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Weekly anb04263.txt #7
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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 26-04-2001 PART #3/7
* Egypt. Why Mubarak's son will not lead Egypt - Gamal Mubarak, son of
the Egyptian president, is as adamant as his father in denying suggestions
that he is being groomed for succession. "I am not fixated on this and I am
not positioning myself," he says. "We have institutions and matters have to
go through the executive channels." His statements, in an interview with
the Financial Times, echo recent comments by Hosni Mubarak, bluntly stating
that his son would not be Egypt's next president. Egypt, he told Newsweek
magazine, was not Syria, where Bashar al-Assad, son of the late president,
took over last year, creating the Arab world's first "republican monarchy".
But with the Egyptian president turning 73 next month, after 19 years of
authoritarian rule, and no obvious successor in sight, diplomats say
questions about the 37-year-old Gamal's future role are likely to persist.
The young Mubarak's interest in politics and his increasingly higher
profile have fed the rumour mill about his possible aspirations. And the
president's failure so far to name a vice-president has heightened
speculation about his son. For now, the betting in Egypt remains on a
transition to a senior military official or a civilian with a strong
military or intelligence background, even if this model sits badly with the
image of modernity Mr Mubarak has often sought to project. (Financial
Times, UK, 24 April 2001)
* Erythrée/Ethiopie. Zone tampon - Le 19 avril, les Nations unies ont
annoncé la création d'une zone temporaire de sécurité (TSZ) de 25 km de
large entre les forces éthiopiennes et érythréennes le long de leur
frontière commune, pour permettre aux soldats de la paix de superviser
l'accord de cessez-le-feu convenu entre les deux parties en juin dernier.
Dans un communiqué, la mission de l'Onu MNUEE a indiqué que la zone a été
créée le 18 avril, après que l'Erythrée a informé la MNUEE, deux jours plus
tôt, qu'elle avait terminé de repositionner ses forces armées hors de la
zone prévue. Le communiqué déplore cependant que l'Ethiopie n'ait pas
communiqué des informations détaillées concernant ses plans de
redéploiement dans la zone d'Irob, à environ 30 km au sud-est de la ville
frontalière éthiopienne de Zalambessa, que revendique l'Erythrée. (PANA,
Sénégal, 19 avril 2001)
* Eritrea-Ethiopia. UN establishes buffer zone - An end to the war
between Eritrea and Ethiopia has come a step closer with the announcement
by the United Nations peacekeeping mission of the creation of a buffer zone
on their bitterly contested border. The setting up of the temporary
security zone (TSZ), which will keep Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers at
least 25km apart -- maximum artillery range -- had been delayed by
disagreements over the zone's scope. The delays had kept 4,200 UN soldiers
posted to the region waiting anxiously and held up the return of up to
250,000 displaced Eritrean villagers. Joseph Legwaila, a special
representative of the UN secretary-general, said the TSZ had been set up
with immediate effect in spite of continuing differences over the southern
boundary. "The establishment of the TSZ is a milestone... It is the
penultimate step in the resolution of the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict," he
said. Hostilities exploded between landlocked Ethiopia and its much smaller
neighbour in May 1998 when simmering tensions over an ill-defined colonial
border degenerated into all-out war. The conflict destroyed a once close
alliance between the two governments, which as former rebel movements had
together toppled the regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia in 1991
and guided Eritrea to independence in 1993. By June 2000 Ethiopian forces
had advanced deep into Eritrea; but under intense international pressure
both sides agreed to call a halt. Under a peace deal signed in Algiers, UN
peacekeepers are to keep the two sides apart while a border commission
assesses claims. Mr Legwaila said it would be up to the border commission
to rule on an issue that had threatened to sabotage the TSZ: Ethiopia's
determination to keep troops stationed at Irob, an area north of the
demilitarisation line originally agreed by the UN with the two governments.
