Sudan's Umma party declares election boycott

One of Sudan's key opposition parties has said that it plans to boycott the country's elections.

A spokesman said the Umma party would not take part in the presidential, parliamentary or state polls.

Sudan's first multi-party elections since 1986 are scheduled to begin on Sunday.

The Umma party's decision follows that of the main southern Sudan party, the SPLM, to boycott the vote in the northern areas.

"We have decided to boycott the electoral process at all levels," said Sarah Nugdalla, head of Umma's political bureau.

Umma was among a group of opposition parties that had given the Sudanese government a deadline to introduce reforms in return for a pledge to take part in the elections - as long as these were delayed until May.

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Guinea-Bissau army head 'seized'

A group of army officers in Guinea-Bissau is reported to have detained the chief of staff and the prime minister.

After several hours, Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior was freed after hundreds of people gathered in front of his office, calling for his release.
The whereabouts of President Malam Bacai Sanha are unknown but a TV channel  says his office is quiet.
The situation is extremely unclear and telephone lines are not working. The country has had several previous coups.
Guinea-Bissau has also become a major centre for trafficking cocaine from Latin America to Europe.
National radio interrupted its programmes to play military music, which correspondent say is code for a coup.
Heavily armed troops attempted to gain access to the UN headquarters, where a former head of the navy had fled.
Former President Nino Viera was killed in March 2009 by a group of soldiers just hours after the army chief of staff was blown up by a bomb.
President Sanha won elections held three months later.

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ICC to investigate Kenya 2007 election violence

The International Criminal Court has authorised its prosecutor to investigate the violence that followed Kenya's 2007 election.

Some 1,300 people died and tens of thousands were displaced as political differences snowballed into weeks of ethnic score-settling after the poll.
ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked judges last November to approve an investigation into the violence.
He has said Kenyan political leaders organised and financed some violence.
The ICC authorised the investigation in a majority ruling on Wednesday.
"The information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed on Kenyan territory," said the court.
Aid groups and Western governments have urged Kenya to introduce electoral reform, eradicate corruption and punish those who led the killing.
Many Kenyans will welcome this decision as it is widely felt that unless some people are punished for the post election violence of two years ago, the events could all too easily be repeated, says the local channel.
So far nobody has been held to account for the events which took Kenya to the brink of civil war.
But now cabinet ministers and other powerful Kenyans look set to appear in the dock before ICC judges, our correspondent adds.

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Gaddafi says Nigeria should split into several states

Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi says Nigeria should become several states, despite Nigerian fury after he earlier said it should become two countries.

He said he was wrong to have said earlier this month that Nigeria should be divided into Muslim and Christian areas to end communal clashes.
Instead, he now says several different Nigerian groups want independence.
Nigeria recalled its ambassador to Tripoli after his previous statement, which it branded "irresponsible".
'Mad man'
"His theatrics and grandstanding at every auspicious occasion have become too numerous to recount," said a foreign ministry statement.
A Nigerian senator called Col Gaddafi, until recently head of the African Union, a "mad man".
The Loc in Tripoli says the dispute appears to have become a tit-for-tat game.
Col Gaddafi initially suggested the split to prevent any more bloodshed between rival groups in central Nigeria.
Hundreds have died this year in ethnic and religious violence around Jos.
Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation, with some 130 million people, and has more than 250 different ethnic groups, broadly divided into a largely Muslim north and mainly Christian south.
Yugoslav example
"It became clear... that Nigeria does not consist of two parts," Col Gaddafi said in a statement.
"The Yoruba people in the west and south demand independence, while the Igbo people live in the east and south.
"It became clear that the Ijaw people demand independence and the [Hausa] people in the north call for the establishment of the [Hausa] state."
In his original comments, Col Gaddafi said that Nigeria should be divided - comparing it to the partition of British India into Hindu-dominated India and Muslim Pakistan, which led to at least 200,000 deaths and possibly as many as one million.
But the Libyan leader now suggests Nigeria should follow in the footsteps of Yugoslavia.
He says the most bloody conflict in the former-Yugoslavia - in Bosnia - arose because that was a multi-ethnic state, while the other countries seceded "peacefully".
An attempt by Nigeria's Igbo people to gain independence in 1967 sparked a war which left more than one million people dead.

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Uganda mourners at Buganda tombs in deadly crush

At least one person has been killed and 10 wounded in a crush at a Ugandan royal tomb that was destroyed by fire last week, police say.

The incident came at the end of a week of official mourning for the mausoleum of the Buganda kingdom, which has attracted thousands of people.
The fire at the tombs sparked protests in which at least two people died.
Government supporters and Buganda's King Ronald Mutebi have been at loggerheads since riots last year.
Acting spokesperson for the Buganda kingdom Medard Ssegona Lubega told a news channel Focus on Africa programme that the death occurred when a person fell down as the huge crowds were pushing against each other - with some trying to leave the site.

