TRADITIONAL DRINK UNITES UGANDANS !

Traditional drink unites Ugandans.
By Barney Afako BBC Focus On Africa magazine.

Mato oput literally means "drinking the bitter root" A bitter drink known as mato oput by the Acholi people of northern Ugandan may have the ingredients for peace between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
Mato oput is the ritual climax of an Acholi justice process for bringing reconciliation in the wake of a homicide within the community.
This ceremony was placed on the agenda of peace talks held in the southern Sudanese capital, Juba, reflecting the earnest search for alternatives to address the grave crimes which have characterised two decades of war in northern Uganda.
Apart from the killings, abductions, rapes and sexual enslavement of children, the war has inflicted a humanitarian disaster on the region, with more than a million huddled into the squalor and degradation of camps.
Having seen the LRA escape to neighbouring DR Congo and UN troops abort a mission to arrest suspects - including LRA leader Joseph Kony - Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni has said the LRA should instead acknowledge their crimes to victims and subject themselves to traditional justice within Uganda.
Uganda's Amnesty Act, introduced six years ago, provides a legal framework for this. It recognises traditional justice mechanisms like mato oput, and promotes community reconciliation.
Reparation to victims
Under the act, rebels must genuinely abandon and renounce their crimes. Over 17,000 have already done so and are being reintegrated into their communities.
Like many African communities, the Acholi believe that deep social rifts are caused by killings and require elaborate reconciliation mechanisms to restore fractured relations.

The LRA has begun returning to neutral camps under the truceMato oput is performed after a mediated process has brought together two families and clans.
The offender accepts responsibility, asks for forgiveness and must make reparation to the victims.
The perpetrator and the victim's family then share the root drink from a calabash, to recall and bury the bitterness of the soured relations.
Another Acholi ritual, gomo tong - the bending of spears - symbolises the ending of hostilities between groups and is also preceded by discussion and truth-telling.
Other cleansing rituals are already used to welcome former LRA combatants into the communities.
This option, however, is threatened by the war crimes indictments issued by International Criminal Court for four senior LRA commanders.
After the disempowerment and indignity inflicted by war, Ugandans are now seeking an active role in resolving this conflict which has torn apart the fabric of their lives and reduced them to observers of their own fate.
In opting for participatory local justice within their communities they are re-asserting lost dignity.
None of these are perfect processes, and neither are they beyond improvement.
Everywhere tradition is adapted to answer more complex modern needs; this affirms Africa's confidence in her ingenuity and rich heritage.
Formal justice
But there are increasing signs that Africans are confidently re-visiting their past.
In Uganda, human rights violations have been credibly attributed to the army and auxiliaries operating in the war zones as well as to the rebels.
However, thorough investigations and timely, fair prosecutions have been all too rare.
Beyond individual violations, the Ugandan government's policies also bear direct political responsibility for the long failure to end the war.
While mato oput can address individual offences of non-state actors, it is not a suitable vehicle for probing the state's failures and violations.
Ugandans want to see these national issues addressed publicly within the country, not only in Juba.
For too long conflicts have held back African hopes. Victims have been helpless to stop abusive armies and warlords.
Ending war is an absolute priority for today's victims and for future generations. Yet insisting on formal justice could easily thwart peace efforts.
Uganda should demonstrate that ideological and procedural tensions between international criminal justice and the continent's aspirations for local solutions to its problems can be resolved without condoning impunity.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GAMBIAN PITFALLS OF KORA POLITICS!

Gambian pitfalls of kora politics.
By Lucy Fleming BBC News website, Brikama

Pa Bobo is one of Gambia's most popular jalis. Gambian griots find themselves under as much pressure to pluck the right note in praise of the president as journalists to pen Yahya Jammeh's praises.
One such praise singer is Pa Bobo Jobarteh, whose family have been playing koras - the 21-string African harp - since the 18th century.
His ancestors traditionally sang for kings and nobility. Now jalis - as griots are known in The Gambia - are expected to compose for politicians.
"It's not easy for us now. We feel afraid to compose or to sing about opposition politicians," says the 30-year-old musician.
For jalis everyone's equal no matter if you're opposition or president
Pa Bobo Jobarteh
President Jammeh, who came to power in a coup in 1994, has just won a third term in office in the tiny West African country which keeps a tight rein over the media and its critics.
Pa Bobo's most popular song, Gambia Peace, Love and Unity, was commandeered by the president for use in campaigning and he was kept busy during the election period playing the kora at ruling party rallies.
Hot water
A few years ago, however, fellow musician Jaliba Kuyateh found himself in unexpected hot water when an old song he composed for lawyer Ousainou Darboe came back to haunt him.

Kora players play an important cultural role in The Gambia.
Mr Darboe entered the political ring in 1997 to become Mr Jammeh's foremost rival with Jaliba's song as his anthem.
Jaliba had to quickly compose several songs for the president to make political amends.
"The problem is that if you sing for the opposition, they say you're opposition and that's not right. For jalis everyone's equal no matter if you're opposition or the president," says Pa Bobo.
Today jalis still rely on patronage to survive as they receive no royalties from the work they record in The Gambia.
But it is not just from politics that they make their living; the kora plays an important part in all parts of cultural life.
"Without us naming ceremonies cannot work; without us marriages cannot work and a lot of other important things," Pa Bobo says.
Witnesses
He agrees with the late Gambian kora player Jali Nyama Suso that a griot's role in society is akin to that of a journalist.
"We research people's history in order to praise them - like journalists. We tell your histories, we tell you how your parents came here and which people got married. We witness everything," he says.

In a traditional way you don't teach girls the kora. But I have to teach my daughters the kora to make their own way
Pa Bobo JobartehPa Bobo has tasted some international success and has regularly played at the UK's Womad global music festival since he was 11 years old.
But for most of the time he lives in his large family compound in the town of Brikama, home to Gambia's kora industry and to countless other jali families.
They mainly intermarry and the art of making and playing the instruments is passed on from generation to generation.
In concert, griots now use electric guitar heads on the koras, but most of the instruments are made much as they were hundreds of years ago with mahogany, cows' and goats' skins.
The only nod to modernity are the fishing lines used instead of antelope skins for the strings, which has given the sound a slight higher tone, and the drawing pins used to decorate the gourd.
However, Pa Bobo, who has two daughters and a son, intends to break with tradition in one important respect.
"In a traditional way you don't teach girls the kora, but that's not a good idea.
"I see a lot of women suffering in the marriage, so I have to teach my daughters the kora to make their own way," he explains.
"Because if you play the kora, you can always feed yourself."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

AFRICA EXPLORER'S REMAINES EXHUMED!

Africa explorer's remains exhumed
By Mark Doyle World affairs correspondent, BBC News.

The once-rival cities of Brazzaville and Kinshasa are linked by ferry The remains of Pierre de Brazza, the 19th Century French explorer and founder of modern-day Congo, have been exhumed in Algeria.
They will be reburied in three days' time in the Congolese capital, Brazzaville.
It is one of the few African cities that retains the name of its colonial founder.
Brazza was buried in 1905 in Algiers, when Algeria was part of metropolitan France.
His century-old adventure story pits the Frenchman against the envoy of the Belgian crown, Henry Morton Stanley, to capture central Africa.
Both men had different masters but a common aim - to win the 19th Century "Scramble for Africa", that audacious and often cruel race to subjugate a continent.
Mineral riches
The American Stanley, who today is famous for having re-supplied the struggling British explorer David Livingstone, was working for the ambitious King of Belgium, Leopold. Brazza was working for France.

They both wanted to capture the navigable section of the great Congo river - and with it vast territories and fabulous mineral wealth.
In the end, Brazza won the race through uncharted jungles, planting the French flag on the northern shore of the river.
Brazzaville was born. Stanley was forced to the southern shore of Congo river. He founded another city and named it after his royal Belgian backer, and Leopoldville took root.
Today, Brazzaville and Leopoldville, later renamed Kinshasa, are joined by only a short ferry ride.
Brazzaville is the capital of Congo. Kinshasa is the capital of the confusingly named "Democratic Republic of Congo".
Controversy
Brazza's remains will be flown to Brazzaville in a few days time to be reburied in a mausoleum built jointly by the French and Congolese governments.
Some Congolese are critical about the honouring of this controversial figure.
They say Africans have not benefited from the relationship with France.
French and Congolese historians of Brazza's exploits say, however, that by the standards of the day, their man was a humanist who had respectful relationships with African chiefs.
Where possible, they say, he used negotiations rather than force - unlike Stanley, who by most accounts was a brash and violent conqueror.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

"BLAMING A MONKEY!"

Dear Family and Friends,

Within a fortnight or so the rainy season will begin in Zimbabwe. For the seventh year in a row, we are going into the season under the most dire circumstances. Hyper inflation is out of control. Fuel (for transporting seed and fertilizer and for ploughing) is near impossible to find. The World Meteorological Organization have warned that an El Nino is developing across the Pacific and weather experts meeting in Harare have predicted a below normal to normal first half to our rainy season. The few commercial farmers left on their land are continuing to be thrown off their farms with 50 new eviction notices having been served in recent weeks. Two of the country's biggest wheat, maize and tobacco farmers are due in court this week for refusing to get off their farms. One of these farmers is thought to be the biggest maize producer in the country and has just delivered 1000 tons of grain to the GMB. One commercial farmer in Masvingo recently got a letter from the provincial Governor which said: "Your farm has just been acquired by the government and we therefore request you to wind up your business before the start of the rainy season. You are advised to comply with this order since you risk being forcibly removed if you fail to comply. We also take this opportunity to tell you that you are not allowed to move out with any of your farming equipment." When faced with such adiabolical situation there are few, if any, words.

Also this week came the Gazetted Land (Consequential Provisions) Bill. This will give any farmer who has received a Section 5 Notice of Acquisition at any time in the last 6 years, just 45 days to get out of his house and off his land. Any farmer without an offer letter or lease from the government will face criminal charges with a penalty of 2 years in prison. We aren't talking here of squatters, invaders, occupiers, settlers or whatever other polite term is currently in fashion, we are talking of men and women who paid for their land, built their houses and hold the Title Deeds. Men and women and perhaps one hundred thousand farm workers who have tried, against all odds, under extreme circumstances to keep food on our tables. As one exfarmer wrote this week, after the Bill is promulgated: "the ethnic cleansing will be complete."

I close this letter with a truly shocking report which has appeared in an independent newspaper this week. Journalist Mavis Makuni reported that Agriculture Minister Joseph Made has blamed a monkey for the shortage of fertilizer needed for the coming season. Answering questions in Parliamentas to why precious foreign currency was being used to import fertilizer, Minister Made said: "Our investigations have shown that a monkey caused damage to a transformer, thereby sabotaging our preparations for the coming season. If it were not for that monkey, the situation was not going to be as bad." And this is the man in charge of food security in Zimbabwe.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 30 September 2006.http:/africantears.netfirms.com My books 'African Tears' and 'BeyondTears' are available from: orders@africabookcentre.com

ALL YOU NEED IS UBUNTU !

You and me, me and you, lots and lots, for us to do
By Sean Coughlan BBC News Magazine

Bill Clinton told the Labour conference to get into ubuntu. Eh?
Ubuntu. That was what Bill Clinton told the Labour party conference it needed to remember this week. "Society is important because of Ubuntu."
But what is it? Left-leaning sudoku? U2's latest album? Fish-friendly sushi?
No, it's a word describing an African worldview, which translates as "I am because you are," and which means that individuals need other people to be fulfilled.
The former president, husky-voiced and down-home with the delegates, gave it a folksy flavour, describing it in terms of needing to be around others to enjoy being ourselves.
ubuntu, noun. Humanity or fellow feeling; kindness [Nguni].
Collins English Dictionary"If we were the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most wealthy, the most powerful person - and then found all of a sudden that we were alone on the planet, it wouldn't amount to a hill of beans," said Mr Clinton.
The word comes from the Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa - and is related to a Zulu concept - "umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" - which means that a person is only a person through their relationship to others.
And it's entered the political lexicon through the political changes in South Africa.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his book No Future Without Forgiveness, says: "Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language... It is to say, 'My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours.'"
Decline
In his definition, it means that there is a common bond between people - and when one person's circumstances improve, everyone gains and if one person is tortured or oppressed, everyone is diminished.

Ubuntu chic - thong name-checking Ubuntu open-source software.
Mr Tutu's identification with ubuntu has given rise to the idea of "ubuntu theology" - where ethical responsibility comes with a shared identity. If someone is hungry, the ubuntu response is that we're all collectively responsible.
There is a spiritual as well as practical dimension to this - with ubuntu reflecting the idea that we're part of a long chain of human experience, connecting us to previous and future generations.
Ubuntu has also entered the language of development and fair trade - with campaigners using the word in aid projects for Africa in ways that suggest this will be an African solution for African problems.
Ironically, says Rob Cunningham, Christian Aid's programme manager for South Africa, just as the word is taking off in Western society the values it embodies are in decline in the land of its origin.
"In my conversations with partner organisations and the communities they work with, and among older people, there's a deep sense of loss of ubuntu," says Mr Cunningham. "To me, it means sitting down in a Zulu hut in KwaZulu-Natal sharing scarce food and a brew and a few stories."
There are ubuntu education funds, ubuntu tents at development conferences, ubuntu villages, an ubuntu university - and it's now the name of an open-source operating system.
Expect to hear more from ubuntu in the future.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BBC LAUNCHES GLOBAL TALENT SEARCH !

BBC launches global talent search.

The contest is part of the World Service's Generation Next season. The BBC World Service has launched a competition to find the world's best young music act.
Called The Next Big Thing, the contest is open to groups and solo artists in any genre of music, as long as they are under 18 and perform their own songs.
Entrants will be played on the World Service throughout the autumn, before a winner is chosen by listeners and music industry experts in December.
"What we're looking for is brilliant new music," says producer Ben Williams.
"The quality of the recording isn't important."
'Helping hand'
Williams says the aim of the competition is to give a helping hand to young artists who may not have access to the music industry.
"There's fantastic musical talent all over the world but many people struggle to get that first break, and that's where we come in."
"It's something new and very exciting that we've never tried before."
The contest will be run with the help of the BBC's language services, which means the final shortlist of six acts could include songs in Swahili, Portuguese or Hindi.
Artists who are interested in entering the competition should send one track to the BBC World Service by 3 November, 2006.
CDs and tapes should be sent to The Next Big Thing, Bush House, London. MP3s can be emailed to the BBC using the address -

thenextbigthing@bbc.co.uk. .....................................................................................

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZUMA APOLOGISES FOR GAY COMMENTS !

Jacob Zuma retains his presidential ambitions. South Africa's former Deputy President Jacob Zuma has apologised after offending the gay community.
He was quoted as saying that same-sex marriages were "a disgrace to the nation and to God".
He also said that when he was a young man, he would have knocked down any homosexual person he met.
Mr Zuma is trying to rebuild his career after being sacked over corruption allegations, although he was cleared of the charges last week.
Mr Zuma was also acquitted on separate rape charges earlier this year - his supporters say there is a political vendetta against him, designed to remove him from the race to succeed President Thabo Mbeki in 2009.

"My remarks were made in the context of the traditional way of raising children... I said the communal upbringing of children in the past was able to assist parents to notice children with a different social orientation," Mr Zuma said in his apology.
How can a narrow-minded person like this be expected to lead our nation?
Joint Working Group"I however did not intend to have this interpreted as a condemnation of gays and lesbians."
He also said he respected the "sterling contribution of many gay and lesbian compatriots in the struggle that brought about our freedom".
The homosexual lobby organisation Joint Working Group said Mr Zuma's comments were a "form of hate speech".
"It would seem Jacob Zuma still has a lot to learn about leadership... How can a narrow-minded person like this be expected to lead our nation?" the group said.
South Africa's constitution bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and the government is considering legalising same-sex marriages after a court ruling that the ban was illegal.
The charismatic Mr Zuma is popular among poor South Africans, many of whom say the current government has not done enough to help them.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions, Cosatu, last week said Mr Zuma should be reinstated as deputy president, following his acquittal.
The case was thrown out because the prosecution said they were still not ready to start the trial more than a year after he was charged.
The prosecution, however, say they may still press new corruption charges against him.
Unless this happens, Mr Zuma would be free to contest next year's leadership contest of the ruling African National Congress.
Whoever is elected to head the ANC would be favourite to become South Africa's next president.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WHAT THE U.S. KNOWS ABOUT VISITORS !

The US has data on all passengers 15 minutes after take-of. European and US officials have been holding last-minute negotiations to renew a deal on the transfer of airline passenger data before it runs out on Saturday.
There have been warnings of chaos if agreement is not reached. Airlines would face massive fines if they flew to the US without supplying the data - and they could be prosecuted under European data protection laws if they did.
It is likely there would be huge queues at US immigration, as officials scrutinised the tickets of arriving passengers for some of the data they can now obtain electronically.
Under a 2004 agreement between the EU and the US, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can access European airline reservation databases and pull out 34 pieces of information about each passenger.

SOME THINGS US CUSTOMS KNOWS
Your history of missing flights
Your frequent flyer miles
Your seat location aboard
Your e-mail address

However, the 2004 agreement was annulled by the European Court of Justice in May, which ruled that officials had failed to give it an appropriate legal basis.
The judges said it could continue to operate until 30 September, while a new legal foundation was constructed.
But discussions between the US and the EU appear to have gone beyond legal technicalities - which is why they are going down to the wire.

Officials in Brussels say the EU wants to give away less data, while the EU wants more.
US demands for information are going to go up not down
Hugo BradyCentre for European ReformThe system is designed to help US officials identify terrorists before they arrive.
In future, the EU also wants to go over to a system where airlines "push" the data across to the US, rather than allowing the CBP to continue "pulling" it.
European privacy authorities also want the US to give legally binding guarantees regarding protection of the data transferred, instead of the existing non-binding undertakings.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has said the CBP needs to be able to share the data with other government departments, such as the FBI.
However, it is reported that the most likely outcome now will be the renewal of the existing agreement on a new legal basis, for an interim period.
The bigger questions will be left for further negotiations on a new agreement, which is to take effect at the end of 2007, when the agreement which has now been annulled was due to have run out.

The Passenger Name Record (PNR) data falls into 34 overlapping fields, some of which contain very little information, for example the passenger's name, while others contain a lot, including the passenger's name (again), date of birth, sex, citizenship and so on.
The data can be broken down into the following categories
Information about the passenger: name; address; date of birth; passport number; citizenship; sex; country of residence; US visa number (plus date and place issued); address while in the US; telephone numbers; e-mail address; frequent flyer miles flown; address on frequent flyer account; the passenger's history of not showing up for flights
Information about the booking of the ticket: date of reservation; date of intended travel; date ticket was issued; travel agency; travel agent; billing address; how the ticket was paid for (including credit card number); the ticket number; which organisation issued the ticket; whether the passenger bought the ticket at the airport just before the flight; whether the passenger has a definite booking or is on a waiting list; pricing information; a locator number on the computer reservation system; history of changes to the booking
Information about the flight itself: seat number; seat information (eg aisle or window); bag tag numbers; one-way or return flight; special requests, such as requests for special meals, for a wheelchair, or help for an unaccompanied minor
Information about the passenger's itinerary: other flights ticketed separately, or data on accommodation, car rental, rail reservations or tours.
Information about other people: the group the passenger is travelling with; the person who booked the ticket
The CBP system has been built in such a way that some "sensitive" information is filtered out.

According to the undertakings on data protection provided by the US, this includes "personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and data concerning the health or sex life of the individual".
This means that Halal or Kosher meal preferences will not show up, while requests for a vegetarian meal will.
"You can be sure that the US will construe whatever they can from the information provided. You can construe a lot from someone's name," says Hugo Brady, an expert in European security co-operation at the Centre for European Reform.
"They have compiled a number of scenarios which they believe amount to suspicious activity and the data is screened for a match. Did the passenger pay cash, did he have baggage? And so on."
He adds: "US demands for information are going to go up not down and we are going to have to find a way of aligning security and privacy to a mutually satisfactory end."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CONGO'S CHILD MINERS START SCHOOL !

Children in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have begun attending school this week instead of sifting for minerals in a vast open-cast mine.
Some 250 children in the province of Katanga have been given school places in and around the town of Kigoma.
The project is being run by a Belgian organisation, Groupe One, with funding from the government in Brussels and the UN children's agency, Unicef.
The plight of the children of Katanga was featured in a BBC report this year.
The report, timed to coincide with the World Day Against Child Labour, showed three boys working in Katanga's Ruashi mine, where 800 children worked digging for copper and cobalt.
Eight-year-old twins Decu and Kabu and their friend 15-year-old Cedric told the BBC how they wanted to go to school but their families could not afford the fees.
Cedric told the BBC this week he was now thrilled to be at the Maman Mbuyi school in Kigoma "to become more intelligent and to have the opportunity to improve my life".
Decu said school was much better than working at the mine.
"I already made friends and we play together," he said.
Cut-off date
A total of 250 former child miners aged between eight and 15 began school this week in Ruashi, near Kigoma.

Children in Ruashi mine work long days for very little reward
Fees of $75 (£40) per year for primary school pupils and $100 (£53) per year for older pupils are being covered by the scheme run by Groupe One.
That money includes the cost of new uniforms, often an extra expense families cannot afford.
The scheme has a budget of $90,000 (£48,000), one-third of it provided by Unicef.
Help is also being provided to the children's families to cover the loss of income.
Funding is secure until next year, but the Belgian scheme is due to wind up during 2007.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ADAMU URGES S.A. TO SEEK HELP !

Adamu urges SA to seek help.
Oluwashina Okeleji BBC Sport, Lagos

Adamu says South Africa should ask for help in organising the World Cup. South Africa needs African support to stage a successful World Cup, says Fifa executive committee member, Amos Adamu.
After Germany's impressive show this year, most pundits say South Africa has a tough act to follow in 2010.
Adamu says in order to stage a "truly African World Cup", South Africans must not be too proud to seek help.
"South Africa needs Africa's help because the 2010 World Cup is for Africa," said Adamu, Nigeria's voice on Fifa's so-called football parliament.
He added: "South Africa needs manpower to help in building the required facilities and they also need help in terms of security.
"The African media must also play its part and portray a positive picture for 2010 because the world's image of the African continent is mostly negative."
Adamu, who recently caused a stir by calling for a radical change in Fifa's attitude towards government involvement in football affairs, insists that involving other nations is South Africa's best option.
"It's very important for the South Africans to reach out to the rest of the continent, like the Germans did for their World Cup," said Adamu, who also sits on the executive committee of the Confederation of African Football.
He told BBC Sport on Wednesday: "Germans got a lot of help from Uefa [Europe's governing body] due to the fact that the 2006 World Cup was in Europe.
"We believe that 2010 is not just a South Africa thing but an African project, so if it looks bad, then we all look bad.
"Despite our problems, I believe Africa as a whole has great personnel," said the chairman of the organising committee of the 2003 All Africa Games held in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
"We're not saying that South Africa cannot do it alone but together we can make it that much better."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DIRTY WATER 'KILLS 1.5M CHILDREN' !

More than 1.5m children under five die each year because they lack access to safe water and proper sanitation, says the United Nations children's agency.
In a report, Unicef says that despite some successes, a billion people worldwide do not have access to safe drinking water from protected sources.
More than 1.2 billion people have gained access to safe water since 1990.
But sub-Saharan Africa remains a major area of concern, especially countries affected by conflict.
A Unicef deputy-director, Vanessa Tobin, gave the example of Niger, where only 13% of the population has access to toilets of an acceptable standard, or better.
She said it "certainly is a contributing factor in the cholera outbreaks" in Niger.
Progress slowed
The UN hopes to halve the number of people without access to clean drinking water and sanitation by 2015.
But progress has slowed due to population increases and unexpectedly high migration to urban areas, say the World Health Organisation and Unicef.

Ms Tobin said improving sanitation was key to helping prevent the spread of diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea-related illnesses.
"If we have clean water by itself without having sanitation and hygiene, we won't get the health impact."
The Unicef report says that children's education suffers because they have to walk long distances to fetch water, and that girls especially are deterred by the lack of separate and clean toilets in schools.
Diarrhoea-related diseases in young children could be cut by more than a third in young children by improving sanitation facilities, it adds.
The report picks out South Asia as a success story by prioritising sanitation. Access to improved sanitation facilities more than doubled in the region between 1990 and 2004.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

JUMP IN S.A. SECURITY VAN HEISTS !

Jump in SA security van heists
By Peter Biles BBC News, Johannesburg.

South African police are facing well organised gangsThere has been a dramatic rise in South Africa in the number of robberies carried out on security vehicles used to transport large amounts of cash.
According to the latest crime statistics, there was a 74% increase in such incidents last year.
Many of these attacks occurred in the run-up to Christmas last year, when traditionally, more money than usual is moved around the country.
The latest crime figures also show the murder rate remains alarmingly high.
In spite of a 2% decrease, there were still more than 18,000 murders last year.
And there was also a slight rise in the number of car hijackings.
South Africa's international image has long been tarnished by high levels of crime and the huge increase in robberies on security vans suggests that the police still face an uphill task.
Last month, the government announced a new strategy of focusing on organised crime.
But the main opposition party - the Democratic Alliance - has said the police are losing the battle against heavily-armed and well-organised crime syndicates.
The party said this should be a major cause for concern, especially as South Africa will be hosting the football world cup in four years time.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOUTH AFRICA'S DEEPENING MALAISE!

As a vocal critic of apartheid, Tutu's comments carry a moral weight. The BBC's Martin Plaut reflects on South African Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu's scathing criticisms of South African society.

On the face of it Archbishop Tutu's comments warning of a growing danger of ethnic divisions in South Africa and saying the African reverence for life have been lost seem odd.
South Africa is at peace, and enjoying the longest period of growth in many years.
Unemployment has just fallen by more than half a million, to a six-year low.
And opinion polls show that most people are still optimistic about their country.
But just below the surface there seems to be a deep malaise.
Division
Referring to the accusations of corruption that have been made about a number of South Africa's political leaders, Archbishop Tutu said: "They have shown that they are human. We all have been afflicted by original sin."
These problems have highlighted divisions within the alliance led by the African National Congress which is now in real trouble.
The trade union congress this month practically booed the deputy president, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, off the stage.
Its delegates sang songs describing President Thabo Mbeki as a "dog". So what's gone wrong?
At the heart of the problem is that President Mbeki has led his country down a road many are now questioning.
Left
The left and the trade unions call for large-scale nationalisation and socialism.
But the government is locked into policies that favour business and globalisation.
Many believe not enough has been achieved for the poor since the end of apartheid, and are no longer prepared to sit in silence.
As the president's own brother, Moeletsi Mbeki put it, the governing alliance is now like a married couple on the brink of divorce.
Right
If this is the perspective of the left in the black community, then the feelings of whites and many coloured people and Indians is equally bitter, but for different reasons.
The sky-high murder rate has convinced many they are not even safe when they shelter behind high walls and razor wire, even though crime rates are falling.
And their sons and daughters, many of whom were not even born when apartheid was in place, now cannot find jobs because affirmative action reserves them for blacks.
A fifth of the white population has left in the past 10 years, taking their skills and much of their wealth with them.
So while the sun still shines on South Africa's overall performance, there is a good deal for all sections of society to be fed up about. And the grumbling is getting louder.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUICK GUIDE : AGE DISCRIMINATION !

