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Gbagbo's Attack on Nigerian Embassy is a Bluff
As Ivorian Strong Man Faces Ultimatum From West African Leaders
THE political crisis in Cote d’Ivoire has taken a turn for the worse, with forces loyal to the rogue administration of Laurent Gbagbo, the errant incumbent who lost the presidential run-off on November 28, but has failed to quit power, reportedly attacking the Nigerian embassy in Abidjan.
The attack appears a bully-tactic response to the leadership Nigeria’s President, Goodluck Jonathan, has shown in rallying the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to back Allasane Dramane Quattara, who won the rerun by 54-46 per cent margin.
The attack on Nigeria’s Embassy was the latest of Mr. Gbagbo’s bully tactics. But he seems to bury himself even more in the ditch, with each subsequent desperate attempt.
Independence: Southern Sudan Extends Referendum Deadline By A Week
Southern Sudan has given potential voters an extra week to register for January's referendum on possible independence.
The authorities said moving the deadline to 8 December would not affect the vote, scheduled for 9 January.
The referendum is a consequence of a peace deal that ended a two-decade long civil war between the north and south.
But the process has been hit by several delays and there are fears rising tensions could bring new violence.
Achier Deng, a member of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, said the time frame had been revised for "technical reasons".
But he insisted that this "will not compromise the date of 9 January," the AFP news agency reports.
"The time frame is tight, but there are days here and there that can be saved," he said.
Investments In Agriculture Must Grow, Says FAO.
Structural changes can improve food security, Diouf said.
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THE key to long-term food security lies in boosting investment in agriculture, particularly in low-income food-deficit countries,Food and Agriculture Organisation ( FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf said on Tuesday in an on-line statement to AkanimoReports..
The rapid increase in hunger and malnourishment since the food crisis of 2008 reveals the inadequacy of the present global food system and the urgent need for structural changes, Diouf said, addressing the Gulf Cooporation Council (GCC) Ministerial Forum on Agricultural Investment in Abu Dhabi, attended by representatives of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the host country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
"The food price and economic crises have had a severe impact on millions of people in all parts of the world," he said. In recent months the international prices of most agricultural commodities have increased, many of them sharply. The global food import bill could pass the one trillion dollar mark in 2010, a level not seen since food prices peaked at record levels in 2008.
"These trends — Diouf said — can have severe implications for countries like the Gulf countries, which depend on commercial imports for a large share of their food consumption needs".
In the Near East and North Africa region, the number of hungry and malnourished people currently is estimated at 37 million, nearly 10 percent of the region's population.
Structural changes can improve food security, Diouf said. In the short term, this means targeted safety nets and social protection programmes as well as reliable and timely information on food commodity markets. Small-scale farmers must be assured access to indispensable means of production and technologies — such as high-quality seeds, fertilizers, feed and farming tools and equipment.
In the medium and longer terms, however, investment in agriculture is the answer. Food-deficit countries must be given the necessary technical and financial solutions and policy tools to enhance their agricultural sectors in terms of productivity and resilience in the face of crises.
The Director-General also named Her Highness Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, known in the United Arab Emirates as the Mother of the Nation, as Extraordinary Ambassador of FAO.
Sheikha Fatima is the wife of the founder and the first President of UAE, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and has played "a pivotal role in consolidating and promoting the women's rights movement in the Arab world", Diouf said.
He noted her roles as chairperson of the UAE Family Development Foundation, the Chairwoman of the UAE General Women's Union and the President of the UAE's Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood and commended her "enlighting, pioneering thinking about women".
Sheikha Fatima has been active in the fields of literacy, maternal and child care, the disabled, the elderly and orphans and is, Diouf said, an "exceptional human being". He presented her with a silver plaque, an honorific parchment scroll and a medal.
The FAO Director-General and Rashid Ahmed bin Fahad, UAE Minister of Environment and Water announced the establishment of the UAE-financed "Sheikh Zayed Centre" at FAO headquarters in Rome.
