February 05, 2007

Somali reconciliation meeting opens amid attacks

Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi opened a reconciliation workshop in Mogadishu on Monday designed to foster peace amid an escalating spate of guerrilla-style attacks in the volatile Horn of Africa nation.

Guled Mohamed| Mogadishu, Somalia
05 February 2007 02:04

The pre-dawn rocket attack, which came from a residential area of the coastal city, was the latest in a series of almost daily strikes targeting Somali government installations and the administration's Ethiopian allies.

"Fortunately, the rockets plunged into the sea. No one was hurt and port operations are going on," Abdirahman Mohamed Warsame, in charge of security at the port, told Reuters.

Officials blame remnants of a defeated Islamist movement, which ran most of south Somalia for six months until it was ousted by a government-Ethiopian offensive over the New Year.

Some Islamist fighters have vowed a holy war.

But many Mogadishu residents fear the violence in the capital may also be due to rivalry between warlords who ousted a dictator in 1991, carving Somalia into a patchwork of fiefdoms controlled by militias.

Monday's attack came after a weekend visit by an African Union (AU) team assessing security prior to a planned deployment of peacekeepers in Somalia. The AU team was at the port on Sunday.

Under Western and Ethiopian pressure to reach out to all parties in Somalia, including moderate Islamists and powerful clans, President Abdullahi Yusuf agreed last week to call a reconciliation conference.

His pledge triggered the release of €15-million ($20-million) in European Union funding for AU peacekeepers to Somalia.

Officials said the workshop in Mogadishu will pave the way for the bigger national reconciliation conference.

"I call for peace," Prime Minister Gedi said. "If we work together we can pacify this city. The Somali people's dignity depends on the outcome of this meeting."

Children held
In another development, Alamin Kimathi, chairperson of Kenya's Muslim Human Rights Forum, said Kenyan authorities were detaining two Americans among suspects accused of supporting Somali Islamists.

He said one American was of Arab descent while the other was African-American and being held with his three children at a Nairobi police station.

Kimathi said his group's investigations showed the children, two girls and a boy, were between six months and nine-years-old.

"The situation is very worrying because children should not be in those places," Kimathi told Reuters, adding that representatives from his group had seen the children who looked "malnourished and obviously lacking in comfort".

He said their mother died from malaria after they were arrested near the Kenyan border last month, where suspected Islamists have been intercepted while fleeing Ethiopian troops.

Kenyan police declined to comment.

Human rights groups say Kenyan authorities have been making mistakes among the scores of Islamist suspects rounded up since the war, with some denied access to lawyers and medicines.

The various foreign passport-holders arrested also include four Britons and a pregnant Tunisian woman, activists say. - Reuters

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Zim farmers relieved as eviction date passes

Zimbabwe's white commercial farmers expressed relief on Monday after the government made good on its pledge to allow them to harvest their crops before evicting them.

Harare, Zimbabwe
05 February 2007 12:09

President Robert Mugabe's government had given white farmers, and an unspecified number of black people illegally occupying farms, until February 3 to vacate their land. It later said it would allow them to stay on until the harvest in late August.

Emily Crookes, communications manager of the Commercial Farmers' Union, said the deadline passed without incident.

"We have had instances in the past when the government has not honoured their promises and farmers were anxious over this deadline, despite an assurance that they could harvest. We are pleased ...," she said, adding that more than 100 white farmers faced eviction.

"We have not been made aware of any eviction; it has been quiet."

Zimbabwe's government said in early January it would issue eviction orders and prosecute former white commercial farmers and new black farmers occupying land illegally.

Mugabe says the government's land-redistribution programme aims to equitably distribute prime farmland, 75% of which was occupied by the 4 500 white farmers.

But critics say much of the land has ended up in the hands of government and ruling party officials.

They blame the policy for destroying commercial agriculture in the country, a former regional breadbasket that has increasingly found it difficult to feed itself and is in the grips of an economic crisis.

Zimbabwe's Gazetted Land Act, which was passed last month, gave the white farmers and illegal black land occupiers up to 90 days to vacate land acquired by the state. Those who fail to move could face up to two years in jail.

In 2005, Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party used its majority in Parliament to amend the constitution, nationalising all agricultural land and barring white farmers from challenging farm seizures in court.

Thousands of former white commercial farmers have lost their land under reforms to redistribute land to black people. Critics say the reforms have damaged commercial agriculture and worsened a deep economic recession.

Only 500 white commercial farmers still own their land out of an original 4 500 in the year 2000. -- Reuters

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Prosecutors want Nigerian militant barred from trial

Nigerian militia leader Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, whose release is demanded by armed groups causing havoc in the oil-producing Niger Delta, should be barred from his own trial because of bad behaviour, prosecutors said on Monday.

Estelle Shirbon | Abuja, Nigeria
05 February 2007 01:43

Asari's treason trial started a year and a half ago but the court is yet to hear a witness or tackle a substantive issue as it goes from one adjournment to the next.