Quick guide: Age discrimination.

Laws banning age discrimination in the workplace come into effect on 1 October 2006.
It the latest type of discrimination to be tackled after race and sex. The government wants people to have the right to work longer, particularly as we are living longer, healthier lives. But it is worried that the ageist attitudes of some employers are stopping people from doing this.

Defining age discrimination -

This is when an employee is discriminated against by an employer on the grounds of age.
Age laws are designed to protect all workers, young and old.
Discrimination takes different forms.
There is overt discrimination - for example, someone being made redundant because they are considered too old for the job.
And there is indirect discrimination, such as making ageist comments.

The extent of the problem -
Unions cite age as the most common form of discrimination in the workplace.
However, age discrimination has not had the high profile of discrimination on grounds of sex or race, both of which have been outlawed for many years. In some industries, such as media and advertising, age discrimination has been endemic, an almost accepted fact of life for decades.

How the law works -
It will be unlawful to discriminate against an employee under the age of 65 on the grounds of age. The anti-discrimination law covers a range of workplace issues. Employers will not be able to specify that a new recruit should be above or below a particular age.

WHAT IS A QUICK GUIDE?
Quick guides are concise explanations of topics or issues in the news.

More Quick Guides

In addition, employers who fire workers or deny them the same training opportunities as their colleagues on age grounds will be in breach of the law. But there are get-out clauses. If the employer can 'objectively show' a sound business reason for discrimination then it may be permitted. And the law does not apply to workers over the age of 65, where they merely have the right to request an extension of their working lives.

Discrimination outside the workplace, for example in providing goods and services, is not banned.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SPAM TRAIL UNCOVERS JUNK EMPIRE!

Spam trail uncovers junk empire
By Mark Ward Technology Correspondent, BBC News website.

The junk mail was touting all kinds of drugsAn investigation into a seemingly routine series of spam messages has revealed how sophisticated the business of online crime has become.

The story begins with the junk mail messages themselves that were sent during April and May of 2006. Outwardly, said Patrick Peterson, chief technology officer of security firm Ironport who led the investigation, the messages hawking pharmaceuticals looked like the billions of other junk mail messages swilling around the net. The only initial point of interest about them was that they were appearing in bigger numbers than most spam runs. Every day for 14 days the spammers behind the junk mail campaign pumped out more than 100m messages.

The spam got more interesting when Mr Peterson and his colleagues took a closer look. Many of the junk messages had, hidden within them, text from JRR Tolkien's classic work The Hobbit.
This text was included, said Mr Peterson, in an attempt to convince spam filters that the messages were genuine and not junk. Many spam messages use excerpts from novels or other works in this way.
Analysis of the junk mail revealed that there were more than 2,000 variations in the content of the messages making up the spam run. Over the course of the weeks when the spam was being sent a new variant of message was despatched every 12 minutes. The sheer scale of the spamming operation became clearer when Mr Peterson started tracking where the spam was being sent from. Analysis of the net addresses where the e-mail messages originated showed that more than 100,000 hijacked home computers spread across 119 nations had been used to despatch the junk mail.

To try to beat anti-spam techniques that look up the net address from which spam originates to see if it that location has a reputation as a spammer, many of the machines used to send the mail had been recently hijacked. Analysis showed that many had only been taken over in the last 30 days, said Mr Peterson. "We ran the sources of this and found out a massive distribution of countries," Mr Peterson told the BBC News website, "it's very much centred in Europe." This widespread, sophisticated infrastructure involved more than 1500 web domains that acted as the web shops for the drugs advertised in the junk messages. Many of the domains were hosted by firms that advertise themselves as providing "bullet proof" hosting that will resist attempts to shut down the sites - no matter what information is on the website.

Behind the scenes was a sophisticated network of computers that handled the traffic generated when people clicked on links in messages and directed them to the right site. Anyone clicking on the links in the junk mail messages would get re-directed to one of the 1500 domains - each one of which was made to look like a real organisation.

If you have an e-mail account, you probably get spam"They were trying to make it look as legitimate as possible," he said. On some of the fake pharmacies, said Mr Peterson, the spammers had gone to the trouble of creating fake biographies for the supposed founders of the online shop. When an Ironport employee went to check the supposed real world location of one shop they found a vacant lot. Using a one-time use credit card, Mr Peterson bought some pharmaceuticals from one of the web shops and was amazed when a package arrived in the post.
"When we have done this in the past it's been clear that they just want to rip people off," he said. Before now most spammers have been happy to take credit card details and cash and do nothing to fulfil orders.

Instead, with this spam network, the orders were fulfilled by a pharmaceutical firm in India. The drugs received have now been sent for testing to see just what they contain. "The complexity is what's amazing to see," said Mr Peterson. IronPort was planning to continue its investigation, he said, to see if it will be possible to determine just who is behind the net-spanning spam operation. Information has also been passed to the FBI to help its investigation into a US-based hosting firm that has been implicated in a lot of spam and scam campaigns.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SUPERDOME REOPENS IN NEW ORLEANS!

Monday's ceremony was attended by a sell-out crowd. The stadium that symbolised New Orleans' suffering during Hurricane Katrina last year has re-opened.
More than 30,000 people took refuge at the Louisiana Superdome after the storm struck. They lived in squalor for four days until they were evacuated.
But a major refurbishment programme has allowed the venue to host Monday's sell-out game between the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons.
Rock bands, including U2 and Green Day, performed in a star-studded ceremony.
The Superdome was wrecked by Hurricane Katrina last August, its roof peeled off by the wind.
However, the BBC's James Westhead in New Orleans says it was the images of chaos inside, with people stranded for days with no water or food, that made it a symbol of New Orleans' misery.
Many thought that afterwards, the building would be condemned. But instead, £180m was spent on a huge renovation effort.
Although some question spending so much on a sports stadium, the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, described it as a vital symbol of recovery for the city and the state.
"This is exactly what the city needs," Saints season ticket holder Clara Donate - who lost her home and all her possessions to Katrina - told AP news agency before the game.
"We all need something else to think about."
The Saints last played in the Superdome in a 2005 pre-season game, a few days before Katrina.
The team were forced to move their home games to other venues last season - including Louisiana State University and Giants Stadium in New York.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GAMBIAN OPPOSITION CLAIMS FRAUD !

Ousainou Darboe said the election was a "sham". Gambian opposition leader Ousainou Darboe has said that he will seek legal advice on whether to challenge the outcome of Friday's elections.
He said he rejected the official results, giving incumbent President Yahya Jammeh 67% of the vote.
Mr Darboe said there had been widespread intimidation by local chiefs, governors and security agents.
Mr Jammeh, meanwhile, dismissed critics of his human rights record, saying: "The whole world can go to hell."
Journalists and opposition activists have been threatened and harassed in recent years but Mr Jammeh was unrepentant after winning his third election, since taking power in a 1994 coup.
I don't believe in killing people. I believe in locking you up for the rest of your life
President Yahya Jammeh"If I want to ban any newspaper, I will, with good reason," he said, reports Reuters news agency.
"This is Africa and this is the Gambia, a country where we have very strong African moral values... If you write Yahya is a thief, you should be ready to prove it in a court of law. If that constitutes lack of press freedom, then I don't care."
'Sham'
The president, 41, also denied that security agents were involved in the 2004 killing of newspaper editor Deyda Hydara.
"I don't believe in killing people. I believe in locking you up for the rest of your life," Mr Jammeh said.

OFFICIAL RESULTS
Yahya Jammeh: 67%
Ousainou Darboe: 27%
Halifa Sallah: 6%
Registered voters670,000

Voting with marbles
Campaign in pictures

"Then maybe at some point we say: 'Oh, he is too old to be fed by the state,' we release him and let him become destitute."
Mr Darboe secured 27% of the vote, while another sociologist Halifa Sallah received 6%, according to official results.
"This election was just a sham. It was not free and fair and we don't accept the results as valid," Mr Darboe said.
He said he was considering his next move.
Voter turnout was about 59%, lower than in Gambia's last presidential election.
Due to a high level of illiteracy, voters used marbles to vote rather than ballot papers, inserting a marble into the drum representing their candidate.
Some 670,000 Gambians are registered to vote out of a population of 1.6 million.
Voting day was brought forward from October so as not to coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOMALI P.M. WARNS OF TERROR THREAT !

Fighters seized control of the capital Mogadishu in June. Somalia's interim prime minister has asked for international help against the "al-Qaeda" and "terrorist" expansion in the country.
Ali Mohamed Ghedi appealed for aid soon, before it was too late.
He was speaking after his Islamist rivals seized the key port of Kismayo, where they fired at demonstrators, reportedly killing three people.
The Union of Islamic Courts deny having any links to al-Qaeda and say they are bringing security to a lawless country.
'Violation'
"I would appeal to the governments of the region to join our efforts and protect the region from the expansion of this al-Qaeda network, these terrorists," Mr Ghedi said in neighbouring Kenya.
He also said the takeover of Kismayo was a "violation" of the ceasefire agreed between the UIC and the government in Sudan.
Mr Ghedi's government only controls a small part of Somalia, around the town of Baidoa, while the UIC has expanded across most of the south.
They seized Kismayo on Sunday without a fight, after gunmen loyal to Mr Ghedi's Defence Minister Barre Hiraale fled the town.
After the takeover, pro- and anti-UIC rallies were held.
Islamist guards opened fire after some residents burnt tyres, chanted anti-Islamist slogans and threw stones.
An MP told the Somali service that three people had died. Some of the protesters had been seen burning Islamic head-dresses.
UIC officials say the protests were organised by those who opposed their ban on the popular stimulant khat during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Earlier an Islamist leader spoke at a rally which passed off peacefully.
Troops
Meanwhile, eyewitnesses report that hundreds of Ethiopian troops have crossed the border, heading for Baidoa - the only town controlled by the internationally recognised government.
Ethiopia supports the administration of President Abdullahi Yusuf but has denied that its troops are in Baidoa.
Earlier this month, the African Union agreed to a request by Somalia's transitional government, which controls only a small part of the country, to send in a regional peacekeeping force.
Kismayo had been seen as a possible landing point for the peacekeepers.
Witnesses told AFP news agency they had seen more than 600 Islamist gunmen on about 50 "battlewagons" - machine-gun mounted pick-ups also known as "technicals" - heading toward Kismayo on Sunday.
Thousands of people are reported to have fled the city in recent days.
Earlier reports said that thousands of people had gathered in the town, chanting "God is great" to welcome the UIC fighters.
The UIC has steadily increased its hold on Somalia since its fighters took control of the capital, Mogadishu, in June, taking control of hundreds of square kilometres of territory while hardly firing a shot.
Mr Ghedi's government was set up in 2004 after more than two years of talks designed to give Somalia its first effective national government since 1991.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

EYGPT UNVEILS NUCLEAR POWER PLAN!

Demand for energy has been growing fast in Egypt. Egypt is to revive the civilian nuclear power programme it froze 20 years ago following the accident at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine.
Egypt's energy minister told the state-owned al-Ahram newspaper of plans to build a nuclear power station.
The plant will be constructed at El-Dabaa, on the Mediterranean coast, within the next 10 years.
Demand for electricity has been growing at an average rate of 7% a year and the country faces worsening shortages.
On Thursday, President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt needed to investigate new sources of energy, including the nuclear option.
Energy Minister Hassan Younes said that the project would create a fully functioning nuclear power plant within a decade.
The facility, a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant, is expected to cost an estimated US$1.5bn (1.17bn euros). The Cairo government says it will seek foreign investment for the project.
IAEA questions
Though it abandoned a serious nuclear energy programme two decades ago, Egypt maintains a small experimental nuclear reactor.
In February 2005 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) disclosed that it was investigating Egypt's nuclear activities.
It concluded that Egypt had conducted atomic research, but that the research did not aim to develop nuclear weapons and did not include uranium enrichment.
Egypt admitted to failing to disclose the full extent of its nuclear research activities to the UN's watchdog. Officials said the failure arose because of a misunderstanding over exactly what had to be disclosed.
NPT signatory
Egypt is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which allows countries to build nuclear power stations under international supervision.
It has long pressed for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons.
Israel is the only state in the region with a known nuclear arsenal, though it maintains a position of "ambiguity" on its nuclear weapons, insisting that it will not be the first state to introduce nuclear weapons to the region.
Iran is in dispute with the IAEA and the Security Council over its nuclear programme.
Tehran insists its programme is peaceful, but western states believe Iran secretly wants to develop either a nuclear bomb or the ability to make one. The Security Council is demanding that Tehran halt nuclear enrichment, a step Iran is refusing to comply with.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIM UNION MEN 'DESERVED BEATING' !

Zimbabwean union leaders who claim they were assaulted and tortured by police deserved their treatment, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has said.
Lawyers claim that police assaulted at least a dozen union members before a planned protest on 13 September.
"When the police say move, move," Mr Mugabe told the official Herald newspaper. "If you don't move, you invite the police to use force."
He said the protesters were trying to attract US and British attention.
The planned demonstration over Mr Mugabe's handling of the economy was called off after at least 50 people were arrested before the protest.
'A revolt'
Lawyers for the arrested union leaders say that at least 12 of them were left needing hospital treatment by police, with Zimbabwe Council of Trade Unions Secretary General Wellington Chibebe suffering a broken arm while in custody.
Mr Mugabe said the demonstration had been intended to bring about "regime change" through attracting the support of non-governmental organisations, "stupid" journalists, and the US and British governments.

Zimbabwe's inflation is the highest in the world at more than 1,200%
"We cannot have a situation where people decide to sit in places not allowed and when the police remove them, they say no. We can't have that, that is a revolt to the system," the Herald quoted him as saying.
He said that police had been right in dealing sternly with the protestors: "Some people are now crying foul that they were assaulted, yes, you get a beating."
Zimbabwe has been gripped by an economic crisis for more than six years, with unemployment now running at 80% and inflation at more than 1,200%.
Mr Mugabe's critics blame the situation on his mishandling of the economy and a plan to redistribute white-owned farms to black Zimbabweans.
The government argues that the woes are the result of international sabotage and sanctions aimed at removing Mr Mugabe from power.
'Draconian' restrictions
The 82-year-old has led Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, and is due to retire in 2008.

ZIMBABWE CRISIS

Life expectancy 30 years
High dependency on food aid
20% adult HIV prevalence
Shortages of basic foodstuffs
High unemployment
Inflation 1,200%

New high for inflation

But his Zanu-PF party has said it is looking at delaying the presidential poll until 2010 so that it would coincide with planned parliamentary elections.
Critics claim that regulations on public demonstrations and media activities in the country have stifled democracy and consolidated Mr Mugabe's hold on power.
Monday saw lawyer accuse the government of abusing the legal system for its own political ends after a case against one of the country's two independent radio stations was dismissed by a local court.
Three journalists and seven trustees of Voice of the People radio were arrested nine months ago for possessing unlicensed radio transmitters.
Magistrates ordered the case to be dropped after the government asked for a fourth adjournment to assemble their case.
The radio station circumvents media restrictions by broadcasting using short-wave transmitters based outside the country.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYA HALTS RIVAL LEAGUES !

Kenya's government has called for the country's two rival football leagues to be halted after being ordered by Fifa to sort out chaos in the sport. "We order a stop to the two parallel leagues," Joshua Okuthe, head of the Kenya National Sports Council, said on Saturday. "Running rival leagues is not only counter-productive but an embarrassment to the government and the people of Kenya."

Kenya's top football clubs have split into two factions with nine of them taking part in a league started last week by the Kenya Premier League (KPL). The remaining 11 joined a league sanctioned by the country's football federation (KFF), which had been due to start on Saturday. Fifa president Sepp Blatter has given Kenya until 18 October to sort out the mess or face sanctions.

In a strongly-worded letter on Thursday, Blatter ordered the KFF to explain in writing steps it had taken to implement 28 points agreed upon in January, which included setting up an independent company to run the league. Fifa recognises KPL Limited, which was mandated to run the Premier League in the January agreement at a meeting in Cairo between Fifa, the KFF and Caf. However, Okuthe said: "We recognise KFF PL as legally mandated to run the Premier League on behalf of the federation and not KPL." He said no matches would take place until officials from the two leagues had met to decide which teams would play in the KFF PL League. Despite the call by Okuthe, matches from both leagues were played on Saturday.

Last October, Kenya was threatened with suspension from all soccer activity at Fifa's annual congress in Marrakesh because of government interference in running the sport.

BBC SPORTS REPORT.

CHINA 'FAILED HUMAN RIGHTS' VOW !

Amnesty called for the IOC to exert pressure on China. China has failed to live up to its promise to improve its human rights record ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games, Amnesty International has said.
A report by the group said human rights activists in the country continue to be harassed while those facing the death penalty are not getting fair trials.
It also said people are being forced from their homes to make way for Olympic construction projects.
Amnesty International called on the Chinese authorities to enact reforms.
"Serious human rights violations continue to be reported across the country, fuelling instability and discontent," the report said.
"Grassroots human rights activists continue to be detained and imprisoned, and official controls over the media and the internet are growing tighter."
'Too soon'
Amnesty also called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to exert pressure on the Chinese government.
However, a spokesperson for the IOC said it was "unrealistic to expect the IOC to pressure on such complex matters".
"It is premature to say China has failed to live up to the promises two years before the Games," communications director Giselle Davies told Reuters news agency.
During bidding for the Games in 2001, the Beijing committee pledged that a win for China would help promote the development of human rights in the country.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

INTERNET'S FUTURE IN 2020 DEBATED !

There are more than a billion people online worldwide. The internet will be a thriving, low-cost network of billions of devices by 2020, says a major survey of leading technology thinkers. The Pew report on the future internet surveyed 742 experts in the fields of computing, politics and business.
More than half of respondents had a positive vision of the net's future but 46% had serious reservations. Almost 60% said that a counter culture of Luddites would emerge, some resorting to violence.
The Pew Internet and American Life report canvassed opinions from the experts on seven broad scenarios about the future internet, based on developments in the technology in recent years.
READ THE SUMMARY
Summary of the Pew Internet survey (80k)
Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Download the reader here
Click here to see the reponses to the seven scenarios

Written responses
The correspondents were also able to qualify their answers with written responses giving more detail.
"Key builders of the next generation of internet often agree on the direction technology will change, but there is much less agreement about the social and political impact those changes will have," said Janna Quitney Anderson, lead author of the report The Future of the Internet II. She added: "One of their big concerns is: Who controls the internet architecture they have created?"
Bob Metcalfe, founder of 3Com and the inventor of ethernet, predicted the net would be a global connection of different devices. "The internet will have gone beyond personal communications," by 2020 he wrote.

Mobiles will play a big part in the net's future"Many more of today's 10 billion new embedded micros per year will be on the internet."
Louis Nauges, president of Microcost, a French information technology firm, saw mobile devices at the forefront of the net.
"Mobile internet will be dominant," he explained. "By 2020, most mobile networks will provide one-gigabit-per-second-minimum speed, anywhere, anytime.
"Dominant access tools will be mobile, with powerful infrastructure characteristics. All applications will come from the net."
But not everyone felt a "networked nirvana" would be possible by 2020.
Concerns over interoperability (different formats working together), government regulation and commercial interests were seen as key barriers to a universal internet.
Ian Peter, Australian leader of the Internet Mark II Project, wrote: "The problem of the digital divide is too complex and the power of legacy telco regulatory regimes too powerful to achieve this utopian dream globally within 15 years."
'Real interoperability'
Author and social commentator Douglas Rushkoff agreed with Mr Peter.
The less one is powerful, the more transparent his or her life. The powerful will remain much less transparent
NetLab founder Barry Wellman on issues of privacy versus transparancy.
He wrote: "Real interoperability will be contingent on replacing our bias for competition with one for collaboration.
"Until then, economics do not permit universal networking capability."
Many of the surveyed experts predicted isolated and small-scale violent attacks to try and thwart technology's march.
"Today's eco-terrorists are the harbingers of this likely trend," wrote Ed Lyell, an expert on the internet and education.
"Every age has a small percentage that cling to an overrated past of low technology, low energy, lifestyle."
"Of course there will be more Unabombers," wrote Cory Doctorow of blog BoingBoing.
Some commentators felt that the violence would either be tied to the effects of technology, rather than the technology itself, or possibly civil action around issues such as privacy.
"The interesting question is whether these acts will be considered terrorism or civil disobedience," wrote Marc Rotenberg or the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Of course there will be more Unabombers
Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing
More than half of respondents disagreed that English would become the lingua franca of the internet by 2020 and that there would be dangers associated with letting machines take over some net tasks such as surveillance and security.
Internet Society Board chairman Fred Baker wrote: "We will certainly have some interesting technologies.
He added: "Until someone finds a way for a computer to prevent anyone from pulling its power plug, however, it will never be completely out of control."
The repondents were split over the whether the impact of people's lives becoming increasingly online, resulting in both less privacy but more transparency, would be a positive outcome.
'Access information'
Tiffany Shlain, founder of the Webby awards, said such transparancy would be a benefit to society.

The dramatic growth of the internet shows no sign of abating.
"Giving all people access to our information and a context to understand it will lead to an advancement in our civilisation."
But NetLab founder Barry Wellman disagreed: "The less one is powerful, the more transparent his or her life. The powerful will remain much less transparent."
Mr Doctorow wrote: "Transparency and privacy aren't antithetical.
"We're perfectly capable of formulating widely honored social contracts that prohibit pointing telescopes through your neighbours' windows.
"We can likewise have social contracts about sniffing your neighbours' network traffic."
By 2020 an increasing number of people will be living and working within "virtual worlds" being more productive online than offline, the majority of the respondents said.
Ben Detenber, an associate professor at Nanyang Technological University, responded: "Virtual reality (VR) will only increase productivity for some people. For most, it will make no difference in productivity (i.e., how much output); VR will only change what type of work people do and how it is done."
Glenn Ricart, a board member at the Internet Society, warned also of potential dangers.
He envisaged "an entire generation opting-out of the real world and a paradoxical decrease in productivity as the people who provide the motive economic power no longer are in touch with the realities of the real world".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IRAQI P.M. CALLS FOR RAMADAN UNITY !

Mr Maliki urged Iraqis to live side by side "like brothers". Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has urged Iraqis to use the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to set aside their differences and seek national unity.
Mr Maliki said Iraqis could either live side by side as brothers, or see their country turned into an arena for the settling of political accounts.
His comments come as at least five people were killed in several car bomb attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere.
An insurgent leader has been captured with seven aides, the authorities said.
Mr Maliki's comments came a day after at least 35 people were killed in a car bomb attack on a kerosene tanker in Baghdad's mainly Shia district of Sadr City.
"I call on Iraqis to take advantage of this sacred month to reinforce brotherly ties to reject division and anything that threatens the Iraqi social fabric," he said.
"Either we live side by side in a spirit of brotherhood, not separated by ethnic or sectarian identifies, or Iraq becomes a battlefield for different groups to settle their scores."
Saturday's attack took place on the first day of Ramadan for Iraq's Sunni community and was one of the deadliest in Iraq in recent weeks.
The country's Shia religious authorities have said Ramadan will start on Monday.
In recent years, Iraq has seen a rise in violence during Ramadan.
In other violence:
In Baghdad, one car bomb attack targeted an Iraqi army convoy, killing at least two people; another was aimed at a police patrol, and killed at least one person
A suicide car bombing killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded at least two, when the driver rammed his car into their checkpoint in the town of Tal Afar, 420km (260 miles) north-west of Baghdad.

Gunmen killed police Col Ismail Jihayan late on Saturday in Tikrit, 175km (110 miles) north of Baghdad
Leader's arrest
The militant leader arrested on Sunday was not named, but officials said he was a leader of a nationalist group known as the 1920 Revolution Brigades.
The announcement came a day after the Iraqi government said it had captured a leader of the radical Sunni Islamist group Ansar al-Sunna, which has been blamed for a number of suicide bombings, kidnappings and beheadings.
But the group, which is believed to have links to al-Qaeda, has denied any of its leaders were captured.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

"Very Soon" !

Dear Family and Friends,

Every day things in Zimbabwe get just a little bit harder and while ordinary families stagger from one crisis to the next, the country's leadership seem to be completely bereft of ideas. The latest phrase from government officials and ministers is "Very Soon".

It's never completely clear if 'very soon' is a threat or a promise but the litany is faithfully regurgitated at every occasion. 'Very Soon' we will have petrol they say; 'Very Soon' we will grow enough food; 'Very Soon' we will drive out everywhite farmer; 'Very Soon' we will turn around the economy and 'Very Soon' we will change the currency again, this time with just one day of warning. This week the threatened promise is that 'Very Soon' corrupt cabinet ministers and members of parliament will be arrested. Somewhere along the line, however, instead of arresting corrupt leaders, police this week arrested top company directors. All accused of increasing prices without government approval, the CEO's of Dairibord (milk), Lobels (bread),Saltrama (plastic), Windmill (chemicals), ZFC (fertilizer) and Circle(cement) were arrested. It is not clear how any business can maintain prices when inflation is officially reported to be 1204% but is crystal clear that when the ideas run out it is easier just to arrest and detain.

The arrests of people trying to express their dissatisfaction at events in Zimbabwe also continued this week. At least 140 NCA members were arrested as they marched in protest over the recent abuse and torture of union leaders demonstrating in Harare. The NCA members were arrested in Masvingo,Gweru, Harare and Mutare in a clear sign that unrest is spreading in the country.

And in between the arrests there has been a whole rash of absurdity that leaves you just shaking your head in wonder. This week email and internetservice was all but impossible in the country. Zimbabwe's Internet Service Providers said that there had been a 90% drop in internet traffic and thatit was a situation of "virtual standstill." The state owned telephone company Tel One apparently owes a massive seven hundred thousand US dollars to a satellite company and were appealing to the central bank to bail them out of the debt. At one point in the week a major ISP put out an email to all its subscribers asking if anyone had a connection in high up places that may be able to intervene in the crisis. Towards the end of the weekTel One posted an advert in the state owned press saying that with immediate effect the cost of internet services had increased by two thousand seven hundred percent. Nothing is done in measured steps in Zimbabwe. The Big Stick comes out, threat/promises of Very Soon are uttered and prices are backdated by years not months.

The irony of arresting the baker for increasing the price of bread by 50% but ignoring the government owned phone company for increasing internet prices by 2700% is absolutely bone shaking.
Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyright Cathy Buckle, 23 September 2006.http:/africantears.netfirms.comMy books "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.com

JAPAN LAUNCHES SUN 'MICROSCOPE' !

