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Weekly anb0612-3.txt #6

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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 12-06-2003      PART #3/6
* Egypte. Frères musulmans arrêtés - Le 5 juin, tard dans la soirée, la police égyptienne a arrêté 12 membres présumés de la confrérie des Frères musulmans dans la ville de Menoufia (quelque 60 km au nord du Caire) pour avoir tenu des "réunions d'organisation" illégales. Parmi eux figurent des médecins, des ingénieurs, des professeurs d'université, des pharmaciens, ainsi qu'Ashraf Badri-Din, candidat aux élections législatives de 2000. Le 6 juin, ils ont été emmenés au bureau du procureur du Caire pour être interrogés. Officiellement interdit, le mouvement des Frères musulmans a forgé des alliances avec des partis légaux, qui leur ont permis d'avoir une influence sur la vie politique égyptienne. La confrérie compte actuellement 17 proches qui siègent au Parlement et ses militants dominent la plupart des syndicats. (AP, 6 juin 2003)
* Eritrea. Alarm bells sounded as malnutrition rates rise - UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Carolyn McAskie was due to arrive in Eritrea on 9 June to assess the situation in the drought-affected country amid a warning from the UN World Food Programme (WFP that the rate of malnutrition is rising "alarmingly". McAskie is to participate in the launch of the 2003 mid-year review of the Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for Eritrea, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said. According to OCHA, the appeal, launched in November 2002, aimed to raise US $163 million for emergency humanitarian relief in response to Eritrea's worst drought in a decade. A total of $69.2 million has been pledged so far, with a shortfall of $90.7 million remaining. On 6 June, WFP spokesperson Christiane Berthiaume said that the rate of malnutrition in Eritrea is rising alarmingly with "more than one in five children not getting enough to eat". According to WFP, 21.7 percent of children are suffering from malnutrition, while a hunger rate of 13-14 percent is normally considered alarming. (IRIN, Kenya. 9 June 2003)
* Erythrée. Crise alimentaire - Plus de 2 millions d'Erythréens sont menacés par une grave crise alimentaire. En cause, la sécheresse et la dernière guerre contre l'Ethiopie. La famine n'est pas encore installée, mais faute de mobilisation des donateurs, les stocks de nourriture seront épuisés d'ici juillet ou août, selon les agences de l'Onu. (La Libre Belgique, 12 juin 2003)
* Ethiopie. Fermeture de l'ambassade USA - L'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Addis-Abeba a fermé ses portes du 5 au 7 juin pour "raison de sécurité". Washington a mis en garde ses ressortissants présents dans la Corne de l'Afrique contre "des menaces terroristes précises" contre des intérêts américains dans cette région. Il a été fortement recommandé au personnel américain opérant dans la mission diplomatique d'éviter les lieux publics dans la capitale. (Le Figaro, France, 6 juin 2003)
* Ethiopie. Découverte d'anciens crânes - Une équipe internationale a mis au jour en Ethiopie les restes de trois crânes âgés de 154.000 à 160.000 ans, qui seraient les plus anciens fossiles connus -et les mieux préservés - du prédécesseur immédiat de l'homme moderne dans l'évolution. Découverts dans la région d'Afar, les ossements se distinguent par des traits modernes. Deux crânes, ceux d'un adulte et d'un enfant, sont quasi complets, et le troisième, celui d'un adulte, est partiel. Ils semblent représenter une étape cruciale dans l'évolution humaine, celui où les traits faciaux de l'homme moderne sont apparus. Auparavant, les fossiles les plus anciens d'homo sapiens exhumés en Afrique avaient été datés à environ 100.000 à 130.000 ans, mais étaient moins complets. (AP, 11 juin 2003)
* Ethiopia. Oldest human skulls found - Three fossilised skulls unearthed in Ethiopia are said by scientists to be among the most important discoveries ever made in the search for the origin of humans. The crania of two adults and a child, all dated to be around 160,000 years old, were pulled out of sediments near a village called Herto in the Afar region in the east of the country. They are described as the oldest known fossils of modern humans, or Homo sapiens. What excites scientists so much is that the specimens fit neatly with the genetic studies that have suggested this time and part of Africa for the emergence of mankind. "All the genetics have pointed to a geologically recent origin for humans in Africa --and now we have the fossils," said Professor Tim White, one of the co-leaders on the research team that found the skulls. "These specimens are critical because they bridge the gap between the earlier more archaic forms in Africa and the fully modern humans that we see 100,000 years ago," the University of California at Berkeley, USA, paleoanthropologist said. (BBC News, UK, 11 June 2003)
