forced from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve since the discovery of diamonds there in the 1980s. And although they won a legal battle to go back in 2006, Survival says the government has been hindering their return.

''Unless they can return to their ancestral lands, their unique societies and way of life will be destroyed, and many of them will die,'' says Survival, which has urged a boycott of Botswanan diamonds.

Continue reading the main story

At a glance

Politics: Controversy surrounds the forced relocation of San Bushmen from their traditional hunting grounds. The ruling party has won all 10 elections since independence in 1966.

Economy: Recent economic growth has been high by African standards. The government sees diversification out of diamonds as a priority

International: Botswana plays an active role in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) economic grouping and has supplied troops for intervention in other parts of Africa

In the late 1800s Britain formed the protectorate of Bechuanaland, preventing territorial encroachment of Boers from the Transvaal or German expansion from South West Africa. In 1966 Bechuanaland became independent as Botswana.

Botswana was a haven for refugees and anti-apartheid activists from South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, but had to tread carefully because of its economic dependence on the white-ruled neighbour, and because of South Africa's military might.

More recently, the country has seen an influx of illegal immigrants seeking respite from the economic crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Botswana, which once had the world's highest rate of HIV-Aids infection, has one of Africa's most-advanced treatment programmes. Anti-retroviral drugs are readily available.

However, the UN says more than one in three adults in Botswana are infected with HIV or have developed Aids. The disease has orphaned many thousands of children and has dramatically cut life expectancy.

Botswana is trying to reduce its economic dependence on diamonds.

The government has moved to boost local business and employment by encouraging more value to be added to diamonds locally.

It launched its own diamond trading company – Diamond Trading Company of Botswana – in a joint venture with diamond giant De Beers.

“What we are embarking on is nothing less than one of the largest transfers of skills and commercial activity to Africa ever seen,” said De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer. “The diamond industry's centre of gravity is shifting and tonight we see it shifting here.”

Safari-based tourism – tightly-controlled and often upmarket – is an important source of income.

Source

Destiny Africa Choir visit the Pierhead / Côr Destiny Africa yn ymweld â’r Pierhead 18/5/2010


Image by National Assembly For Wales / Cynulliad Cymru
A choir of Ugandan orphans visited the Pierhead on 18 May 2010 to deliver a special performance.
The Destiny Africa choir is made up of 15 children, aged eight to16, who have been orphaned or left with a parent who can no longer look after them due to war, HIV and AIDS related illness.
Watch the video here
_________________________________

Daeth côr o blant amddifad o Uganda ar ymweliad â’r Pierhead ar 18 Mai i roi cyflwyniad arbennig.
Mae côr Destiny Affrica yn cynnwys 15 o blant rhwng wyth ac 16 oed, sydd wedi eu gadael yn amddifad neu gyda rhiant na all ofalu amdanynt bellach oherwydd rhyfel, HIV ac afiechyd sy’n gysylltiedig ag AIDS.
Gwyliwch y fideo yma

LAGOS, Nigeria – An Eni SpA oil pipeline ruptured and caught fire as a militant group claimed responsibility for an attack in the region, their first alleged assault in months as its purported leader awaits trial on terrorism charges in South Africa.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta also threatened to attack South African interests in an email sent to journalists late Saturday night, as its alleged leader Henry Okah remains imprisoned there.

South African businesses “will pay a heavy price for the interference of (President) Jacob Zuma in the legitimate fight for justice in the Niger Delta, by its people,” the statement read. “The South African president has reduced himself to the position of a hired thug.”

South African businesses, like mobile phone carrier MTN Group Ltd. and others, have operations throughout Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with more than 160 million people. While other MEND threats have failed to materialize in the past, Saturday’s apparent attack could mean the militant group is willing to begin its assaults again.

The fire happened Saturday night near Brass River in Nigeria’s Bayelsa state, home to the nation’s President Goodluck Jonathan. Witnesses told a local environmental group they heard the blast from their homes.

In its email, the militant group known by the acronym MEND said it “attacked and destroyed” the pipeline run by a Nigerian subsidiary of Eni. Officials with the Rome-based company declined to immediately comment Sunday.

Lt. Col. Timothy Antigha, a spokesman for the military in the restive region, acknowledged “claims of a fire” on the pipeline, but said soldiers could not independently verify it.

The attack occurred in the oil-rich Niger Delta, where foreign firms have pumped oil out of the country for more than 50 years. Despite the billions of dollars flowing into Nigeria’s government, many in the delta remain desperately poor, living in polluted waters without access to proper medical care, an education or work.

In 2006, militants from groups like MEND started a wave of attacks targeting foreign oil companies, including bombing their pipelines, kidnapping their workers and fighting with security forces. That violence ebbed in 2009 with a government-sponsored amnesty program promising ex-fighters monthly payments and job training. However, few in the delta have seen the promised benefits and scattered kidnappings and attacks continue.