Japan launches Sun 'microscope'
By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News.

Solar-B's orbit gives it a near-continuous view of the Sun. Scientists have high hopes for Japan's Solar-B mission which has just been launched from the Uchinoura spaceport. The spacecraft will investigate the colossal explosions in the Sun's atmosphere known as solar flares. These dramatic events release energy equivalent to tens of millions of hydrogen bombs in just a few minutes. The probe will attempt to find out more about the magnetic fields thought to power solar flares, and try to identify the trigger that sets them off.

The ultimate goal for scientists is to use the new insights to make better forecasts of the Sun's behaviour. Flares can hurl radiation and super-fast particles in the direction of the Earth, disrupting radio signals, frying satellite electronics, and damaging the health of astronauts. Solar-B acts essentially like a microscope, probing the fine details of what the magnetic field is doing as it builds up to a flare.

"It will take two to three weeks to transfer the spacecraft into its so-called Sun-synchronous polar orbit. From this position, Solar-B will be able to observe the Sun without having any nights for eight months of the year," said Professor Tetsuya Watanabe, of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). As is customary on Japanese missions, the satellite will get a new name once it is ready to begin its work. The spacecraft, developed by the Japanese space agency (Jaxa) and the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, has scientific and engineering contributions from, principally, the US and the UK.

The Sun behaves like a giant twisting magnet; and when contorted field lines that have lifted up off the surface of the star clash, they release a colossal maelstrom of energy. A blast of intense radiation is emitted, and charged particles are accelerated out into the Solar System. Some of these particles are moving so fast they can cover the 149 million km to Earth in just tens of minutes.

The flares can have a serious impact on Earth's environmentWhilst scientists understand the flaring process reasonably well, they cannot predict when one of these enormous explosions will occur. Solar-B is expected to transform our understanding. It carries three instruments: a Solar Optical Telescope (SOT), an X-ray Telescope and an Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer.

They will make continuous, simultaneous observations of specific solar features, to observe how changes in the magnetic field at the Sun's surface can spread through the layers of the solar atmosphere to produce, ultimately, a flare. "Solar-B acts essentially like a microscope, probing the fine details of what the magnetic field is doing as it builds up to a flare," said mission scientist Professor Louise Harra, from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL, UK. "What we don't know is what triggers a flare; we don't understand the physics of that phase at all. Solar-B will show us how tangled the field is, and how the field lines collide to produce all that energy."

Solar-B is but one of a fleet of spacecraft now dedicated to understanding the relationship between the Sun and the Earth; and more are set to follow. Next month, the US space agency (Nasa) plans to launch its Stereo mission - twin spacecraft that will make 3D observations of our star.

Scientists would like to predict the onset of solar flaresAs we become more reliant on space-based systems - to provide us with everything from timing and positioning services to the relay of telecoms data - the need to understand the tempestuous Sun-Earth interaction just gets more urgent. Losing a satellite because of solar flare effects could prove costly, not just in economic terms but in human lives. Spacecraft like Solar B should give scientists the data they need to make better "space weather" forecasts.

"The information that Solar-B will provide is significant for understanding and forecasting of solar disturbances, which can interfere with satellite communications, electric power transmission grids, and threaten the safety of astronauts travelling beyond the safety of the Earth's magnetic field," said John Davis, Solar-B project scientist at Nasa's Marshall centre.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KARZAI ASKS CANADA TO STAND FIRM !

Mr Karzai is grateful for the Canadian presence in Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has asked Canadians to stand firm in providing military support to Afghanistan. In a speech to Canada's parliament he addressed public concerns about Canadian deployment during which 36 soldiers have been killed since 2002. He said continued Canadian involvement was crucial to prevent terrorism both in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Canada's PM Stephen Harper confirmed his support: "Canada does not leave a country before achieving success." Canadian and British forces have borne the brunt of foreign troop casualties in recent months.

Deaths shake Canada mission

Four Canadian soldiers were killed in a blast in the south on Monday - one of three suicide bombings in the country. Hundreds of people have been killed this year as violence has risen, mainly in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

Mr Karzai received a standing ovation from MPs and senators as he stepped onto the podium to address Canada's parliament. "I know my visit comes at a time of sadness for a number of families across Canada who have lost loved ones in my country," he said. But he asked Canadians to maintain their support. "A democratic nation is not built overnight. Afghanistan's democracy will continue to grow, will continue to develop... but only with the patience and with the continued support of Canada and other members of the international community. "Helping us into the future is much more valuable than perhaps you can imagine."

The BBC's Lee Carter in Toronto says Mr Karzai will not be meeting the leader of the New Democratic opposition party, Jack Layton, who has called for Canadian troops to be withdrawn from their combat role in Afghanistan. Mr Layton said that despite repeated attempts to set up a meeting with the Afghan president, none was scheduled. Mr Karzai arrived in Ottawa a day after addressing the UN General Assembly in New York. At the UN he called for the destruction of safe havens and elaborate networks operating in the region to recruit, train, finance, arm and deploy terrorists. But he said military action alone would not stop terrorism in his country.

A recent poll found only 38% of Canadians support their country's military presence in Afghanistan, while 49% want the 2,300 troops hunting Taleban and al-Qaeda militants to withdraw. Afghanistan is the largest recipient of Canadian foreign aid.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HEZBOLLAH HEAD PRAISES 'VICTORY' !

Sheikh Nasrallah had not appeared in public since the conflict. The Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has hailed his group's "victory" over Israel, boasting that the group still has 20,000 rockets. In his first public appearance since the recent conflict, he said Hezbollah would never be disarmed by force and called for a new Lebanese government. Hundreds of thousands crowded into southern Beirut, heavily bombed during the conflict, to hear the speech.

Israel said the speech showed a lack of respect to the international community. Waving flags in the yellow and green of Hezbollah, crowds travelled from all over Lebanon to a square in the city's southern suburbs.

Quick guide: Hezbollah

Security was tight in the streets around the square. Thanking the crowd for making the journey to the rally, he praised their courage and said Hezbollah was now stronger than it was before fighting began on 12 July.

The 34-day conflict with Israel ended in a military and a strategic victory for Hezbollah, he told supporters. "There is no army in the world that can force us to drop our weapons from our hands, from our grip." Under the terms of the UN-brokered cease-fire that ended the fighting on 14 August, Hezbollah is expected to disarm.

CONFLICT FACTS
Fighting began on 12 July
Ended 14 August
Israeli dead: 116 soldiers, 43 civilians
Lebanese civilian dead: >1,000
Hezbollah dead: unknown

But Sheikh Nasrallah said the group would only disarm when the Lebanese government was capable of protecting the country. He repeated a Hezbollah call for a new government to replace the administration of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. "The building of a just, strong and able state starts first with a serious national unity government," Sheikh Nasrallah said. The strength of Hezbollah had dealt a severe blow to US plans for a new Middle East peace process, he told the crowds.

The BBC's Crispin Thorold, in southern Beirut, said Sheikh Nasrallah spoke for more than an hour, and guns were fired into the air as he left. But former President Amin Gemayel, an opponent of Hezbollah, told the Associated Press the speech was "dangerous", because it linked disarmament to regime change in Lebanon. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah ended on 14 August with a ceasefire that has largely held.

Most of the crowds waved yellow Hezbollah flagsBut Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said Sheikh Nasrallah's speech was a challenge to the international community. "The international community can't afford to have this Iranian-funded extremist spit in the face of the organised community of nations," he said.

Israel lost 116 soldiers in the fighting, while 43 of its civilians were killed in Hezbollah rocket attacks. More than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and an unknown number of Hezbollah fighters were killed in the conflict. Israel failed to achieve its stated war aims of driving Hezbollah fighters from the border, stopping rocket attacks and freeing two of its soldiers captured by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid.

The Beirut rally had been expected to coincide with the final withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, but the Israeli military said on Friday that some troops would remain in Lebanon over the Jewish New Year holiday this weekend.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KABILA GAINS KEY RUN-OFF SUPPORT !

Joseph Kabila faces Jean-Pierre Bemba in October's run-off. Two major Democratic Republic of Congo presidential candidates have urged their supporters to vote for President Joseph Kabila in the second round.
Antoine Gizenga, who came third in July's historic poll, and Nzanga Mobutu, who came fourth, have announced their support for the incumbent.
Mr Kabila now looks to be the clear favourite in the October run-off against Jean-Pierre Bemba.
Mr Kabila gained 45% of the vote in July, against 20% for Mr Bemba.
A spokesman for Mr Mobutu said he had made the choice to preserve DR Congo's unity.
Mr Kabila won a first-round landslide in the east, while Mr Bemba gained the backing of most westerners, especially in the capital, Kinshasa.
Mr Mobutu, son of former leader Mobutu Sese Seko, is also from the west and so his support would enable Mr Kabila to enjoy a more nationwide legitimacy.
The support of the two men's parties in parliament would also give Mr Kabila a majority, which would enable him to choose a prime minister.
The 500 new MPs were sworn in on Friday.
The second round will conclude the country's first democratic polls since independence in 1960.
Meanwhile, the police have arrested hundreds of people living rough in Kinshasa, after violent protests in favour of Mr Bemba earlier this week.
"These young people have been behaving like bandits for some time now, attacking members of the public. We have had several complaints," police chief Patrick Sabiti told the AFP news agency.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

E.U. NATIONS CLASH OVER IMMIGRATION !

Africans are making treacherous sea journeys to reach Europe. EU ministers have expressed sharp differences over how to deal with an influx of illegal immigrants to Europe.

At talks in Finland, Spain's justice minister called for help to deal with the surge of mainly African migrants arriving in Spain's Canary Islands. But Germany's interior minister said Madrid should not be calling for other people's money. And Austria criticised Spain's decision to grant amnesty to some 500,000 undocumented foreigners in 2005.

About 24,000 illegal migrants have made the often perilous sea crossing from West Africa to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic this year. Up to 3,000 of them are believed to have died during the journey.

At the meeting in the Finnish city of Tampere, Spain made a fresh appeal for help, after repeatedly stating that it was unable to cope with the influx. "These people coming from the African continent are knocking on the door of the whole of the European Union - we just happen to be closest border country towards the African continent," Spanish Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar said.

Spain also said it wanted better organisation of Frontex, the hurriedly created EU border patrol force that operates in the Mediterranean, the BBC's Jonny Dymond in Tampere says. In response, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble said Madrid "must stop asking for the money of others". He pointed out that Berlin had carried a similar problem for many years.

Austrian Justice Minister Karin Gastinger said Spain had sent "the wrong signal" by legalising the status of at least 500,000 illegal workers last year. Ms Gastinger said the decision had given "some kind of pull factor to the people in Africa, as we unfortunately saw in the last months".

Italy's Interior Minister Interior Minister Giuliano Amato suggested that money would be better spent in Africa - in the countries where the asylum seekers were coming from.

For the moment at least it looks as if Spain's appeals for help are going nowhere, our correspondent says.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

FAILED AMMAN HOTEL BOMBER TO HANG !

TV Confession

A Jordanian court has sentenced a failed Iraqi suicide bomber to death for her role in attacks on hotels in Amman which killed 60 people last year.
The court also passed death sentences by hanging on six other defendants who were tried in absentia.
Sajida al-Rishawi was filmed by police confessing to trying to take part in the 9 November attack, but said her explosives belt had not detonated.
She later said her confession was taken under duress and pleaded not guilty.

The attacks were claimed by al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, who was killed in an operation by US forces earlier this year.

Map of the blast locations

The court said in statement that Rishawi and the other six were found guilty "beyond doubt" in the deadliest bomb attack in Jordan's recent history.
During the trial, her lawyer had said she had no intention of killing herself and had not even tried to explode her belt.
A forensics expert told the court that the trigger mechanism on the belt had jammed.
'Revenge attack'
Correspondents say the blasts shook Jordan, a relatively stable country in the volatile Middle East, because of the high number of civilian casualties - mainly Jordanian Muslim women and children.
Rishawi's husband, Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, was one of a group of Iraqi attackers who exploded bombs simultaneously in three five-star hotels in the Jordanian capital.
Her lawyer said Shamari had forced her to go with him to the Radisson hotel to commit the attack at a crowded wedding party.
Rishawi and Shamari had themselves been married just days before the attack, she said, but the marriage had not been consummated.
The hotel bombings in Jordan - a strong ally of the US - were thought to have been motivated by revenge for US military operations in western Iraq where the bombers came from.

AMMAN BLASTS - 9 NOVEMBER 2005

1. Vehicle explodes outside hotel after being stopped at a police checkpoint
2. In the most deadly attack, a bomb destroys a banquet room where a wedding reception was being held. Dozens injured by shrapnel
3. Suicide attacker detonates bomb in hotel bar, just before 2100 local time. Two senior Palestinian officials are among the dead

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'SPACE FLIGHT' FOR NIGERIAN GIRL!

Stella is top of her class at physics and chemistry. A 17-year-old schoolgirl is to become the first Nigerian to experience a "space flight" when she takes off from the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday.
Stella Felix from the south-east was chosen from 400 Nigerian students who applied to go on a zero-gravity flight.
"I feel like an ambassador," she said before leaving Lagos for Florida. "I feel so happy to be the first."
She will fly at an altitude of 10km (6 miles) on G-Force One, before dropping, giving a minute of weightlessness.
These parabolic flights on board a Boeing 727 are used as a training exercise for astronauts - and have been given the nickname the "vomit comet". They do not leave the atmosphere but simulate the experience of being in space.
Stella is top of her school in science subjects. Her parents earn a living selling second hand clothes.
"I'll be looking up in the sky for her," her mother Eunice told AP news agency.
The trip is organised to coincide with the United Nations' Space Week.
"The goal of the programme is to use space to inspire education on a global basis while promoting international understanding among the youth," said Robert Boroffice, director general of the National Space Research and Development Agency.
In 2001, the Nigerian Government formally adopted a National Space Policy and launched its first satellite in 2003.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

YEMENIS VOTE IN CRUCIAL ELECTION !

Yemenis are looking for economic growth and an end to corruption. Yemenis are voting in presidential and local elections being seen as a test of the government's commitment to reform.
Four candidates are running against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in power for 28 years.
The main challenger is Faisal Bin Shamlan, who says tackling corruption will be his main priority if elected.
Security is tight after the authorities said last week they had foiled a pair of apparently co-ordinated suicide attacks against oil installations.
The authorities say 100,000 security personnel have been deployed.
About 100 European observers are monitoring the vote, which started at 0800 local time (0500 GMT).
Mr Saleh cast his vote early. "The Yemeni people are the victorious ones," he said.

Crucial vote

The BBC's Heba Saleh, reporting from Sanaa, says the elections could prove crucial for the future of Yemen's relations with the West.
The country is an ally in the US administration's "war on terror". But some accuse it of not doing all it could to stamp out the presence of the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda on its territory.

Yemenis discuss the election candidates and issues.

In pictures

But Yemen is poor and has few resources. Officials in Sanaa argue they cannot win against al-Qaeda without substantial development aid.
They say prosperity, jobs and investments are needed to prevent the radicalisation of Yemeni youth.
But international donors do not want to pour funds into a dictatorship which corruption is rife, our correspondent says, and much may depend on the conduct of the election.
European observers are monitoring the election and if they judge it to have been reasonably democratic, that could dramatically improve relations with foreign donors.
Stinging slogan
BBC Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says that only one the four challengers to Mr Saleh, veteran politician Faisal Bin Shamlan, is a serious rival.

Incumbent Ali Abdullah Saleh faces a serious challenge.
His slogan, "A president at the service of Yemen, not Yemen at the service of the president", is a stinging allusion to the alleged cronyism and corruption around Mr Saleh.
Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world and a hotbed of militant Islam, Magdi Abdelhadi says.
It has the appearance of a modern state - an elected parliament and a cabinet - but in reality power rests with the tribe, the army and religious leaders.
Despite its drawbacks, transition to democracy in Yemen is far ahead of some of its Gulf neighbours, where the formation of political parties remains forbidden.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

REID SPEECH DISRUPTED BY HECKLERS!

Two hecklers interrupted the speech and were led away from the event.

Speech disrupted

Home Secretary John Reid has called on British Muslims to do more to help root out potential extremists.
In a speech Mr Reid asked Muslim parents to keep a close eye on their children and act if they suspected they were being radicalised by extremists.
The comments reflect government frustration that not enough has been done since the 7 July London bombings.
His speech was interrupted by a Muslim heckler who said he was "furious" about "state terrorism by British police".
The protester is believed to be Omar Brookes, otherwise known as Abu Izzadeen, who denies being a member of the banned Al Gurabaa group.
He accused the minister of being an "enemy" of Islam.
Mr Reid, who was speaking in Leytonstone, east London, watched as Mr Brookes was led from the building by police and stewards.

A second heckler was ejected a few minutes later after he also interrupted the speech.
The man emerged from the venue clutching several posters, one of which said: "John Reid you will pay!"
The speech was Mr Reid's first to a Muslim audience since he became home secretary in May.
During his trip, which also involved a visit to a mosque, he said community and religious leaders could play a key role in the fight against terrorism.
The home secretary said "our fight is not with Muslims generally". Instead, he said, there was a "struggle against extremism".
He warned that terrorist fanatics sought young vulnerable minds to help their cause.
Mr Reid said: "There is no nice way of saying this. These fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your children, for suicide bombings.
"Grooming them to kill themselves in order to murder others."

John Reid asked Muslim parents to keep a close eye on their children.
He stressed that by protecting families the community would protect itself.
The speech came after some Muslim leaders expressed concerns about the UK's foreign policy and called for it to be changed.
Mr Reid did not tell Muslim parents to report their concerns to the police but wants them to confront their children's behaviour and talk to them.
BBC Home Affairs Correspondent Daniel Sandford said Muslim elders felt their "real concerns" about the points raised by the home secretary had been "spoiled by stupid heckling".
In an open letter last month, some Muslims leaders said British foreign policy was putting civilians at increased risk in the UK and abroad.
Mr Reid described the letter, signed by three Muslim MPs, three peers and 38 organisations, as a "dreadful misjudgement".
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Tony Blair said the government alone could not root out extremism in Muslim communities and defeat the terrorism it creates.
After the 7 July attacks last year, ministers organised national roadshows targeting fanaticism.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BRITONS TELL OF 'CALM' THAI COUP !

One Briton described the soldiers as 'calm, very relaxed'. Britons in Thailand have described the atmosphere in the capital Bangkok as "calm" after a military coup. Up to 30,000 Britons were thought to be in the country when military leaders overthrew the prime minister.

Miles Gilbert, 32, originally from London, said it seemed the coup had been "very orderly".
"I don't think people fear any long-term problems, I don't think there will be troops on the street for very long," he told BBC News website. The antiques dealer said he had first become aware of the takeover while watching television on Tuesday night. Programmes had been switched off and replaced with pictures of Thailand's king, before a "message came up", Mr Gilbert said. He and his Thai wife had then gone to the army headquarters where there were "big groups of tanks" and troops. The soldiers had seemed relaxed, he said, allowing people to go "right up to the gate".
Tourists were going right up to the troops and posing for pictures - Miles Gilbert.
"It was like a tourist attraction. Tourists were going right up to the troops and posing for pictures," he said.
"Local people were going up to them and asking them questions about what was going on, and they were trying to be helpful."
He said the Thai people were unsurprised by the turn of events and had been "expecting it".
"To be honest, at least since the beginning of the year, people have been talking about it whenever politics comes up."
He said people were largely relieved the coup had not been "heavy-handed".
"Now they know what's going on people don't seem bothered," he said.

'Business as usual'
Chris Hamilton, 22, from London, said: "People are taking it in their stride, that's how Thai people are. This is the way they do it here.
"If this was London it would be strange, but we are not in London, we are in Bangkok.
"It is very calm, everybody is just going about their business.
"The trains are working, the 'sky train' is working, so is the underground and I can see planes taking off." The father-of-one said he had seen a "couple of tanks", but the coup was "not that in your face".
"I just went out now and saw a man with an anti-tank rocket which was quite alarming."
However, troops were mostly centred around the parliament buildings and palace.
"And at all major junctions there are just a few army soldiers," Mr Hamilton said. "I think they have taken over the role of the police."
Backpacker Sam Champion said the "lively, buzzing, busy" atmosphere was no different "from any other day in the capital".
He said he had not seen tanks, but had seen some small groups of soldiers.
"We haven't seen any tanks whatsoever," he said, "just small groups of soldiers who seem to be very calm, chatting, smoking away, talking to locals, and people don't seem to be really very bothered at all."

BBC World, CNN and other international TV news channels have been taken off the air, while Thai stations have been broadcasting footage of the royal family and patriotic songs.
Mr Champion said with no newspapers or broadcasts in English, it was difficult to get an "exact" picture of what was going on, "but it just seems that nobody is worried".
"As far as I can tell there doesn't seem to be any reason to be worried about it. It doesn't seem to be anything to do with tourists or travellers whatsoever.
"It seems to be that the situation is completely under control. It just seems to be so well organised and planned, it doesn't look like it's going to get out of control."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MANDELA TO GET CONSCIENCE AWARD !

Nelson Mandela spent 28 years in prison for fighting apartheid. Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela is to be awarded Amnesty International's highest honour.
The former South African president is to receive the Ambassador of Conscience award in recognition of his work in the cause of freedom and justice.
"More than any other living person, Mr Mandela symbolises all that is hopeful and idealistic in public life," said Amnesty spokesman Bill Shipsey.
Amnesty International campaigns for the rights of prisoners of conscience.
Mr Mandela, who spent 28 years in prison for fighting white rule before leading South Africa to multi-racial democracy as the country's first black president in 1994, will be presented with the award in Johannesburg on 1 November.
Difficult history
However, the BBC's Africa editor, Martin Plaut, says Amnesty has not always been so supportive of Nelson Mandela.
In 1960, the South African government killed 89 unarmed men and women who were holding a peaceful anti-apartheid protest in Sharpeville.
In response, the African National Congress, of which Nelson Mandela was a leading member, launched an armed struggle.
Mr Mandela was sent for weapons training in Algeria, and returned to initiate a campaign of sabotage.
Amnesty was present at Mr Mandela's trial in 1962 but could not adopt him as a prisoner of conscience because of his violent associations.
Today, Amnesty says if a trial is unfair, a prisoner has been tortured, or their jail is inhumane, they can be considered prisoners of conscience even if they have used violence.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

JUDGE ORDERS SADDAM OUT OF COURT !

Saddam Hussein refused to sit down and was ejected from court. Saddam Hussein has been ordered out of court by the new chief judge at his genocide trial in Baghdad.
The former Iraqi leader refused to sit down in protest at the appointment of Muhammad al-Ureibi and was ejected.
The entire team of defence lawyers then walked out as well and the court continued its proceedings without them.
The previous chief judge was replaced after the government accused him of bias towards Saddam Hussein "when he described him as not being a dictator".
Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants are facing war crimes charges in relation to the Anfal military campaign in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in the late 1980s.
We want to say that the government is interfering in the trial. We cannot continue with our work fairly
Defence team statement"The government of Iraq feels the judge is no longer neutral as could be seen when he described Saddam as not being a dictator," a statement by the cabinet said.
Some trial observers criticised what they saw as interference by the government preventing Saddam Hussein from being given a fair trial.
Human Rights Watch legal expert Nehal Bhuta said the judge's removal was "a blatant violation of the independence of the court", in comments quoted by AFP.
A statement by the defence team said they would not return until the government stopped "interfering in the trial".
Continued violence
Problems at the trial come against the backdrop of continuing violence in the insurgency and sectarian strife that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003.

The new judge is expected to be tougher with the defendantsIn northern Iraq, at least 18 people were killed in two bombings near the city of Mosul on Tuesday night.
A car bomb exploded first, in the town of Sharqat, then a suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt as a crowd gathered at the scene of the explosion.
In a separate incident, on Wednesday, at least three people were killed when a suicide bomber drove a truck into a police building in southern Baghdad. At least 10 others were wounded.
Putting Saddam Hussein and former members of his regime on trial was envisioned by the US-led coalition which overthrew him as a way to unify the country and turn a new page for democracy in Iraq.
However, critics say the two trials so far have fallen short of international standards.
Defence lawyers have been murdered and the chief judge in the first trial resigned half-way through, amid reports he had come under pressure from the government to be less "lenient" to the defendants.
Saddam Hussein and six others are on trial for war crimes during the so-called Anfal campaign in which up to 180,000 Kurdish civilians died in the late 1980s.
Saddam Hussein and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, popularly known in Iraq as Chemical Ali, face additional charges of genocide.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MORE 'BIG CATS AND BOARS IN WILD' !

Two sightings of red pandas have been made since 2000. Exotic animals roaming free are becoming an increasingly common sight in the UK and its waters, a study says.
The survey recorded 5,931 apparent sightings of big cats, 332 of wild boars and 3,389 of sharks since 2000 - with figures expected to rise.
The 10,000 sightings include a penguin, two red pandas and 51 wallabies.
Climate change, zoo thefts and escapes are thought to have contributed to the rise, said the study compiled by Disney along with animal groups.

The British Big Cat Society, Beastwatch UK, The Wild Boar Society and the Marine Conservation Society all contributed to the survey.
Once on the loose, it seems the south west of England is popular among big cats, with Devon, Cornwall and Somerset among the top 10 counties for sightings.
In Kent and East Sussex, there were more than 100 wild boar sightings, and in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire wallabies were apparently spotted on 30 occasions.
Racoons seem to head for Leicestershire and Oban in Scotland is home to several monkeys, the survey says.
However, it is not just the sightings that have been startling observers, but their behaviour too.

ANIMAL SIGHTINGS
5,931 big cats
3,389 sharks
332 wild boars
51 wallabies
43 snakes
13 dangerous spiders
13 racoons
10 crocodiles
7 wolves
4 eagles
2 red pandas
2 scorpions
1 penguin
Welcome to the jungle .

Last year, a deer was seen swimming a mile and a half across a busy shipping lane in Hampshire, apparently looking for a new home.
And earlier this month, a family of squirrels cut the power in 10,380 homes in Exeter after shorting a power cable.
Chris Mullins, founder of Beastwatch UK, said: "It is clear that the UK contains far more exotic wild animals than the British public could ever imagine."
He said since the organisation started in 2000, the number of reports had increased at a rapid rate, ranging from monkeys being stolen from zoos to the more unusual such as a piranha in the River Thames and a chinchilla found in a post box.
The British Big Cat Society also reported an increase in big cat sightings in recent years, with 2004/5 figures 3.5% up on the previous year.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

P.M.'S WARNING TO HUNGARIAN RIOTERS !

Violent clashes erupted outside the state TV station offices.

