mostly AFRICA

-- Mauritania: opposition leader formally charged
-- Kenya: ex-MP charged with murder of Somali peace delegate
-- Nigeria: Obasanjo says Mugabe not invited to Commonwealth Summit
-- Nigeria: Obasanjo would "persuade" Taylor to stand trial

Opposition leader, Mohamed Ould Haidallah and 15 others (including his son) have been formally charged with "conspiring to destroy the state" and other charges along the same vein.

Haidallah challenged President Maaouiya Ould Taya in elections earlier this month ... and obviously, Haidallah lost. The opposition claims there was fraud.

According to this Reuters story, the Justice Ministry spokesperson said the trial could take place before Dec. 9 ... the same story also quotes unnamed officials as saying the trial could begin as soon as next Monday.

Haidallah was arrested the day before the Nov 7 elections, released, then arrested again two days after the election.

Haidallah is a former president ... he took power in a 1979 coup ... then five years later, he in turn was overthrown in a coup led by the current president Taya.

There was a coup attempt this past June and Taya is still a bit jumpy.

Here is an AP piece on how Taya is cracking down on the Islamists in his country ... the piece argues that Taya "... is courting continuing American approval at the risk of an Islamic backlash."

A Kenyan politician has been charged with the murder of a delegate at the ongoing Somali peace talks in Nairobi.

Adan Keynan is alleged to have killed Sheikh Ibrahim Ali Abdulleh. The ex-MP, who is also of Somali origin, denies the charges saying they are political.

... Early this month, Ahmed Rashid Mohamed, another delegate at the talks was also killed. (link)

``He will not have an invitation,'' Obasanjo said of Mugabe. ``He can come on a bilateral basis, but not during'' the summit. (link)

This article has a bit more meat on Obasanjo's statements about Taylor too.

Nigeria would hand over former Liberian President Charles Taylor to Liberia if that country wanted to try him for war crimes, President Olusegun Obasanjo said Tuesday.

...But Obasanjo said he would "persuade him" to go to Liberia if that country sought to try him.

"If Liberia asks him to come home and face something I believe he will understand sufficiently the need to go," he told foreign journalists at his farm near Lagos. (link)

-- Iraq: thousands of teachers fired
-- DRC: Mobutu's son returns to Kinchasa
-- Kenya: likely to cut more civil servant jobs
-- Nigeria: teaching "discipline" through the courts
-- Libya: US to review Libya travel ban every 90 days
-- Uganda: anti-LRA community militia
-- Uganda: Amin's son threatens to track down LRA leader

I just saw this story ... according to UPI, the Iraqi CPA has fired 28,000 teachers as part of its anti-Baath Party measures.

A Central Command spokesman, speaking to UPI from Baghdad, acknowledged that the firings had taken place but said the figure of 28,000 "is too high."

He was unable, however, after two days, to supply UPI with a lower, revised total.

Another notable de-bathification effort.... 400,000 Iraqi soldiers were disbanded ... 400,000 soldiers (who know how to use weapons) are now jobless.

First Amin's son ... and now Mobutu's ...

Manda Mobutu, 43, was welcomed at the airport by 200 cheering supporters, reports Reuters news agency.

He fled when his father was ousted in 1997 after a 32-year rule of notorious corruption and brutality.

An aide said that Manda's Rally party would contest elections due in 2005 but did not say if Manda would run himself.

Manda is seeking to have his father's body repatriated from Morocco, where he died in 1997. (link)

Last Friday, the IMF ended a three-year freeze on foreign aid by granting Kenya a $252.8 million loan. They had stopped giving Kenya money because of the high level of corruption in the country.

And now the World Bank wants the country to cut the number of civil servants...

Speaking at a donor consultative group meeting in Nairobi, World Bank country director Makhtar Diop said Kenya had more civil servants than other African countries and one of the largest number of parastatals [state owned companies].

He, however, said the demand to make the Government less bloated and more efficient should not be seen as coming from donor countries.

The issue had been raised by President Kibaki himself and was part of the Narc manifesto, he said.

Bola Tinubu, the [Lagos] state governor, has introduced a campaign known as the "Kick Against Indiscipline", which employs mobile courtrooms and marshals in lime-green shirts to dispense instant justice to citizens who block drains, drop litter or relieve themselves in public.

"We are saving Lagosians from themselves," claims Babatunde Ogungbamila, a Lagos state government adviser. "We are saving them from their own bad habits."