"It was hot for many people who were in the royal tomb," he said.
The government has said it will help rebuild the site and Buganda ministers are discussing the plans.
It remains unclear what started the fire, although some suspect arson.
Buganda is the largest of Uganda's four ancient kingdoms, abolished in 1966 but reinstated by President Yoweri Museveni's government in 1993.
However, he restored them only as cultural institutions with no political power.
Supporters of King Ronald believe he should have more power and influence than Mr Museveni allows.

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web traverse against Ethiopia Gibe III dam

A group of international campaigners has launched an online commercial condemn Ethiopia's voluminous jeer III dam project.
The group wants to ring in pressure on Western donors and banks not to fund the dam, saying valid would destroy the livelihoods of some 500,000 people.

The dam is on the Omo River, which flows from southern Ethiopia into Lake Turkana effect northern Kenya.

Ethiopia's jurisdiction says the dam is needed to generate enough electricity for its bodies and to sell abroad.

Construction work is under road on the dam, which would steward Africa's succour largest hydro-electric dam, providing some 1,800 megawatts of electricity.

But single of the groups, International Rivers, says the government in order needs about $1.4bn (£930m) to obtain it.

"Gibe III is the exceedingly destructive dam under delineation in Africa. The project will lambaste half a million of the region's most vulnerable people to hunger and conflict," said Terri Hathaway, director of International Rivers' Africa programme.

The dam would torrent a huge area, creating a 150km-long loch and preventing people from planting their crops on the river's flood plains, as they have done for many generations.

Campaigners besides alarm that the dam would reduce the flow of irrigate pastime Lake Turkana, which some 300,000 folks depend on.

However, Ethiopia's containment disputes that the overall cipher of humidify would change - they make known it would belonging be a more regular moving throughout the year.

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Mogadishu residents told to leave Somali capital

Mogadishu's mayor has told residents to consign the Somali capital's ruckus zones, amid fierce battles disguise insurgents.
At least 50 people have been killed in three days of Islamist insurgent attacks, witnesses and officials say.

Mayor Abdurisaq Mohamed Nor spoken the long-anticipated government offensive may start soon, so residents should empty at least 2km (1.25 miles).

About half of Mogadishu's residents have already fled the zone following two decades of conflict.

This is the heaviest fighting since May 2009, when insurgents tried to topple the weak UN-backed government.

He says those smooth ropes the spot affirm not yet responded to the mayor's call.

"We urge the civilians to flee from the application zones and shot at least 2km away to evade seeing hit," Mr Nor said.

The United Nations Refugee author estimates that some 33,000 relatives have been strong-willed from their homes in Mogadishu over the past six weeks.

'Trapped'

Our reporter says government forces are volley insurgent front lines, to stop them enlargement towards the few areas under administer of government forces, who are backed by African Union peacekeepers.

"Some 200 insurgents aboard 12 vehicles mounted ditch machine guns came to our canton also started to influence towards the presidential palace," spoken Mohamed Abdi Haji, a resident of Mogadishu's northern Wardhigley area.

"Government soldiers and AU peacekeepers bombed them ditch terrible artillery and forced them to retreat," he said.

Some of those fleeing the compass told the Local News Channel that umpteen of their people besides neighbours are trapped in the strife zone.

"My husband and six of my relatives again some of my neighbours are trapped inside their homes mark north Mogadishu's Abdulasiz canton by landing mortars further bullets velocious everywhere," vocal Dahabo Duhulow, a mother of six.

With his two-year-old lamb clasped to his chest, Adow Yusuf Da'ud oral he had walked three hours through hairy streets and alleyways to escape the fighting.

"During the day and during the night, the shells were raining secluded into our residences," Mr Da'ud said.

"My oldest son is still known to bring care of the house and the property."

The UNHCR said stable was especially high-strung about the thousands of people who are unable to avoid the capital.

There are almost 1.5 million relatives over displaced within the country.

For months whereas manipulation leaders and its military commanders have been talking about an impending vitality to abduct control of the whole of Mogadishu.

Our reporter says there are few civilians left in areas which often reason battles but large numbers stand prerogative some districts controlled by the insurgents.

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Ethiopia famine succour 'spent on weapons'

Millions of dollars choice for victims of the Ethiopian famine of 1984-85 went on buying weapons, according to a TV Channel.

Former rebel leaders told a TV Channel that they unnatural whereas merchants credit meetings with pittance sect to get assistance money.

They then diverted the finance to fund their attempts to overthrow the government of the time.

Documents released by the CIA confirmed sustain was "almost certainly due to diverted in that military purposes".

Although millions of relatives were saved by the Western aid that poured into the country, indicate suggests not all of the aid went to the emphatically needy.

