Central African Republic (CAR)
President Francois Bozize has appointed the rector of the University of Bangui as premier. Faustin Archange Touadera will succeed PM Elie Dote who tendered the resignation of his cabinet last week. Touadera has been ordered to form a new cabinet to address the social crisis in the CAR. Government workers and teachers have been on strike since early this year to force the government to pay their back wages. Despite the change in government, the unions called for a national protest Jan. 23 and a general strike Jan. 24. Bozize has threatened to use violence if necessary to suppress the protests. (Radio Netherlands)
Congo (DRC)
World Bank forestry projects in the Congo (DRC) ignored the rights of indigenous pygmies and overestimated the benefits of industrial logging in reducing poverty, the bank itself said in a report that concluded internal guidelines had been breached. The report followed complaints by indigenous pygmy groups that the reforms had disregarded the rights of millions of forest-dependent people and ignored the existence of between 250,000 and 600,000 pygmies whose lives depend on the forests. The reforms, the complainants argued, would also lead to violations of their rights to occupy ancestral lands, and use their forests according to traditional practices. (IRIN)
Ethiopia
UN peacekeepers monitoring the disputed border between Ethiopia and Eritrea may have to halt operations within weeks because Eritrea has cut diesel fuel supplies, said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Ban said that as a result of the Dec. 1 stoppage, the mission had only enough fuel to last until early March. Ban called on Afwerki to address the issue "on an urgent basis," otherwise a U.N. decision would have to be taken in early February to begin withdrawing the 1,700-strong United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE). (Reuters)
Kenya
Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga has said for the first time that he is prepared to share power. On the German television station ARD, he says President Mwai Kibaki can stay in office as long as an opposition candidate becomes prime minister. Another condition would be a strengthening of parliament and the judiciary. Odinga's comments come as former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is in Kenya in an attempt to mediate a solution to the crisis. He says people should not expect miracles from his visit. (Radio Netherlands)
Liberia
One of Liberia's most notorious rebel commanders has returned home to confess his crimes, saying his fighters killed 20,000 people during the country's civil war.Joshua Milton Blahyi, also known as General Butt Naked, acknowledges the atrocities in an interview with the Associated Press published this past weekend. Blahyi returned from exile in Ghana to testify before Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission last week. The commission began hearing testimony on the civil war in 2006 with the goal of establishing a full account of wartime atrocities. (VOA)
Mozambique
The World Food Program (WFP) has begun relief flights to central Mozambique, where some 76,000 people have been affected by widespread flooding this month along the Zambezi River valley. A helicopter chartered by the agency flew its first mission yesterday morning, delivering 2.2 tons of mosquito nets, tents and plastic sheeting to the town of Mutarara for use and distribution by UNICEF. The helicopter transported its first consignment of WFP food assistance Jan. 22, carrying 2.5 tons of cereals and pulses to the town of Goligoli, where more than 13,000 people have been displaced from their homes because of floodwaters. (UN News)
Nigeria
Nigerian authorities are searching for the families of 105 abducted children found packed into a minibus. The children, aged between five and 13, were taken from Kano state in the north and discovered by anti-trafficking agents crammed into a 15-seat bus in the northern city of Kaduna, after the driver was stopped at a police checkpoint. The children were piled on top of each other "like sardines" say officials. It is the largest number of trafficked children the authorities have rescued in one incident since efforts began to stop the trade in 2003. (BBC)
Rwanda
Rwanda has launched a campaign to encourage all men to be circumcised, to reduce the risk of catching HIV/AIDS. A health minister told the BBC that soldiers, policemen and students would be asked to come forward first for circumcision. The U.N. World Health Organization (WHO) has said male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexual HIV infection. But correspondents say it is rare in Rwanda where the Christian population, who make up the majority, do not practice it. (BBC)
Senegal
Dubai World Group's Jafza subsidiary signed a USD 800 million deal on Jan. 21 to build and run a special economic zone in Senegal, the latest in a series of Arab investments in the West African country. Dubai World Chairman Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem said construction would start before the end of the year on the first phase of the project, covering 650 hectares next to a planned international airport 45 km (28 miles) from Dakar. (Reuters)
Sierra Leone
A newborn in Sierra Leone has the lowest chance in the world of surviving until age 5, and the prospects are almost as bad for children in Angola and Afghanistan, UNICEF said in its annual report. In 2006, nearly 9.7 million children worldwide died before their fifth birthdays, mostly from preventable causes like diarrhea, malaria or malnutrition, it said, and on average more than 26,000 children under age 5 died each day. Sierra Leone had the highest child mortality rate, with 270 deaths per 1,000 births. Angola was second with 260 deaths, followed by Afghanistan with 257. (NY Times)
Sudan
Armed robberies and bandit attacks on aid convoys are threatening deliveries of food to more than 2 million people in Darfur, the World Food Program (WFP) said on Jan. 23. Around two-thirds of the population of Darfur depends on the world's largest aid operation, but a collapse in law and order in the vast region has made life difficult for humanitarian workers. Five years of fighting in Darfur has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives and driven 2.5 million from their homes. WFP officials are calling on the Sudanese government to make sure the roads are safe. (Reuters)
Zambia
Zambia has mobilized its army to clear drainage systems in major cities amid fears torrential rains and flooding may lead to outbreaks of cholera and other deadly diseases, a government official said on Jan 23. Zambia, like Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, has been lashed by heavy rains for several weeks. Swollen rivers have burst their banks, killing dozens and forcing thousands of villagers to flee flooded homes. Floods also have destroyed bridges and roads and swept away livestock and crops. (Reuters)
Zanzibar
Using a cocktail of drugs may help doctors more effectively treat three of the world's most common parasitic diseases, researchers working in Zanzibar reported on Jan. 23. The drugs treat elephantiasis, soil-transmitted worms and schistomiasis. All the treatments are known to be effective but the impact of delivering them all at once was not known. The WHO has long recommended the coordinated delivery of drugs to tackle neglected tropical diseases, but the number of treatments has so far been limited to two because of safety concerns over potential side-effects. (Reuters)
Zimbabwe
A Zimbabwe court on Jan. 23 upheld a police ban on an opposition demonstration to press President Robert Mugabe to adopt a new constitution ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for March. The court ruled they could hold a rally in a stadium, after police had said street protests could turn violent. Police released Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, hours after taking him away in the middle of the night for questioning about the planned demonstration, his lawyer said. His group, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), launched a legal challenge to the police ban. (Reuters)