* Ghana. On a wing and a prayer - The staff of Ghana Airways have now turned to God to keep the airline in the skies after trying every management trick in the MBA curriculum. Last week, the management and staff held a three-hour prayer session where they sought heavenly intervention in the desperate affairs of one of Africa's first national carriers. They sang, prayed and read the scriptures under the direction of a Ghanaian evengelist who flew in from Lndon. Ghana Airways owes more than $160 million to a variety of creditors. It is unable to keep up with payments, and the government which wholly owns it, says it cannot bail the airline out. Ghana Airways owns five aircraft but only one, a DC 10, is actually flying. This does the long-haul flights to Europe and America. The airline has a stronger presence in West Africa where a lease aircraft hops to national capitals -- from Lagos to Dakar. It employs nearly 1,500 people. It has more drivers than it has vehicles and more typists than keyboards. Every few months there is a new management and a board chairman, but none of them have managed to keep Ghana Airways from its free fall. Now that it has run out of options, Ghana Airways hopes to take off on a wing and a prayer. (BBC News, UK, 10 June 2003)
* Ghana. Police question Rawlings - 11 June: Former President Jerry Rawlings has been interviewed by police after claiming to know the identities of cabinet ministers, he accused of being linked to serial killings. Mr Rawlings told a rally of the opposition National Democratic Congress last week that he could name 15 men in President John Kufuor's cabinet who were involved with the serial killings which plagued Ghana between 1997-2000. The more than 30 victims, most of them women, appeared to have been strangled. Police at the time said that the crime could have been the work of one person or group. Mr Rawlings, who was president when the murders were committed, said at the rally that the crime was politically motivated. One person has so far been charged for the murder of eight of the victims. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 11 June 2003)
* Guinea. Expulsions defended - 11 June: Guinea's Minister of Territorial Administration, Moussa Solano, says that last Sunday's expulsion of foreign politicians was meant to forestall a potentially explosive situation. "The foreign dignitaries who arrived had no proper documents to come across our borders, that is why we denied them entry," he said. The foreign politicians -- who accompanied Guinean opposition leader Alpha Conde -- were rounded up by immigration officials on arrival at the airport and declared persona non grata. They were scheduled to attend a conference on the role of political parties. "The government was not fully informed about this conference, and we had not authorised its organisation on Guinean territory," Mr Solano said in a television statement. The politicians included former Senegalese Prime Minister, Mustapha Nyass, Paulo George from Angola's MPLA, and Useful Alamode from Niger. Their expulsion resulted in clashes between the police and hundreds of supporters of Mr Conde's Rally for Guinean People (RPG) who had thronged the airport to welcome the party leader and his guests. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 11 June 2003)
* Liberia. Peace talks in Accra - 5 June: The peace talks continue in Accra, Ghana. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) express the hope that all sides to the Liberian peace talks will demonstrate "moderation and compromise". ECOWAS's executive secretary, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, says ECOWAS is encouraged by a statement in which Liberia's President Charles Taylor affirms he will not seek a second term of office when his current term ends in January 2004. 6 June: The peace talks are suspended until 9 June. --LURD combatants have been instructed by their head of delegation to the peace talks in Accra to stop fighting. 9 June: Ghana is still hopeful that the negotiations will resume following arrival of representatives from another rebel group, the MODEL faction. -- Facilitators at the Accra peace talks announce the suspension of the talks until 11 June. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 9 June 2003)