His detention is one of many factors that have aggravated violence in the Niger Delta, which is home to Africa's largest oil industry. Several armed groups holding foreign workers have demanded his release in exchange for the hostages.

"At the last two sittings of the court the accused rained chains of vitriolic ... utterances on the honourable judge and the prosecution," prosecutors said in a written motion arguing that Asari should be barred from his own trial.

"The accused person went to the extent of threatening to snatch ... the rifle and pistol of the police and prison guards to use them on the honourable judge and the director of public prosecution," the document read.

While Asari's court case has been bogged down, his supporters have tried to broker a deal with authorities to secure his release, sources close to the militia leader say.

Their efforts fell on deaf ears until the past few weeks, when some senior government officials started negotiating in the hope that Asari's release would help quell violence that has spiralled out of control in the run-up to landmark elections.

Nigerians are due to elect their president, state governors and legislators in April polls that should mark the first democratic transition from one civilian government to the next.

Deal or no deal?
An activist source close to Asari said the negotiations to release him had failed because he had refused to rein in the militants, instead vowing to continue his armed struggle.

Asari, like other militia leaders from the delta, says he is fighting for the impoverished people of the region to gain control of their resources instead of seeing them squandered by faraway central governments that have neglected them.

The lines between militancy and crime are blurred in the delta, where most hostage takings are resolved by the payment of ransoms and where militias often cut deals with politicians.

A group of Asari's supporters who had flown to Abuja from the Niger Delta on Monday to see him in court had their cellphones seized by the secret police, sources in Asari's legal team said.

Asari's lawyers accuse prosecutors of delaying the trial so that he can be kept in detention indefinitely, while prosecutors blame the lawyers for the repeated adjournments, accusing them of holding out for a deal on the side.

Asari's militia fought fierce battles against government forces in the creeks of the Niger Delta in 2004 and his threat to wage "all-out war on the Nigerian state" caused the oil price to rise above $50 a barrel for the first time.

He later made a deal to lay down arms in exchange for amnesty, but after a few months laying low in a guarded luxury compound in the oil city of Port Harcourt he was arrested and charged with conspiring to overthrow the government. - Reuters

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Captors release nine Chinese oil workers in Nigeria

Hostage takers in Nigeria released nine Chinese oil-worker captives, officials said on Sunday, amid rising violence in Africa's biggest petroleum producer.

Edward Harris | Lagos, Nigeria
05 February 2007 09:38

More than two dozen other foreigners were still being held in Nigeria's southern oil-pumping region, after weeks of stepped-up attacks in the restive region where most people are mired in poverty despite their area's massive energy resources.

Assailants released the nine Chinese workers overnight, and the men abducted on January 25 from the government-owned Chinese National Petroleum were flown to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, said Bayelsa state police Commissioner Hafez Ringim.

Ringim said all the men were unharmed.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement on its website that the workers were expected to return to China soon.

"We hope overseas Chinese enterprises and personnel will further raise their awareness of safety and risk and step up precautionary measures so as to ensure their safety," spokesperson Jiang Yu said in the statement.

In a separate incident in southern Nigeria's Rivers state last month, five Chinese telecommunication workers were kidnapped and safely returned within two weeks.

The nine workers were released as Chinese President Hu Jintao was on an eight-country tour of Africa aimed at boosting trade ties, though Nigeria was not on the itinerary.

Hu visited Nigeria last year as part of Beijing's efforts to secure energy and other resources for its booming economy.

Various criminal and militant groups active in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta region are holding many other foreign captives, including 24 Filipinos, two Italians, an American, a Briton and a Lebanese.

More than 100 hostages have been taken and later released in a year of violence that has cut more than one quarter of Nigeria's usual 2,5-million barrel-per-day crude output. Hostages are normally released unharmed after a ransom is paid, although casualties can occur in gunfights between attackers and security forces that patrol the vast region of creeks and mangrove swamps.

Despite the region's enormous oil deposits, most of the region's people are deeply poor. Militant groups say they are fighting to force the federal government to give their regions a greater cut of oil revenues.

Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and one of the world's top 10 exporters. - Sapa-AP

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Côte d'Ivoire foes look to restart peace process

Representatives of Côte d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo and New Forces rebel leader Guillaume Soro started holding face-to-face talks on Monday in a bid to promote a stalled peace process.

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
05 February 2007 01:17

The talks are taking place in Ouagadougou under the mediation of Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, an Agence France-Presse journalist in the Burkina Faso capital said.

Compaore recently assumed the presidency of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States and was tasked with facilitating the direct talks, proposed late last year by Gbagbo.

A conflict sparked by an unsuccessful coup bid against Gbagbo in 2002 has politically and militarily split the one-time bastion of stability in West Africa into a rebel-held north and a government-ruled south.

A peace process in the world's largest cocoa producer and former economic hub of the region began in January 2003, but has not moved much due to bickering between the protagonists. -- AFP

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March 22, 2006

Johnson-Sirleaf urges speedy Taylor extradition

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, on a red-carpet visit to the United States, called on Tuesday for exiled former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor to be extradited home swiftly.