MEND itself, once a powerful, media-friendly militant group in the region, has seen its influence wane over the last year. Its largest major confirmed attacks were a dual car bombing in Nigeria’s capital Abuja on Oct. 1, 2010, that killed at least 12 people and the November 2010 kidnapping of seven expatriate workers from offshore oil rigs operated by London-based Afren PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp.

After the Abuja bombings, authorities in South Africa arrested Okah on terrorism charges. His trial there is scheduled to begin Oct. 1.

Okah has repeatedly denied being the leader of the militant group, though Nigeria’s government has labeled him as a major arms importer to the region. South African prosecutors also have presented evidence in earlier hearings drawn from Okah’s diaries and computer correspondence that they said bolstered accusations he masterminded the October bombings.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Source

Although Guinea's mineral wealth makes it potentially one of Africa's richest countries, its people are among the poorest in West Africa.

Ruled by strong-arm leaders since independence, Guinea has been seen as a bulwark against instability in neighbouring Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. However it has also been implicated in the conflicts that have ravaged the region.

After independence in 1958 Guinea severed ties with France and turned to the Soviet Union. The first president, Ahmed Sekou Toure, pursued a revolutionary socialist agenda and crushed political opposition. Tens of thousands of people disappeared, or were tortured and executed, during his 26-year regime.

Continue reading the main story

At a glance

Politics: Military junta took control in December 2008 at the of death of President Lansana Conte, who seized power in a coup 24 years earlier. A provisional government supervised the transition to civilian rule at the end of 2010

Economy: Guinea is a leading bauxite exporter, but most of its people live on less than $1 a day

International: The US, the African Union and the European Union have imposed sanctions

Economic mismanagement and repression culminated in riots in 1977. These led to some relaxation of state control of the economy.

But it was only after the death in 1984 of Ahmed Sekou Toure, and the seizure of power by Lansana Conte and other officers, that the socialist experiment was abandoned – without reversing poverty.

In 2000 Guinea became home to up to half a million refugees fleeing fighting in Sierra Leone and Liberia. This increased the strain on its economy and generated suspicion and ethnic tension, amid mutual accusations of attempts at destabilisation and border attacks.

Acute economic problems, instability among its neighbours and uncertainty over a successor to its authoritarian president have prompted a European think-tank, the Crisis Group, to warn that Guinea risks becoming a “failed state”.

Source

Computers and documents were seized by Egyptian authorities during December's raids

Continue reading the main story

Egypt's Revolution

Football deaths blame

No party mood

Egypt's 18-day revolution

Revolution, one year on

Egypt says it is to put on trial 40 people – including Americans and other foreigners – over the funding of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Egypt's ruling military council has accused foreign groups of funding street protests against them.

It has raided the offices of several NGOs and banned a number of foreign staff from leaving the country.

Washington has warned it could review US aid to Egypt unless Cairo respects the rights of NGOs.

“Forty people, including Egyptians, Americans and other nationalities, have been referred to the Cairo criminal court in the NGO funding case,” a source told the AFP news agency.

At least 17 US-based and local groups receiving foreign funding had their offices raided by prosecutors in late December.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), loosely associated with the US Democratic and Republican parties, were among those targeted.

Just over a week ago, several foreign staff – including Sam LaHood, the son of Transport Secretary Ray LaHood who works for IRI – were banned from leaving Egypt.

Egyptian prosecutors said at the time of the raids they were acting on evidence suggesting some groups were violating Egyptian laws, including by not having permits.

But Cairo's action has widely been seen as an attack on free speech and an attempt by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces' (SCAF) to silence critics of its attempt to put down ongoing street protests.

On Saturday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated Washington's warning that aid to Egypt would be reviewed.

Source

A mainly desert territory in north-west Africa, Western Sahara is the subject of a decades-long dispute between Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front.

The territory is phosphate-rich and believed to have offshore oil deposits. Most of it has been under Moroccan control since 1976.

Western Sahara fell under Spanish rule in 1884, becoming a Spanish province in 1934. Nationalism emerged in the 1960s, as nomadic Saharans, or Saharawis, settled in the region.

Polisario was set up on 10 May 1973 and established itself as the sole representative of the Saharan people. Some 100,000 refugees still live in Polisario's camps in Algeria.

Continue reading the main story

At a glance

Seized by Morocco after Spain and Mauritania withdrew

Polisario Front seeks independence

Morocco only prepared to grant autonomy

Territory rich in phosphates, fisheries and possibly offshore oil

Cease-fire in place since 1991

Country profiles compiled by BBC Monitoring

Madrid Agreement

In October 1975 the International Court of Justice rejected territorial claims by Morocco and Mauritania. The court recognised the Saharawis' right to self-determination and Spain agreed to organise a referendum.

