Media News

Angola
The UN refugee agency has rushed relief items to help tens of thousands of Angolans expelled from the Congo (DRC) last month. A Boeing 747 jet from Johannesburg touched down in Angolas capital, Luanda, over the weekend carrying thousands of tents, sleeping mats and blankets, as well as a prefabricated warehouse. Upon arrival, the supplies were loaded onto army aircraft bound for Uige and Zaire provinces bordering the DRC. Angolan authorities have said that 50,000 Angolans most of whom had refugee status in the DRC have either been expelled or have come back to their home country of their own accord. Many were not even given any opportunity to collect their personal belongings before being forced back to Angola, said UNCHR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic. (UN News Service)

Cape Verde
Dengue fever continues to spread in Cape Verde, with 748 new suspected cases announced by the government on 4 November bringing the total to 6,707. Health officials say at least three people have died in the country’s first-ever epidemic of the mosquito-borne illness. Dengue was first reported in early October in the archipelago of some 432,000 inhabitants, according to the WHO. An inter-ministerial committee headed by the Prime Minister is working to contain the spread of the disease, educating communities on prevention and taking measures to control mosquitoes. The Health Ministry “calls on the population and health institutions to increase efforts to eliminate breeding grounds,” according to a statement on a government website. Dengue fever is a sudden onset illness with symptoms similar to those of malaria. (IRIN)

Congo (DRC)
The head of UN peacekeeping has called for a joint investigation into the targeted killing this year of dozens of civilians in the far east of the Congo (DRC) by elements of the countrys military. Alain Le Roy, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, said that the UN peacekeeping force known as MONUC and the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) should conduct the inquiry. Le Roy, who is currently on an official visit to the eastern DRC, said MONUC would immediately suspend its logistical support to the FARDC units believed to be implicated in the killings until the results of the investigation are known. He said it would be up to the FARDC to take necessary measures once the probe is completed. (UN News Service)

Ethiopia
Ethiopia is reviewing a newly-passed law that could restrict imports of food aid at a time when millions of its people are suffering from severe malnutrition. Ethiopia’s parliament passed the Proclamation on Bio Safety with little notice on the final day before its summer recess in July. There was no debate, and no dissenting votes. The proclamation gives the Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority power to block the import of GMOs, or genetically modified organisms. The idea was to protect the country’s diverse life forms against genetically engineered seeds and grains that some scientists believe may pose health hazards. But EPA regulators soon realized the proclamation also covers the vast majority of the food aid Ethiopia receives. (VOA)

Guinea
The African Union said on Oct. 29 it was imposing immediate sanctions against the leaders of Guinea’s ruling military junta, which took power in a coup last December. “These sanctions are targeted at the civilians and military personnel that are perpetuating these unconstitutional acts in Guinea. It is not intended to target the people of Guinea,” Lamamra Ramtane, AU commissioner for peace and security, told a meeting of the AU in Nigeria. Junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara pledged to rein in security forces and transfer power to civilian rule through free elections, but so far has taken little action other than to try to shift blame for the September 28 massacre of peaceful demonstrators that that took more than 150 lives. In attempting to hold on to power, he proves he is incapable of, and unfit for, being in power. (Reuters, VOA)

Liberia
Police officers serving with the UN peacekeeping force in Liberia have helped foil an attempted mass jail break this weekend from a prison in the West African nations capital, Monrovia. As many as 50 prisoners tried to escape about 2:20 p.m. Nov. 3 after one inmate at Monrovia Central Prison stole a set of keys from a corrections officer and then locked that officer inside a cell, according to the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Dozens of detainees moved into the prison yard and tried to scale the prisons perimeter wall before they were intercepted by members of a Jordanian formed police unit (FPU) serving with UNMIL, as well as Liberian police officers and other prison staff. (UN News Service)

Madagascar
Talks on Madagascar’s political impasse have opened in Addis Ababa with a plea for rival factions to put aside mutual animosities for the sake of the country’s economic survival. The atmosphere was tense as leaders of Madagascar’s four main political movements met for a fourth round of negotiations on formation of a transitional government. Madagascar’s de-facto President Andry Rajoelina sat at one side of the large African Union plenary hall. The man he ousted as president earlier this year, Marc Ravalomana sat on the opposite side. There was no ceremonial handshake, not even a sign the bitter rivals recognized each other’s presence. (VOA)