Washington, United States
22 March 2006 09:29

"I wish we had the luxury of time on this issue. But it has become an impediment to our being able to move forward to be able to pursue our development agenda," she said after talks with United States President George Bush.

Johnson-Sirleaf, the first woman to be elected head of state in Africa, received a hero's welcome from the US president, who praised her as a "pioneer" after talks in the Oval Office and held a luncheon in her honour.

Johnson-Sirleaf told reporters that Bush had pledged to consult with African leaders "so that a fair decision is taken" on Taylor's fate that would ensure "the stability of Liberia", which Taylor fled in 2003 for Nigeria.

Johnson-Sirleaf said that her government had held talks on the matter with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has come under increasing international pressure to allow Taylor to be tried for alleged crimes against humanity.

Obasanjo invited Taylor to Nigeria in order to bring an end to a 14-year-civil war which pitched the guerrilla chief turned elected ruler against two powerful rebel groups.

The UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone has indicted Taylor on charges of sponsoring rebels who waged a gruesome war in that country's 1990s civil conflict.

"We hope action will be taken not only to ensure Mr Taylor the day in court which he has asked for or to ensure that he does so in an environment that is free and fair to him and that enables him the full right of self-defence," said Johnson-Sirleaf.

"The longer we wait to bring this matter to closure, the more difficult it will be for us to move forward as a nation and as a people," she said after meeting with Bush.

The US president hailed Johnson-Sirleaf as a political "pioneer" and said her groundbreaking role "requires courage, and vision, and the desire to improve the lives of your people".

Johnson-Sirleaf thanked the United States "for all the support that our country has received in making this important transition from war to peace", and said she hoped Liberia would become "the US success story in Africa".

"We have taken the necessary first steps to restoring dignity to our people, starting to fix our economy, to get our international credibility and reputation back," she said.

She also said she believed she had Washington's support for lifting UN sanctions on Liberia.

Elected in November 2005 in a country devastated by 14 years of civil war, Johnson-Sirleaf (67) is a Harvard University-educated former World Bank economist, Liberian Cabinet member and senior United Nations administrator.

Her election was strongly supported by the United States, which last month renewed Liberia's preferential trade status. - Sapa-AFP

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February 13, 2006

Nigeria tests family for bird flu

Samples taken from a Nigerian family suspected of contracting a fatal bird flu strain have been sent abroad so experts can determine whether the virus has jumped to humans in Africa for the first time, a top health official said.

Dulue Mbachu | Kaduna, Nigeria
13 February 2006 08:33

Two children were reported ill near a farm in the northern town of Jaji, where the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain was detected on a poultry farm on Wednesday, marking its first reported spread into Africa.

A joint team of state and federal officials took samples from the children and their family, and sent them abroad to see if they test positive for the virus, Abdulsalam Nasidi, a federal Health Ministry official said after visiting the family on Sunday.

"Everybody in the family is being tested," Nasidi said. "We have taken the samples to different places, both in Nigeria and abroad."

The H5N1 strain has killed at least 88 people, mostly in Asia, since 2003. No human cases have been confirmed in Africa to date.

Nasidi gave no details on the family's size and declined to say where the tests were sent. He said the children "are in fairly good condition ... but we are still observing them".

Health officials fear the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu will evolve into a virus that can be transmitted easily between people and become a pandemic. Most human cases of the disease so far have been linked to contact with infected birds.

Federal government and regional health officials said they will start screening people on Monday who have worked on farms hit by bird flu.

Experts from the United States-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention arrived in Nigeria on Sunday with equipment and protective clothing for 200 Nigerian health officials who will cull birds in the north of the country, Agriculture Minister Adamu Bello said.

They were joined by two regional officials for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, said the FAO chief for Nigeria, Helder Muteia. More experts are expected to arrive in Nigeria over the coming days to draw up a plan of action after discussions with authorities.

Nigerian officials have tried to contain the disease by burning chickens and other birds suspected of being infected across the north.

But authorities have not taken action on international recommendations to shut poultry markets and halt the shipping of domestic birds around the country.

In Kaduna city, prices for chickens had fallen by a third as many people shunned poultry markets, where traders were selling the birds on Saturday in large, round wicker baskets.

"People are not buying, but this is our business," said chicken seller Adamu Yusuf.

"We are trying to see if we can make some money to meet our needs."

At Zyil farm in Kano state, farm workers dressed in brown overalls, red gloves and face masks slaughtered and burned over 1 000 chickens on Sunday after a suspected bird flu outbreak there, said farm manager Kadiru Sule. Agriculture Ministry officials supervised the destruction and only people connected to the
operation were allowed to enter the farm.

Bello, the agriculture minister, said affected farms have been ordered quarantined for 12 months.

The virus has been confirmed at a total of five farms in Kaduna, Kano and Plateau states, killing at least 100 000 birds. Twenty-two other farms may also have been infected in Kano and Kaduna, according to the government.

