A Rwandan court rejected a lawsuit brought by captured Congo rebel leader Laurent Nkunda seeking his release. Nkunda may be extradited to Congo, or to The Hague to face war crimes charges.
At least seven were killed and 15 wounded as a clan militia in the southern Somalia town of Bulo Haji fought Shabaab insurgents who attacked the village. It is uncertain who is now in control.
The Somali parliament voted to adopt Islamic sharia law as part of a cease-fire agreement with the country’s Hizb al-Islamiya and al-Shabaab rebels.
As the US prepares a new initiative to crack down on Somali pirates, going after the pirate bases in Puntland may provide the pretext for putting an end to the region’s hard-won autonomy.
A Navy missile destroyer, the USS Bainbridge, has arrived to help end an ongoing standoff between Somali pirates and their American hostage off the coast of Somalia.
Hundreds of families in Somalia’s self-declared republic of Somaliland have fled inter-clan fighting, in a conflict dating to the enclave’s independence struggle in the late 1980s.
Twenty years after a military regime killed hundreds of mostly black Mauritanians, another military government is promising to compensate their families. While some victims’ associations welcome reparations, other affected families and many NGOs say compensation equals impunity
An airstrike on a convoy of arm smugglers in Sudan in January was launched by Israel and not US, according to growing reports. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert boasted: “We operate everywhere.”
Osama bin Laden called on Somali militants to overthrow the country’s new President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed—despite his plan to implement sharia law as a measure to appease the insurgents.
Israel’s ambassador to Ethiopia charged that Eritrea is trying to destabilize the peace process in the Horn of Africa, and serving as a save haven for terrorist groups.
The African Union, after initially calling it an “attempted coup,” issued a new statement accepting the military’s installation of opposition leader Andry Rajoelina as president of Madagascar. ExxonMobil, the French Total and Rio Tinto Group have oil and mineral interests in Madagascar, which has rich deposits of iron ore and bauxite. Investors have hailed Ravalomanana’s free-market reforms, while Rajoelina accused him of running Madagascar like a dictator, while letting his people starve. Most of the island’s population lives on less than $2 a day.
Photo: IRIN
Libya-brokered talks between the military junta and opposition broke down in Mauritania—while former Black slaves protest that laws abolishing slavery in the country have had little effect.