Eritrea's economy, which enjoyed a brief post-independence boom, has
stagnated as foreign investment has evaporated, agricultural output
plummeted and trade with Ethiopia dried up. (Financial Times, UK, 20
April 2001)
* Eritrea. Land-mine danger - Hundreds of thousands of Eritreans,
uprooted during a two-year war with Ethiopia, face great danger from
landmines if they race home to plant crops in the next few weeks, the
United Nations warned on 19 April. Jean-Marie Guehenno, the UN
undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations, told the Security
Council that Eritrea wanted some 300,000 homeless people to return to their
villages within the next six to eight weeks. "Linked to these returns is
the threat posed by large quantities of landmines and unexploded ordnance
in the areas of return," he said. The United Nations has asked Ethiopia and
Eritrea to divulge where they laid mines and hopes to mark these areas so
returnees avoid them. Time is of the essence because the Eritreans want to
get back and plant their crops in time for the rainy season, easing a
humanitarian crisis brought on by extended drought and the two-year border
war between landlocked Ethiopia and the far smaller Eritrea on the Red Sea
coast. The refugees' return had been blocked by the two sides' slowness to
pull their soldiers back from the front lines, as agreed in a cease-fire
signed last June. (CNN, USA, 19 April 2001)
* Ethiopie. Répression sanglante - Pendant deux jours, les 17 et 18
avril, Addis Abeba a connu des affrontements particulièrement violents
entre forces de l'ordre et jeunes lycéens. Le 19 avril, le calme était
revenu. Selon les chiffres officiels, les heurts ont fait 39 morts et 250
blessés par balles. Déjà le 11 avril, le campus universitaire avait été le
théâtre d'affrontements entre forces de l'ordre et étudiants, qui réclament
plus de liberté d'expression. C'était pour manifester leur soutien aux
étudiants que les lycéens étaient descendus à leur tour dans les rues. La
réaction des forces de l'ordre a été radicale; la police n'a pas hésité à
traquer les jeunes manifestants dans les églises et les mosquées où ils
avaient essayé de se réfugier. Le 19 avril, l'université a été fermée "pour
une durée indéterminée". - Le 20 avril, plus d'un millier de personnes,
pour la plupart des étudiants, étaient toujours détenues par la
police. (Libération, France, 20-21 avril 2001)
* Ethiopia. Dozens dead in Addis riots - 19 April: Hospital doctors say
at least 39 people were killed and more than 250 people were injured on the
second day of violent clashes in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. There
were chaotic scenes on Wednesday as police clashed with young demonstrators
who had come out in support of a student boycott of lectures. The clashes
led to anarchy all over the city. In a BBC interview government advisor
Kinfe Abraham defended the authorities' handling of the demonstration. He
said the police had to use force to stop the rioters. He added that
dissident groups had taken advantage of the student protests to create
confusion. The BBC correspondent in Addis Ababa said that the city was
returning to normal by the 19 April, but there was still a heavy armed
police presence on the streets. 21 April: The Ethiopian Human Rights
Council denies that thousands of students being held in detention camps,
had any role in the violence. Most have been taken to a police camp in the
village of Sendafa, 38 km northeast of Addis Ababa. The authorities say the
detainees are not being mistreated. (ANB-BIA News, Brussels, 23 April 2001)
* Gabon. La grève à l'université - Les enseignants et chercheurs de
l'université Omar Bongo du Gabon, en grève depuis le 9 avril, se sont dit
déterminés à poursuivre leur mouvement si leurs renvendications ne sont pas
satisfaites. Celles-ci concernent entre autres la régularisation de leur
situation administrative, le paiement des arriérés des mois de mars, avril
et mai 2000, et l'octroi de parcelles de terrain. Selon le porte-parole du
collectif, lors d'une conférence de presse le 22 avril, ceux qui doivent
trouver les solutions semblent traîner le pas. "Nous revendiquons
simplement nos conditions de travail", a-t-il dit. (PANA, Sénégal, 23
avril 2001)
* Ghana. Navrongo Health Research centre - From its humble beginnings in
the late 1980s and housed in a single structure behind the War Memorial
Hospital in Navrongo, Northern Ghana, the Navrongo Health Research Centre
(NHRC) has grown into a centre of excellence in health research of
international repute. It all started when, in the background of the War
Memorial Hospital, a team of researchers from Ghana and abroad jointly set
out to carry out health research. The team was composed of researchers from
the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, the Kwame
Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, and the Ministry of
Health, Ghana. Their agenda was to investigate the impact of large doses of
Vitamin A on child survival in the Kassena Nankana District. The research
station became known as the Vitamin A Supplement Trials. Upon successful
completion of this study, the station was designated a Research Centre by