The disease has ravaged poultry stocks across Asia, killing or forcing the slaughter of more than 140-million birds, according to the World Health Organisation. - Sapa-AP

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Nigerian bird flu outbreak spreads

Africa's first outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu has spread to at least four farms, Nigerian officials said on Thursday, as the continent braced itself for a possible epidemic.

Aminu Abubakar | Sambawa Farm, Nigeria
09 February 2006 05:32

Nigerian agriculture ministry spokesperson Tope Ajakaiye said tests on chicken carcasses had identified the H5N1 type of avian influenza, which can kill humans, in northern Nigerian sites more than 200km apart.

"Four farms have been cordoned off and quarantined; one in Kaduna, two near Kano and one in Plateau State," he said.

Previously, officials had said that the disease had only been identified at Sambawa Farm near Kaduna, and Thursday's announcement will increase fears that bird flu may be poised to spread rapidly around the country.

At Sambawa farm itself, 300km north of Abuja, 20 police officers were deployed to block access to a site where 45 000 chickens are now known to have died from the highly infectious virus.

Kaduna State agriculture commissioner Lawal Yakawada said that a team from Nigeria's National Veterinary Research Institute would arrive later in the day "to ensure that all the other chickens are killed, burned and buried".

Agriculture ministry officials in the capital Abuja said experts from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, World Health Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health were expected in Nigeria within 48 hours.

Ajaikaye also said that the United States had pledged $20-million to help Nigeria fight the outbreak.

Experts from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention would come from their Kenya base and set up a laboratory in Nigeria, he said. They are to bring 2 000 protective suits for health and veterinary workers, he added.

Kaduna State and neighbouring Kano State have broadcast radio spots and sent education teams to farming areas to warn of the danger of bird flu.

Since the H5N1 strain of bird flu was first detected in Hong Kong in 1997, it has spread across south Asia into southeastern Europe and has been blamed for the deaths of 88 people who came into contact with sick birds.

Experts fear Africa, with its underfunded health services and populations weakened by HIV/Aids and malnutrition, could now be facing a new epidemic, which would devastate poultry farming and encourage the virus to develop.

In the worst case scenario, if H5N1 mutates into a form which would be transmissible between humans, it could kill tens of millions of people.

A South African veterinary institute said on Thursday it is to conduct tests on bird samples from Kenya, Malawi and Sudan to help track the possible spread of bird flu.

"We have been asked by the Food and Agricultural Organisation and the African Union to be a support laboratory for the African continent," said Celia Abolnik, senior researcher at Pretoria's Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute.

"We will be testing samples collected for surveillance on the African continent," she said, adding that the samples should arrive in South Africa for testing in the next two weeks.

Experts have advised Nigeria and any country which subsequently identifies a bird flu outbreak to limit the movement of poultry, quarantine infected farms and destroy sick birds.

Nigeria has promised two billion naira ($15-million) to do just that and to compensate farmers for culled livestock, but health teams appeared to be slow to be getting into place on Thursday.

Auwalu Haruna, secretary of the Kano State poultry farmers' association warned that farmers and traders were slaughtering sick birds and rushing them to market for cheap sale "in a frantic effort to minimise losses".

Meanwhile Kenya joined South Africa, Benin and Mauritania in banning all poultry imports from Nigeria and ordered stepped up surveillance measures aimed at preventing the spread of bird flu. - AFP

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Nigeria scrambles to halt deadly bird flu

World veterinary experts on Wednesday raced to help Nigeria attempt to contain a bird-flu outbreak in the north of the country, as the arrival of the deadly H5N1 virus in Africa was confirmed.

09 February 2006 07:32

Its appearance on the world's poorest continent, where veterinary controls are often weak and health systems are stretched by lack of funds and epidemics such as HIV/Aids, has long been feared, given the potential for the disease to spread from infected birds to humans.

Many people live in close proximity to poultry, just as in South-East Asia where H5N1 has cut a swathe through domesticated flocks and caused scores of deaths since it emerged late in 2003. Chicken is the main, and often only, source of protein and there are fears that owners might be reluctant to report disease.

European authorities are already assessing the risk from migratory birds making the journey north from West Africa this spring, although how big a factor migration is in spreading the disease is disputed. Movements of poultry, traded exotic and other birds and of people are all possible factors.

The highly pathogenic virus strain found in Nigeria -- which was confirmed by tests in Padua, Italy -- is said to be similar to those that have been found in birds in Siberia and Mongolia, and further tests are under way to determine how close the Nigerian samples are to the H5N1 detected in other parts of the world.

In London, the Department for the Environment (Defra) claimed that while the risk of a further global spread of avian flu is high, the chances of it arriving in Britain remain low, although assessments are being reviewed.

The news of the Nigerian outbreak, at a large farm in Jaji, in the state of Kaduna, coincided with fears that bird flu is now spreading through Iraq. The avian virus, which has already claimed the life of a teenager in the largely autonomous region of Kurdistan, is now being investigated as the possible cause of death of a pigeon-seller in the southern city of Amara. Worldwide, 88 of the 165 people confirmed as being infected with the avian virus have died.

