Media News

Botswana
Botswana is adopting a two-pronged approach to tackle abuse of its immigration system by increasing the sophistication of travel documents, visas and work permits, and putting more boots on the ground to apprehend undocumented foreign nationals. Zimbabweans escaping their country’s continuing economic, political and social malaise despite the formation of a unity government more than a year ago have favored neighboring Botswana, one of southern Africa’s most prosperous nations. Letso Mpho, acting spokesman for Botswana’s Ministry of Labor and Home Affairs, told IRIN that workplace inspections would be “intensified” from 1 March 2010, and special immigration assistants would accompany police and home affairs officials to help identify undocumented foreign nationals. (IRIN)

Chad
Chad has agreed to extend the stay of U.N. peacekeepers tasked with protecting Sudanese refugees on the border with Darfur despite hostility to the force. President Idriss Deby had described the mission as a failure and the force was due to leave in mid-March. But after meeting the UN’s peacekeeping chief, he said the 4,000 soldiers could stay for two more months. Rights groups had warned that civilian aid workers needed military protection to enable them to do their work. Chad is home to 260,000 refugees from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region. Discussions about the future of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Chad come at a time of warming relations with Sudan. (BBC)

Ivory Coast
Ivory Coast’s opposition has said it will call off its anti-government protests after one of its members was named as president of the newly formed electoral commission, according to a spokesman for the movement. At least seven people have been killed during violent demonstration against the decision of Laurent Gbagbo, the Ivory Coast president, to dissolve the government and the election commission on Feb. 12. “We will meet with the RDHP and PIT [opposition parties] to announce word of ending the demonstrations,” Alphonse Djedje Mady, a spokesman for the opposition groups, told the Reuters news agency on Friday. It was not immediately clear when the meeting would take place or the official announcement be made. (Al Jazeera)

Liberia
The U.N. Mission in Liberia has sent police and troops to help national authorities investigate an outbreak of violence in the country’s north-west, where several people have reportedly been wounded in inter-communal clashes. According to media reports, the incident in Voinjoma, in Lofa County, has also resulted in the burning down of two mosques, one church and other properties. In response to the situation, the Mission, known as UNMIL, sent a formed police unit and military personnel to the area to assist the Liberia National Police (LNP) in Voinjama, which is located nearly 300 kilometers from the capital, Monrovia. They will work in close coordination with the local county authorities and the security apparatus on the ground to keep the situation under control, and UNMIL will contribute the necessary specialists to assist in the investigation of the incident, the Mission said in a statement. (U.N. News Service)

Niger
Millions of people are threatened by famine in Niger, the new military ruler said on Sunday in a message that contrasted starkly with his predecessor’s reluctance to talk about food shortages. Major Salou Djibo, who ousted President Mamadou Tandja in a coup on Feb. 18, also said the junta was committed to tackling impunity, corruption and the abuse of power during an unspecified transitional period before promised elections. Meanwhile, the junta in Niger has formed a transitional government of 20 ministers. The new military leader, Major Salou Djibo, has pledged to work towards restoring democracy. The junta, which now calls itself the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, says it wishes to make the former French colony a role model for democracy and good governance. Tandja was ousted after tinkering with the constitution. He attempted to stay in office as president past the end of his second term. (AP, Radio Netherlands)

Nigeria
Nigerian police have detained 17 officers for questioning after an international news channel aired a video showing uniformed men executing people in a town where religious rioting occurred. Police spokesman Yemi Ajyai said agents of the Nigerian police’s Special Forces Squad detained the officers over the weekend and took them to Abuja, the capital, for questioning. Ajyai said investigators suspect the officers took part in extrajudicial killings after fighting between police and Muslim militants left 700 people dead in northern Nigeria last year. Ajyai said a video aired on news channel Al-Jazeera sparked the arrests. That footage showed what appeared to be a mixed police and army unit conducting door-to-door searches. It later showed two uniformed men forcing groups of young men to lie face-down at the side of a busy road. The uniformed men then fired into the men’s backs. (AP)

Rwanda
The widow of Rwanda’s former President Juvenal Habyarimana, who is suspected of having instigated the country’s 1994 genocide, was arrested near Paris on Tuesday, a police source said. An international arrest warrant for Agathe Habyarimana was issued late last year by Rwandan authorities, who have called on Paris to pursue genocide suspects living in France. Her detention comes just a week after French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Rwanda where he admitted that Paris had made serious errors of judgment over the genocide and said he wanted all those responsible for the killings to be punished. Rwandan authorities welcomed Habyarimana’s arrest. (Reuters)

Somalia
The top U.N. envoy to Somalia has praised the strong and united leadership of the strife-torn countrys government during its first year in power, in a message appealing to outside forces to end their destabilizing interference in the Horn of Africa nation. President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed of Somalias Transitional Federal Government (TFG) marked a year in office at the end of January, and Prime Minister Omar Abidirashid Ali Sharmarke celebrated his anniversary in the post March 1. Over the last year, both leaders as well as the Speaker, Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur [Madobe], have demonstrated to their people and to the region a strong and united leadership in addressing their nations many problems, said the Secretary-Generals Special Representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah. (U.N. News Service)

South Africa
Booming Asian demand for South African coal will put more ships at risk from Somali pirates operating in the Indian Ocean and raise insurance and freight costs already hiked due to seaborne attacks. Emboldened by rising ransom payments, Somali pirates have stepped up attacks in recent months, making tens of millions of dollars by hijacking ships in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. While pirates have hijacked oil tankers, passenger ships and yachts, they have started to target slow moving coal bulk carriers, which are easier to overcome than a large tanker. A Somali pirate who gave his name only as Hassan told Reuters that armed gangs can operate far out to sea and were able to dodge naval warships deployed to combat their activities. (Reuters)

Uganda
At least 300 people, including 100 children, are believed to have been killed when landslides buried three villages in eastern Uganda late on 1 March after heavy rains. Some 2,000 people have been displaced and entire fields of crops ruined. Uganda Red Cross Society (URCS) officials said that on 2 March 50 bodies had been counted while four people with broken limbs had been admitted to Bududa Hospital. More people from neighboring villages had joined the search for survivors. The officials described the situation as desperate, saying a total of 300 residents from the three villages were missing and just 31 villagers were known to have survived. Officials in the region said food was very short as gardens and plantations were swept away by the mud, while drinking water was not available and sanitation facilities destroyed. (U.N. News Service)

Zimbabwe
A new Zimbabwean law that forces foreign-owned companies to sell a majority stake in their businesses to indigenous people has come into effect. Overseas-owned firms worth more than USD500,000 (332,000 pounds) will have five years to sell a 51 percent stake, upon the threat of jail sentences. Harare-based economist John Robertson told the BBC’s Network Africa program that it was “a very bad idea.” He said it would only deter further badly-needed foreign investment. “The government appears to have no wish at all to make the country attractive to the [overseas] investors,” Robertson said. The new rule - dubbed the indigenization law - is seen as an extension of the government’s seizure of white-owned farms, which started approximately 10 years ago. (BBC)

Compiled by developmentex.com