Budapest protests

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany has warned he will crack down on any repeat of Monday night's violent protests in Budapest.
Mr Gyurcsany said the protests, in which dozens of people were hurt, were Hungary's "longest and darkest night" since the end of communism in 1989.
The violence erupted at the state TV building following a largely peaceful rally calling on Mr Gyurcsany to quit.
In a leaked tape, Mr Gyurcsany admitted his government had lied to the public.
His comments, which were recorded just after a general election in April, have prompted calls for his resignation from opposition parties.
But his own Socialist party, and the junior party in the ruling coalition, have stood behind the prime minister.
Protesters storm station
Mr Gyurcsany has thus far withstood pressure to leave office and had vowed to push forward with tough economic reforms.
"I had spent three minutes on Sunday night thinking about whether I should step down or whether I had a reason to step down, and the conclusion I came to is that absolutely not," he told Reuters news agnecy.
The prime minister also warned he would deal firmly with any further violent protests.

We lied morning, noon and night
Ferenc Gyurcsanyexcerpt from leaked tap.

Excerpts from speech

He said he had told police "to use all means to restore order", according to the national news agency MTI.
But reporters say a small crowd of protesters has been growing at Kossuth Square, where parliament is located, to demand Mr Gyurcsany's resignation.
The trouble on Monday night began when a group of protesters left the large, mostly peaceful demonstration outside parliament and went to TV headquarters.
According to reports, they requested that a petition be read out on air, and when refused attacked the building.
Riot police sent to contain the protest came under assault from protesters throwing cobblestones and bottles and setting cars alight. Inside the building, the protesters briefly forced state television off the air.
The police were forced to withdraw from the scene for several hours before returning to expel the protesters.

Police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators
Officials said 150 people had been injured - 102 of them police officers, with one suffering serious head injuries.
Overnight Justice Minister Jozsef Petretei, who oversees the police force, offered to resign over the violence, but his offer was rejected by Mr Gyurcsany.
"Nothing like this has happened since 1956," one young protester told Reuters news agency, referring to Hungary's failed uprising against Soviet rule in October 1956.
Hungarian TV reports that the national security cabinet met on Tuesday morning, and requested a briefing on the situation from the police.
'We lied'
Mr Gyurcsany's comments which sparked the protests were heard in a tape of a meeting he held with his MPs a few weeks after April's election, and leaked to media on Sunday.
Mr Gyurcsany should resign... He and his "friends" should leave this country for good
Protester, Budapest

In excerpts broadcast on state radio, Mr Gyurcsany candidly admitted his government had accomplished "nothing" and had been lying for "the last year and a half to two years".
"We lied morning, noon and night," he said in a speech punctuated by obscenities.
Protests had already been planned this week over tough austerity measures imposed since the election.
The leaked revelations were, for some of the protesters, the straw which broke the camel's back, the BBC's Nick Thorpe reports.
Local elections are scheduled in two weeks' time and the Socialists and their liberal coalition allies are trailing the conservative opposition party Fidesz in the polls.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BREAD, NET DISASTERS HIT ZIMBABWE

Bread, net disasters hit Zimbabwe

Some shops have reversed the price rises. Shops in the Zimbabwe capital, Harare are running short of bread after three top food-makers were arrested for over-charging for their products.
Prices of bread and other staple foods are controlled by the government and bakers say the official price does not even meet production costs.
In another sign of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown, its main internet connection has been shut because of unpaid debts.
One internet provider said the closure was "catastrophic."
Journalist Brian Hungwe says that in Harare some shops have already run out of bread, although some stores still have supplies.
'Collapse'
The executives, one from a major Zimbabwean bread-maker, were arrested at the weekend.
Bread prices rose last week to 330 Zimbabwe dollars (US$1.32) a loaf, while the official price remains Z$200.

ZIMBABWE CRISIS

Life expectancy 30 years
High dependency on food aid
20% adult HIV prevalence
Shortages of basic foodstuffs
High unemployment
Inflation 1,200%

New high for Zimbabwe inflation

Three more top businessmen have also been arrested on similar charges, reports the state-owned Herald newspaper.
"We have charged them with increasing prices without authority from the Ministry of Industry and International Trade and we expect them to appear in court tomorrow," Chief Insp Phiri said.
The Herald also reports that some shops have reversed their prices rises.
Zimbabwe's annual inflation is running at 1,200% - the highest rate in the world.
The bakers said last week that their costs had risen by up to 289% in the month of June alone.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's Internet Service Providers Association said that e-mail traffic and web use was down by 90% after the main satellite internet connection run by the state-owned TelOne was closed over a debt of $700,000, reports the AP news agency.
"This is catastrophic as all legal Internet Service Providers utilize TelOne for their outgoing bandwidth to the World Wide Web as well as for e-mail traffic. In short, this... is causing an almost collapse of the Internet in Zimbabwe," said Mweb, the country's biggest provider.
Earlier this year, Zimbabwe knocked three zeros off the denomination of its banknotes in an effort to contain inflation.
The opposition says President Robert Mugabe has destroyed one of Africa's most developed economies through his policies.
He blames the problems on a western plot to remove him from power.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SHOULD HIV 'CRIMES' BE PUNISHED?

Should HIV 'crimes' be punished?
By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News

Condoms can stop HIV transmission.

There have been a number of high profile cases recently where people have been prosecuted for passing on HIV, with sentences ranging from a small fine to imprisonment.
In August 2006, a gay man being accused of 'recklessly' passing on the virus to his partner became the first person in Britain to be acquitted of such a crime.
These cases have thrown up a host of questions - medical, legal and ethical.
Some condone the prosecutions, saying they bring justice and act as a deterrent.
Others argue criminalising transmission increases stigma, discourages people from getting tested and could drive the Aids epidemic underground.
Your views
The Crown Prosecution Service is seeking public opinion on the way in which it deals with cases involving the intentional or reckless sexual transmission of infections which cause grievous bodily harm.
There needs to be a line drawn somewhere on what is criminal and what is not -
Bonita de Boer of Aids charity Avert

HIV crimes - lawyers' views

Seamus Taylor, director of equality and diversity at the CPS, explained: "We wish to set out our position clearly as we want to promote greater confidence in the criminal justice system."
In particular, the CPS is asking if the context in which the sexual behaviour occurred should be a relevant factor when determining whether it is in the public interest to prosecute.
And what weight, if any, should be given to the defendant's ability to ensure a condom is used?
Proof
The recent acquittal shows existing scientific tests cannot prove direct transmission from one particular person to another.
The prosecuting man was having sex with more than one person infected with the virus and test results could not show conclusively which of his partners had given him HIV.

HOW HIV CAN BE PASSED ON
Fact: Blood, semen, vaginal fluids including menstrual blood, breast milk
Fiction: Saliva, sweat, urine, through skin, through air
Fact: Sex without a condom, injecting drug use, mother to baby, organ transplant
Fiction: Kissing, holding hands, sharing a drink

Dr Anna-Maria Geretti, a consultant clinical virologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London who testified at the trial, said cases should not be based on virological evidence alone.
"It can show whether two people are infected with a similar virus, but that does not prove that person A gave it to person B.
"There could be a chain of transmission where four or five people are infected with a similar virus."
Practically, it can be hard to trace contacts, as people will often not have contact details of everyone they may have slept with in the past.
And if someone is being accused of reckless transmission, it is unlikely that they will want past partners to be contacted, in case it makes their situation worse.
Even if you could prove precisely who had transmitted the virus, the question of intent remains.
Intent
None of the convictions to date have been for deliberate transmission. The charges have been for "reckless grievous bodily harm", under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861.

Mr Dica was given a prison sentence for transmitting HIV to two women
The only requirements for a successful prosecution under this charge is that someone with HIV has sex, fails to tell their partner their status, and during that sex passes their virus on.
Aids charities generally agree that it is correct and acceptable to prosecute anyone who intentionally infects another with HIV.
However, they believe prosecutions for "reckless transmission" are wrong and that transmitting HIV in this context is not criminal.
The Terrence Higgins Trust says that in the vast majority of cases of onward transmission, people with HIV do not pass on the virus intentionally.
But Daniel Sokol, medical ethicist at the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, London, says, morally, this is no defence.
"Even if there is no intent to cause harm at all, the person can still be blamed morally if he could have reasonably have expected to have put the partner at risk or if he should have known.
"He has a duty to be informed about his condition and its transmitability.
"We can still criticise a reckless driver even if he didn't intend to cause any trouble and didn't know he had too much to drink. Ignorance is not enough to get us off the moral hook."
Consent
Lisa Power, a spokeswoman for the Terrence Higgins Trust said that often transmission occurs as a the result of sexual partners jointly failing to choose to practice safer sex.
In other cases, a condom may have been used but have split.
She pointed out that some people might not know if they were HIV-positive. Others might find it extremely difficult to disclose their HIV status.
Many people have difficulty coming to terms with having HIV and remain in denial. Fear of rejection and stigma can also prevent people from being honest, she said.
And there is no guarantee that disclosure of HIV-positive status will remain confidential with the partner.
"Negotiations in the bedroom are very complicated and often not completely verbal," she explained.
"There is plenty of research to show that amongst gay men at least, those living with HIV assume that not using condoms means the other person is positive too, whereas negative people assume not using condoms means the other person is negative.
"Often people have sex in the heat of the moment and under the influence of alcohol and may not do what they would do when they were sober."
Equity and public health
Bonita de Boer of Avert said: "People transmit all kinds of other sexually transmitted infections within relationships that never get criminalised.
"There needs to be a line drawn somewhere on what is criminal and what is not. At present, there are no guidelines on this issue, and courts are relying on a law that is well over 100 years old to obtain convictions.
"This needs to be addressed before prosecutions in this country start snowballing."
HIV charities warn that criminal prosecutions could actually increase transmission rates, by deterring people from getting tested for HIV and disclosing their HIV status to sexual partners.
A spokeswoman from the National Aids Trust said: "Criminalising of reckless transmission is going to run counter to public health objectives which emphasise personal responsibility for sexual health, increased testing amongst vulnerable groups and an end to HIV-related stigma and discrimination."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

FAWLTY STAR'S RED CARPET WELCOME!

'Basil' and Cybil reunited with the Morris 1100 at the Hotel Gleneagles. A Devon hotel which helped inspire the legendary series Fawlty Towers has welcomed back one of the show's stars.
Actress Prunella Scales who played Sybil, arrived at the Hotel Gleneagles in a replica of the Morris 1100 flayed by screen husband Basil in one episode.
John Cleese, who played Basil, based the series on the Torquay hotel which the Monty Python team visited in 1971.
He described the then owner Donald Sinclair as "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met".
It was all about men and women, power and pain
Prunella ScalesMr Sinclair, who died in 1981, is said to have thrown fellow Monty Python colleague Eric Idle's suitcase out of the window "in case it contained a bomb" and complained about Terry Gilliam's table manners.
Ms Scales said that the enduring appeal of the Fawlty Towers series, created by John Cleese and Connie Booth - who played waitress Polly - was the "very good writing".

The car thrashing scene is a favourite among motorists"It was all about men and women, power and pain," said Ms Scales, making her first visit to the hotel.
Ms Scales side-stepped a few hiccups that would have been worthy of Fawlty Towers.
First the red Morris 1100 she arrived in stopped shy of the red carpet, which had to be hastily re-arranged by hotel staff.
She was unfazed by a replica Basil.
Then she lost no composure when her speech was interrupted by the voice of US actress Joan Rivers on the public address system, giving her approval to the hotel's £1m revamp.
Brian Shone - who co-owns the hotel with Terry Taylor - said that 20 years ago Torquay wanted Fawlty Towers "wiped off the map".
"We have done Torquay a favour, we have put it on the map," he said.

The Torquay hotel owners are embracing its history"You cannot get rid of the spirit of Basil, so you have got to embrace him."
Barbara DePaulis, who was invited back to the hotel which catered for her daughter's wedding in the 1970s, described how one guest had to be rushed to hospital with a broken nose and her husband was asked to serve in the restaurant.
She told BBC News: "It was the first wedding reception that the Gleneagles had had. They did not have enough staff or food.
"It was just hysterical. In the end we had to laugh.
"I can understand how it got the name Fawlty Towers after that."
The actual hotel seen at the start and end of the series was the Wooburn Grange Country Club in Buckinghamshire, but that burned down in 1991.
Despite only running for 12 episodes, Fawlty Towers regularly tops polls of favourite TV programmes.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ATLANTIS SHUTTLE UNDOCKS FROM ISS!

Atlantis was to circle the space station after undocking. The space shuttle Atlantis has undocked from the International Space Station (ISS), after a mission described as one of the most complex in recent years.
During the 11-day mission, astronauts made three spacewalks, installing solar panels on the space station.
The panels - which weigh 17 metric tons and span more than 70m - will eventually supply the station with a quarter of its electrical power.
The shuttle is expected to return to Earth on Wednesday.

The shuttle left the three-person ISS crew behind The hatch connecting Atlantis to the ISS was closed and sealed at 1028 GMT after the shuttle astronauts said goodbye to their colleagues.
It pulled away from the space station more than two hours later.
After undocking, the Atlantis team planned to circle around the station to check its overall condition and beam images back to Earth.

The Atlantis astronauts leave behind the station's current three-member crew, who have been living there since March. Astronauts made three space walks during the mission. The BBC's Corinne Podger says the mission represents a much-needed triumph for the US space agency Nasa.
Construction of the station was halted three years ago, after the Columbia shuttle disintegrated during its return to earth, killing seven astronauts.
The agency now says it expects construction to be completed in 2010, the same year it plans to retire the ageing shuttle fleet.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

STUNNING FINDS OF FISH AND CORAL !

Stunning finds of fish and coral
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website

The "walking" shark

Discoveries of hugely diverse fish and coral species in the Indonesian archipelago have amazed researchers.
The Bird's Head region in Papua may be the most biologically diverse in all the oceans, say scientists from Conservation International (CI).
Among 50 species believed to be new are bottom-dwelling "walking" sharks and "flasher" wrasse, which feature colourful male courting displays.
CI is working with the Indonesian government to protect the ecosystem."Five years ago we ran our first expedition to Raja Ampat [islands off the Bird's Head], and this revealed what we felt to be the epicentre of marine biodiversity on the planet," said Mark Erdmann, a CI scientist on the project.
Researchers have just returned for a more detailed survey, which revealed 20 corals, 24 fish and eight mantis shrimp believed to be new to science.
Highlights included two apparently new species of epaulette sharks, which spend most of their time walking across the sea floor, swimming away when danger looms.
Unspectacular, dull brown male wrasse transform into a spectacular blaze of yellow, blue and purple to impress females in their harem and persuade them to mate.
"We were simply blown away by what we found," Dr Erdmann told the BBC News website.
Turbulent history
Reefs in the "coral triangle" - an area rather un-triangular in shape which includes tracts of water off the coasts of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and East Timor - are home to about 600 species of reef-building coral.

Life on the reef

That is more than exist along Australia's Great Barrier Reef which covers an area 10 times larger.
What makes the region special, it seems, is a combination of its topography and its history.
It contains a mixture of deep basins and shallower waters. As global sea levels have risen and fallen over the millennia, the basins would have become isolated, allowing species to evolve differently in each, before being returned to the open sea when waters rose.
This pattern has ver.y likely been amplified by the region's active tectonics, creating regular earthquakes and other upheavals.
Another contributing factor could be the region's isolation from large centres of human population, making it easier for unique species and ecosystems to survive.

Scientists find "lost world" in Indonesian jungle.
In pictures

That has certainly helped in the preservation of land animals in the region, which has seen several finds of new forest species in recent years.
CI believes that without protection, the unique marine creatures of the Bird's Head area will not survive intact; human activities, in particular fishing using explosives and cyanide, will have their inevitable impact.
"The other thing we are afraid of is economic development plans for Papua, which involve increased fisheries exploitation," said Dr Erdmann.
"There are relatively few people living there, but they are dependent on their coastline; and we think development plans need to be revisited."
CI and its conservation partners are now working with the Indonesian government to protect the special areas of the Bird's Head peninsula and Raja Ampat islands, and to manage development in a sustainable way.

Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOMALI LEADER SURVIVES BOMB BLAST !

The president's convoy had just left when the explosions went off. At least 11 people have died in an apparent bid to assassinate Somalia's interim president outside parliament in the town of Baidoa, say officials.
A suspected car bomb went off soon after a convoy left carrying President Abdullahi Yusuf, but the leader is said to have escaped unharmed.
A second bomb exploded near the first, setting at least five cars ablaze.
Mr Yusuf has strained relations with an Islamist group which controls much of southern Somalia.
The interim government controls only Baidoa and a small area around it.
The Union of Islamic Courts deny US accusations that they are linked to al-Qaeda.
Pool of blood
One of the dead was reported to be the president's younger brother - a security official

"I saw a white car explode in front of the parliament, demolishing seven other cars nearby," witness Sahad Mohamed Abukar told AFP news agency.
"There were screams everywhere."
Somali Foreign Minister Ismail Hurre said the attack had been an assassination attempt on the president.
"Five people were killed from the presidential convoy and three wounded," the minister told reporters in the Kenyan capital.
"Six attackers were also killed and two captured."
Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi told the BBC that President Yusuf was alive and well.
Local journalist Mohamed Adawe said the blast came 10 minutes after the president had delivered a speech.
The parliament was meeting to approve Mr Ghedi's new government. MPs have been debating whether the government should share power with the UIC. They have held peace talks but have not yet reached an agreement.
"This explosion was intended to kill the president, but he escaped and he is safe," said government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari.
President Yusuf wants foreign peacekeepers sent to Somalia - a suggestion strongly rejected by the Islamists, who say they can take care of security in a country which has not had an effective national government for 15 years.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.K. ENDS THREAT ON WORLD BANK CASH !

The World Bank's tough loan conditions have drawn criticism. The UK has pulled back from its threat to withhold £50m ($94m) from the World Bank after the Bank agreed to alter the way it made decisions on loans.
Britain last week said it might withhold the funds in protest at the Bank's tough policy of withdrawing loans to nations deemed to be corrupt.
The UK government said the rule unfairly penalised the poorest people in such developing countries.
The World Bank will now give donator nations more say in the loan process.
Monday's news came after the World Bank's Development Committee met in Singapore.
'Reaching the poor'
UK Development Secretary Hilary Benn said he had now "got what I need in terms of a process" to pull back from withdrawing the £50m.
We cannot abandon the poor because their governments or institutions are weak
World Bank boss Paul Wolfowitz
Other World Bank member states such as India and South Africa had also criticised the strong anti-corruption drive instigated by World Bank boss Paul Wolfowitz.
"If we are to reach the poor, we must find ways of providing support for development in challenging environments," South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel told the World Bank's Development Committee.
"The Bank's new enhanced framework on governance and anti-corruption should not compromise the Bank's core mission of poverty reduction."
'Unfairly penalising'
Mr Wolfowitz appeared to soften his stance at the meeting, saying poor people should not be penalised for the abuses of their leaders.
"We cannot abandon the poor because their governments or institutions are weak," he said in an address to the World Bank's Development Committee.
"That would mean they would be penalised twice."
He had earlier told the meeting that despite his anti-corruption drive, lending to developing countries was up 9% this year to $9.5bn.
The World Bank's board, which comprises finance ministers from member states, will now have more say in the anti-corruption drive and therefore which, if any, countries have their aid suspended as a result of poor practice.
Mr Benn has also raised concern over the World Bank's determination that nations receiving loans must liberalise their economies, saying the Bank is far too prescriptive.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MEXICAN POLITICAL CRISIS DEEPENS!

A mass rally of supporters of defeated Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has "elected" him head of a parallel government.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Mexico City's main square, the Zocalo, for the show of hands.
Mr Lopez Obrador and his supporters have said his defeat by less than 1% of the vote was fraudulent.
However, the highest electoral court has backed the result, giving power to conservative candidate Felipe Calderon.
'Legitimate president'
The demonstrators had flocked to the square after an earlier military parade to mark Independence Day that was overseen by outgoing President Vicente Fox.
It is going to be very rough for Calderon - Lidia Alvarado, Lopez Obrador supporter

Crisis reflects Mexico colour

In pictures: Mexico rally

Mr Lopez Obrador's supporters had been told to come for a National Democratic Convention.
They voted to swear him in as the "legitimate president" on 20 November, 11 days before Mr Calderon is officially inaugurated.
The BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Mexico City says the event is largely symbolic but will prove a psychological boost to Mr Lopez Obrador's supporters who believe he was cheated.
The campaign hopes to spend the next six years opposing the rule of Mr Calderon.
Some commentators say the "election" of a parallel administration will help reduce the possibility of radical street demonstrations.

Developments bemuse press

One supporter, Lidia Alvarado, said: "It is going to be very rough for Calderon. Wherever he goes, we'll be there to remind him he became president through fraud."
The protesters had occupied the Zocalo since the election seven weeks ago but agreed to disband the tent city for good ahead of Saturday's military parade.
President Fox reviewed thousands of military personnel in the Zocalo at the parade.
But small groups of Lopez Obrador supporters held up signs reading "Fox, crook" and "Vote by vote".
Their campaign has been based on a call for a full recount of the vote.
Others at the parade cheered Mr Fox and president-elect Mr Calderon, who is from the president's party.
On Friday Mr Fox moved Independence Day celebrations out of the capital amid security fears.
He gave "el grito" - the independence cry of "Viva Mexico!" - from the town of Dolores Hidalgo, 270km (170 miles) north of Mexico City, where in 1810 national hero Miguel Hidalgo established the movement for independence from Spain.
A government spokesman said the event was moved from Mexico City because of fears of radical groups planning violence.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PUFFY PLANET POSES PRETTY PUZZLE

Astronomers have found a strange new world that has them pondering again the essential properties of a planet.
This new object, designated HAT-P-1, orbits one member of a pair of stars 450 light-years away in the constellation Lacerta.
Although HAT-P-1's radius is about 1.38 times that of our own Jupiter, it has a mass that is only half that of Jupiter.
This makes it much bigger and lower in density than planets are usually, raising questions about how it formed.
The mathematical equations describing planetary structure do not fit.
It would float in a bathtub if you could find a tub big enough to hold it
Gaspar Bakos"This planet is about one-quarter the density of water," said Gaspar Bakos, a Hubble fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).
"In other words, it's lighter than a giant ball of cork! Just like Saturn, it would float in a bathtub if you could find a tub big enough to hold it, but it would float almost three times higher."
HAT-P-1 is one of the 200 or so planets that have been detected outside our Solar System. It has the largest radius yet measured.
Like many of these extrasolar bodies, it orbits close to its parent star, revolving around it in just once every 4.5 Earth days.
New HAT?
HAT-P-1 is too far away to be imaged directly, but scientists know it is there because of the way light from its parent star dims as the planet passes in front.
Scientists know of one other extrasolar planet, HD 209458b, which is also puffed up about 20% bigger than predicted by theory. HAT-P-1 is 24% larger than expected.
Several ideas had been proposed solve the puzzle but none seemed to quite fit, said the CfA research team, which has detailed its discovery in a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal.
"Until we can find an explanation for both of these swollen planets, they remain a great mystery," said co-researcher Dimitar Sasselov.
The astronomers used a network of telescopes in the states of Arizona and Hawaii to discover the planet.
The double-star system, of which HAT-P-1's parent forms a part, is called ADS 16402 and is visible through binoculars.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

THOUGHTS ON A SUNDAY !

Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they were meant to be there, they serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson or help figure out who you are or who you want to become.

You never know who these people may be; your roommate, neighbor, professor, long lost friend, lover or even a complete stranger who, when you lock eyes with them, you know that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way.

And sometimes things happen to you and at the time they may seem horrible, painful and unfair, but in reflection you realize that without overcoming those obstacles you would have never realized your potential, strength, will power or heart.

Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, if they be events, illnesses or relationships, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. Safe and comfortable but dull and utterly pointless.

The people you meet who affect your life and the successes and downfalls you experience, they are the ones who create who you are. Even the bad experiences can be learned from ... those lessons are the hardest and probably the most important ones.

If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to who you open your heart to.

If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and opening your heart and eyes to things you would have never seen or felt without them.

Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen, let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right to.

Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either.

You can make of your life anything you wish.

Create your own life and then go out and live it.

Author: Unknown

PROTESTERS CALL FOR DARFUR ACTION !

Protesters in Khartoum have demonstrated against the UN. Protesters demanding an end to conflict in Sudan's Darfur region are staging a day of demonstrations around the world.
Activists will rally in several capital cities, calling on the government in Khartoum to allow United Nation peacekeepers into Darfur.
Khartoum has dismissed the protests, saying those taking part have been misled by the international media.
Tens of thousands of people have died and up to two million have been displaced in three years of conflict.
The US and France have both said a genocide is taking place in Darfur, with the US directly accusing Khartoum of responsibility.
On Saturday UK Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote to leaders of the European Union, calling the situation in Darfur "unacceptable" and urging them to take a common stand on the issue.
'Misunderstanding'
Protests on Sunday were due to begin in London with a rally outside the Sudanese embassy.
Demonstrators were expected to march to Downing Street for a multi-faith prayer vigil.
Unfortunately, the people in the West, in Europe and the United States are moved by the media - Ali KatiSudanese junior foreign minister.

Blair urges EU Darfur unity
Quick guide: Darfur

Rallies are expected to take place in some 30 cities around the world.
Among those involved are the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, who headed the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda during that country's genocide in 1994.
Speaking ahead of the protests, Sudan's junior foreign minister, Ali Kati, insisted the demonstrators were misunderstanding the situation in Darfur.
"Unfortunately, the people there in the West, in Europe and the United States are moved by the media and the media is unfortunately moved by political agendas," he said.
The BBC's Mark Doyle says the government in Khartoum says it is defending the territorial integrity of Sudan against rebels backed by neighbouring Chad.
Peacekeeper threat
But Steve Ballinger, a spokesman for Amnesty International, rejected Mr Kati's interpretation of events.

Refugees from fighting in Darfur tell their stories -
"The situation is dire already in Darfur, and it is only going to get worse when the African Union troops leave at the end of this month, unless the UN peacekeeping mission is allowed back in."
Seven thousand African Union peacekeeping troops are due to leave Darfur at the end of August, but Khartoum has refused to allow UN peacekeepers to take their place.
The government has stressed that any UN troops entering Darfur would be met with armed resistance.
On Saturday 1,000 volunteers from a pro-government militia marched through the streets of Khartoum threatening to kill any uninvited UN visitors, the BBC's Jonah Fisher reports from the city.
Violence in the region is reported to be rising again, drawing criticism from figures as diverse as the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and actor George Clooney, who this week implored the UN Security Council to act.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA AND INDIA 'BOOSTING AFRICA' !

China's President Wen Jiabao visited Africa earlier this year. China and India's growing trade and investment in Africa holds great potential for African economic growth, a World Bank report has said.
The study found that, led by China and India, Asia now gets 27% of Africa's exports, triple the amount in 1990.
At the same time, Asian exports to Africa are now growing 18% per year, faster than any other global region.
The study says both China, India and African nations must improve their trade reforms to help boost this trend.
'Best interests'
Entitled Africa's Silk Road: China and India's New Economic Front, the report recommends the elimination of China's and India's tariffs on African exports.
Written by World Bank Africa Region Economic Advisor Harry Broadman, the study further calls for Africa to reform its economies to better "unleash competitive market forces, strengthen its basic market institutions, and improve governance".
It also wants to see African countries improve their infrastructure and customs arrangements.
Taken together it said such changes were "not only in the best interests of Africa's economic development, but in China's and India's own economic fortunes".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

POPE REMARKS REVEAL HARDER STANCE !