* Liberia. Child soldiers are back on the frontline - As Liberian President Charles Taylor fights for his very survival, child soldiers, many of them orphans of the conflict, are back at the forefront of the fighting. Every day they can be seen riding around the streets of the capital Monrovia in pick-up trucks proudly toting their automatic rifles. Relief workers in Monrovia said that on several occasions this year forces loyal to President Charles Taylor had raided schools and camps of displaced people in search of young recruits to fight two rebel movements. These now control over two thirds of the country and are fighting their way into the outskirts of the capital. The Liberian government has repeatedly denied conscripting children by force, but relief workers have documented several cases of this occurring. One attempt to press gang school kids into the militia in the northern town of Ganta on 6 March sparked off protest riots, they said. Some of the child soldiers fighting in Taylor's rag-tag army are as young as nine-years old. But not all were press-ganged into service. Many joined the government militias as volunteers eager to avenge the killing of their parents by rebel fighters. (IRIN, Kenya, 9 June 2003)
* Liberia. Monrovia encircled by rebels - 5 June: Liberia's President Charles Taylor says a coup attempt was foiled on 4 June whilst he was in Ghana for the start of peace talks to end the country's civil war. Speaking on national radio, Mr Taylor said: "Certain actions has been instigated" in his absence involving top officials and foreign diplomats, but the army chief had remained firm. Mr Taylor said the Vice-President has resigned and the entire cabinet will be asked to go to pave the way for a government of national unity once the peace talks had ended. -- Rebels in Liberia are reported to have entered the suburbs of the capital, Monrovia, as President Charles Taylor struggles to hold on to power. At the same time, aid workers said thousands of refugees had fled in terror from camps on the outskirts of the city. The refugees were trying to reach the centre of Monrovia despite the army trying to block them, said Ramin Rafirasme, West African spokesman for the World Food Programme. "People are in the street, in the rain. The situation remains very tense in Monrovia. We are very worried by the situation of these people," he said. Witnesses contacted by reporters by phone also tell of fighting near the town of Duala, four kilometres from Monrovia, where rebels were trying to capture a bridge leading directly to the city. 7 June: Fighting between rebel and government troops is intensifying on the outskirts of the capital, Monrovia. Tens of thousands of civilians fled as gunfire and explosions rocked the northern suburbs of the city yesterday. LURD rebels are reported to be within less than 10 kilometres from the centre of Monrovia. The United States has told non-essential diplomats to leave the country, and has again called on President Charles Taylor to stand down. 8 June: Rebel forces attacking the Liberian capital, Monrovia, have issued an ultimatum to President Charles Taylor to resign within 72 hours. LURD fighters appear to have halted their advance on Sunday less than six kilometres from the city centre although fighting continues in places. More government troops move up to the front line as aid workers reported that hundreds of thousands of people in the capital had been made homeless by the fighting. 9 June: Military helicopters have started to evacuate Europeans and US citizens from Monrovia. Heavily armed French troops emerge from the helicopters as they land in the EU compound, before taking westerners to a French ship waiting off the coast. 10 June: A further evacuation of foreign nationals from Liberia is to take place amid intense fighting for the capital, Monrovia. Ghana has announced that it is sending a warship and several aircraft to remove its citizens after French military helicopters flew more than 500 Europeans, Lebanese and United States citizens from the city. Rebels are closing in on the centre of Monrovia in their campaign against President Charles Taylor. The United Nations Security Council has expressed deep concern, and called on all sides to cease hostilities. A UN spokesman said Secretary General Kofi Annan was "alarmed at the severe impact which intensified fighting between rebels and government forces in Liberia is having on Monrovia's one million inhabitants". A team of West African mediators is going to Monrovia in an effort to agree a ceasefire, and enable stalled peace talks in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, to resume. Aid organisations say thousands of Liberians are sleeping rough in the capital after fleeing their homes in the face of the rebel advance on the city, which is being supported by artillery bombardments. -- The government has distributed its dwindling stocks of rice and has appealed for more international aid. --President Taylor holds crisis talks with the US ambassador about calling an immediate ceasefire. 11 June: President Taylor agrees to halt hostilities against rebels, paving the way for peace talks to start in earnest and possibly prevent a bloody showdown in the capital, reports say. The rebels have also promised West African mediators they will halt their advance so talks can start properly. (ANB-BIA, Belgium, 11 June 2003) 

Weekly ANB0612.txt #3/6