The new structure, an international multi-media conference centre that will be located inside FAO headquarters in Rome, will provide the live broadcasting facilities and capacity-building infrastructures necessary to continue the fight against hunger and to enhance knowledge sharing and e-learning throughout
the organization, Diouf said during a signing ceremony.
The centre will be named after Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, founder of the UAE and father of the country's current president. ENDS.
Weapons From Iran Intercepted By Nigerian Authorities
By Benjamin Peim
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Nigerian Weapons Haul Shows Lengths Iran Will Go to Supply Hamas
Written by Benjamin Peim
The capture in Nigeria late last week of over a dozen containers filled with weapons highlights the lengths to which Iran is taking to supply its Hamas ally in the Gaza Strip, but leaves a question mark over how successful the arms conduit has been, analysts say.
The containers, unloaded in Lagos, the country’s largest port, came from a cargo ship originating in Iran, the company that owned the ship said in a statement. While their ultimate destination has not been confirmed, analysts believe the containers were bound for Gaza, ruled by the Muslim group Hamas.
“It’s getting harder to obtain the weapons so they’re using all types of funny places,” Martin van Creveld, a retired professor of military history at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told The Media Line. “They find a place that is so messy they can get through, and Nigeria apparently wasn’t messy enough.”
As Hamas’ main weapons supplier, Iran’s success in delivering missiles and other arms into Gaza will be a key factor in any future conflict with Israel. In its last confrontation with Hamas 14 months ago, Israel sustained almost no casualties, but if the Islamic group succeeds in obtaining more sophisticated weaponry it could put Israeli cities in rocket-range and jeopardize Israel’s control of the skies.
The shipping company, French-based CMA CGM, said it had been duped by Iranian trader who arranged the shipment. The shipper had listed the materials inside the containers as, “packages of glass wool and pallets of stone," but when Nigerian security service personnel opened the containers, they found rockets, bullets, mortars and other weapons under a thin layer of floor tiles.
In the past, Hamas and Iran have sought to bring weapons into Gaza through smuggling routes that wind along the east coast of Africa from the Sudan, north into Egypt. From there, they arrive in Gaza through tunnels under the border with Egypt. But, these routes have grown more difficult as Israel and Egypt crack down on weapons shipments.
“They [Hamas and Iran] were under heavy pressure by the Egyptians,” Yoram Schweitzer, head of the Terror Project at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, told The Media Line. “These routes are under strict supervision, and there is probably some international political pressure as well.”
Israeli warplanes reportedly bombed a caravan of trucks in Sudan that were transporting weapons to Hamas in January 2009, although Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement. The United States could be monitoring the situation, as well.
“They are aware of American capabilities to intercept arms on the east coast of Africa,” said Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.
Bar said Iran has infrastructure in Nigeria, which makes it a prime spot to turn to for its smuggling operations. “They have more assets there than in Egypt and the security is weaker,” he told The Media Line.
Hamas has its own rocket workshops in Gaza where it manufactures simple, short-range Qassams, which constituted the mainstay of Hamas’ arsenal when it confronted Israel in the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead. Qassams have a range of about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), which limits targets to mostly empty and agricultural land adjacent to the Gaza Strip.
No matter how much Hamas beefs up its inventory of Qassams, short-range rockets like the Qassam won’t significantly improve the group’s fighting capabilities, according to Bar. “The real game changer,” he said, would be surface-to-air missiles that threaten Israeli control of the skies over Gaza.
Without the ability to upgrade its weapons technology in Gaza, Hamas is seeking longer-range and more sophisticated rockets from abroad, analysts said.
“They want to upgrade their capabilities so they can strike further into Israel and possibly strike at our air traffic,” Bar said. “But there is nothing specific in this shipment to change the strategic balance.”
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said October 20 that Israel believes Hamas, in fact, has obtained surface-to-air strike capability. However, van Creveld, of The Hebrew University, told The Media Line it was likely they would only be capable of hitting helicopters. Jets, which are the key to Israel’s control of Gaza skies, are out of range for Hamas fighters for the time being, he said.
While this smuggling attempt failed, Hamas and Iran will continue their efforts to smuggle weapons into Gaza, analysts said.