The threat remains that the virus will mutate further into something that can spread easily between people and kill millions.

Samples were taken from the Nigerian farm, which is home to chicken, geese and ostriches, on January 16. The owner had treated birds with antibiotics before the flu was confirmed. Of 46 000 birds on the farm, 40 000 had died.

The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said it will take immediate action and a team of experts is being sent to the affected area to help the national authorities.

Alex Thiermann, one of the experts, said: "The significance is that it's a completely new continent we are looking at." He commended the quick response of the Nigerian authorities, including culling, quarantine, controls on animal movement and disinfection, but noted that the country is on a major migration flyway.

In Ghana, separated from Nigeria by Togo and Benin, authorities said they are on full alert, doing random surveys and keeping an eye on wild wetland birds. Samples from wild waterfowl in Malawi, Sudan and Kenya will soon be tested at the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute in South Africa, the main testing site for avian flu in Africa.

Wild birds do carry avian flu, of which there are 144 types, but a spokesperson for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds warned against jumping to conclusions. If the strain was carried by birds migrating from parts of Europe already hit by the disease, the outbreak would more likely have taken place in the east of the continent. Andre Farrar said: "Teasing out what is underlying the movement of the virus is proving a challenge, but it is all too easy a shorthand that migrating birds spread it around.

"The concern is about ducks, geese and swans, which don't go from the United Kingdom to Africa and back again. Waterfowl wintering in Britain clear off in March/April and are replaced by summer migrants, swallows and little things that are not going to be a primary concern to moving H5N1. They are more or less irrelevant in terms of risk to humans and poultry."

Checks on more than 3 000 wild birds in Britain during the autumn have revealed three cases of low pathogenic avian flu, not of the H5N1 variety.

An assessment by Defra experts three weeks ago concluded: "Preliminary discussions indicate that there is not much reliable information on bird migration or mixing within Africa. It is, however, reasonable to expect that birds will follow established routes: that is, birds that have migrated to East Africa will return over Eastern Europe to their breeding grounds in southern Siberia, while the birds from West Africa will return over the Mediterranean basin to their breeding grounds in north Russia.

"It is, however, unlikely that a substantial number of migratory birds would come directly from West Africa to the UK." -- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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Nigeria reports first deadly bird flu in Africa

A "highly pathogenic" strain of the H5N1 bird-flu virus has been found in poultry stocks in Nigeria -- the first reported case of the disease in Africa, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Wednesday.

John Leicester | Paris, France
08 February 2006 02:12

Nigeria on Wednesday reported the outbreak among commercial, battery-cage poultry in Jaji, a village in the northern Kaduna state, according to the OIE.

They are the first cases of H5N1 reported in Africa, OIE spokesperson Maria Zampaglione said. A laboratory in Padova, Italy, identified "a highly pathogenic H5N1 and has further analysed its genetic composition".

"Investigations are being carried out in order to define the degree of genetic homology with the currently known H5N1 strains," the statement said.

Nigerian authorities disinfected the farm and introduced quarantine measures and controls on the movement of animals.

The OIE said it is working with the United Nations's Food and Agriculture Organisation to "coordinate a common response to this event".

"A team of experts will be sent to the affected area in order to assess the situation and provide technical advice," it said.

Bird flu began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003, forcing the slaughter of 140-million birds and jumping to humans, killing dozens. It has since spread to Europe and the Middle East.

Health officials had feared a deadly bird-flu virus could enter impoverished, loosely governed African regions where many people raise chickens at home for personal consumption. There had until now been no cases of bird flu documented in West Africa.

On Monday, Nigerian officials said that initial tests on chickens that mysteriously died in another state of northern Nigeria showed no sign of bird flu.

Nigerian authorities nevertheless urged farmers to monitor their flocks and report strange ailments to authorities. Kano state set up a committee of veterinary surgeons to visit farms and watch out for evidence of a bird flu outbreak.

Experts are particularly concerned that H5N1 might mutate into a form spread easily among humans, triggering a pandemic capable of killing millions. -- Sapa-AP

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Nigerian state cancels Danish contract

Nigerian state lawmakers burned Danish and Norwegian flags on Tuesday and cancelled a €23-million ($27-million) contract to import buses in protest at cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Kano, Nigeria
07 February 2006 05:32

A rowdy session of the Kano House of Assembly also voted unanimously to ban the sale of all Danish and Norwegian products in the state, a mainly-Muslim region and the main commercial centre of northern Nigeria.

"If Denmark or Norway were within our reach the world would have seen what would happen to them," house speaker Sa'idu Gani declared, as lawmakers torched the banners and a crowd of supporters chanted "Allahu Akbar".

Aside from removing Scandinavian imports from Kano's shops and markets, the main practical effect of the vote was to cancel a contract to import 70 commuter
buses from Denmark, he said.