Pope remarks reveal harder stance.
By Peter Gould BBC News website.

The Pope has said he deeply regrets any offence caused. The furore over the Pope's remarks about Islam has left many Catholics inside and outside the Vatican shaking their heads in disbelief.
Aides of Benedict XVI are dismayed that a quotation used to illustrate a philosophical argument should have provoked such anger from Muslims.
But for others, the row has highlighted their concerns about the Pope's attitude towards the Church's relations with the Islamic world.
The first year of his papacy passed off without controversy. Yet he was quietly planning a number of key changes in the Vatican hierarchy.
When Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005, it was assumed that he would follow closely the policies of his predecessor, John Paul II.
Diverging views
On many Church issues, the two men were completely in sync. Like the Polish pope, Benedict XVI could be relied upon to uphold the traditional teachings of the Church.
But on one key issue, Vatican-watchers detected a divergence in the views of the two men: the Vatican's attitude towards Islam.
John Paul II wanted to reach out to other religions and in 2001, on a visit to Syria, he became the first pope to set foot in a mosque.
It was a gesture intended to help end centuries of hostility and suspicion between the two religions.
Benedict XVI undoubtedly wants to achieve better relations with Islam, but there is an important proviso.
It can be summed up in a single word: reciprocity. It means that if Muslims want to enjoy religious freedom in the West, then Christians should have an equal right to follow their faith in Islamic states, without fear of persecution.
Re-shuffle
One of the first signs of a toughening of the Vatican's stance came with the removal from office of Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald.
The British-born cleric ran a Vatican department that promoted dialogue with other religions. A distinguished scholar on Arab affairs, he was an acknowledged expert on the Islamic world.

Archbishop Fitzgerald: a highly-respected scholar.
The decision by Benedict XVI to remove him from his post, and send him to Egypt as papal nuncio, was widely seen as a demotion.
Some wondered about the wisdom of the move.
Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit scholar and an authority on the workings of the Vatican, told the BBC news website of his concerns: "The Pope's worst decision so far has been the exiling of Archbishop Fitzgerald," he said in an interview in April this year.
"He was the smartest guy in the Vatican on relations with Muslims. You don't exile someone like that, you listen to them.
"If the Vatican says something dumb about Muslims, people will die in parts of Africa and churches will be burned in Indonesia, let alone what happens in the Middle East.
It would be better for Pope Benedict to have Fitzgerald close to him."
It is often argued that a real dialogue with Islam requires an open debate, even at the risk of sometimes causing offence.

Pope reacts: Full text

That warning now seems prophetic.
Did nobody at the Vatican anticipate the way the Pope's words might be taken out of context, and the likely reaction?
Since the 9/11 terror attacks on America, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq, nobody has been in any doubt about the importance of promoting a better understanding between Christianity and Islam.
The sensitivity of Muslims about their religion was made clear last year by the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.
The caricatures, re-printed in a number of Western countries, caused outrage in Islamic nations, leading to riots and acts of violence.
Daunting task
Pope Benedict has spoken of the responsibility of religious leaders to "work for reconciliation through genuine dialogue".
His task now appears even more daunting, with real concern being voiced about the possibility of a violent backlash from extremists in the Islamic world.

Key excerpts: Pope's speech
In quotes: Muslim reaction

The Pope has said he is sorry if his words caused offence, and that may go some way to satisfying Muslim opinion.
It is often argued that a real dialogue with Islam requires an open debate, even at the risk of sometimes causing offence.
But the Pope is now acutely aware that wherever he is speaking, his words will be heard around the world by an audience ready to analyse every nuance of meaning.
He may have another opportunity to explain himself to Muslims in November, when he is scheduled to visit Turkey.
In the meantime, the Vatican will be giving a lot more thought to the words and actions needed to promote better relations between the world's two major religions.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

THE VENEER GETS THINNER!

Dear Family and Friends,

On Friday morning, escorted by uniformed police, two young girls carried a banner through the Marondera town centre which proclaimed: "Protect LifeOn Earth." Behind them marched the Prison band in spotless bottle green uniforms with shining gold buttons and all carrying gleaming musical instruments. Behind the band came dozens of drum majorettes, young girls in bright and colourful uniforms. At the rear of the procession, which had bought the town to a standstill, were more police and an ambulance. There were reporters and ZBC TV camera men and on the Green tents had been erected, seats were laid out and someone announced that the Mayor and an Honourable Minister would be arriving shortly. For a few minutes it was like being Alice in Wonderland and you had to shake your head and ask yourself : is this the same place, the same town which just two days ago was over-run by police and engulfed in tension. Life is like this in Zimbabwe now, the veneer gets thinner and we swing wildly between extremes.

On Wednesday when the Trade Unions had called for lunch time marches to highlight the deteriorating conditions in Zimbabwe, the police and other state forces moved in and engulfed towns and cities across the country. Just a few days before women of WOZA marched with placards calling for clean drinking water and improved services in Harare. 107 women were arrested and detained for four days in police custody. By Wednesday it seemed the state were not going to take any chances and allow people to air their grievances and the signs were there for all to see by early in the morning. From Harare came reports of road blocks and large deployments of police in the centres. Similar reports came from Bulawayo and Masvingo. In Marondera the water cannons were visible and the town was swamped with police - patrolling on foot in two's and fours and in pairs on bicycles. Throughout the town police pick up trucks were parked in strategic places, filled with uniformed men. The gates to the police station were closed, guarded by an armed police woman and people had to show ID before they were allowed in.

Right across the country the union lunch time marches were doomed - crushed before they had even started. Top Union leaders and organisers in Harare were arrested and lawyers representing them say their clients had been beaten and tortured. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said: "From the look of it they were attacked by the police as soon as they were herded into cells. Some have broken limbs. The attacks appeared sadistic because some of the people cannot get up on their own." The Union Vice President Lucia Matibenga has a fractured arm, was bleeding from her ears and was having difficulty in breathing and hearing. The Union Secretary General Wellington Chibebe was covered in blood and had a "crack in his head." Union President Lovemore Matombo had both his arms fractured and so the list goes on - stories of horrors inflicted on the bravest of brave Zimbabweans who want only a decent life.

Despite the fact that the police, the marching bands and the drum majorettes are also drinking dirty water, having garbage go uncollected for weeks at a time and struggle to survive 1200% inflation - all complaints are silenced instantly. The banner proclaiming 'Protect Life onEarth' would be more appropriate if it said Protect Life in Zimbabwe.

Thanks for reading, until next time, love cathy

Copyright Cathy Buckle 16 September 2006.http:/africantears.netfirms.comMy books "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.com

WHO BACKS DDT FOR MALARIA CONTROL !

Malaria, carried by the mosquito, kills more than a million each year. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reversed a 30-year policy by endorsing the use of DDT for malaria control.
The chemical is sprayed inside houses to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
DDT has been banned globally for every use except fighting disease because of its environmental impacts and fears for human health.
WHO says there is no health risk, and DDT should rank with bednets and drugs as a tool for combating malaria, which kills more than one million each year.
"The scientific and programmatic evidence clearly supports this reassessment," said Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, WHO assistant director-general for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.
DDT presents no health risk when used properly
Anarfi Asamoa-Baah"Indoor residual spraying is useful to quickly reduce the number of infections caused by malaria-carrying mosquitoes; it has proven to be just as cost effective as other malaria prevention measures, and DDT presents no health risk when used properly."
Teams of sprayers typically visit endemic areas once a year, spraying the chemical on the inside walls of houses; mosquitoes landing there absorb it and die.
Global ban
A potent insecticide, DDT fell into disrepute with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring just over 40 years ago.
The book showed that widespread, indiscriminate use of DDT and related compounds was killing wildlife over vast tracts of North America and western Europe.

Africa battles over DDT

A number of countries banned it, and in 2004 the global treaty on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) made the prohibition global - except for a clause allowing its manufacture and use in disease control.
Some African countries have continued to use it, though most have either switched to other kinds of insecticide or pursued a strategy of issuing insecticide-impregnated bednets. Some aid agencies have policies of not funding programmes involving DDT.
South Africa was one country that switched, but it had to return to DDT at the beginning of the decade after mosquitoes developed resistance to the substitute compounds.
"Of the dozen insecticides WHO has approved as safe for house spraying, the most effective is DDT," said Arata Kochi, director of the WHO's Global Malaria Programme.
Richard Tren of the pressure group Africa Fighting Malaria has been campaigning for DDT's rehabilitation.
"All development agencies and endemic countries need to act in accordance with WHO's position on the use of DDT for indoor residual spraying," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.K. WITHHOLDS WORLD BANK DONATION !

The World Bank's loan conditions have drawn criticism. The UK is withholding £50m it had pledged to the World Bank in protest at conditions it attaches to aid.
International Development Secretary Hilary Benn voiced concerns that the Bank is telling poorer nations how to run their affairs.
Oxfam said it welcomed the move by the UK government, adding that the World Bank's policy on aid was "disastrous".
Mr Benn's comments came on the eve of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's annual meetings.
He is concerned that the Bank has been demanding too strict conditions before giving aid to developing countries.

Mr Benn said the Bank had a duty to help those in poverty despite the actions of their governments.
The Bank has for a long time insisted that the countries it lends to meet economic targets and has encouraged trade liberalisation.
In addition, since taking over as head of the Bank last year, World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz has made it his mission to tackle corruption in poorer countries.
His campaign has led to hundreds of thousands of dollars of loans and contracts to countries like Chad, Congo, Ethiopia and Bangladesh being suspended.

Mr Benn told Mr Wolfowitz that the UK is unhappy with the lack of progress at removing strict conditions on financial assistance.
Last year, the UK provided £1.3bn to the Bank to help poorer countries and promised to donate a further £50m in 2007, provided it eased the strings attached to aid.
On other issues, particularly economic policy, developing countries ought to take their own decisions
Hilary Benn, international development secretary.

Stars unite to fight poverty

However, Mr Benn has said he will now delay handing over the cash until he is satisfied the World Bank has eased its position on economic liberalisation.
"Most people would agree that if you're invading your neighbour, if you're oppressing your population or if you're taking aid money and spending it on other things, then we shouldn't stand for that and we won't," Mr Benn told the BBC.
"Britain doesn't and nor does the World Bank and we should attach conditions in those circumstances.
"But on other issues, particularly economic policy, developing countries ought to take their own decisions and I do believe that this is one of the ways that we can increase the voice of the poorest countries of the world," he added.

Oxfam and other campaigners such as Christian Aid say the World Bank's current policies often leave people in developing countries worse off than before.
"Imagine what life would be like if you had to run every decision you made by your bank manager and if he or she didn't like it, you would have to change it," Christian Aid policy manager Anna Thomas said.
"That is the reality for many poor countries and they can't just switch accounts."
Christian Aid points to the example of Ghana where the World Bank's demand for a ban on tariffs and subsidies for the poultry market has led to an influx of cheap European imports and seen many thousands of Ghanaians lose their jobs and livelihoods.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE UNION CHIEF IN HOSPITAL !

Wellington Chibebe was being held in a Harare police station. Several of Zimbabwe's main trade union leaders, who were arrested after Wednesday's banned protests, have been transferred from prison to hospital.
Lawyer Alec Muchadehama, representing the unionists, said that 12 people were now in hospital having been badly beaten while in police custody.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said they were aware of the allegations and investigations were underway.
He added that "excessive" attitudes within the force were not condoned.
At least 50 people were arrested on Wednesday while trying to stage demonstrations to protest against the government's handling of Zimbabwe's economic crisis.
The government had said the protests were banned.
Principles
Zimbabwe's main trade union leader, Wellington Chibebe, was one of those arrested.
His lawyer said he was badly beaten by the police.

ZIMBABWE CRISIS

Life expectancy 30 years
High dependency on food aid
20% adult HIV prevalence
Shortages of basic foodstuffs
High unemployment
Inflation 1,000%

New high for Zimbabwe inflation

"Chibebe has two fractures on the left arm, cuts on his head and bruises on his body," said Mr Muchadehama.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed that Mr Chibebe was in hospital but denied that the police routinely beat protesters.
"As an organisation we don't have a culture of assaulting people in our custody.
"Conduct of police officers can vary from time to time but we have principles that an officer has to follow."
The British government condemned the crackdown, describing it as a further abuse of human rights and has urged the country's government to begin a process of national dialogue and undertake a reform programme based on national consensus.
Zimbabwe's economy has been in sharp decline for more than six years.
President Robert Mugabe blames the problems on a foreign plot to remove him from power.
His critics say his policies have ruined what used to be one of Africa's most developed economies.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TANZANIA GANGSTERS TURN VIGILANTES !

Tanzania gangsters turn vigilantes.
Vicky Ntetema BBC News, Dar es Salaam.

Dar Kariakoo is the centre of the city's drugs trade. Former drug users and dealers are forming vigilante groups in the outskirts of Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, to combat crime but not all in the neighbourhood are impressed.
The local authorities and residents of Tandika suburbia, where crime is rampant, have accepted the youths who once terrorised them as their traditional security guards, locally known as sungusungu.
An officer with the local government in the Mwembe Radu area, Burton Mbena, said he appreciates the youths' initiative to do something positive for their country.
"We appreciate the initiative of these vigilante groups and we give them all the legal blessings.
"These youths were involved in the business of drugs, rape and mugging. But since the beginning of this year we have seen a significant change," he said.

The new vigilante groups come from the Safer City programme, which has seen 260 young men and women being trained in various job and life skills at 18 centres.
Two of these Tandika Youth Handicraft Groups, Tayohag and Gusta, in Dar es Salaam's south-eastern suburb have decided not only to fight drug abuse but also to protect the public and their property from criminals.
We have to involve the community so that together we can solve this problem and protect the lives of people and their property
Nicholas AbrahamTayohag Chairperson
However there is widespread criticism of the vigilantes, when they have been accused of using excessive violence as a means of punishment.
Although the government has prohibited the group from using guns, severe beatings of suspects, sometimes falsely accused, have been known to take place, and in some cases the suspects lost their lives.
Tayohag Chairperson Nicholas Abraham disagreed, saying that even though the area has a large number of hard-core criminals they do not use excessive force when apprehending the suspects.
"We are not armed when we approach these people; normally we go for the petty thieves whom we can control.
"But when it comes to major crimes, we inform the government which is capable of solving such a problem," he said.
"We have to involve the community so that together we can solve this problem and protect the lives of people and their property."

Gusta Chairperson Benson Palazilo explained how, as former criminals and drug addicts, they have managed to succeed in reducing the rate of crime in the area, where the police had failed for years.
A dog is also useful as it alerts you when there is trouble
ShillekiriavunjoTandika resident
"Members of Tayohag and Gusta live locally and know the youths who might be involved in criminal activities - it is easy to find them and bring them before the law."
Aren't Mr Palazilo and his group afraid that criminals may start to target them as they act as police informers?
"They will not dare," he says, "because they are in our area and we have decided to rid the society of these crimes. If they complain they should do so in another area - not here.
"We are now like the local security guards.
"And we do not want anybody to commit a crime in this area as they may tarnish our name and people may be forced to think that we are the culprits," explains Mr Palazilo.
Cautious
The majority of local residents are happy with these vigilantes.

Drugs are transported from the Dar es Salaam's port to and from Zanzibar
"I feel safer and have a peaceful night when I know that sungusungu are patrolling in the area. They will alert the police and the public before a crime is committed," says Mama Mwasha.
Others like teenager Shillekiriavunjo are a bit cautious.
"Sometimes they help, other times they be collaborating with the criminals. I would advise people to secure their homes. A dog is also useful as it alerts you when there is trouble," he said.
Sungusungu groups, not all of them former criminals and drug addicts, are becoming more popular across Tanzania's major towns and cities.
Almost every area is being patrolled by volunteers taking shifts. The whole group is paid between $2.50 and $5.50 per month per household. On average they take care of 40 homes.

But sungusungu or vigilante organisations are not new in Tanzania.
They were started in the early 1980s, soon after the war with Uganda's Idi Amin, by the north-western livestock-keepers of the Sukuma and Nyamwezi tribes.
These groups were popularised by then Home Affairs Minister Augustine Mrema. He has now crossed sides and is chairperson of the opposition Tanzania Labour Party (TLP).
He explained why he made vigilantes legal.
"The crime rate had reached alarming levels. We did not have enough police officers to cover the whole country, and the few we had were posted in urban areas. People were being robbed at gunpoint and living under constant fear.
"So I asked the public to form their own vigilante groups to protect themselves and their property. But they were not allowed to use violence," said Mr Mrema.
However, in this 21st Century, Tanzania still needs more policemen.
And there are no official statistics to verify that there are less criminal activities.
In rich areas people feel safer behind their concrete walls with barbed wire fences, patrolled by armed security guards and dogs.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

AL-QAEDA 'ISSUES FRANCE THREAT' !

Zawahiri urges Algerian militants to crush "French crusaders". Al-Qaeda's deputy leader has claimed that a radical Algerian Islamist group has joined al-Qaeda and is being urged to punish France, it has emerged. Ayman al-Zawahiri appeared in a video on a website on the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks.
In the tape, he issued a warning of new attacks targeting Israel and the Gulf. Although France's government opposed the US-led war in Iraq, French officials believe the country is still a target for Islamist militants.
In the video, Zawahiri says: "Osama Bin Laden has told me to announce to Muslims that the GSPC [the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat] has joined al-Qaeda," according to the transcript of his message given by the AFP news agency.
"This should be a source of chagrin, frustration and sadness for the apostates [of the regime in Algeria], the treacherous sons of [former colonial power] France."
He urges the group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders".
We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes
GSPC statement
"We pray to God that our brothers from the GSPC succeed in causing harm to the top members of the crusader coalition, and particularly their leader, the vicious America," he says.
Anne Giudicelli, head of the Terrorisc security consultancy who reviewed the whole tape, told Le Figaro newspaper the anti-France message had dominated the homepage of the website used by the GSPC for the past few days.
On Thursday, the GSPC pledged its allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and vowed to pursue jihad in Algeria, according to a statement posted on the internet, AFP reports.
"We pledge allegiance to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden... We will pursue our jihad in Algeria. Our soldiers are at his call so that he may strike who and where he likes," said the statement, signed by Abu Mossaab Abdelwadud, the emir of the group.
'High threat'
On Thursday, France's interior ministry said Zawahiri's comments "confirmed the high level of threat against our country", officials told AFP.
Ministry officials add al-Qaeda had announced in a statement on 11 September 2003 that the GSPC was one of its components and there have since been other threats issued against France.
On Monday, Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, head of the DST domestic security service, said the threat of terrorist attack in France remained "very high and very international".
"For our Islamist adversaries, our country is frankly in the Western camp, the crusaders in their words, and we will be spared nothing," he told French radio.
The GSPC was created in the late 1990s by members of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which the aim of establishing an Islamic state in Algeria.
The GIA and other militant groups waged a decade-long campaign of violence, following the annulment in 1992 of elections which Islamic groups were poised to win.
An estimated 150,000 people are thought to have been killed in the violence.
Last year, the GSPC singled out France as its "enemy number one" and issued a call for action against the country.
The GIA, which accused Paris of supporting the Algerian government, was blamed for a series of bombings in France in 1995.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HOPE SHINES OVER SOLAR PANEL BOOM!

Hope shines over solar panel boom.
By Clare Davidson Business reporter, BBC News, Sussex and Surrey.

The sky is the limit for Andy Baxter's new solar business
Engineer Andy Baxter has long been fascinated by solar energy.
Neatly dressed in chequered shorts, his face beams as he describes the process of dismantling and fixing a neighbour's broken solar panel.
"After fitting them for several friends I realised it could be a viable business," he says.
So last year, with his wife Amanda, he launched Sussex Solar, which installs thermal systems to heat water.
Global warming
Sussex Solar saw turnover hit £50,000 in its first year.
Mr Baxter expects more than double this in 2007, he says as he arrives at Mr and Mrs West's home in Worthing, Sussex, where his firm is installing a panel.
In essence, Mr Baxter's company, and others like it, are riding high due to a sharp rise in demand this year. Growing demand has been prompted by several factors.
"I used to be one of the worst offenders [in environmental terms]," says Rob West, spatula in hand as he prepares bacon butties for Mr Baxter and his two-man team.
But "global warming and public opinion" have changed that.
Besides, wife Julie adds, "our energy bills were spiralling".
"But its not really the money, more that I want to do my bit," interjects her husband.
Booming business
Such attitudes have created a booming industry, according to Phil Hunt, advisor to the Solar Trade Association.
The biggest hurdle is the shortage of competent installers
Phil Hunt, Solar Trade Association advisor
Geoffrey Williams, a plumber with Sussex-based Riomay, a large solar panel firm that started over 25 years ago, agrees.
Mr Williams - who manages one of several teams - said until recently he was overseeing one installation a month.
"Now each team is doing two a week."
The firm has installed around 1,000 panels in 2006 - or around 12 projects a week - more than double the figure seen a year ago.
Schools, homes and companies, as well as local authorities, prisons and Windsor "where we did panels for the Queen's swimming pool" are among Riomay's clients.
Cowboys and Professionals
While the solar industry has taken off, the industry remains fragmented, both for consumers and installers.
Though Curry's offers off-the-peg panels, most solar installers source different components directly from manufacturers, with parts coming from Japan, Germany or Wales.
Lately this unstructured sector has had trouble meeting demand.
"There are more people wanting panels than there are suppliers," explains Mr Hunt.

SOLAR OPTIONS
Thermal solar use the sun's energy to heat water
Photovoltaic (PV) cells use the sun's energy for electricity
Thermal systems can heat up to 70% of a household's yearly water
PV can provide around 6-15% of a household's yearly electricity
Light, not heat, is the critical factor in solar systems

"The biggest hurdle is the shortage of competent installers," says Mr Hunt, which points to a fundamental, structural problem: the number of places that offer installer courses recognised by the British Plumbers Employment Council are limited.
This has created a situation where "the industry is rife with cowboys" who have "the lion's share" of the market, says Mr Hunt, who recommends the Solar Association's website, which lists accredited installers.
That is what Mr West did, saving more than £4,000 in the process. "The first quote I got for thermal panels was for £9,000," he says.
Pay-back
At between £3,000 and £5,000 for thermal panels, and government grants in England covering only about 10% of that, solar energy is not cheap.

Thermal solar energy can provide 60% of a home's hot water needs
With annual savings of between £100 to £300, Mr Hunt puts the pay-back time at between 12 and 15 years.
Others put it nearer to eight or 10 years.
"But the stereotypical view of solar energy as the preserve of retired couples is no longer true," says Mr Baxter.
"It is getting more mainstream."
'Nice feeling'
The repeated hikes in gas and electricity prices by energy suppliers means solar energy is becoming more financially attractive.
Besides, believes Mr Chappell, a Riomay customer in Surrey: "The government is not doing its bit to tackle global warming."
Showing off his new boiler and solar panel system, he adds: "We are going to need alternative energy."
The increasing popularity of thermal solar panels seems to illustrate this.
Mr Hunt says demand for thermal panels is growing by 20% a year.
But the best thing about solar energy, says Rob West, is that "it is such a nice feeling actually doing something about emissions".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'OLDEST' NEW WORLD WRITING FOUND!

'Oldest' New World writing found
By Helen Briggs Science reporter, BBC News.

The slab contains a previously unknown system of writing.
More details

Ancient civilisations in Mexico developed a writing system as early as 2,000 years ago, new evidence suggests.
The discovery in the state of Veracruz of a block inscribed with symbolic shapes has astounded anthropologists.
Researchers tell Science magazine that they consider it to be the oldest example of writing in the New World.
The inscriptions are thought to have been made by the Olmecs, an ancient pre-Columbian people known for creating large statues of heads.
The finding suggests that New World people developed writing some 400 years before their contemporaries in the Western hemisphere.
Co-author Stephen Houston of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, US, said it was a "tantalising discovery".
"I think it could be the beginning of a new era of focus on Olmec civilisation," he said.
"It's telling us that these records probably exist and that many remain to be found. If we can decode their content, these earliest voices of Mesoamerican civilisation will speak to us today."
Chance find
The slab has been dated to the early first millennium BC. It appears to have been made by the Olmec civilisation of Mesoamerica, a geographical region located between the Sinaloa River valley in northern Mexico and the Gulf of Fonseca south of El Salvador.
I think it's a hugely important and symbolic find
Mary Pohl, Florida State UniversityThe area, once home to the Aztecs, Mayas and their predecessors, covers much of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras.
The Olmecs appeared on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico around 1,200 BC. They are known to have carved glyphs - a symbolic figure or character that stands for a letter, sound, or word - since around 900 BC, but scholars are divided over whether this can be classified as true writing.
The stone slab, named the "Cascajal block", was first uncovered by road builders digging up an ancient mound at Cascajal, outside San Lorenzo, in the late 1990s.
It weighs about 12kg (26lbs) and measures 36cm (14in) in length, 21cm (8in) in width and 13cm (5in) in thickness. Its text consists of 62 signs, some of which are repeated up to four times.
Mexican archaeologists Carmen Rodríguez and Ponciano Ortíz were the first to recognise the importance of the find, and it was examined by international archaeologists earlier this year.
Precious object
The team says the text "conforms to all expectations of writing" because of its distinct elements, patterns of sequencing, and consistent reading order.
Commenting on the discovery, Mary Pohl, of Florida State University in Tallahassee, said she believed the authors had made a good case.

The incised text consists of 62 signs, some repeated
More details

"I think it's a hugely important and symbolic find," she told the BBC News website. "It's new and further evidence that [the Olmecs] had writing and had text."
The block was carved from precious serpentine rock, suggesting it was probably a holy object used by high orders of society for some kind of ritual activity, she said.
The inscription is indecipherable but scientists hope that further excavations at the site could give clues to its content.
"I think more things will be found," said Dr Pohl. "We can make some progress although I don't think we'll ever be able to decipher it completely."
The Sumerians, who lived in Mesopotamia, what is now southern Iraq, are generally regarded to be the first people to develop a form of writing around 5,000 years ago; although there have been even older claims made for Chinese inscriptions.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DUBAI'S RULER ACCUSED OF SLAVERY!