“This is a permanent agenda they have,” Schweitzer said. “I don’t think this will deter them from trying to procure weapons in other venues in the future.”
Accused Kenyan Minister William Ruto is Suspended
Report From Reuters
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Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki on Tuesday suspended Higher Education Minister William Ruto after high court judges ruled Ruto should stand trial over corruption allegations, the president's press service (PPS) said.
Ruto, who spearheaded a "No" campaign against a new constitution in August, steps aside with immediate effect pending the conclusion of the court case, PPS said in an emailed statement.
It was not immediately possible to reach Ruto, who has said he intends to contest the 2012 presidential vote, on his mobile phone.
Anti-graft campaigners applauded Kibaki's move but some said Ruto's suspension did not signal any determination by the fragile coaliton government to crack down on corruption.
"This is really people deciding to take William Ruto down a notch because there are other ministers who have been recommended for investigation and no prosecutions have been brought against them," Mwalimu Mati, head of the anti-corruption watchdog Mars Group Kenya told Reuters.
"It is just because of Ruto's opposition to the two principals during the referendum and his efforts to become a king-pin, so they are probably just fighting back a bit," Mati said.
Ruto will keep his parliamentary seat. Kenya's new basic law allows legislators facing corruption charges to stay in office until any eventual conviction is handed down and all possible appeals are exhausted.
Kenya's anti-graft czar Patrick Lumumba told Reuters on Tuesday he would wage war on corrupt officials before the next election to prevent a repeat of major financial scams that have financed previous votes in East Africa's largest economy.
PRESIDENTIAL BID HURT?
Last week, the high court ruled Ruto should face charges over a scam in which a state firm was defrauded through the sale of forest land.
Ruto had applied to the high court for a restraining order against the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission, which filed a complaint against him for selling a piece of forest land just outside of the capital to the Kenya Pipeline Company for 96 million shillings nine years ago.
He petitioned the court to strike the case on grounds that his fundamental rights were being violated.
Prime Minister Raila Odinga tried to suspend Ruto earlier this year when he was agriculture minister in connection with a subsidized maize scam, but Odinga was blocked by Kibaki.
Odinga and Ruto were close political allies in the 2007 poll but have since fallen out.
Analysts said Kenya's judiciary was a slow moving beast and the pending trial would likely damage Ruto's election credentials.
"I don't see his presidential bid going anywhere so long as he is in court. Outside his home province or where he has fanatical support, I don't see anyone voting for someone facing corruption charges because people will be running on the anti-corruption mandate," said Mati.
ICC To Proceed With Bemba War Crimes Trial
The International Criminal Court (ICC) Has Agreed to Pursue The War Crimes Trial Of DR Congo's Former Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba.
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An appeals panel at the court in The Hague rejected an appeal from his lawyers to dismiss the case.
Mr Bemba is accused of leading militias in neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR) in 2002 and 2003.
The troops, which intervened in a power struggle in CAR, are accused of murdering and raping civilians.
But Mr Bemba has argued that he was not in command of the militia after it crossed the border.
Mr Bemba was arrested in Belgium in 2008 and extradited to The Hague.
In his appeal, defence lawyers had argued that Mr Bemba had already been investigated in CAR and could not be prosecuted twice for the same crime.
However, in her ruling ICC appeals judge Anita Usacka said a court of appeal in CAR had upheld the charges against Mr Bemba and referred the case to the ICC.
Judge Usacka said the panel confirmed the decision of an ICC hearing in June that the trial was admissible, and dismissed Mr Bemba's appeal.
Charges 'political'
Mr Bemba led a militia known as the Movement for the Liberation of Congo during DR Congo's brutal civil war.
After a peace deal ended the war in 2003, he laid down his arms and joined an interim government as vice-president.
Mr Bemba lost a run-off election against Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila in 2006.
One of his defence lawyers has suggested that the charges against him may be politically motivated to remove Mr Bemba from future elections.
ICC judges had been waiting for Tuesday's ruling before setting a trial date.