A Danish firm has also been removed from the shortlist of bidders for a deal to provide the state with an eight-billion-naira (€52-million) electric power plant, he added. Canadian and Dutch firms remain in the running.

Kano's Islamist governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, endorsed the law.

Nigeria's approximately 60-million Muslims have shared in the anger sweeping around the Islamic world since the publication in several European newspapers of charicatures of Islam's holiest prophet, Muhammad.

So far, however, protests here have proved peaceful. - Sapa-AFP

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January 19, 2006

Nigerian army hunts for oil militia

Tension was mounting on Wednesday in the city of Warri as soldiers hunted for a heavily armed militia that has attacked oil facilities in southern Nigeria and kidnapped four foreign workers.

Dave Clark | Warri, Nigeria

Boat crews and human rights activists said military forces have deployed in strength on the waterways of the Niger Delta, prompting fears that a bloody crackdown may spark a broader wave of violence in the restive region.

The army on Wednesday confirmed the loss of five soldiers killed and nine missing after militants attacked an oil flow station belonging to Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell in southern Nigeria on Sunday.

"I can confirm that we lost five men while nine are still missing. We cannot presume those missing are dead until their corpses have been found," Colonel Mohammed Yussuf said.

He said the militants opened fire on the soldiers when they attacked the Benisede flow station while the soldiers retaliated, killing "a large number of them".

Nigeria is the world's sixth-biggest oil exporter, producing 2,6-million barrels per day, and the delta crisis has global economic implications, pushing up crude prices and depressing stocks around the world.

Oil prices climbed further on Wednesday, London dealers said. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, gained 50 cents to $66,81 per barrel in electronic dealing.

The contract had jumped $2,39 on Tuesday to close at $66,31 per barrel -- the highest finish since September 29 -- after touching an intra-day high of $66,91.

In London on Wednesday, the price of Brent North Sea crude for March delivery rose 38 cents to $65,28 per barrel. It earlier hit $65,52 per barrel -- the highest level since September 22.

Shell, thus far the main target of militia attacks, has shut down production of 211 000 barrels per day in the western delta region.

In Warri, however, the more immediate concern is over the prospect of further violence and for the safety of the oil worker hostages -- an American, a Briton, a Bulgarian and a Honduran -- who have been missing for a week.

Joseph Evah, leader of the Izon (Ijaw) Monitoring Group, an ethnic rights association, said army and naval patrols are preventing access to the creeks of the western delta swamps between Warri and Bayelsa state.

"Soldiers are now moving en masse into the Niger Delta. We have been trying to persuade them to let us have access to the riverine areas, to see what is happening," he said as military helicopters flew over the city.

Warri residents fear the latest surge in violence could lead to a return to the dark days of 2003, when clashes between soldiers and rival ethnic gangs in and around the city left hundreds dead and thousands homeless.

"This dispute should be sorted out by dialogue, not by fighting. Things have been better here, but there are still no jobs, so many of the expatriates and their oil companies have left," said Ijaw boatman Henry Imhanlenjaye.

The latest violence has caused shock even in the delta.

On Sunday, Victor Ejuk, who works for a catering company contracted to Shell, was sleeping in the workers' camp at Shell's Benisede flow station on the Bomadi creek when he was woken by gunfire.

"We came running, there was shooting everywhere, the military's houseboat was in flames. The militant youths came into the place, shooting, killing a lot of people, army and civilians," he said in Warri.

Ejuk and his surviving colleagues ran into the jungle or dived into the river and hid until sunrise. They were later evacuated, along with at least 10 seriously injured colleagues, to Warri.

On Tuesday, President Olusegun Obasanjo met top-ranking security chiefs and the delta's political leaders, later announcing that a team had been set up to secure the release of the hostages.

But the group that claimed responsibility for the attacks, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), has vowed to continue until its demands are met and threatened to "destroy Nigeria's ability to export oil".

Mend has demanded the release of Ijaw leaders Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, a delta warlord who appeared in court on Tuesday to face treason charges, and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, a former state governor accused of embezzlement. -- Sapa-AFP

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January 11, 2006

Nigeria's 'Taliban' plot comeback from hide-outs

Defeated in the field by a bloody military crackdown, Nigeria's home-grown Islamic insurgency has dispersed amid the dusty back streets of the country's teeming northern cities and is plotting its comeback.

Emmanuel Goujon and Aminu Abubakar | Maiduguri, Nigeria

11 January 2006 07:15

Small numbers of militants -- inspired by the example set by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda and by Afghan and Palestinian guerrilla fighters -- await the moment to re-launch their campaign for a Muslim revolution in Africa's most populous state and main oil exporter.

"Allah, the almighty Lord, has authorised every Muslim to fight to establish an Islamic government over the world. One day it will happen in Nigeria and everywhere," militant leader Aminu "Tashen-Ilimi" said in his first interview with the international press.