The use of child camel jockeys is banned in Dubai. Dubai's ruler has been accused of enslaving thousands of young children for camel races in a class-action lawsuit filed in the US. The action claims Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, his brother Hamdam and 500 others are responsible for abducting and trafficking the children.
It was filed on behalf of six unidentified parents and thousands of unnamed children. There has been no comment on the action from the accused. The children were said to be from Bangladesh, Sudan and southern Asia.
Once in Dubai, it is claimed that the children - some of them as young as two - were kept in poor conditions, starved (so as to keep their weight down), abused and forced to take part in a dangerous sport.
The case was filed in Miami where Sheikh Mohammed and his brother, Sheikh Hamdam bin Rashid al-Maktoum, have property.
The two, along with the other 500 defendants who the suit says are as yet unknown, face nine counts.
They include engaging in slavery, conspiring to engage in slavery, engaging in or facilitating child labour, battery, assault, infliction of emotional distress and wrongful death.
The use of child camel jockeys was banned in Dubai 13 years ago.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MAYOR'S 'CHEAP OIL DEAL' SLAMMED!

Ken Livingstone has been criticised for a proposed deal to get cheap Venezuelan oil for London's buses, in return for consultancy services. The London mayor confirmed his officials were in discussion with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. London would offer help on issues such as transport and the environment.

But the Tories questioned the impact it would have on Venezuela's poor, while the Greens said he should be reducing the city's dependence on fossil fuels.
There have been concerns that Tube fare rises in central London for 2007, announced this week, will hit the lowest income groups hardest.
The deal could subsidise Oyster travel cards for the poorest Londoners, Mr Livingstone said.

Mr Livingstone told the London Assembly on Wednesday: "I suspect we are two or three months away from finalising this deal, but it was certainly the case that President Chavez wanted to target the benefit to the very poorest, the unemployed."
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the Americas, and its socialist president is the Bush administration's fiercest critic in Latin America.
But in November 2005, it signed a deal with the US state of Massachusetts to provide cheap heating oil to poor households. Similar deals were also signed in Boston and New York.
Consultancy expertise
President Chavez visited London as Mr Livingstone's guest in May.
Proposals for the London deal include offering the city's experts in environmental and transport issues as consultants to the civic authority in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.
But news of the discussions has angered some of Mr Livingstone's political rivals. Angie Bray, Conservative leader on the London Assembly, said: "Ken Livingstone and the President of Venezuela should be ashamed of themselves for even contemplating such a proposal. "I'm sure the 35% of Venezuelans who struggle below the poverty line, many of them critically so, would be shocked at the cynical siphoning off of their main asset to provide one of the world's most prosperous cities with cheap oil. "

Meanwhile Darren Johnson, of the Assembly's Greens, said the deal sent out the wrong message. "London needs to be working on reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, not finding ever-cheaper sources of it," he said. "If Ken is really interested in the environment and international co-operation then he should be working on exporting clean energy expertise to Caracas."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ANALYSIS: CHINA'S PREMIER WEN IN THE U.K.

Analysis: China's Premier Wen in the UK.
Mr Blair and Mr Wen were keen to stress new business deals.British PM Tony Blair and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao have met in London to discuss, among other things, trade, climate change and press freedom. BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins was at Downing Street to question the leaders and here delivers his assessment of Mr Wen's visit. By the middle of this century, China will be the world's dominant economic power. Couple that with its rapidly growing political power and no wonder world leaders are scrambling to develop closer relations.
Tony Blair has established the pattern of an annual meeting with his counterpart, Wen Jiabao, as a crucial element in building closer ties and trying to influence aspects of China's future.
Trade between Britain and China has more than doubled over the past five years.
Among countries of the European Union, including other economic giants like France and Germany, Britain is the largest investor in China. So both Mr Blair and Mr Wen were keen to stress the importance of new business deals. Three were announced as part of the visit, including Air China's $800m (£425m) agreement to buy Trent 1000 engines to power its fleet of 15 Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

Pro and anti-Wen protesters greeted the premier in London
British energy giant BG Group is making its first investment in China, for deepwater exploration in the South China Sea.
The global design and engineering group Arup won an agreement to develop a design for the new Yunnan Kunming International Airport in southern China.
It will become the country's fourth largest airport hub.
All this economic activity has profound implications for the Earth's future.
China's energy demands can seem almost limitless and Tony Blair is pressing China hard to join in global climate change initiatives.
The Chinese government will ensure the freedom and rights of the foreign news media
Premier Wen Jiabao
The British government sees China overtaking the US in about 20 years as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
The greatest single source will be China's coal-fired power stations.
Britain's Foreign Office says China opens a new one, on average, every four days.
So both leaders stressed the importance of the EU-China "Near Zero Emissions Coal Initiative", designed to produce a demonstration plant by 2012, incorporating the capture of harmful carbon dioxide.
Given the breathtaking pace of the opening of lower tech, "dirty" power stations, however, Britain is now urging the acceleration of a project that is looking hopelessly inadequate as a response.
This is still the most difficult issue between China and many other leading world powers.

Today Mr Blair told us that he had raised concerns again, but paid tribute to Premier Wen's "frank and candid" private talks with him on this and a host of other divisive issues.
When I asked the Chinese premier about new limits on press freedom which seem to be closing the trade in ideas and free expression for his own people, he insisted the new controls had been misunderstood.

Reporting freedoms in China were one of the issues at the talks.
"The Chinese government will ensure the freedom and rights of the foreign news media and foreign financial information agencies operating in China," he said.
"And we also hope and trust that these foreign news media and financial information institutions will also observe the Chinese law and regulations."
Mr Wen did not directly answer the point about freedom for his own citizens and for China's media.
Outside Mr Blair's office at No 10, about 100 human rights activists could be heard beyond the gates of Downing Street, protesting in Whitehall.
Banners read "Human Rights Before Trade" and "Wen Will You Free Tibet?"
There was a separate demonstration supporting Mr Wen's visit by people waving Chinese flags.
The Chinese premier was in Britain for 21 hours, according to his officials, but he packed a huge amount into less than one complete day.
Has the visit made a difference? Yes, certainly, but for good or ill depends on where people stand on the central issues.
China is opening up to an extraordinary degree, as its economy and industry expand at breathtaking speed.
Political development, however, lags far behind.
A visit I made in June reminded me powerfully how much change there has been.
But much more change is still vital if China is to handle future pressures from an exploding middle class who will surely demand a greater say in control of their own lives in years to come.
Premier Wen's host in London, Mr Blair, has no doubts.
Mr Wen's openness about China's vision of its future, he said, "augurs very, very well".
The only trouble with that - many British people no longer trust their prime minister's judgement on questions of foreign policy.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

STEMMING THE IMMIGRATION WAVE!

Stemming the immigration wave.
By Dominic Bailey BBC News, Tenerife

Africans are making treacherous sea journeys to reach Europe.
Europe has taken its fight to control the boatloads of African immigrants setting off for the Canary Islands to the coasts of western Africa.
Patrol boats, planes and helicopters from Spain, Italy, Portugal and Finland are operating off the shores of Mauritania, Senegal and Cape Verde in a bid to stop the immigration at source.
Operation Hera II is the first of its kind for the European agency Frontex, led by the Spanish Guardia Civil [Civil Guard].

Guardia Civil Commander Eduardo Lobo, at the multinational Frontex HQ in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, says that in the three months that they have been operating off Mauritania, boats containing a total of 1,243 people have been intercepted and returned to shore.

Click here to see details of the patrol deployment

"That's 1,243 who have not got to the Canaries," he says. "It is a preventative operation. If we locate and identify any illegal boat within 24 miles of the coast they are immediately returned."
If found outside that zone, the boats are escorted the extra 2,300km or so to the Canary Islands.
The Senegalese government's delay in granting permission for the operation to start along its coast has contributed in part to the fact that thousands are continuing to make the treacherous journey.
Expensive
Operation Hera II has not been without its teething problems.
Commander Lobo says organising the authorisation, personnel and infrastructure for the crews has been time consuming and expensive. The European boats have African personnel on board and local vessels have Europeans.

"The Frontex members provide the platform and support them but they are the authority for intercepting and returning the boats," he says. "Little by little we are resolving the problems." There have been rumours and speculation that the cayucos boats whose passengers arrive in a relatively good state of health after between eight to 10 days at sea have had help from bigger vessels - either towing or dropping them off within striking distance.
The Guardia Civil reject this theory.
"I do not believe there is anyone else helping the boats - with everything we have in the area we have not detected any bigger boat, only the cayucos and they are managing to reach the Canaries by themselves," says Commander Lobo.
GPS systems
Tenerife has seen more than 16,404 people arrive in more than 239 cayucos since 1 January. The cayucos are Senegalese fishing boats - sometimes with a frame for tarpaulin - and carry anything between 70 and 150 people crammed side by side.

In pictures: Guardia Civil patrols

But many of the cayucos are well equipped.
Some have two or three 40 horsepower engines and have barrels of diesel loaded below the makeshift wooden decks.
Food and water appears to be minimal, but among the putrid remnants left behind when the passengers are taken ashore are life jackets, gas cookers, pots and evidence of rice, onions and biscuits.
Red Cross emergency co-ordinator Austin Wainwright, based in Los Cristianos, Tenerife, says there are usually at least two, but often four or five, on board who have been taught how to navigate the boats.

CANARY ISLANDS' IMMIGRATION
1 Jan - 7 Sept 2006
Gran Canaria: 4,079
Fuerteventura: 1,496
Lanzarote: 201
Tenerife: 13,078
La Gomera: 2,660
El Hierro: 1,679
Total: 23,193

"They also usually have hand-held GPS systems," he says. "But it depends on the sea conditions, how many days they have spent at sea etc. We treat some for dehydration, salt burns but others are OK.
"We have had about nine arrive dead in the boats, but how many have been lost at sea is anyone's guess. Unofficially I'd say about 1,000-2,000 this year."
International co-operation is also underway on the Canary Islands themselves in the form of Frontex's Hera I operation, led by the Spanish National Police.
Ten experts from Italy, France, Germany and Portugal are working in the islands' overstretched detention centres trying to identify the immigrants.
The Senegalese Interior Ministry says hundreds of illegal immigrants from Senegal will be repatriated as a result of this operation.
Now that the Senegalese part of Operation Hera II is also underway, Commander Lobo is sure it will help curb the flow of cayucos.
But he says that with the situation in Africa as it is, people will try to find other means. "Perhaps they will try bigger boats that can make longer journeys," he says.

FRONTEX DEPLOYMENT

Mauritania: 4 former Guardia Civil patrol boats, 1 Guardia Civil patrol boat, 1 Guardia Civil helicopter, 1 Customs patrol
Senegal: 1 Italian ship, 1 Italian plane, 1 Guardia Civil patrol boat, 1 Spanish Police helicopter, 3 Senegalese boats, 1 Senegalese plane, 1 Finnish plane due
Cape Verde: 1 Portuguese frigate.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE POLICE HOLD UNION CHIEF!

Wellington Chibebe is being held in a Harare police station.

Listen to Mr Chibebe

Zimbabwe's main trade union leader has been arrested by police in the capital for holding a demonstration which the government had earlier banned.
Wellington Chibebe told the BBC he was beaten with batons and rifle butts as the police arrested him and 15 others.
Security forces put up roadblocks sealing off the capital, Harare, and are out in force in other major towns.
The unions have now abandoned protests over the country's economic crisis.
A spokesman for Zimbabwe's Congress of Trade Unions, Mlamleni Sibanda, said the strikes and demonstrations had been halted because of the way the police had reacted.
There were also reports of arrests in other towns and cities, with a large police presence on the streets.
The ZCTU was demonstrating against an inflation rate of 1,000% and demanding higher incomes, lower taxes and more medicines to fight HIV/Aids.
Speaking by telephone from police custody, Mr Chibebe told the BBC that the police moved in as some 1,500 workers gathered to begin their protest.
"I'm saying, we've been arrested when we started our demo. We've been badly beaten."
Another ZCTU leader, Lovemore Matombo, also said he was arrested and beaten.

The ZCTU called for demonstrations in 34 towns and cities across Zimbabwe.
But there were predictions of a low turnout, with the threat of a violent crackdown and mass arrests putting many off - as well as the prospect of forfeiting a day's income.
ZIMBABWE CRISIS

Life expectancy 30 years
High dependency on food aid
20% adult HIV prevalence
Shortages of basic foodstuffs
High unemployment
Inflation 1,000%

The union action was backed by church groups and the main opposition party - the Movement for Democratic Change.
On Monday, dozens of women were arrested in the capital by police for protesting at a lack of municipal services.
Earlier, police spokesman Wayne Bzudzijena had warned that they would be out in full force to maintain peace and order.
Under Zimbabwean laws, public demonstrations require police clearance and unauthorised gatherings are frequently broken up.
"Those who want to go about their normal, legitimate business in town can do so without fear," he told AFP news agency.
But ZCTU secretary general Mr Chibebe had said they would not be deterred by police threats.
"Are we not already being crushed by hunger and poverty?" he said.
Zimbabwe's economy has been in sharp decline for more than six years.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

COURT UPHOLDS ROCK VOTING RIGHTS!

Gibraltarians first voted in a European election in 2004. The EU's top court has upheld the right of Commonwealth citizens in Gibraltar to vote in European elections.
The judges dismissed a case brought by Spain last year, which argued that only EU citizens could legally vote.
They also said it was legal for residents of Gibraltar to vote as part of the UK's south-west European constituency, as they have since 2004.
Neil Parish MEP said the court had thrown out a "petty" Spanish attempt to disenfranchise Commonwealth citizens.
Disputed territory
The European Court of Justice said EU rules did not define precisely who was entitled to vote in elections to the European Parliament, so it was up to the member states to decide.
I hope Spain will now stop its bitter sniping at Gibraltar - Neil Parish MEP.

Guide to EU institutions
Profile: European Court of Human Rights

"The relevant articles of the EC treaty do not preclude the Member States from granting that right to vote and to stand as a candidate to certain persons who have close links to them, other than their own nationals or citizens of the Union resident in their country," the ruling said.
Spain brought the case as part of a long-running dispute over ownership of Gibraltar.
As well as arguing that it was illegal for non-EU citizens to vote, it said the UK broke European law by combining Gibraltar with an existing UK constituency.
The UK was obliged to give Gibraltarians a chance to vote in European elections after a different court, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), said that it was violating their rights by excluding them.
'Sniping'
Citizens of Commonwealth countries resident in Britain have the right to vote in all elections in the UK, and the 2003 European Parliament Act extended this right to citizens of Gibraltar in order to comply with the ECHR ruling.
Mr Parish, a Tory MEP for the south-west constituency, said the new ruling from the European Court of Justice was "absolutely right" to recognise the UK's right to decide who should vote in elections.
"It is a principle that goes right to the heart of our democracy," he said.
"I hope Spain will now stop its bitter sniping at Gibraltar."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WARS 'ROBBING YOUTHS OF SCHOOL' !

Only a small number of children in conflict zones enjoy an education. At least 43 million children around the world are unable to go to primary school because of armed conflicts, according to a new report.
Save the Children organisation has launched a global campaign aimed at pressuring world leaders into helping deprived youths into formal education.
The charity wants to get three million children into education by 2010.
Universal primary education by 2015 was one of the Millennium Development Goals signed in 2000 by world leaders.

How children are affected around the world

According to Save the Children, any efforts to increase opportunities for children's education will end in failure if the millions living in conflict zones are not given the same opportunities as those in more peaceful areas.
States affected by conflict will by their nature have more to achieve to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Save the Children says.
While the proportion of women and children among civilians injured or killed in war remains high - at approximately 80%, according to Unicef - the amount of educations aid that reaches those caught up in conflict remains low, Save the Children says.
Without extra aid, dedication and political will, the charity says, few of the millions of children currently out of school will ever receive an education.
Failing states
The countries with the worst education records also have unhappy histories of conflict in recent years.
In Somalia, which remains without a functioning central government, more than 89% of children are not in school.

In pictures: Educating Sudan's children
That figure is far worse than even other poorly-performing states, but the numbers remain unacceptable to the charity.
In DR Congo, which recently held democratic elections in the hope of sealing an end to a long-running conflict, just 35% of children attend school.
In Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world, 41.7% of children are out of school, according to figures collated by the charity.
And in Nepal, where a Maoist insurgency has dominated rural life for a decade, almost 27% of children are not being educated.
In Angola, Save the Children estimates that as much as $180m (£97m) is needed to achieve universal primary education by 2015.
Rights and wrongs
Rewrite the Future, due to be launched in 40 countries simultaneously, demands that national governments focus on providing facilities for children's' education.
It will also call on major international aid donors and humanitarian agencies to prioritise education provision in times of conflict and conflict resolution.
Key demands of the campaign include:
An emphasis on training teachers and improving standards, as well as ensuring that children and teachers are protected from armed violence
Increasing the numbers of children, especially girls, in education
Teach human rights and promote justice in the school curriculum
Ensure that a percentage of funds raised by the UN during emergencies is ring-fenced for education

PRIMARY-AGED CHILDREN OUT OF SCHOOL
COUNTRY
TOTAL NUMBER
PERCENTAGE
Somalia
1,580,000
89.2
DR Congo
5,290,000
65.2
Sierra Leone
431,000
59.1
East Timor
75,000
58.6
Eritrea
312,000
57.1
Central African Republic
354,000
57.0
Ethiopia
5,994,000
53.1
Sudan
2,405,000
51.1
Republic of Congo
292,000
47.6
Burundi
536,000
46.5
Haiti
572,000
45.6
Chad
577,000
41.7
Pakistan
7,813,000
39.3
Angola
533,000
38.5
Guinea
493,000
38.1
Nigeria
7,662,000
38.1
Cote d'Ivoire
955,000
36.2
Afghanistan
1,139,000
33.3
Liberia
142,000
30.1
Papua New Guinea
231,000
27.0
Nepal
1,049,000
26.8
Iraq
818,000
22.2
Uganda
1,068,000
21.1
Uzbekistan
491,000
19.7
Zimbabwe
498,000
19.5
Burma
968,000
18.1
Rwanda
206,000
15.7
Cambodia
301,000
13.6
Colombia
497,000
10.6
Sri Lanka
22,000
1.4
Source: Save the Children
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BBC NEWS REPORT.

BRITISH SPECIES MIGRATE NORTHWARD!

British species migrate northward.
By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News, Norwich

The gatekeeper butterfly recently moved into Scotland. Right across Britain, animals are on the march, moving northwards and going to higher ground as the climate warms, experts have told a major conference.
The scientists have studied how the ranges of more than 300 species - from small mammals to insects - have changed over the past 25 years.
About 80% of them have extended the northern margin of their domains, with an average shift of 30-60km.
Researchers outlined their findings at the BA Festival of Science in Norwich.
Chris Thomas from the University of York said the changes fitted neatly with the predictions of climate models.
"Species are moving north, they're climbing mountains, they're retreating at their southern boundaries," the professor added.
It's amazing how strong already the signature of climate change is - Chris Thomas" To me, 80% is an incredibly high percentage of species, given all the other changes we've made to our landscape over the past 25-50 years. It's amazing how strong already the signature of climate change is."
Professor Thomas was detailing the analysis here at the British Association's Science Festival.
Global picture
The UK has extensive records for the distribution of a wide range of animals, probably the richest data sets in the world.
The study, performed by a number of scientists including Chris Thomas under the leadership of Rachael Hickling from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, looked at 16 different groups of vertebrates and invertebrates.

Spring arrives earlier
Climate damage to seabirds
British birds in climate threat
Big changes for North Sea

Species covered ranged from dragonflies and spiders through to birds and mammals. As well as the northward migration, some 70% of species shifted the elevations at which they commonly live, climbing on average by between five and 10 metres per decade. Of the groups studied, only three species of amphibians and reptiles significantly moved south and to lower ground.
"It's becoming clear that the vast majority of species are behaving in similar ways. They are doing so in quite different taxonomic groups and in quite different parts of the world - essentially all parts of the world," said Professor Thomas.
A new mix
The York scientist said there was still great uncertainty as to how individual species would fare as the global climate continued to warm; but the prospects for many were not good, he argued.
Some would benefit from the higher temperatures and changes in vegetation that this would bring; others would struggle as their habitats were overtaken.
"Some 'cold-adapted northerner' species might be perfectly happy with a warmer climate until the 'heat-loving southerners' arrive and displace them," he said.
"Global temperatures and CO2 levels are expected to be higher than those experienced for millions of years, such that few of the individual species that currently exist, and none of the combinations of species we currently possess, will have experienced such conditions previously."
The results of the range change analysis were recently published in the journal Global Change Biology.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GITHONGO WANTS TO RETURN TO KENYA!

Mr Githongo still fears for his life. Kenya's exiled former anti-corruption investigator John Githongo says he wants to return to Kenya, more than a year after fleeing in fear of his life. Mr Githongo has been living in Britain since he resigned from the government. Threats to his safety arose after he revealed a massive corruption scandal involving several government ministers, known as the Anglo-Leasing affair. He told the BBC he wants to carry on his work but is worried no prosecutions have been made over the $600m scam.

Is Africa beating corruption?

Kenyan Justice Minister Martha Karua has said that the affair remains under investigation. Mr Githongo is still worried for his safety but told the BBC that, "it is only a matter of time" before he does return home. Mrs Karua said Mr Githongo was welcome to come back. President Kibaki is expected to seek re-election next year.
"John is living in exile because he has chosen to," she said In response, Mr Githongo agreed that, "Yes, exile is a choice that I have made," but said that the invite to return was a first. Mr Githongo also spoke of his disappointment regarding the lack of prosecutions. "I am concerned because it has been two-and-a-half years since we uncovered some of these things. It only became public six months ago but this is something we started trying to deal with when I was still in government as far back as April 2004."

When asked whether he regretted his actions, Mr Githongo said: "One always takes a personal choice - it is not an easy choice, it has implications that change one's life really for good. "But mine is one life and what I did, I felt I had to do."

The Anglo-Leasing affair involved contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars being awarded to fictitious firms for items such as hi-tech passports. President Mwai Kibaki won 2002 elections on a pledge to tackle corruption which had plagued the previous administration.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

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COLOURFUL BEGINNING FOR HUMANITY!

Colourful beginning for humanity
By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News, Norwich.

Evidence is emerging from Africa that colours were being used in a symbolic way perhaps 200,000 years ago, a UK scientist working in the region claims.
Lawrence Barham has been studying tools and other artefacts left by ancient humans at a site in Zambia. He says the range of mineral pigments, or ochres, found there hints at the use of paint, perhaps to mark the body.
If correct, it would push back the earliest known example of abstract thinking by at least 100,000 years.
Being able to conceptualise - the ability to let one thing represent another - was a giant leap in human evolution. It was the mental activity that would eventually permit the development of sophisticated language and maths.
Language proxy
Shells from Israel that were strung as beads into a necklace or bracelet are widely accepted to be the oldest unequivocal evidence for such behaviour in humans.

'Oldest jewellery' revealed

But Dr Barham said it would be hard to accept that humans were not engaged in such activity much earlier in the archaeological record.
"As an archaeologist I am interested to find out where colour symbolism first appears because for colour symbolism to work it must be attached to language," the Liverpool University researcher said.
"Colour symbolism is an abstraction and we cannot work this abstraction without language; so this is a proxy for trying to find in the archaeological record real echoes for the emergence of language," Dr Barham told the British Association's Science Festival.
Dr Barham's work over the past 10 years has majored on a site known as Twin Rivers, an old cave complex in the south of Zambia.
It was occupied by humans some 170,000-300,000 years ago. Which type of human is not clear, however; there is a fragment of bone which could belong to Homo heidelbergensis, the ancestor of modern humans, which like us had a large brain.
Bright range
Dr Barham said the tools found at Twin Rivers showed evidence of increasing sophistication, with simple handaxes giving way to small blades and flakes that had to be attached to handles.
The emergence of this "composite" technology coincided with the systematic use of ochres. Ochre is a soft stone that contains iron oxides; it comes in a range of colours.
At Twin Rivers there are red, yellow, brown, pink, black and even purple ochres.
If they are scraped, they will produce a powder which can be mixed with animal fat, for example, and used as a paint.
Dr Barham wonders if ancient humans in Zambia wiped these pigments on their bodies, using them in rituals - just as paints are still used in some cultures today, to mark the passage of warrior to elder, or the coming of age of boys and girls.
The problem is that there are purely functional uses for this material as well, to preserve hides and as a glue to bind stone blades to their shafts.
Chance creation
"If you were to argue that these oxides were purely functional and have no symbolic value, you have to explain away the range of colours that are being selected from different places in the landscape," said Lawrence Barham.
"Because if it was just for the iron element, any of them would do - the red, or the yellow. Some are closer to the site than others, so it seems that people were deliberately selecting the material for the colour property. That's my argument anyway."

The Zambian ochres could have been used to paint the skinA number of claims have previously been made for conceptual thinking in humans hundreds of thousands of years ago. Many of these claims relate to pieces of rock that are said to represent the human form.
The Berekhat Ram figure from Israel and the Tan-Tan figure from Morocco, for example, have been presented as the work of Homo erectus.
But many sceptical researchers believe these items are merely accidents of nature; they are objects that have been moulded into human form through chance geological processes.
And Dr Barham knows he has some way to go to convince colleagues of his case.
"Archaeologists are a very cautious group. We set high standards for accepting an interpretation based on symbolism," he told BBC News.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MORE DIE FROM IVORY COAST WASTE!

The dumping provoked fury among Abidjan residents. Six people have now died from the toxic waste dumped in the biggest Ivory Coast city, Abidjan, while 9,000 have sought treatment, the government says.
The UN has set up an inter-agency team to respond to the crisis.
A French team is analysing the waste, and says it will produce a report by the end of this week.
The Ivorian government resigned after protests over the toxic waste, and no new administration has yet been formed, threatening the fragile peace process.
The waste was dumped by the ship, the Trafigura Beheer BV, and has been found in some 10 open-air sites around Abidjan.
Residents complain of a smell of rotten eggs on the streets. Environmental group Greenpeace say the sludge dumped is made up of some 400 tonnes of oil-refining waste.
I'm feeling very bad in the throat and I have headaches and I cannot breathe properly - Abidjan resident

Waste adds to Ivorian woes
Global path of pollution
Eyewitness: Exposed

A UN agency said that many of the sites where dumping occurred have still to be fenced off.
"Most of them don't have signalling or warning," it said.
Three company heads are reported to be among seven people arrested in the investigations.
Those affected are being treated for stomach problems, nosebleeds and respiratory illnesses.
The hospital has set up a specialist unit to deal with those suffering from similar symptoms.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ANGRY BEIRUT PROTESTS GREET BLAIR!