Sudan Objects to UN Plans For New Border Troops
BBC Report
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The Sudanese government has said the UN cannot move new troops to its tense North-South border without its consent.
It comes after the UN's peacekeeping chief said troops would be sent to "hotspots" at the request of the semi-autonomous South's president.
There is growing tension in the country in the run-up to a referendum on Southern independence due to be held in January, correspondents say.
The referendum was part of a 2005 peace deal that ended the civil war.
On Friday, UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said the UN force would increase its presence along the 2,000km (1,250 mile) border.
He said the increase would be limited to "hotspots" and that the UN could not create a full "buffer zone" between the regions.
Officials at the UN said the decision had been made following an appeal from South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, who was concerned the North was preparing for war.
But President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's security adviser, Salah Gosh, rejected the plan, saying troops could not be deployed without the consent of the government.
Ibrahim Ghandour, another leading politician in Mr Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP), said any tension in the region could be sorted out between the two sides, so a buffer zone between North and South was not necessary.
The BBC's James Copnall in Khartoum says there has been a surge in inflammatory statements in recent weeks in Sudan, as the referendum approaches.
There is also a huge argument about who can vote in a second referendum, in which the oil-producing region of Abyei will decide on whether to join the North or the South, our correspondent adds.
Sudan is divided between the mainly Muslim and Arab-speaking North, and the South, where most people are Christian or follow traditional religions.
Many in Sudan are concerned the ongoing tensions around the referendum will see the country return to civil war.
The last North-South conflict lasted two decades and left two million people dead.
Could 'Goldilocks' Planet Be Just Right For Life?
Not A Very Interesting Name And It's A Beautiful Planet
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Astronomers say they have for the first time spotted a planet beyond our own in what is sometimes called the Goldilocks zone for life: Not too hot, not too cold. Just right.
Not too far from its star, not too close. So it could contain liquid water. The planet itself is neither too big nor too small for the proper surface, gravity and atmosphere.
It's just right. Just like Earth.
"This really is the first Goldilocks planet," said co-discoverer R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
The new planet sits smack in the middle of what astronomers refer to as the habitable zone, unlike any of the nearly 500 other planets astronomers have found outside our solar system. And it is in our galactic neighborhood, suggesting that plenty of Earth-like planets circle other stars.
Finding a planet that could potentially support life is a major step toward answering the timeless question: Are we alone?
Scientists have jumped the gun before on proclaiming that planets outside our solar system were habitable only to have them turn out to be not quite so conducive to life. But this one is so clearly in the right zone that five outside astronomers told The Associated Press it seems to be the real thing.
"This is the first one I'm truly excited about," said Penn State University's Jim Kasting. He said this planet is a "pretty prime candidate" for harboring life.
Life on other planets doesn't mean E.T. Even a simple single-cell bacteria or the equivalent of shower mold would shake perceptions about the uniqueness of life on Earth.
But there are still many unanswered questions about this strange planet. It is about three times the mass of Earth, slightly larger in width and much closer to its star — 14 million miles away versus 93 million. It's so close to its version of the sun that it orbits every 37 days. And it doesn't rotate much, so one side is almost always bright, the other dark.
Temperatures can be as hot as 160 degrees or as frigid as 25 degrees below zero, but in between — in the land of constant sunrise — it would be "shirt-sleeve weather," said co-discoverer Steven Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
It's unknown whether water actually exists on the planet, and what kind of atmosphere it has. But because conditions are ideal for liquid water, and because there always seems to be life on Earth where there is water, Vogt believes "that chances for life on this planet are 100 percent."
The astronomers' findings are being published in Astrophysical Journal and were announced by the National Science Foundation on Wednesday.
The planet circles a star called Gliese 581. It's about 120 trillion miles away, so it would take several generations for a spaceship to get there. It may seem like a long distance, but in the scheme of the vast universe, this planet is "like right in our face, right next door to us," Vogt said in an interview.
That close proximity and the way it was found so early in astronomers' search for habitable planets hints to scientists that planets like Earth are probably not that rare.