... State officials are keen to play down parallels with the regime of General Muhammadu Buhari, a dictator in the mid-1980s who claimed he would arrest the country's social decline - and clean up Lagos - through a "war on indiscipline".

Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian author, has written of the time as a darkly farcical period featuring compulsory sanitation days and punishment for misdemeanours that included horsewhipping, forcing people to squat with their hands on their ears and hopping on the spot, frog-style. (link)

Lagos has a population of 13.4 million and was the capital of Nigeria until 1991 when the capital was moved Abuja ... mainly because of the trash and the chaos of Lagos.

As the article goes on to say ... the idea of improving Lagos is welcomed but the fines are high for people who are incredibly poor ($7.50 for littering) ... and facilities are poor (only 10% receive satisfactory trash pick-up service).

The United States said on Monday it would renew the ban on U.S. citizens visiting Libya for a year but would review it every three months, a signal Washington could ease some sanctions if Tripoli addressed U.S. concerns on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

... "Accordingly, all United States passports shall remain invalid for travel to, in, or through Libya unless specifically validated for such travel under the authority of the Secretary of State," he added. "The Department of State will review this restriction every three months while it remains in effect." (link)

Musa Ecweru, a member of parliament, has helped build a community-based milita group to counter the Lord's Resistance Army. And it appears to be working.

His men crushed an attempt by the LRA in June this year to expand its operations to Teso, Ecweru's home, after analysing what he calls the LRA's tactics of creating ''terror corridors.''

''The LRA has survived by maximum brutality which creates terror. This displaces people and creates a vacuum or corridor where they can roam at will,'' he said.

Ecweru says he has succeeded because he recruited scouts from the community who, unlike army troops, actually speak the local language [Acholi]. Another factor was that the [Teso] community, never having been beaten into despair by the LRA, retained a strong will to survive and strongly backed his so-called ''Arrow'' force [by providing intelligence etc...].

[all inserts between brackets are mine]

And the militia group has the support of the government ... its members are paid by the government.

About a week back, President Museveni ordered that the Arrow Group in Teso and the Amuka Group in Lango, be paid Shs 1.5 billion in back pay. But this partnership is not without its critics.

The payment of militia fighters has been a contentious issue. Some people claimed that militia commanders had misappropriated about Shs 2 billion released to facilitate operations.

Ecweru said the proposed payment has excited militia fighters, each of whom earns Shs 60,000 monthly.

So how many milita fighters are there?

My guess (based on some basic math) ... Shs 1.5 billion in back pay, Shs 60,000 monthly salary, and the pay being 3 months in arrears ... there are about 8,400 militia members.

Note this is a rough guess cause there are a few other militia groups and I'm not sure if they figure into this back pay scheme. Also, the Arrow Group by itself has about 7,000 members ... sooo ... let me know if you figure it out.

One more thing ... a few weeks back, there was a report that 'Brigadier' Charles Tabuley, the LRA's second in command, had been killed by government forces during fighting in the Teso region. However ...

Eresu said he saw Tabuley being killed. He said there's no way Tabuley could be alive. Tabuley was reportedly killed in an ambush on October 29. However, one Isaac Ochola who escaped from rebel captivity told The Monitor that Tabuley was not killed. (link)

Taban Amin, former rebel and son of the late dictator Idi Amin, has called on Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army to give up the fight. Amin appeared on a radio show and sent this warning to Kony ... "If you do not want to come out of the bush and you think you can continue hiding in Sudan, I will hunt you from wherever you will hide."

Amin and his 2,500 fighters recently took advantage of an amnesty law to emerge from their base in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The bill's final language was not completed, but committee aides said [House] lawmakers softened Senate-passed provisions that would have cut off aid to Nigeria and Serbia and Montenegro if they did not turn over two figures wanted for war crimes.

The bill eases the threat of sanctions, but urges Nigeria to surrender exiled former Liberian President Charles Taylor to a war crimes tribunal, and Serbia to cooperate in turning over Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb army commander blamed for ordering the massacre of 7,000 Muslims at Srebrenica. (link)

Here is the last post on the issue.

A few days ago, Algerian newspapers reported that security forces have arrested Rachid Abou Tourab, head of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA).

But ... (there is a but) ...

But the security forces have neither confirmed nor denied the reports, which are not the first to say that a hardline extremist leader has been captured or even killed in Algeria.

The Press reported in July that Abou Tourab was one of 15 armed Islamic extremists killed during a security forces operation in the Tamezguida forest, known to be a GIA stronghold in the Medea region, south of Algiers. Algerian newspapers had also reported the death of Abou Tourab’s predecessor, Antar Zouabri, several times before he was confirmed killed in a gun battle with security forces in the town of Boufarik, south of Algiers.

