ZIMBABWE GETS $950 MILLION CREDIT FROM CHINA

Zimbabwe has secured $950 million in credit lines from China to help rebuild the country’s economy, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said on Tuesday. Zimbabwe has appealed to the world for a “financial stimulus package” for its devastated economy, saying lack of foreign support put a recovery plan drawn up by the unity government in peril.
The [...]

RAI STAR UNDER TRIAL FOR FORCED FRENCH ABORTION

Algerian singer Cheb Mami is to stand trial in France over allegations that he forced a former partner to undergo an attempted abortion. Cheb Mami, whose real name is Mohammed Khalifati, was arrested at Orly airport in Paris on Monday.
The singer, 42, is credited with bringing Algeria’s popular Rai music to an international audience. He [...]

NIGER COURT DISSOLUTION ‘A COUP’

An opposition leader in Niger has accused the president of carrying out a “coup d’etat”, by dissolving the country’s highest court. Bazoum Mohamed of the PNDS party told the BBC that President Mamadou Tandja did not have the right to scrap the court and suspend the constitution.
The court has three times ruled against the president’s [...]

SOMALI ISLAMISTS REBEL THREATEN TO ATTACK ETHIOPIA

Somalia’s Islamist rebels threatened on Tuesday to attack Ethiopia after repeated witness reports that Ethiopian troops were back in the chaotic Horn of Africa country they withdrew from in January. Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia in 2006 to oust an Islamist movement from the capital in which new President Sheik Sharif Ahmed played a role. That [...]

PRESIDENT YAR’ADUA ORDERS AMNESTY FOR HENRY OKAH

Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua told his interior minister on Monday immediately to meet rebel leader Henry Okah, who is on trial for gun-running and treason, and offer him amnesty. Yar’Adua offered a 60-day amnesty on Thursday to gunmen in the Niger Delta, including Okah, who have been responsible for pipeline bombings, attacks on oil and [...]

YEMINI PLANE CRASHES IN INDIAN OCEAN, BODIES FOUND

An Airbus A310-300 from Yemen with 153 people on board crashed into choppy seas as it tried to land in bad weather on the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros on Tuesday, officials said.An official from the state carrier Yemenia said some bodies had been recovered from the wreck. The official could not say whether there [...]

MDC MINISTERS BOYCOTTED CABINET MEETING

Ministers from Zimbabwe’s ex-opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have boycotted a cabinet meeting chaired by President Robert Mugabe. The meeting, usually held on a Tuesday, was brought forward as Mr Mugabe is off to Libya for an African Union summit. When Mr Mugabe is away, MDC leader and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai chairs the [...]

STRIKING NURSES IN ZAMBIA DEFY GOVERNMENT SACK THREAT

Striking nurses in Zambia have defied a government deadline to return to work or face dismissal. They have been on strike for more than three weeks demanding an increase in pay and a variety of allowances. Unions have also urged them to return to work as the government says it will only negotiate if the [...]

FIRST HINI FLU VIRUS CASE CONFIRM IN KENYA

Kenya has detected its first case of the new H1N1 influenza virus in a 20-year-old British student, Public Health Minister Beth Mugo said on Monday. “This is the first confirmed case of H1N1 in Kenya,” she told a news conference.
A group of 30 students has been quarantined in a hotel in city of Kisumu in [...]

MADAGASCAR’S OUSTED LEADER RESIGNS TO CONTEST IN NEW POLL

Mauritania’s ousted president has formally resigned and put in place a new unity government under a deal with the soldiers who toppled him to allow a presidential election next month.
The election is meant to restore democracy after a coup in the iron ore-producing Sahara desert state last August that was condemned by donors and [...]