But in November 1975, Moroccan King Hassan II ordered a “Green March” of over 300,000 Moroccans into the territory. Spain backed down and negotiated a settlement with Morocco and Mauritania, known as the Madrid Agreement.

Signed on 14 November 1975, the deal partitioned the region. Morocco acquired two-thirds in the north and Mauritania the remaining third. Spain agreed to end colonial rule.

Polisario declared the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) on 27 February 1976 and announced its first government on 4 March.

The current SADR president, Mohamed Abdelaziz, was elected Polisario secretary-general in August 1976.

In August 1978, one month after a coup, a new Mauritanian government signed a peace deal with Polisario and renounced all territorial claims.

Morocco moved to occupy areas allocated to Mauritania. Algeria in turn allowed refugees to settle in its southern town of Tindouf, where Polisario still has its main base.

Polisario led a guerrilla war against Moroccan forces until 1991.

Referendum

In April 1991 the UN established Minurso, the United Nations Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara. Its brief was to implement a peace plan outlined in a 1990 Security Council resolution. In September 1991 a UN-brokered ceasefire was declared.

Continue reading the main story

Key dates

Moroccan settlers head for Western Sahara during the 'Green March'

1884: Spain colonises Western Sahara

1973: Polisario set up

1975: World Court rules people should decide on sovereignty

1975: “Green March”, Spain agrees to hand over to Morocco, Mauritania

1976: Spain withdraws, SADR declared

1979: Morocco annexes Mauritania's share

1976-1991: Guerrilla warfare

1991: Minurso established

1991: Ceasefire declared

1996: UN suspends referendum moves

2001: Baker plan

2007-8: Talks fail to reach resolution

The peace plan provided for a transition period, leading to a referendum in January 1992. Western Saharans would choose between independence and integration with Morocco.

Minurso was to total 1,000 civilian and 1,700 military personnel. Its brief was to monitor the ceasefire, the confinement of warring parties to designated areas and the exchange of prisoners.

While the ceasefire held, the mission was never fully deployed. Nor was the transition period ever completed. A key sticking point was an “identification process”, to decide who was eligible to vote.

Identification was to be based on a census carried out by Spain in 1973. Polisario wanted to rule out Moroccans who settled in Western Sahara after the Green March.

In May 1996 the UN suspended the identification process and recalled most Minurso civilian staff. Military personnel stayed to oversee the truce.

Initial attempts to revive the process foundered over Morocco's worries that a referendum would not serve its interests.

Baker plan

Peace returned to the drawing board when UN special envoy James Baker mediated in talks between Polisario and Morocco in London, Lisbon and Houston in 1997, then in London again in 2000.

Agreements were reached on the release of POWs, a code of conduct for a referendum campaign, UN authority during a transition period – but not on voter eligibility. Further talks were held in Berlin and Geneva in 2000, but again ran into trouble.

In a new bid to break the deadlock, James Baker submitted a “Framework Agreement”, known as the Third Way, in June 2001.

It provided for autonomy for Saharawis under Moroccan sovereignty, a referendum after a four-year transition period, and voting rights for Moroccan settlers resident in Western Sahara for over a year.

This formula was rejected by Polisario and Algeria. Then in July 2003, the UN adopted a compromise resolution proposing that Western Sahara become a semi-autonomous region of Morocco for a transition period of up to five years.

A referendum would then take place on independence, semi-autonomy or integration with Morocco.

This compromise was seen as addressing Moroccan concerns, in a bid to entice it to agree to a referendum.

Impasse

Polisario signalled its readiness to accept, but Morocco rejected the plan, citing security concerns. Envoy James Baker resigned in June 2004 and the UN process remains deadlocked.

Talks resumed between Morocco and the Polisario Front in March 2008 in New York, with Mauritania and Algeria also attending. They made no progress.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to break the impasse during a visit to North Africa in September, but the pursuit of al-Qaeda networks in Morocco and Algeria took precedence.

In January 2009 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed US diplomat Christopher Ross as his new special envoy to deal with Western Sahara. Mr Ross was once US ambassador to Algeria.

In November 2010, several people were killed in violent clashes between Moroccan security forces and protesters near the capital Laayoune, shortly before UN-mediated talks on the future of the territory were due to open in New York.

Source

MYSTICA WITH BETTER GLOBE CHAIRMAN RINO SOLBERG ALONG WITH OTHER BOARD OF DIRECTORS, AMBASSADORS, DELEGATES AND MEMBERS FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES DURING THEIR VISIT TO THE BETTER GLOBE FORESTRY IN KENYA AND TO SEE THE MUKAU (MAHOGANY) TREES BEING PLANTED IN AFRICA

LAGOS, Nigeria – An Eni SpA oil pipeline ruptured and caught fire as a militant group claimed responsibility for an attack in the region, their first alleged assault in months as its purported leader awaits trial on terrorism charges in South Africa.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta also threatened to attack South African interests in an email sent to journalists late Saturday night, as its alleged leader Henry Okah remains imprisoned there.