Nigeria
Top Nigerian officials met with ex-militant commanders in Abuja on Nov. 3 to discuss plans for developing the infrastructure of the country’s oil-producing region in a drive to end a long-running rebellion. Defense Minister Godwin Abbe told about a dozen major ex-rebel leaders and the region’s influential groups that a recently-announced USD 1.3 billion development package for the Niger Delta was part of a bigger government agenda to transform the region and improve lives. Abbe, who also chairs the presidential committee on amnesty in the Niger Delta, appealed for patience during the post-amnesty period, declaring President Umaru Yar’Adua’s commitment to addressing the region’s long-standing grievances. (VOA)

Senegal
Landmines and armed attacks in Senegal’s Casamance region are preventing farmers from maximizing production from the region’s fertile soil, but there is another problem, too: not enough young people are taking up farming, residents and experts say. The increasingly urbanized youth are often reluctant to help with digging and hoeing, even during the holidays, forcing some families to pay day workers to do the job. Poverty levels in Casamance are among the highest in Senegal at more than 60 percent, with nearly half of households vulnerable to food insecurity, according to a 2007 UN World Food Program (WFP) study. Despite poverty and unemployment in the region finding non-family members to work the farm is not always easy, residents said. (IRIN)

Sierra Leone
A group of parents in Sierra Leone has accused a charity of sending more than 30 children abroad for adoption without consent during the country’s civil war. The parents say they have no idea what happened to their children after they were handed over to Help a Needy Child International (Hanci). But the charity says it has documents signed by the parents giving permission for overseas adoption. Minister of Children’s Affairs Soccoh Kabbia says the government is still investigating the issue. Sierra Leone was devastated by a decade of civil war, which ended in 2002. Children were frequently abducted and forced to fight in the brutal conflict. (BBC)

South Africa
South Africa will miss a 2014 deadline to redistribute a third of the country’s farmland from white farmers to the black majority, officials say. Land reform official Thozi Gwanya told the BBC the deadline had been pushed back to 2025 owing to a lack of funds. He said more than USD 9.6 billion was needed to buy the remaining land. Influential ANC official Julius Malema has said land should be seized from white farmers refusing to sell - an option already rejected by ministers. At the end of apartheid in 1994 almost 90 percent of land was owned by the white community, who made up less than 10 percent of the population. Gwanya said so far more than five million hectares have been distributed and about 20 million hectares remain to be bought. (BBC)

Sudan
Election observers expressed concern on Nov. 3 over the harassment of political parties and funding delays as voters began to register for Sudan’s first multi-party elections in 24 years. The Carter Center, which with the United Nations is providing the only international observers for the vote due next April, said its monitors had faced restrictions and many had not been given accreditation to start their work. “Sudan’s National Election Commission (NEC) must act immediately to accredit national and international observers as well as political party agents, and lift restrictions on observers’ freedom of movement,” the center, founded by former US President Jimmy Carter, said in a statement. (Reuters)

Zambia
Zambia repatriated more than 500 Congolese refugees on Nov. 4, bringing to 15,660 the number of people who have returned to their home country since May, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said. UNHCR resident representative, James Lynch, said in a statement that 502 Congolese refugees, most of whom fled to Zambia a decade ago at the height of the civil strife in their country, left by boat from Mpulungu heading for Moba and Kalemie in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lynch urged more Congolese refugees to come forward to be repatriate before the voluntary program concludes at the end of this year. (Reuters)

Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe on Oct. 30 accused United Nations torture expert Manfred Nowak, who was expelled from the country, of trying to provoke a diplomatic incident by ignoring a request to delay his trip. Nowak said he would recommend that the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) take action against Harare after Zimbabwean security officials detained him on arrival overnight and forced him onto a South African-bound plane on Oct. 29. Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi said that Nowak, the UNHRC’s special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, had ignored a decision by President Robert Mugabe’s government to postpone a week-long visit. (Reuters)

Compiled by developmentex.com