Yay good news...

Giving the [European Union Observer] mission's preliminary assessment at a Maputo press conference on Friday, its leader, Jose Mendiluce, said that the voting "from the opening of the polling stations through to the count went absolutely normally, and the secrecy of the vote was guaranteed".

11 women MPs walked into chambers carrying their handbags ...

The action caused an uproar, with Mr Raphael Wanjala (Budalangi, Narc) demanding that the Speaker address the issue.

"Mr Speaker Sir, is it in order for the women to carry their handbags. They could be carrying offensive weapons," he said.

... Water Development Minister Martha Karua said ... men MPs could too be carrying offensive weapons in their pockets.

And the women MPs staged a walkout in protest. The anti-handbag rule was instituted months ago ... because handbags can be used to carry something dangerous into the chambers.

lol

The Nigerian government is trying to get back $3 billion (or $4 billion, depending on your source) which was stashed in European banks by the late dictator Sani Abacha ... $640 million of that is in Swiss banks. The Swiss had agreed to return the cash as long as it was used for infrastructure projects ... however ...

... Swiss justice ministry said the money could not be released yet for procedural reasons.

The ministry added that the $640 million blocked in Swiss bank accounts was also subject to a investigation at a Geneva court into fraud and money laundering, and could not be released without the court's agreement.

Last post on this story here.

MPs from north and east Uganda, worst hit by a 17-year brutal rebellion, are boycotting parliament until the security situation improves.

...Cecilia Ogwal, MP for Lira, scene of several recent attacks, said President Yoweri Museveni should call for international help or resign, reports The Monitor newspaper. (link)

Ghanaian President John Kufuor hosted talks between Ivorian PM Seydou Diarra and Soro Guillaume, Sec. Gen. of the rebel "New Forces" ... nothing happened.

The man is 77 years old ... and according to reports, he's in good health. I don't know how much you can read into today's incident but it's certainly a good reminder that he's mortal.

President Hosni Mubarak interrupted a nationally televised speech for some 45 minutes on Wednesday because of what were described as minor health problems, the unusual pause underscoring the fact that he has never designated a successor.

Senior cabinet ministers moved quickly to assure the nation that a combination of flu, antibiotics and the daily fast of Ramadan had momentarily felled the Egyptian leader, who returned to the podium in Parliament to finish his speech.

... He was almost all the way through his speech when his words suddenly slurred, he coughed and he appeared to lean on the lectern for support. The cameraman for the state-run Egyptian television pulled away and then the picture was cut, but the sound continued and shouting could be heard from the parliamentary chamber.

After a brief pause the television began broadcasting pictures from the early days of his presidency combined with songs praising him, convincing some viewers that he had died.

And who would succeed Mubarak if he were to pass away ... this Atlantic Monthly article offers profiles of the two men most likely to take over ... Mubarak's son Gamal and Omar Suleiman, the intelligence chief (also mediator with the Palestinians).

Nigeria's National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has ordered that anti-retrovial drugs be withdrawn because the stuff out there has expired or is about to expire.

The WHO has confirmed there's an Ebola outbreak in the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) ... and since the outbreak is in an area near the border with Gabon, health officials there are on high alert. Last year, an Ebola outbreak in Gabon killed 53 people.

So a report that the National Institute of Health has begun human testing of an Ebola vaccine offers some measure of good news.

The experimental DNA vaccine is synthesized using modified, inactivated genes from the Ebola virus. Because it does not contain any infectious material from the Ebola virus, recipients cannot get the disease, said Dr. Gary Nabel, who directs the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in Bethesda, Maryland.

Researchers plan to test the vaccine on 27 people aged 18 to 44. They are expected to receive three injections of either the experimental vaccine or a placebo at the institute over a two-month period. Then they will be monitored for one year.

But they're having trouble getting people to volunteer for the trial. They only have two of the 27 volunteers they need.

"People freak out about Ebola," said Margaret McCluskey, the director of nursing at the NIH's vaccine research center ....

Uhhh ... yah!

One of the volunteers is a gardner who works in McCluskey's neighbourhood ... and another is a nurse at the NIH.

There's some really interesting info in this press release from the NIH.

A gap of two decades separated the first Ebola epidemic of 1976 and the next, which arose in 1995. In recent years, for reasons unknown, outbreaks of Ebola are occurring with increasing frequency.