South African businesses “will pay a heavy price for the interference of (President) Jacob Zuma in the legitimate fight for justice in the Niger Delta, by its people,” the statement read. “The South African president has reduced himself to the position of a hired thug.”

South African businesses, like mobile phone carrier MTN Group Ltd. and others, have operations throughout Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation with more than 160 million people. While other MEND threats have failed to materialize in the past, Saturday’s apparent attack could mean the militant group is willing to begin its assaults again.

The fire happened Saturday night near Brass River in Nigeria’s Bayelsa state, home to the nation’s President Goodluck Jonathan. Witnesses told a local environmental group they heard the blast from their homes.

In its email, the militant group known by the acronym MEND said it “attacked and destroyed” the pipeline run by a Nigerian subsidiary of Eni.

A Rome-based spokesman for Eni, speaking on condition of anonymity per company policy, acknowledged that either a fire or attack had happened on the pipeline, cutting about 4,000 barrels of crude oil production a day.

Lt. Col. Timothy Antigha, a spokesman for the military in the restive region, acknowledged “claims of a fire” on the pipeline, but said soldiers could not independently verify it.

The attack occurred in the oil-rich Niger Delta, where foreign firms have pumped oil out of the country for more than 50 years. Despite the billions of dollars flowing into Nigeria’s government, many in the delta remain desperately poor, living in polluted waters without access to proper medical care, an education or work.

In 2006, militants from groups like MEND started a wave of attacks targeting foreign oil companies, including bombing their pipelines, kidnapping their workers and fighting with security forces. That violence ebbed in 2009 with a government-sponsored amnesty program promising ex-fighters monthly payments and job training. However, few in the delta have seen the promised benefits and scattered kidnappings and attacks continue.

MEND itself, once a powerful, media-friendly militant group in the region, has seen its influence wane over the last year. Its largest major confirmed attacks were a dual car bombing in Nigeria’s capital Abuja on Oct. 1, 2010, that killed at least 12 people and the November 2010 kidnapping of seven expatriate workers from offshore oil rigs operated by London-based Afren PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp.

After the Abuja bombings, authorities in South Africa arrested Okah on terrorism charges. His trial there is scheduled to begin Oct. 1.

Okah has repeatedly denied being the leader of the militant group, though Nigeria’s government has labeled him as a major arms importer to the region. South African prosecutors also have presented evidence in earlier hearings drawn from Okah’s diaries and computer correspondence that they said bolstered accusations he masterminded the October bombings.

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Source

Rwanda experienced Africa's worst genocide in modern times, and the country's recovery was marred by its intervention in the conflict in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

The country has been beset by ethnic tension associated with the traditionally unequal relationship between the dominant Tutsi minority and the majority Hutus.

Although after 1959 the ethnic relationship was reversed, when civil war prompted around 200,000 Tutsis to flee to Burundi, lingering resentment led to periodic massacres of Tutsis.

The most notorious of these began in April 1994. The shooting down of the plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana, and his Burundian counterpart, near Kigali triggered what appeared to be a coordinated attempt by Hutus to eliminate the Tutsi population.

Continue reading the main story

At a glance

Politics: Rwanda is trying to shake off its image associated with the 1994 state-sponsored genocide; the government argues the country is now stable

Economy: Growth exceeded 5% in the five years since 2001, driven by coffee and tea exports and expanding tourism; poverty is widespread and Rwanda is highly dependent on aid

Justice: The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has convicted 27 people for their involvement the 1994 genocide

Country profiles compiled by BBC Monitoring

In response, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched a military campaign to control the country. It achieved this by July, by which time at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been brutally massacred.

Some two million Hutus fled to Zaire, now the DR Congo. They included some of those responsible for the massacres, and some joined Zairean forces to attack local Tutsis. Rwanda responded by invading refugee camps dominated by Hutu militiamen.

Meanwhile, Laurent Kabila, who seized control of Zaire and renamed it the DR Congo, failed to banish the Hutu extremists, prompting Rwanda to support the rebels trying to overthrow him.

Rwanda withdrew its forces from DR Congo in late 2002 after signing a peace deal with Kinshasa. But tensions simmer, with Rwanda accusing the Congolese army of aiding Hutu rebels in eastern DR Congo.

Rwanda has used traditional “gacaca” community courts to try those suspected of taking part in the 1994 genocide. But key individuals – particularly those accused of orchestrating the slaughter – appear before an International Criminal Tribunal in northern Tanzania.

The country is striving to rebuild its economy, with coffee and tea production being among its main sources of foreign exchange. Nearly two thirds of the population live below the poverty line.

Source