Tashen-Ilimi, whose nom de guerre means "new way of knowledge", is described by his supporters as the leader of a small group of mainly middle-class young men which in 2003 launched a violent but short-lived uprising amid the sand dunes and savannah on Nigeria's northern frontier.

The movement -- which was dubbed Nigeria's "Taliban" after the Afghan student movement which seized power in Kabul and created an ultra-conservative Islamic government -- briefly took control of the village of Kanama on Nigeria's border with Niger.

The group's 200-strong force raided several police stations but was bloodily dispersed by government troops in January 2004. Eight months later, 60 survivors launched a guerrilla attack on a police patrol near Gwoza on the Cameroon border. A two day battle left 28 "Taliban" dead.

"Those who survived hid in Maiduguri or fled abroad. They are coming back one by one, but are hiding, under pressure from the security services. Tashen-Ilimi is one of the commanders," a militant sympathiser said in Maiduguri, a major city in Nigeria's far northeast.

If Tashen-Ilimi was disappointed at his small band's failure to ignite a revolution among Nigeria's Muslims, who make up around half of the country's 130-million-strong population, he doesn't show it, and he has lost none of his passion for the cause.

"When I repented and discovered the true faith, understood the true words of Allah, I left everything behind: my family, my job, and migrated," he said, his eyes shining under his black and white, Palestinian-style keffiyeh headscarf.

"I'm ready to take up arms. I don't know who gave us the name Taliban, I prefer 'mujahideen'; the fighters. I only know the Taliban in Afghanistan, and I respect them and what they did very much," he said, at a safe-house in central Maiduguri.

"Those who fought in Kanama and Gwoza are only Muslims who performed their holy duty," he said.

Although short-lived and small-scale, the revolt caused alarm in Nigeria's capital Abuja and abroad, particularly in the United States, where intelligence agencies fear the badly-governed wastes of west Africa's Sahel desert could become a new haven for violent Islamists.

But with the militants proving hard to track down in the overcrowded and chaotic cities of the north, the crackdown has focused on the preachers who are suspected of fomenting the unrest.

Mohammed Yusuf, one of Maiduguri's best known imams, has twice been arrested on suspicion of leading the Taliban, despite his protestations of innocence.

"These youths studied the Koran with me and with others. Afterwards they wanted to leave the town, which they thought impure, and head for the bush, believing that Muslims who do not share their ideology are infidels," he said.

Yusuf insisted that he urged the young men not to resort to violence, but added that he shared their goal of an Islamic state: "I think that an Islamic system of government should be established in Nigeria, and if possible all over the world, but through dialogue."

The preacher still teaches "3 000 students".

Whether Tashen-Ilimi's depleted band of radicals will be able to revive their armed struggle is unclear. Nigerian security services take the threat seriously and have beefed up forces in Borno, supplying local police with 54 new all terrain vehicles.

Borno state's spokesperson, Usman Chiroma, dismisses the Taliban as bandits "hiding their criminal activities behind Islam to justify their wrongdoings".

But the militants are inspired by another small group which made a big name for itself.

"Bin Laden did very good work. He obeys the rules of his God. With attacks, he strikes fear in the enemies of Islam. I may not be ready to do the same now but if I could I would," Tashen-Ilimi warned. - AFP

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August 23, 2005

Shell reopens Nigerian oilfield

The Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell resumed production at an oilfield in southern Nigeria that was shut down last week because of a community protest over a spill that polluted local farmland, a Shell spokesperson said on Monday.

Lagos, Nigeria
22 August 2005 02:44

The announcement will come as a small relief to nervous oil markets monitoring unrest in Iraq and Ecuador and watching prices hovering close to record levels.

"The Agbada 1 flow station reopened yesterday [Sunday] to allow for further talks with the community. We have resumed the production of some 15 000 barrels per day of crude oil that was shut in during the protests," the spokesperson said.

Local people surrounded the Agbada 1 flow station in the oil-rich but troubled Niger Delta on August 16, demanding greater compensation for an oil spill which soiled their fields and fishing grounds two years ago.

Royal Dutch Shell is Nigeria's largest foreign oil operator, accounting for almost half of the West African country's daily exports of 2,5-million barrels.

Oil multinationals operating in the swamps of the Niger Delta are regularly targetted by communities demanding jobs, compensation and amenities. - Sapa-AFP

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August 04, 2005

Sudan: Gangs threaten revival of war

Fearful residents fled the centre of Khartoum on Wednesday as armed gangs roamed the streets in a third day of violence that threatened to undermine Sudan's tenuous north-south peace deal struck six months ago.

Khartoum, Sudan
04 August 2005 07:10

Omar al-Bashir, the President, and Salva Kiir Mayardit, the newly appointed leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the former rebels, called for calm to prevent the revival of a 20-year civil war.

The latest violence, which has claimed at least 100 lives, most in the capital, flared after the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, John Garang, died in a helicopter crash at the weekend.

The crash, which came just three weeks after Garang was sworn in as Sudan's vice-president under the peace settlement, has aroused suspicions, particularly among his supporters in the south.