Vogt and Butler ran some calculations, with giant fudge factors built in, and figured that as much as one out of five to 10 stars in the universe have planets that are Earth-sized and in the habitable zone.
With an estimated 200 billion stars in the universe, that means maybe 40 billion planets that have the potential for life, Vogt said. However, Ohio State University's Scott Gaudi cautioned that is too speculative about how common these planets are.
Vogt and Butler used ground-based telescopes to track the star's precise movements over 11 years and watch for wobbles that indicate planets are circling it. The newly discovered planet is actually the sixth found circling Gliese 581. Two looked promising for habitability for a while, another turned out to be too hot and the fifth is likely too cold. This sixth one bracketed right in the sweet spot in between, Vogt said.
With the star designated "a," its sixth planet is called Gliese 581g.
"It's not a very interesting name and it's a beautiful planet," Vogt said. Unofficially, he's named it after his wife: "I call it Zarmina's World."
The star Gliese 581 is a dwarf, about one-third the strength of our sun. Because of that, it can't be seen without a telescope from Earth, although it is in the Libra constellation, Vogt said.
But if you were standing on this new planet, you could easily see our sun, Butler said.
The low-energy dwarf star will live on for billions of years, much longer than our sun, he said. And that just increases the likelihood of life developing on the planet, the discoverers said.
"It's pretty hard to stop life once you give it the right conditions," Vogt said.
UN relief as Rwanda 'drops Darfur peacekeeper threat'
New subtitle
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UN chief Ban Ki-moon has thanked Rwanda for dropping its threat to withdraw peacekeepers from Darfur.
Rwanda was furious after a leaked report accused its troops of committing genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The threat to the UN force in Darfur prompted Mr Ban to make an emergency trip to Rwanda earlier this month.
After the leak, the publication of the report into the DR Congo conflict was delayed until Friday.
This was to allow Rwanda to add its comments.
Mr Ban met Rwanda's President Paul Kagame on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Sunday.
"The secretary-general said he was very satisfied to learn that Rwanda would continue its important role in peacekeeping, especially in Darfur," a UN spokesman said afterwards.
The joint UN-African Union force in Sudan's Darfur region is led by Rwandan Lt Gen Patrick Nyamyumba. Rwanda has some 3,300 soldiers and 86 police serving with the force, known as Unamid.
It has also some 200 troops in a separate force in Southern Sudan.
When the report was first leaked, Rwanda dismissed it as "malicious" and "ridiculous" and said it would review its co-operation with the UN.
The draft of the 600-page probe accuses Rwandan troops and their Congolese rebel allies of killing tens of thousands of ethnic Hutus after invading DR Congo in 1996.
"The systematic and widespread attacks described in this report... reveal a number of
damning elements that, if they were proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of genocide," it states.
The accusation of genocide against Rwanda's current government is extremely sensitive as Mr Kagame came to power as the head of a rebel force fighting the regime which carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.
Some of those responsible fled into DR Congo, where Rwandan troops loyal to Mr Kagame, a Tutsi, pursued them.
The UN report said many of those killed by the Rwandan troops were Hutu civilians, rather than fighters.
Analysts say the draft report was leaked to prevent Rwanda lobbying for it to be amended before publication.
Rwanda's 1996 invasion of DR Congo started years of conflict in that country which left some four million people dead and involved the armies of at least eight African countries and numerous rebel groups.
Gyude Bryant: Charges Dropped Against Liberia Ex-leader
A Major Wrong Has Been Corrected
All charges have been dropped against Liberia's former president Gyude Bryant, who governed after the end of the civil war in 2003.
Mr Bryant faced charges of economic sabotage and theft of property.
He had also been accused of embezzling more than $1m (£660,000) when he was head of the interim government, but that charge was dropped last year.
"A major wrong has been corrected," Mr Bryant told the.
"I have always said from day one that I was innocent of all charges."
After Charles Taylor agreed to step down in 2003, Mr Bryant led a power-sharing government, including rebel groups and Taylor loyalists for two-and-a-half years.
He handed over to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's first female elected head of state.
Mr Taylor is on trial in The Hague for war crimes allegedly committed in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
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