Protesters waved flags and banners criticising Mr Blair. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has held talks with the Lebanese government, amid angry protests against his visit. Thousands of demonstrators accused him of complicity in the deaths of 1,100 Lebanese civilians from Israeli bombing in the recent conflict with Hezbollah.
Mr Blair defended his position of rejecting calls for an early ceasefire, saying a UN resolution dealing with the "real problems" had been his priority.
Several protesters disrupted a news conference, shouting: "Shame on you."
Mr Blair reiterated Britain's official position during the five-week conflict that a durable resolution framed by a UN resolution was better than a "quick fix".
Tony Blair supported the war, so how can we welcome him here? -Ali Shahine

Blair visit divides opinion
In pictures: Blair in Mid-East

"Frankly the best chance for Lebanon now is the implementation of Resolution 1701," Mr Blair said.
During the five-week conflict, Israel bombed targets across Lebanon, including residential areas and civilian infrastructure, saying it was necessary to restrict Hezbollah's military activity.
The conflict followed the capture by Hezbollah of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
Israeli military losses in clashes on the border were 116 men, while 43 civilians died in Hezbollah rocket attacks.
A ceasefire sanctioned by UN Resolution 1701 has largely held since 14 August.
'War supporter'
Security forces sealed off Beirut's central area, where Mr Blair held talks with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, with rolls of razor wire.
Up to 5,000 protesters gathered nearby in a stand-off with security forces, shouting slogans and waving banners describing Mr Blair as a "killer" and "war criminal".

Mr Blair flew in after talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials"Tony Blair supports America and Israel and has supported the war, so how can we welcome him here?" said 21-year-old hotel worker Ali Shahine, who was among the protesters.
At a joint new conference with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Mr Blair admitted his policies were controversial, both at home and in the Arab world, but he expressed "deep sympathy" for those who had lost family members in the Israeli bombing.
Mr Siniora praised the demonstrators for expressing their criticism in a democratic fashion within the law, a view echoed by his UK counterpart.
Controversial visit
Lebanon's most senior Shia cleric had tried to have the visit cancelled and several Shia officials refused to attend meetings with Mr Blair, including the speaker of parliament and two Hezbollah ministers.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah called on the government to declare Mr Blair persona non grata.
He said Mr Blair should have been told to stay away so he would "know we are not so naive as to welcome him when he has contributed to killing us and slaughtering our children".
Mr Blair travelled to the country after a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Hamas, the militant group heading the Palestinian Authority, rejected his proposals that it should join a unity government which recognised Israel in order for an international boycott to be lifted.
A spokesman said the group was willing to form a coalition, but it would not accept conditions imposed from outside.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PALESTINIAN UNITY CABINET AGREED!

The crucial of the deal between Haniya and Abbas are unknown. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said a deal has been struck with the militant group Hamas on the programme of a national unity government. Hamas confirmed the agreement, though its details are unclear. Palestinians are hoping that a national unity government will open the way for international aid donors to end their boycott of the Palestinian authority. Mr Abbas is expected to dissolve the Hamas led-government within the next 48 hours, his spokesman has said. All the signs are that Ismail Haniya, the current prime minister from Hamas, will be asked by Mr Abbas to form the next Palestinian government. I bring good news to the Palestinian people and I feel proud and content that at this important moment we establish a national coalition government - Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas boycott nearing end?

Talks between the two men on a unity government have been going on for months. During a visit to the West Bank on Sunday, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said a unity government that recognised Israel would allow donors to end the crippling aid boycott. Hamas wants a unity government, but has rejected the UK proposal. A spokesman for the group reiterated its position on recognising Israel on Monday. "Hamas will continue to have its political agenda... we will never recognise the legitimacy of the occupation," Sami Abu Zuhri said. Whether the international community lifts the aid embargo on the Palestinian Authority is likely to depend on the details of the Hamas-Fatah deal.
Mr Blair spoke of a "window of opportunity" for peace.

Blair and Abbas

The key issues are a Hamas renunciation of violence, recognition of Israel and acceptance by Hamas of peace agreements signed by Israel and the Palestinians. The international aid boycott on the Palestinian Authority was imposed after Hamas came to power earlier this year because of the group's refusal to renounce violence or recognise Israel. The aid embargo has crippled the authority, which has been unable to pay its tens of thousands of employees. In the Gaza Strip, living conditions for Palestinians have reached breaking point, the UN warned recently. Israel has kept Gaza's borders largely sealed for months and conducts regular military operations, prompted in part by the capture of an Israeli soldier.

Mr Blair's meetings with Mr Abbas and with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appear to have brought the prospect of talks between the two men closer - both said they were ready for talks without pre-conditions. However, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Israeli TV on Sunday that talks based on the internationally backed roadmap regional peace plan were out of the question as long as Hamas remained committed to violence.

Monday saw Israeli forces shoot dead a Palestinian man and wound two others near the West Bank town of Jenin, Palestinian doctors said. Witnesses said the troops opened fire on a car travelling from the village of Roumane, killing the head of the local village council. Israel radio reported that the army had detained 13 militants in several parts of the West Bank. On Sunday, Palestinians said a teenager was killed and another wounded when an Israeli tank fired a shell in southern Gaza. The Israeli military said soldiers fired at Palestinians suspected of planting a bomb.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGERIA TARGETS POLL CORRUPTION!

Mr Abubakar denies the charges against him. Nigeria anti-corruption agency is to intensify investigations into politicians seeking sensitive public office and business leaders, it says. Nigeria is to hold presidential and state elections next year. EFCC head Malam Nuhu Ribadu said it had recovered $5bn and convicted 82 people in the past two years. The commission has recently produced a report on the activities of Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, accusing him of embezzlement and fraud.

The BBC's Alex Last says that as elections approach next year, the agency's role is becoming ever more important in a country ranked as one of the most corrupt in the world. Despite huge oil revenues, there's a lack of basic infrastructure, and tens of millions live in poverty.

The EFCC has pledged to stop corrupt politicians running for office, but at the moment a huge political battle is under way between the president, who stands down next year, and Mr Abubakar, who is one of the leading contenders for the top job. The agency has produced a report accusing the vice-president of misusing over $100m in public funds, an accusation he flatly denies.

But now the presidency is using the report as the basis of a constitutional attempt to block him from running. It is not clear who will be in line to succeed Mr Obasanjo, who has denied favouring any particular successor to the presidency.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA AND EU TO HOLD TREATY TALKS !

China and EU to hold treaty talks.

By Alix Kroeger BBC News, Brussels

Trade is booming, though the two sides differ over human rightsThe European Union and China have agreed to launch talks on a new treaty to cover their growing political and economic ties.
The announcement came at a summit in Finland, which currently holds the EU presidency. They also made statements on North Korea and Iran.
China and the EU are doing more business together than ever before.
Now they have agreed to start talks on updating the framework which governs their relations.
Political and economic negotiations will be partially split but not entirely.
China says it disapproves of linking human rights questions to trade talks.
For its part, the EU is sticking by a ban on arms sales to China first imposed after the violent oppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square 17 years ago.
China had again appealed for the embargo to be lifted.
Iran appeal
But on other issues, the two sides agreed to work together.
They expressed grave concern over the recent missile launches by North Korea and called for the resumption of six-party talks.
They also urged Iran to comply fully with the demand from the United Nations that it stop enriching uranium.
But speaking after the summit ended, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said sanctions on Iran would not necessarily bring a peaceful solution.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GLASGOW TO HOST PROMS IN THE PARK!

Glasgow to host Proms in the Park.

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra will perform at the eventAbout 20,000 people are set to descend on Glasgow Green on Saturday for BBC Proms in the Park.
Musicians from Sweden, Canada, London and Glasgow will take to the stage for the event.
It will feature peformances from BBC Scotland's Symphony Orchestra, Swedish trombonist Christian Lindberg and Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman.
The free event, now in its fourth year, links the Last Night of the Proms in London to five other UK venues.
Musicians will also perform in Swansea, Manchester and Belfast.
Each location hosts a different programme of music, culminating in a live link up with the Royal Albert Hall in London and other park events.
It will be an experience we will never forgot
Palma AllenInverclyde Junior Choir conductor
The Scottish Symphony Orchestra will take centre stage this year, conducted by the critically acclaimed Robert Ziegler.
The Inverclyde Junior Choir will perform alongside the orchestra.
The young musicians were finalists of BBC Radio's Choir of the Year competition.
Palma Allen, who is conducting the choir, said: "It's an honour for us to be asked to represent Scotland and Inverclyde on national television and it will be an experience we will never forget."
Sally Magnusson, hosting the event with Jamie MacDougall, described it as "a highlight of my year".
The Glasgow show has been organised in partnership with the city council and the Glasgow City Marketing Bureau.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BLAIR 'NOT WELCOME' IN WEST BANK!

Blair 'not welcome' in West Bank.

Some Palestinians have demonstrated against Blair's visitA group of Palestinian politicians and intellectuals says UK PM Tony Blair will not be welcome in the West Bank during an expected trip to the region.
A strongly worded advertisement attacks Mr Blair for not backing an immediate truce during the conflict in Lebanon.
"He is coming here to wash his hands, stained with Lebanese blood, in Palestinian water," the advert says.
The document was not signed by officials in either of the two largest Palestinian parties, Hamas and Fatah.
Correspondents say the UK's stance during Israel's bombardment of Lebanon - refusing to criticise Israel's military tactics or to back calls for an immediate ceasefire - caused anger across the Arab world.
During the war, Mr Blair insisted an end to hostilities had to be based on a plan for durable peace between Israel and Lebanon and not a short-term fix.
More than 1,000 Lebanese, most of them civilians, were killed in Israeli military action. On the Israeli side, 116 soldiers and 43 civilians were killed by Hezbollah militants.
'Warmonger'
The advertisement, published in the newspaper al-Ayyam, calls on the Palestinian leadership to cancel the visit by Mr Blair, whom it calls "a man of violence and a warmonger" trying to "appear as a peacemaker".
It adds: "His policy on the Palestinian issue is constantly biased towards Israel and has contributed shamelessly to the besieging and starving of the Palestinians."
The document is signed by members of political parties, university professors, NGO activists and "hundreds of ordinary people", according to the advert.
Signatories include the runner-up in last year's presidential elections, the moderate Mustapha Barghouti, and the leftist fellow candidate Bassam al-Salihi.
Mr Blair is currently facing a political crisis at home over his leadership of the governing Labour Party.
The British consulate in Jerusalem said the visit would deal with "fundamental issues" regarding both Lebanon and the Palestinians.
"There is anger and mistrust on all sides," a spokesman acknowledged.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SADDAM 'HAD NO LINK TO AL-QAEDA'!

Democrats say the report weakens Mr Bush's case for war. There is no evidence of formal links between Iraqi ex-leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda leaders prior to the 2003 war, a US Senate report says.
The finding is contained in a 2005 CIA report released by the Senate's Intelligence Committee on Friday.
US President George W Bush has said that the presence of late al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a link.
Opposition Democrats are accusing the White House of deliberate deception.
They say the revelation undermines the basis on which the US went to war in Iraq.
The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says that the US president has again and again tried to connect the war, which most Americans think was a mistake, with the so-called war on terror, which has the support of the nation.
The report comes as Mr Bush makes a series of speeches on the "war on terror" to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks.
Requests rejected
The report is the second part of the committee's analysis of pre-war intelligence. The first dealt with CIA failings in its assessment of Iraq's weapons programme.
Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support,
Senate report

Senate report 6.8MB

Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader
Download the reader here
War rationale laid bare
'Terror war' loses direction
Quick guide: Al-Qaeda

The committee concluded that the CIA had evidence of several instances of contacts between the Iraqi authorities and al-Qaeda throughout the 1990s but that these did not add up to a formal relationship.
It added that the government "did not have a relationship, harbour or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates".
It said that Iraq and al-Qaeda were ideologically poles apart.
"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support," it said.
The Senate report added that the Iraqi regime had repeatedly rejected al-Qaeda requests for meetings.
It also deals with the role played by inaccurate information supplied by Iraqi opposition groups in the run-up to the war.
'Devastating indictment'
Democrats said the White House was still trying to make the connection between the former Iraqi leader and al-Qaeda in an attempt to justify the war in Iraq.
Less than three weeks ago Mr Bush said in a speech that "Saddam Hussein...had relations with Zarqawi".
Democrat Senator Carl Levin described the report as a "devastating indictment" of these attempts.
White House spokesman Tony Snow told the Associated Press news agency the report contained "nothing new".
"In 2002 and 2003, members of both parties got a good look at the intelligence we had and they came to the very same conclusions about what was going on," he said.
Zarqawi, who is believed to be responsible for numerous killings and kidnappings in Iraq since the war, was killed in a US raid in June.
Saddam Hussein and several close associates are standing trial for the killings of Shias in the village of Dujail in the early 1980s and of more than 100,000 Kurds in 1988.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NEW ZIMBABWE HOUSING IS A 'SHAM' !

The evictions left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Zimbabwe has failed to keep its promise to build new homes for the thousands whose houses were demolished last year, says lobby group Amnesty International.
An Amnesty report found that just 3,325 new homes had been built, while 92,460 had been knocked down.
Many of those described as "built" lack doors, windows and even floors.
Zimbabwe's government has denied previous similar accusations as "absolutely not true". It said the demolitions were to clean up cities.
Amnesty researchers found one man living in what was supposed to be a toilet in the tourist resort of Victoria Falls.
They also found a family living in the bathroom of a house shared by three other families in the second city, Bulawayo.
'Tragic'
The rebuilding programme "is little short of a public relations exercise which the government of Zimbabwe is using to cover up its mass human rights violations," says Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen.
YOUR EXPERIENCES
You hope that there was a reason for why this happened, a cause for us to suffer
"Bad Company" (nickname)An affected Zimbabwean

'We are living in a mess'

"What is particularly tragic is that most of the people who were violently evicted from their homes during last year's Operation Murambatsvina were amongst the poorest people in Zimbabwe."
Last month, a Zimbabwean minister, Didymus Mutasa, dismissed similar accusations made by church groups.
Asked how many new houses had been built, Mr Mutasa replied: "I can't tell you the number immediately, I will have to check. But everyone in the country whether affected by Murambatsvina or not is being considered for decent housing."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

UGANDA 'GAY' NAME LIST CONDEMNED!

Homosexuality is banned in Uganda. A Ugandan newspaper's decision to publish the names of alleged homosexual men is a "chilling development", New York-based Human Rights Watch says.
Last month the Red Pepper paper printed 45 first names and professions or areas of work of alleged homosexual men.
HRW says the move could foreshadow a government crackdown in the country, where homosexuality is illegal.
But an editor at the paper told the BBC that it was not a witchhunt and that no man on the list was identifiable.
'Tolerant'
"It's one of the interesting things for people to read in a tabloid because in African societies homosexuality is still seen as strange," a Red Pepper editor, who asked not to be named, told the BBC News website.
For years, President Yoweri Museveni's government routinely threatens and vilifies lesbians and gays
HRW's Jessica Stern
"We've also printed a list of cheats - people unfaithful to their partners - also with first names etc, because people like reading about other people's vices," the editor said.
"We don't want to expose them (homosexuals) to the government and the police has never contacted us to investigate the list. This country is very very tolerant."
But HRW says the gay and lesbian community in Uganda has long been stigmatised and harassed by the government.
"For years, President Yoweri Museveni's government routinely threatens and vilifies lesbians and gays, and subjects sexual rights activists to harassment," said HRW's Jessica Stern.
"At a moment when sensational publicity has spread fear among a whole community, the authorities must exercise their responsibility to protect, not persecute."
The editor dismissed these fears: "People are not going to attack you or arrest you - I don't remember anybody being prosecuted in courts of law because someone's gay or lesbian."
However, he admitted that people were paranoid about having their names printed in the paper.
"People are calling here (the paper) to make sure their names are not named; others are calling and cursing us."
He said the paper was considering publishing the names of lesbians, but a decision had not yet been taken.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

RITES OF PASSAGE.

Dear Family and Friends,

I think that like most people I have an intense love hate relationshipwith Zimbabwe these days.

It seems you have to go through all manner of hardships and horrors inorder to truly be able to call yourself a Zimbabwean. These are Zimbabwe'srites of passage and they are not for the feint hearted. Land seizures;cancellation of title deeds; state acquisition of personal property andequipment; being removed from the voters roll; being called an 'alien' inthe country of your birth and residence; having your own money seized fromyou by the state; having to go and collect the police if you get burgled; sitting in a petrol queue for at least one day; having to queue all nightin order to get a number on a bit of dirty cardboard which will allow you- not to get a passport- but to stand in another queue to get a form toget a passport. There are places too that you have to visit if you want tosay you are really a Zimbabwean. Places whose names bring to mind a wholerange of possibilities including: heat, dirt, dust, arrogance, rudeness,bureaucracy, inefficiency and endlessly long queues. You just have to saythe words 'Makombe', 'Linquenda', 'National Registration' or 'MarketSquare' to a Zimbabwean and the automatic response is a sympathetic groanand an outpouring of empathy and friendship.

This week I have endured another rite of Zimbabwean passage. I have thought long and hard about how to write this letter, about what I should or should not say and in the end have decided to do what I've been doing for 6 years and just tell it like it is. I woke up last Saturday morning to find computers, cell phone, stereo, radio, TV and reading glasses gone after a burglary in my home. In the days that have followed there has been utter despair one minute and tears of humility the next. There has been complete exhaustion too as sleep is hard in coming. To be honest, it is hard to know how to carry on after this; small losses are devastating blows.

There has been irony and absurdity in this week too - police who had to be collected from the police station as they had no transport; the CID car that had to be pushed as it had no starter; the glass that was ordered cut and paid for and got home to find it was over a foot too short; only being able to find "zhing-zhong" door locks that did not have a single standard feature about them - they were too thin, too short and too narrow and in order to use them I would have to buy new doors!

It took me five days to get to the point where I had the means to hea reven a local ZBC news bulletin on the radio. The irony of that first news report is something I will never forget. The news reader said that there had been a burglary of the Norton Police Station and the perpetrators had got away with weapons, police uniforms and handcuffs. To be able to find out what else was happening in the country was a real mission. I have begun to understand how easy it is to bury your head in the sand in Zimbabwe if you want to; accessing information is not at all easy: independent newspapers only coming out once a week, independent radio stations that are jammed and just incessant propaganda everywhere else. In the week that I have been in the dark and quiet there has apparently been a 200 strong MDC leadership protest march to parliament and trade unions are calling for stay aways on Wednesday the 13th September. Perhaps yet more rites of passage are looming for Zimbabweans.

I apologise for having been unable to reply to any of the emails that have come from all over the world but am humbled and most grateful. Your messages of love, concern and support have kept me sane and given me the strength and courage to try and carry on. There were many people involved in helping me get to the point where I could actually write and send my letter this week and I thank you all for your kindness, patience and help. Special thanks to my Mum and Sis who managed to make me laugh every day and who have put their lives on hold to help me get mine back in order.

Until next time, with love, cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 9th September 2006http:/africantears.netfirms.comMy books "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.com

GUINEA MINISTERS LOSE LUXURY CARS!

Guinea ministers lose luxury cars.
By Alhassan Sillah BBC News, Conakry.

Most Guineans live below the poverty line. All Guinea's government ministers and senior officials have had their luxury four-wheel drive vehicles confiscated on the orders of the president. The politicians can now instead be seen driving small Toyota cars around the capital, Conakry. The measure is aimed at narrowing the big gap between rich and poor in the West African nation, where most people live below the poverty line. Some people welcomed the move in the hope it leads to more economic reforms. Ministers and officials had to return their four-wheel drive cars to government garages on Tuesday.
I only hope the government will take similar decisions on other areas to put things straight -
Conakry resident
"What the government has done is very important for the population, as we have been saying that these ministers have been riding in these expensive vehicles while we can't even afford a taxi fare," one man told me.
Another said it was a step in the right direction.
"I only hope the government will take similar decisions on other areas to put things straight," he said.

President Lansana Conte seized power in a bloodless coup in 1984 and has ruled with an iron fist ever since. There have been two general strikes this year to protest about the high cost of living. Inflation has hit 30%, and the availability of basic services like water and electricity are at best erratic. Prices of basic goods, including the staple food rice, continue to soar, and most households can now hardly afford a meal a day.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

I WILL QUIT WITHIN A YEAR - BLAIR !

I will quit within a year - Blair

Blair statement

Tony Blair has confirmed he will be stepping down as prime minister within the next 12 months.
Mr Blair said the Labour conference in two weeks' time would be his last.
He did not set a precise date but said he would do so in the future - when it was in the best interests of the country.
And he apologised for the internal rows in the Labour party over his exit saying the past week "has not been our finest hour, to be frank".
The announcement follows 48 hours of bitter feuding and a string of resignations over Mr Blair's refusal to name an exit date.

There has to be some certainty about who the leader is before the summer break - Jack Straw

Analysis: Blair's final gamble
In full: Blair statement
In full: Brown statement
Voters' panel verdict

Mr Blair said: "I think what is important now is that we understand that it's the interests of the country that come first and we move on.
"I would have preferred to do this in my own way but it has been pretty obvious from what many of my Cabinet colleagues have said earlier in the week.
"The next party conference in a couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader, the next TUC conference next week will be my last TUC - probably to the relief of both of us.
"But I am not going to set a precise date now. I don't think that's right. I will do that at a future date and I'll do it in the interests of the country and depending on the circumstances of the time."
'Civil war'
There are hopes among Mr Blair's supporters that the prime minister's words will end damaging speculation over his future.
But other Labour MPs are saying it will not be enough to end civil war in the party.
Speaking before the prime minister's announcement, left wing backbencher Jeremy Corbyn said: "We need a date from the prime minister."
Chancellor Gordon Brown has said he will support Mr Blair in whatever decision he takes about his future.
"I am determined that in the months and years to come we continue to do our duty by the people of Britain - and it is my determination and his to do that - that will influence everything that happens in the time to come," said Mr Brown, speaking earlier.
'Comfortable'
Mr Blair's official spokesman said earlier that Mr Blair would not be "giving a running commentary" on exit dates.
Commons leader Jack Straw moved to calm speculation by saying voters would expect Mr Blair to stay "to the halfway point of a normal four-year parliament", which would be May.
But Downing Street has rejected suggestions a deal had been struck to hand over power on 4 May, three days after Mr Blair notches up 10 years in power and the day after local elections.
Mr Blair has been under pressure to quit earlier than May in order to get a new leader in place before elections in England, Scotland and Wales - which are expected to be disastrous for Labour.
Mr Brown - the man most likely to succeed Mr Blair - was also thought to be unhappy at the prospect of taking over at the end of a Parliamentary session.
The two men were reported to have to have had an "acrimonious meeting" over the issue on Wednesday morning.
It was followed by a day of open warfare between supporters of the chancellor and Mr Blair over when the prime minister should quit.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IVORIAN CABINET QUITS OVER WASTE!

Ivorian cabinet quits over waste

Hundreds of people have protested in AbidjanIvory Coast Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny has dissolved his cabinet over a toxic waste scandal in Abidjan. Three people have died and more than 1,500 have been treated after inhaling fumes from waste apparently dumped at sites in the city two weeks ago. Mr Banny, who will remain in office, was asked by Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo to form a new cabinet at a meeting scheduled for Thursday. It is unclear who dumped the waste but local papers are alleging corruption. The BBC's James Copnall in Abidjan says the government's resignation is unprecedented and follows mounting anger at its failure to act more decisively.

The government is a power-sharing administration, including rebels who control the north of the country. Our correspondent says some feel that the decision to resign could be intended to deflect from the failure of Tuesday's summit of political leaders to break a deadlock in the peace

process. I'm feeling very bad in the throat and I have headaches and I cannot breathe properly
Abidjan resident

Waste adds to Ivorian woes
Eyewitness: Toxic symptoms

The out-going administration's last act was to set up a special fund to pay for the medical treatment for the victims of the toxic waste. Foreign experts have been asked to help clear up the waste from seven locations around Ivory Coast's biggest city. Hundreds of youths have set up roadblocks around the city to draw attention to the problem.

Ivorian television on Wednesday interrupted its regular programmes to urge hundreds of protesters to give doctors access to sites where toxic waste was dumped. It said people faced serious health threats because of the toxic material. The waste was dumped by a ship several weeks ago in unclear circumstances. Trafigura Beheer BV, the company that chartered the ship Probo Koala, said it was very concerned by reports that "residue from the petrol cargo" had been disposed of inappropriately.

Those affected are being treated for stomach problems, nosebleeds and respiratory illnesses.
A senior aide to the prime minister told the BBC that Mr Konan Banny felt that people at the highest level should face the consequences.

"I'm feeling very bad in the throat and I have headaches and I cannot breathe properly," Eric, a patient seeking treatment at Abidjan's university teaching hospital city, told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme. The hospital has set up a specialist unit to deal with those suffering from similar symptoms. "We don't know what we're treating. When they have stinging eyes or noses we give them drops. We want to know what it is so we know how to treat it," the manager of a local hospital told Reuters news agency. He added the hospital was running low on some medicines and X-ray film.

In a statement, Trafigura Beheer BV said it told Ivorian authorities of the nature of the waste including "a written request that it should be safely disposed of, according to country laws". "Trafigura can confirm that the residue (slops) were a mixture of gasoline, water and caustic washings," the statement continued.

In an unusual move, state television interrupted its programming on Wednesday to urge protesters "to enable physicians and health workers who must imperatively report to the hospitals and clinics to treat the victims of the toxic waste, to move freely".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WOMEN 'FORM HALF OF ALL MIGRANTS' !

Women 'form half of all migrants'

Women migrants play "a vital role" in supporting families at home. Women and girls now make up half of all international migrants, totalling 95 million, a UN report says. The report urges better protection of a population that it says is more vulnerable to abuse and trafficking. It also says more young people are deciding to move countries, but because of their age cannot migrate legally and are also at risk of being exploited. The economy of developed countries and their ageing populations benefit from migrants despite perceptions, it says. This year's State of World Population report, entitled A Passage to Hope: Women and International Migration, is released by the UN Population Fund.

Click to see trends in female migration

Migrant women send an estimated $232bn (£149bn) in remittances back to their home countries last year, says the report. This report calls on governments and individuals to recognise and value the contributions of migrant women, and promote and respect their human rights - UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid

'Invisible face of migration'

Remittances are the second largest source of external funding for developing countries after Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), it says. Although women tend to send less overall than men as they earn less, studies show they send a higher proportion of their earnings to their families back home, the report says. But the estimate does not take into account funds transferred through informal channels. As domestic workers on low pay, they are rarely protected by labour laws and are not allowed to unionise. Many have been assaulted, raped and overworked, the report says. "This report calls on governments and individuals to recognise and value the contributions of migrant women, and promote and respect their human rights," says UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid. "There is an urgent need for stronger co-operation between countries to make migration more safe and fair. And there is a dire need for greater action to address the lack of opportunities and human rights violations that lead many women to migrate in the first place."

Young people aged 10 to 24 now account for about a third of all international migrants. They take the most menial jobs in developed countries and constitute a growing share of highly-educated skilled labour. Evidence shows that certain prejudices about migrants in Western countries are by and large ill-founded, the report says. These include complaints that immigrants take locals' jobs, depress wage levels and are a burden on the social welfare system.
"Empirical evidence to support each of these complaints is weak or ambiguous - at least at the aggregate level," the report says. It also points to the high numbers of health workers planning to migrate from regions hit hard by HIV and Aids - 68% of those surveyed in Zimbabwe and 26% in Uganda expressed a desire to leave their countries to work abroad, according to recent studies. At the same time, the demand from the ageing industrialised countries is projected to soar, the report says.