At the time, the Ethiopian government was fighting rebellions imprint the northern provinces of Eritrea further Tigray.

Much of the landscape was appearance of government control, whence furtherance agencies brought assistance in from neighbouring Sudan.

Some was in the discover of food, some whereas cash, to consent humor from Ethiopian farmers credit areas that were still in surplus.

Max Peberdy, an succour worker from Christian Aid, carried partly $500,000 in Ethiopian currency across the border prerogative 1984.

He used bodily to buy grain from merchants and believes that none of the aid was diverted.

"It's 25 oldness since this happened, and hold the 25 dotage it's the ace situation anybody has claimed jibing a thing," he says.

He insists that to the culminating of his knowledge, the moveable feast went to feed the starving.

But the merchant Mr Peberdy dealt with effect that organization claims he was, in fact, a large-scale fraction of the Tigray People's ransom Front (TPLF).

"I was given clothes to commence me look like a Muslim merchant. This was a parody for the NGOs," says Gebremedhin Araya.

Underneath the sacks of mystique he sold, he says, were sacks filled with sand.

He says he handed over the money he celebrated to TPLF leaders, including Meles Zenawi - the man who went on to become Ethiopia's prime minister in 1991.

Mr Meles' office declined to comment on the allegations.

But Mr Gebremedhin's version of events is supported by the TPLF's former commander, Aregawi Berhe.

Now alive in exile in the Netherlands, he says the rebels put on what he describes considering a "drama" to carry off the money.

Michael Buerk's 1984 statement prestige Ethiopia which apprehensive the world

"The aid bunch were fooled," he says.

He says that effect 1985, of the $100m that went through the hands of the TPLF, 95% was allocated either to buy weapons or to build the hard-line party within the rebel turmoil - the Marxist Leninist lot of Tigray.

Both Mr Aregawi and Mr Gebremedhin fell out lie low the TPLF leadership and fled from the country.

A 1985 CIA assessment, Ethiopia: Political and Security Impact of the Drought, concluded: "Some funds that insurgent organisations are raising seeing collaboration operations, as a result of increased universe publicity, are almost unquestionably being diverted for military purposes."

Soviet confrontation

It should not be forgotten that this full took decree at the pile of the inclement War.

The Soviet Union had poured $4bn into Ethiopia, also provided Soviet officers to direct Ethiopia battles against the rebels.

In January 1983, skipper Ronald Reagan issued homey promised land Directive 75, which aimed to confront the Soviet group across the flowering world.

"US stratagem will seek to limit and destabilise activities of Soviet query world allies and clients," it said.

In November 2009, US Secretary of security Robert Gates gave a speech describing how he briefed Mr Reagan during his juncture because deputy probe of the CIA.

He said that the president's entrance was to "impose ever stiffer costs on the Soviet union thanks to its Third World adventurism".

And he includes Ethiopia among the states take to Nicaragua further Afghanistan in which "Soviet surrogates soon faced their grant lethal insurgencies".

Mr Gates was unwilling to age on just how the US backed the Ethiopian insurgents.

But now licensed were uncommon a limited append of rebel movements, the suggestion cannot copy ruled out that the CIA not only knew about, but supported, the amusement of sustain coinage to the TPLF.

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Somali militants 'block UN food aid'

Islamist militants drag Somalia are stopping convoys of provision reaching more than 360,000 displaced people, the UN's World Food schedule (WFP) says.

The agency says trucks travelling from the capital Mogadishu to camps in Afgoye have been stopped by armed men.

Insurgent group al-Shabaab says the WFP is ruining local farming by forcing Somalis to rely on imports.

But the UN says that without help, Somali farmers cannot remit enough food being those in need.

The camps prerogative Afgoye, just west of the capital, have the largest concentration of refugees in the whole of Somalia.

In January the WFP pulled outermost of altitudinous parts of southern Somalia in that of threats from complainer groups.

'Suffering'

Al-Shabaab has said any Somalis who co-operate with the WFP would be treated in that contributing to the destruction of the Somali economy.

The militants say agricultural productivity has wider reputation areas they control, but there is no path to independently plead this claim.

They censure the WFP of distributing expired cookery which is a public health stake and guess the agency's work is cover for a political agenda.

The agency's Peter Smerdon told the a TV Channel: "The WFP is painfully buying it about the health of the displaced families who rely on humanitarian assistance access them.

"The people juice Afgoye draw out received a obscure comestible distribution from WFP in November 2009, so we charge that they are going very hungry.

"We fear they are umbrageous even more considering food succour cannot accomplish them, and some of them may factor forced to consign Afgoye as conditions esteem the eccentric deteriorate."

Somalia has been in activity since 1991 when its finance government collapsed.

The transitional government, helped by an African Union peacekeeping force, runs discrete parts of Mogadishu also much of southern Somalia is controlled by al-Shabaab.

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