the Ministry of Health and the name changed to the Navrongo Health Research
Centre in 1992. Today the Centre's research focuses on malaria, acute
respiratory infections, cerebrospinal meningitis, diarrhoea, lymphatic
filariasis, schistosomiasis, community based service delivery and family
planning. (AfricaNews, April 2001)
* Guinée. Exécutions - Trois jeunes Guinéens condamnés à mort pour crimes
et vols à main armée, ont été exécutés le week-end dernier. En février,
cinq personnes condamnées en 1995 pour "crimes de sang" ont aussi été
exécutées. Ce sont les premières exécutions depuis 1984, la peine de mort
étant jusqu'à présent commuée en prison à perpétuité. (La Croix, France,
25 avril 2001)
* Kenya. Will the last of the "dream team" quit? - The remaining members
of Kenya's dream team are set to leave the government when their contracts
expire in June. Sources told The East African that the three permanent
secretaries --Prof. Shem Migot-Adhola, Dr. Wilfred Mwangi and Mr Mwaghazi
Mwachofi -- were unhappy with the government's declared intention to pay
them salaries at normal civil-service rates, and its seeming determination
to force them to sever links with their multilateral employers. President
Moi is own to demand the personal allegiance of both politicians and public
servants serving under him and the three are likely to be seen as "owing
allegiance elsewhere". (The East African, Kenya, 16-22 April 2001)
* Kenya. Father Kaiser suicide "likely" - 19 March: An investigation into
the suspicious death in Kenya of a controversial American priest has found
that it was probably suicide. Many Kenyans thought that Father John Kaiser
had been murdered last August in a politically motivated attack. In 36
years of missionary service in Kenya, Father Kaiser made a name for himself
as a tireless worker for the poor and marginalised and an outspoken critic
of the government. But the American FBI, which was asked to look in to the
death, said there was no evidence to support the murder charge. FBI Special
Agent Thomas Carey said: "The manner of Father Kaiser's death is most
consistent with death resulting from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the
head." His body was found next to the road near his car about 65 km outside
Nairobi. (BBC News, UK, 20 April 2001)
* Kenya. La mort du père Kaiser - La Conférence épiscopale du Kenya
examinera, lors de sa prochaine assemblée, le rapport de la police
américaine FBI sur la disparition du prêtre américain John Antony Kaiser,
retrouvé mort, le 24 août 2000, la tête criblée de balles, sur la route de
Naivasha vers Nakuru près de Nairobi. Le FBI a conclu au suicide du père
Kaiser, membre de la société missionnaire de Mill Hill. Selon l'agence de
presse catholique belge CIP, les évêques kényans ne croient pas à cette
thèse du suicide et se sont dits "surpris et déçus" par le rapport. Le p.
Kaiser était connu pour ses critiques ouvertes à l'égard du gouvernement
kényan, pour sa défense de la justice, des pauvres et leurs terres. (DIA,
Kinshasa, 25 avril 2001)
* Kenya. Crusading for cheap AIDS drugs - South Africa's humiliation of
the world's biggest drug companies, forced to abandon a lawsuit that
critics said was aimed at protecting profits at the expense of lives, has
prompted Kenya to say it too will pass laws to permit the importation of
cheaper medicines. The east African nation's health minister, professor Sam
Ongeri, said Kenya has drafted a bill to allow the government to buy
anti-Aids drugs because patented medicines are protected by "unrealistic"
property rights laws and are too expensive. Kenya's decision is a direct
result of the collapse of the legal attempt by 39 drug companies in the
Pretoria high court to overturn a law permitting the South African
government to bypass patents when there is deemed to be a health emergency
or where drugs are declared "unaffordable". Prof Ongeri said 700 Kenyans
die of Aids each day, and that 2.2m people in his country are infected with
HIV. Half of Kenya's hospital beds are occupied by AIDS patients. But South
Africa's legal victory has also had a wider if less immediately visible
impact. It is forcing governments and the drug companies to discuss how
they now confront a virus that infects 25m people in sub-Saharan Africa.
Most countries cannot afford even the knocked-down prices of generic drugs,
and the major pharmaceutical companies still stand to make large profits
even selling their wares at a fraction of the price they now demand. (The
Guardian, UK, 26 April 2001)
* Kenya. Déficit budgétaire compromettant - Le Kenya est confronté à un
déficit budgétaire sans précédent de plusieurs milliards de shillings, qui
pourrait avoir un effet préjudiciable sur la relance économique du pays,
estiment les observateurs. Le ministre des Finances, Chris Okema, a révélé,
le 24 avril dans un communiqué, que le pays enregistrait un déficit
budgétaire entre 6 et 10 milliards de shillings (1 dollar = 78 shillings).
Il a attribué cette situation à plusieurs facteurs, particulièrement au
non-déblocage des fonds promis par le FMI et la Banque mondiale. Une
réduction de 50% des dépenses publiques n'avait pas réussi à renverser la
situation. (PANA, Sénégal, 25 avril 2001)
Weekly anb0426.txt - End of 3/7