On Wednesday, the southern town of Juba also saw violence, as Arab northerners were hounded out of town by rampaging locals. Aid workers said at least 18 people had been killed in the area during the past two days. A further 84 have died in the Khartoum violence.

"Peace is being jeopardised in the short run," said the top United Nations envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk.

Southerners fear Garang's death could weaken their hand in the post civil-war settlement. Without his charismatic leadership, power struggles in the south could break out. The country is divided, the north being Arabic and Muslim, the south a mix of African ethnicities with Christians, animists and Muslims. The division is further complicated by the strife in the western Darfur region, where tens of thousands have been killed and about two million people forced from their homes.

Wednesday's violence, which began in the capital's suburbs, spread to the centre after rumours that a southern militia leader had been killed. The leader later appeared on television to deny the story.

Streets were full of cars heading out of the city centre, and five trucks of soldiers and riot police drove into the central residential and commercial area, according to witnesses said. They said gunshots had been heard and teargas had been fired.

President Bashir, appearing on national television on Wednesday, promised an investigation into the crash and vowed that the peace process, in which Garang had been a crucial player, would forge ahead to produce a power-sharing government of northerners and southerners. "The delicate circumstances that surround the peace process require us to be vigilant ... to spare our nation any sedition and attempts to demolish what we have already built," he said.

He added that a commission had been formed to work with the Ugandan authorities (which had provided the helicopter that crashed) to investigate what happened. The UN also said it would help.

Kiir, hastily installed as Garang's successor, echoed the president's call for calm in the southern settlement of New Site, where he met US and South African envoys aiming to save the fragile peace pact: "Enemies of peace may want to take opportunity of this situation. We are appealing to all the Sudanese people to refrain from hostility."

William Ezekiel, the editor of the daily Khartoum Monitor, said residents reported that 47 people had been killed overnight in the suburb of Mamoura, and 15 in Kalakla district. Groups of up to 10 men carrying sticks, knives and rifles had been patrolling during the night. "They were shouting 'God is great, God is great' and saying they were fighting the non-believers."

The trouble in Khartoum started on Monday when angry southerners took to the streets and started looting after the announcement of Garang's death. Some northerners responded by forming vigilante groups, which have continued to roam the streets despite a curfew.

The north-south conflict began in 1983 when the Khartoum government tried to impose Islamic law. Two million people were killed, mainly by hunger and disease.

The peace deal signed in January included giving southerners the right to vote on secession after a six-year interim period, and sharing Sudan's oil wealth roughly equally between the northern and southern areas.

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Wake-up call: UN appeals for $75m for Niger

The United Nations increased its appeal to over $75-million to help 2,5-million people in desperate need of food in Niger and said more money will be needed to tackle the humanitarian crisis in the west African nation.

The UN World Food Programme more than tripled the amount of emergency aid it is seeking for southern Niger -- the epicentre of the crisis -- from $16-million six months ago to $57,6-million.

"With the situation deteriorating over recent weeks, our main objective is to save lives," James Morris, executive director of the Rome-based agency said in a statement.

"Whole families are suffering because of a desperate shortage of food, which has forced them to eat just one meal a day of maize, leaves or wild fruits."

The United Nations Children's Fund also increased its appeal to $14-million and deputy director Rima Salah was due to arrive in Niger on Wednesday for a first-hand look at the needs of hundreds of thousands of youngsters suffering from severe and moderate malnutrition.

On Tuesday, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation appealed for $4-million to provide Niger's farmers with seeds for the next planting season and to replenish the livestock of families who have lost or been forced to sell their animals.

The combined appeals totaled $75,6-million.

Two weeks ago, UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said Niger was facing "an acute humanitarian crisis" in which children were dying because the world community ignored UN appeals for urgent aid.

He said 2,5-million people desperately needed food, including 800 000 malnourished children.

About 150 000 of those children will die soon "unless we really get to step up our operation", he warned.

The landlocked country of nearly 12-million people, one of the poorest in the world, was devastated by an invasion of locusts that ate everything green last year and was then hit by drought that lasted until early July.

The first UN appeal for help in November got almost no response. Another appeal for $16-million in March got about $1-million. An appeal on May 25 for $30-million only started receiving major donations after television stations showed footage of Niger's hungry and malnourished.

"This was a desperately needed wake-up call, but the response we have received so far is encouraging," said Morris. "We can still save lives."

The World Food Programme said its previous request for $16-million has now been fully funded.

With money from its new appeal, WFP said it will target 2,5-million people facing severe hunger in the south and provide extra food to children and mothers until the end of the lean season.

Rations for three months after the October harvest will be provided for a further 500 000 people to serve as a safety net, the United Nations said.

But the failure of donors to respond quickly has significantly raised the cost of helping Niger.

When the first UN appeal was made, only $1 a day for each needy person would have helped solve the food crisis, the United Nations has said. Now $80 is needed each day per person because it is more expensive to treat people once they are weakened by malnutrition, officials say. - Sapa-AP

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