The report comes ahead of next week's high-level meeting of 192 countries on international migration and development in New York.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MIDDLE EAST CRISIS FRACTURES S.A. UNITY!

Middle East crisis fractures SA unity.
By Mohammed Allie BBC News, Cape Town.

The current crisis in the Middle East has put the generally cordial relations between Cape Town's Muslim and Jewish communities, both relatively small but influential, under intense pressure. As Israeli bombs were raining down on Lebanon and Hezbollah rockets were being shot into northern Israel, members of both the Muslim and Jewish communities in South Africa became fired up in their support for the opposing sides. While the Jewish community was rallying support for Israel, a Muslim-led march to parliament - that included diverse groups such as the trade union federation Cosatu, the Anti-War Coalition and the Socialist Workers' International - was openly condemning Israel and calling for sanctions against the Jewish state. "Generally speaking, Jewish-Muslim relations in South Africa are sweet and sour. They are sweetened by our local interactions and become soured with every change in fortunes of the Middle East conflict," says Cape Town imam and Muslim scholar Rashied Omar.

Mickey Glass, executive director of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa, says there has been long interaction between Muslim and Jewish people in Cape Town. "It goes all the way back to the 1840s when the chief rabbi in England gave permission for a Muslim sheikh to slaughter meat in the presence of a Jewish person to ensure its kosher status," he says. "Since then we've always had cordial relations and I don't believe the crisis in the Middle East will damage our relationship irreparably. At the end of it all we're all Capetonians."

Religious leaders like Mr Omar and Mr Glass form part of the Cape Town Interfaith Forum, which meets regularly to discuss matters of common concern in an effort to promote dialogue and understanding and even address each others' congregations at formal religious occasions. That people who were as far apart as the Afrikaner nationalists and the ANC were able to sit around the table and talk is an indication that two groups as distant as Israel and Hamas could one day also sit down and talk - Mickey Glass Union of Orthodox Synagogues of South Africa.

But their co-operation does not preclude them from disagreeing "respectfully", as Mr Omar puts it, on the thorny issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Prospects for peace in the Middle East have hit a brick wall and the landslide victory in the Palestinian elections of Hamas, branded a terrorist organisation by the US and other Western powers, has added a new dimension to the conflict. "We don't believe we, in faraway South Africa, can change the situation in the Middle East but perhaps our ability to discuss issues in a mature, respectful way could be a beacon of hope," he says.

Mr Glass agrees that South Africa's experience in bringing a peaceful end to apartheid could yet point the way towards a settlement in the Middle East. "We can learn that people who were as far apart as the Afrikaner nationalists and the African National Congress (ANC) were able to sit around the table and talk is an indication that two groups as distant as Israel and Hamas could one day also sit down and talk," he says.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has joined the debate comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of Palestinians at checkpoints, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about - Archbishop Desmond Tutu."My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short? Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?" the Noble peace prize winner asked a conference on the Middle East recently. "I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. "I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks; suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about."

But Michael Bagraim, chairman of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, rejects the connection between Israeli policies and apartheid South Africa: "There's no comparison - in fact I find it hurtful," he says. "At the end of the day what you're saying is you've got a minority in Israel subjugating the Arab population which is not true at all. People in Israel are equal citizens. The reality is that the state is at war."

While the United Nations and many other countries, including neighbouring Arab states, have endorsed a two-state solution in which Palestinians and Israelis live side by side, the rarely aired view of a single-state solution has been exercising the minds of a growing number of analysts and activists. Veteran South African journalist Allister Sparks dismisses the two-state suggestion as a segregationist, apartheid solution. Some see the two-state solution as segregationist and similar to apartheid.

He believes the influx of settlers and the consolidation of larger settlements in the West Bank make it impossible for the Palestinians to have a viable state on the land that is left over. "Like South Africa's Bantustan policy it was a nice idea in theory: to separate rival groups living in one country so that each can have its own national homeland sounds like a moral solution - provided the separation is fair and the homelands are viable," Mr Sparks wrote in the Cape Times newspaper.

For Mr Bagraim, however, the one-state idea is a non-starter. "Israel is our home and the reality is it's a nation state which the world agreed to. You can't have a one-state solution knowing full well the majority within five to 10 years will be Muslim. Then you won't have a Jewish state," he says. "Wherever we [Jews] are in the Middle East we get slaughtered and pushed out. "The reality is that the Jews will never give up their state because of their history."
Meanwhile, Mr Omar dismisses the Hamas ideal of an Islamic state saying it would reduce non-Muslims to second class citizens.

It will take lots of negotiations but it's got to be done around the table not at the barrel of the gun - Cape Town Interfaith Forum. "For me the ideal state is a just state in which all the citizens are given equal dignity. In this regard I think South Africa has done well, at least constitutionally," he says. "From my South African experience Christians in our country gave us our space; they gave us our dignity and honoured us as equal citizens and partners in the anti-apartheid struggle. "This is something Hamas needs to take on board and I believe that will be an indication of whether their struggle is real human liberation."

While Cape Town's religious leaders may disagree about the fundamental around the around the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they are united in their belief that only negotiations will bring about a solution. "It will take lots of negotiations but it's got to be done around the table not at the barrel of the gun," they say.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DESEPAIR OVER DARFUR!

Despair over Darfur
By Paul Reynolds World affairs correspondent, BBC News website.

The UN fears aid distribution could become impossibleWestern policy is in near despair over Darfur, and governments are turning to Russia and China to see if they can put pressure on the Sudanese government to accept a UN peacekeeping force. "We are looking again at our policy, trying to see what levers there are," said a British official. "We have few. Russia and China have more in that they buy raw materials there. "So the issue is how can we persuade them to get the government of Sudan to agree to the force while also allaying the government's own fears."

British hopes of engaging the Russians and Chinese cannot be that high. Both abstained in the voting on 31 August for Security Council resolution 1706, which authorises the force. So they can hardly be expected to argue strongly for a policy they did not actively support. The problem is that while the government of Sudan has said the current and cash-starved 7,000-strong force from the African Union can stay after its current mandate runs out at the end of September, it insists it cannot be incorporated into a more powerful replacement UN force of up to 17,300 soldiers and more than 3,000 police. It said that such a UN force, mandated only last week by the Security Council, would violate its sovereignty and suggested that it was a bridgehead for the removal of an Islamic-oriented government. It hinted that the force might attract Islamic fighters to combat it, because Osama Bin Laden has already identified Darfur as a battlefield. Instead, the government says it intends to send its own troops to fight against the rebel forces that did not accept the recent peace deal agreed in Nigeria, especially the National Redemption Front.

The UN fears an increase in fighting, making the provision of aid difficult or impossible.However, Africa does not always follow the script. The African Union force apparently does not even have enough money to pull its troops out, so it might stay anyway and if a deal can be worked out, it might yet form part of a UN force. Some Western governments at least have not given up hope that Sudan might change its mind. "The General Assembly is coming up later this month in New York and there is a good opportunity for discussion there," said the British official. "Sudan said once that it would not accept the African Union force but did. It could change its mind again." However, throughout this crisis, Sudan has managed to stave off UN intervention and it is not yet clear whether the UN force will ever get in.

Jendayi Frazer visited President Bashir on behalf of President Bush.The United States insists that because Security Council resolution 1706 is written under the enforcement chapter of the UN, the force could go in regardless of what the government of Sudan wants, but obviously that is not the preferred option. The US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, went to see Sudanese President Omar Bashir to deliver a message from President George W Bush, urging Sudan to allow the UN force in. In a briefing on her return to Washington on 31 August, she said the resolution was "the key step to ultimately ending the crisis in Darfur, and the United States continues to support strengthening the African Union force in Darfur and having those troops become the core of a UN mission in Darfur".

Since the start of the crisis, Sudan has managed to avoid having an effective peacekeeping force in place - and it is still playing that diplomatic game. Darfur has found itself a crisis that neither the UN nor the relatively new African Union can solve. The UN has lacked the will to intervene and the African Union has lacked the means. Despite the statement from the then US Secretary of State Colin Powell in September 2004 that genocide had taken place in Darfur, a UN commission that reported in January 2005 concluded that while there had been crimes against humanity and war crimes, the government of Sudan "had not pursued a policy of genocide". A finding of genocide would have forced the UN to intervene more strongly.

Yet the scale of suffering is huge. Tens of thousands are reckoned to have died and the UN commission said 1.65m people had been forced from their homes, with another 200,000 as refugees in Chad.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TURKISH CRASH LOOMS FOR EUROPE!

Turkish crash looms for Europe
By Kirsty Hughes Writer on European affairs.

To the consternation of many - but the ill-concealed glee of some - Turkey's negotiations to join the EU are threatening to grind to a halt this autumn amid a row over the divided island of Cyprus.

The problems of Cyprus and Turkey are intertwined for the EUEuropean politicians and diplomats have been alert to this much-heralded "train crash" since early this year but as an EU end-of-year deadline looms, no-one seems sure whether or how the crash can be avoided. After 40 years in the EU's waiting room, Turkey's membership talks finally began last October. But instead of this encouraging a positive new dynamic between the Union and its large neighbour, the mood has been souring ever since. In Istanbul, Erdal Kabetepe, director of Turkab, an EU-Turkey association, says: "Our job is to encourage people to support the EU but now we are very much discouraged... if the EU continues like this, it may lose Turkey and that won't help anyone given all the events in the region." The divided island of Cyprus, which joined the EU in 2004, is the immediate cause of this looming dispute.

Q&A: Cyprus peace process

Turkey, which has had troops in northern Cyprus since 1974 (when it invaded the island in response to a short-lived Greek coup) does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus. It did agree last year to extend its customs union agreement to all 25 member states including Cyprus, and so open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot vessels. But Turkey has neither ratified nor implemented this deal.

Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has raised the stakes by saying that Turkey will only open its ports when the EU ends the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots in northern Cyprus - as it promised in 2004 - and open northern Cypriot ports too to direct trade. The EU rejects this linkage. In June, Olli Rehn - European commissioner for enlargement - told the European Parliament: "If we want to avoid a major problem in the autumn, Turkey needs to stick to its word".

Back in Turkey, public support for the EU has taken a tumble in the last 18 months, a development which some officials blame on "anti-Turkey statements from some European politicians". Certainly, when leaders such as Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel or French Interior Minister Nikolas Sarkozy question Turkey's future in the EU and propose an alternative "privileged partnership", this reverberates widely in the Turkish media. Spectators from abroad think the prosecutions are mad but there is method in their madness Writer and academic Murat BelgeAnd as Turkey heads towards presidential and parliamentary elections next year, opposition parties are taking a hard-line towards any compromise with the EU over Cyprus. EU diplomats worry that, apart from the Cyprus problem, Turkey's political reform process is grinding to a halt.

High-profile court cases pushed by a group of nationalist lawyers against many writers, including novelist Orhan Pamuk, have rung alarm bells. Writer and academic Murat Belge - two cases against him recently dismissed - worries, over coffee in an Istanbul café, about the growing nationalism. "It is a very sensitive period where everything matters," he says. "Spectators from abroad think [the prosecutions] are mad but there is method in their madness as they want to demonstrate to the outside world that Turkey is not really a good country to be part of the EU."

Erdogan is expected to recall parliament early - in mid-September - to push through a new package of reforms but unless it abolishes article 301 of the penal code, under which these anti-freedom of speech cases were put, Brussels will not be impressed. While some politicians in Austria and France may welcome a train crash in Turkey's negotiations this autumn - and could well push for negotiations to be suspended - others, such as Finland (currently running the EU's presidency), Spain, and the UK, want to keep the process on track as far as possible.

More talks on talks are due this month. Some diplomats admit that the EU has not delivered on its promise - made at the end of April 2004 (after the Turkish Cypriots voted Yes and the Greek Cypriots voted No to a UN plan to reunite the island) to end the isolation of northern Cyprus.

In mid-2004, the European Commission put forward two regulations to provide financial assistance to the north and to allow direct trade (out of northern Cypriot ports and not just across the "Green Line" that divides the island). Financial assistance of 259m euros was finally agreed early this year, but its distribution was - at least temporarily - blocked by the Greek Cypriots in early July. They also continue to block direct trade saying this is tantamount to recognition.

Quiet attempts by some EU diplomats to fix a small direct trade package for northern Cyprus and so avoid the EU-Turkey train crash do not for now look very hopeful. And while the UN recently pushed the leaders of both sides on the island to meet, discussions on how to move to technical-level talks failed to reach agreement in early August and so "talks on talks" will re-start in September.

So while stalemate remains between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and Turkey insists it will not move unilaterally, the EU's leaders will have to decide this autumn what penalty to impose on Turkey for not keeping to its legal commitment to open its ports to Greek Cypriot shipping. Hard-line voices already talk off-the-record about total suspension of talks, while softer voices hope for a minor penalty such as suspending talks on just a few negotiating "chapters" (those connected to the customs union - perhaps three or four chapters).

The European Commission will produce its annual report on Turkey in late October or early November, but the wide spectrum of opinion across EU member states on how to respond - and the intense negative public opinion towards Turkish membership in countries like Austria and France - mean that a final decision on how to penalise Turkey will probably be pushed to the Union's December summit. Bad tempers and late nights can be predicted. And in a worst-case scenario, worrying some officials, the 25 leaders may not agree at all. In that case, individual member states such as the Greek Cypriots or France, could decide simply to block all future negotiations chapter by chapter, leaving the EU in disarray and its relations with Turkey in tatters.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZUMA GOES ON TRIAL FOR CORRUPTION!

Zuma's supporters held an all-night vigil in Pietermaritzburg. The corruption trial of former South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma has begun in the Pietermaritzburg High Court in the east of the country. Mr Zuma and his co-accused, French arms firm Thint, face charges in connection with a bribe allegedly paid to Mr Zuma. Defence lawyers have called for the case to be thrown out of court.

Hundreds of Mr Zuma's supporters, who stood by him during a separate rape trial in which he was acquitted in May, held an overnight vigil at the court. The case could determine the political future of a man who remains one of South Africa's most popular politicians, and who is believed still to harbour ambitions to the presidency. As proceedings began, the prosecution asked for postponement to allow more time for investigation. "The state needs until the middle of October to finalise the indictment," prosecutor Wim Trengove said. "There are some changes envisioned and it is going to be a mammoth task to undertake."

Zuma denies the charges of corruption. Mr Zuma's defence lawyers have argued that delays in the trial are infringing on Mr Zuma's right to a fair trial, and are seeking to have the case dropped. Mr Zuma sat in the dock wearing a dark suit, and smiled and put his hands together in greeting to his supporters, reports the South African Press Association. Banners carried by his supporters outside the court included the slogan "fight conspiracy and demand justice". Some of his supporters believe that the charges against Mr Zuma are the result of a political vendetta.

Mr Zuma was sacked from the government more than a year ago when his financial adviser Schabir Shaik was found guilty of corruption in a case that arose from a government arms procurement deal in the 1990s. The judge said there had been a generally corrupt relationship between Mr Shaik and Mr Zuma, and evidence led in Mr Shaik's trial prompted the National Prosecuting Authority to start investigating charges against Mr Zuma. Although the investigation prompted President Thabo Mbeki to relieve Mr Zuma of his duties as deputy president, he kept his position of deputy leader of the ANC. He first appeared in connection with the corruption allegations in the Durban magistrate's court in October, and prosecutors have spent the intervening period collecting and examining evidence.

Late last year, Mr Zuma was accused of rape by the daughter of a family friend, giving rise to a separate trial, in which he was acquitted.

BBC NEWS REPORT

RUSSIA REBUILDS SOUTH AFRICA LINKS!

Russia rebuilds South Africa links.
By Peter Biles BBC News, Johannesburg.

President Putin's state visit is being hailed as historic. It is perhaps surprising that a Russian president has not been to South Africa in the 12 years since the death of apartheid. The governing African National Congress (ANC) had extraordinarily close ties with Moscow during the years of the liberation struggle.
Many former ANC activists, including President Thabo Mbeki, underwent military training in the Soviet Union.
In an interview with Reuters news agency this week, the current South African Intelligence Minister, Ronnie Kasrils, described the Kremlin as "the main staple support for the ANC and South African liberation".
For decades, as Moscow provided backing for the ANC, white South Africa was fed a diet of propaganda by the masters of apartheid, and lived in perpetual fear of a Communist onslaught.
That anxiety lasted until 1989 when the fall of the Berlin Wall played no small part in the South African government's decision to unban the ANC, the SA Communist Party and release all political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela.
So Vladimir Putin's two-day state visit which begins on Tuesday, is being hailed as historic.
In fact, it is Mr Putin's first time in sub-Saharan Africa, and the main focus will be on strengthening economic relations with the government in Pretoria.
Bilateral trade
The Russian leader is being accompanied by a large business delegation. South Africa and Russia are eyeing a vast range of business opportunities, that could lead to an expansion of bilateral trade.
There is currently a large trade imbalance between the two countries. South African exports to Russia amounted to $106m last year, but imports from Russia only totalled $18m.
South Africa's Deputy Foreign Minister, Aziz Pahad, points out that both nations began their democratisation processes at roughly the same time, and the trade figures reflect the potential that exists between them.

President Mbeki may be hoping to discuss UN reform.
The South African fruit exporting company, Capespan, is now exporting more fruit to Russia than it does to the UK, one of its traditional markets.
According to South Africa's Department of Foreign Affairs, there has been an increase in apple and pear exports and the demand for grapes has been booming in Russia.
South African multinationals are said to be making their presence felt in Russia. Anglo American, De Beers and Standard Bank are among those with substantial interests, and the brewers, SAB/Miller, have established a brewery in the Kaluga Region, representing a $100m investment.
Emerging economies
In the meantime, Russian companies are looking to South Africa, no doubt conscious of China's move into many areas of sub-Saharan Africa, and the subsequent scramble for raw materials.
Russia's largest steel-maker, Evraz, is bidding for a bigger stake in one of South Africa's leading firms, Highveld Steel & Vanadium. Two years ago, the Russian company, Norilsk Nickel, bought a 20% share in the South African gold producer, Gold Fields.
South Africa and Russia have a lot in common as two of the world's largest emerging economies. Thabo Mbeki and Vladimir Putin have encountered one another at G8 summits, and Russia - the current chair of the G8 - has been forced to pay particular attention to Africa's development agenda.
In their discussions in Cape Town this week, the South African and Russian leaders may also be discussing the issue of United Nations reform. President Mbeki may be hoping that President Putin will support South Africa's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

10 THINGS

10 THINGS WE DIDN'T KNOW THIS TIME LAST WEEK

Snippets harvested from the week's news, chopped, sliced and diced for your weekend convenience.

1. Everyday school expenses - such as uniforms - cost families an average £1,300 a year.

2. Some Royal Mail stamps, which of course carry the Queen's image, are printed in Holland.

3. 88% of couples in long and happy relationships have lips of similar size, according to research by the University of Leicester.

4. London has the best public transport system in the world (well, according to readers of TripAdvisor.com).

5. Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Moronoff, the daughter of a Russian-born violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

6. The Airfix swastika decals are banned from kits for sale in Germany.

7. Toytown, the horse which carried Zara Phillips to equestrian gold, cost just £400.

8. Chinese Girl, a painting by Vladimir Tretchikoff, who died last week, is believed to have sold more in print form than the Mona Lisa or Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

9. Some sharks can't reproduce until the age of 20 or above.

10. Dipping seagull eggs in oil, so they do not hatch, is seen as the best way to limit the seagull population. Shooting the birds is too dangerous, while smashing eggs just leads to gulls laying more.

BBC MAGAZINE.

SOMALI RIVALS AGREE ON JOINT ARMY!

Gunmen loyal to Islamic courts took control of Mogadishu in June. Somalia's interim government and a rival Islamist militia that holds much of the south of the country have agreed in principle to form a national army. The deal is part of a broader accord, struck after three days of talks in Sudan mediated by the Arab League. The rivals also agreed to avoid seeking aid from foreign powers and affirmed an earlier truce, threatened by the Islamists' recent territorial gains.

Somalia has had no effective central government since 1991. The interim government, based in the city of Baidoa, has the support of the UN and US but its forces have failed to check the rapid rise of the Islamist militia, the Union of Islamic courts. The Union of Islamic Courts took control of the capital, Mogadishu, in June as well as several central and southern parts of the country. The meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, marks the first time the two sides have spoken to each other directly since June. Under the deal struck on Monday, the parties agreed "to build armed forces like an army and police" incorporating militias loyal to the Islamic courts, the government and others.

Q&A: Islamist advance

Details on the formation of the new force are expected to be fleshed out after the two sides have resolved key political differences. The Islamists and the interim government are expected to meet next on 30 October to discuss power-sharing and security issues. The deal struck on Monday also calls for both sides to resist involving Somalia's neighbours in the conflict. The Islamists have accused the government of bolstering its defences with troops from Ethiopia, while they in turn have been accused of using military backing from Eritrea. Under Monday's deal, both sides will also be required to respect an earlier truce, struck in June. The two parties have been accusing each other of violating the June deal.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ULTIMATUM FOR DARFUR PEACE FORCE!

The Security Council had hoped UN troops would replace AU troops. Sudan has said the African Union (AU) peacekeeping force should leave Darfur unless it drops plans for the UN to take over its mission. The announcement follows concern about a week-old offensive by Sudanese troops in the remote western region.

A UN resolution passed last week, seeking to replace the weak AU peacekeeping force with 17,000 UN troops, was rejected by Khartoum. The UN has warned of a new "man-made catastrophe" in war-torn Darfur. Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol said the AU had previously stated that its force would leave Sudan when its current mandate expires at the end of September, if no agreement was reached between the UN and the Sudanese government."We are not kicking out the AU troops," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme, downplaying previous official comments.

Darfur - on the brink

Aid groups to remain in Darfur

"We are telling them that now there is no agreement between the two parties and therefore we want them to state their position: Do they want to pull out, or change their minds?" Hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions been made homeless since 2003 in fighting between pro-government militia groups and rebels demanding greater autonomy.There are fears that Sudan now plans to settle the rebellion in Darfur by military means. The government says it will replace the peacekeepers with its own force of 10,000 soldiers to the region, but the UN and rights groups operating in the region have expressed alarm at this idea. The AU brokered a peace accord in May, but it was signed by the government and only one of the three main rebel groups in Darfur. Since then, the violence has intensified. The AU force in the region has a weak mandate, is under-resourced, and numbers only 7,000 in an area the size of France.

Earlier, Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman Jamal Mohamed Ibrahim said that since the AU had chosen to pull out, "it is up to them now to leave. And we're asking them, please leave."
Alex de Waal, a Harvard-based analyst who has been advising the AU on Darfur, describes that statement as "disingenuous". He told the BBC the AU mission "specifically requested that the mission be handed over to the United Nations". In July, however, the AU agreed to extend its mandate in Sudan until the end of 2006. An AU official told the AFP news agency that it had not been officially informed of Sudan's request and so could not comment.

The rebel Justice and Equality Movement said that the government's decision was unacceptable as it amounted to a clear breach of previous agreements. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir described the call for a UN force as "part of a comprehensive conspiracy for confiscating the country's sovereignty" in comments reported by the Sudanese news agency Suna on Sunday.

Planeloads of Sudanese soldiers are now arriving in Darfur"Our decision is decisive rejection [of the UN resolution], then preparation for the confrontation [with the UN forces]," Suna quoted him as saying. Fresh Sudanese soldiers have been arriving in the region, and rights groups, AU officials and Darfur's rebel groups report that on 28 August a new offensive began, with reports of attacks on rebel-held villages in Darfur. Khartoum has denied reports of bombing raids on villages, saying it is merely conducting "administrative operations". Darfur refugees, rebels and the United States have long accused the Sudanese army of backing up the Arab Janjaweed militias in a "genocide" against the region's black African population. Sudan has denied these claims and says the problems in Darfur have been exaggerated for political reasons.

Last week, the UN's humanitarian chief Jan Egeland warned that "a man-made catastrophe of an unprecedented scale" loomed within weeks in Darfur unless the UN Security Council acted immediately. But analysts say sending a UN force to the region without Khartoum's consent would be a virtually impossible task - and few options now remain.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DARFUR'S PEACEKEEPERS NOT PAID!

Rwandans make up 2,000 of the 7,000-strong Darfur force. Rwanda's army spokesman says there have been delays in paying peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region because the African Union is short of cash.
Some of the Rwandan troops who make up over 2,000 of the 7,000-strong AU force in Darfur have complained they have not received their $25 daily allowance.
Maj Jules Rutaremara told the BBC the AU mission is reliant on international funding which has not been forthcoming.
The UN Security Council is due to vote on replacing AU troops with a UN force.
The US and UK have proposed the revised resolution to deploy UN peacekeepers in place of the struggling AU mission.
US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer has said that AU troops were stretched to "breaking point" and could not keep the peace in an area the size of France.
Confident
"The AU has financial problems emanating from the fact that it is heavily dependent on partners outside Africa - mainly the European Union, the US and Canada, whose contributions have not been forthcoming," Maj Rutaremara told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

More than one million people have been displaced in the conflict.
But he said that he was confident the entitlements due to the Rwandan soldiers would be settled.
"The AU has registered delays in payments of allowances and salaries, sometimes going up to two months, but that does not mean that they will not be paid," he said.
The decision about whether to withdraw the AU mission was a political decision, not a military one, he said, although the Rwandan army was concerned about logistical problems in Darfur.
Two Rwandan soldiers in Darfur died in an ambush earlier this month.
The UN wants about 17,500 UN troops to police the region in place of a AU mission.
Khartoum has been resisting the plan, but the new resolution specifies that any UN deployment would have to be approved by the Sudanese government.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HARLEM GOES UPMARKET!

Harlem goes upmarket
By Brian Barron BBC News, New York.

After decades in decline, New York's once crime-ridden district of Harlem is seeing a tide of reinvestment. New business, restaurants and residents are moving in, but gentrification is bringing new problems.

The streets of Harlem used to be known for street gangs and crime. It is 35 years since I first went to Harlem, and for much of the intervening period it fully deserved its reputation as one of the shabbiest, most violent corners of the Big Apple.
Taxi drivers would often cut through Harlem bringing you in from the airport. But first they would make sure your luggage and briefcase were not visible, lest an unfriendly soul take a sudden liking to them in the mean streets you were traversing.
But in the last 10 years - as New York built on its success in reversing the high tide of murders, serious offences and the massive use of crack cocaine - Harlem has been on an upswing.
Instead of burned-out warehouses and graffiti of men with guns, there are now new buildings rising wherever you look.
On a stretch of Madison Avenue which was once bleak and half abandoned there are rows of new condos Historically New York's prosperity is always linked to maintaining a high price for real estate.
So Harlem today, from 96th Street beside Central Park, all the way to 155th Street, is proving ripe for speculators.
That does not only mean financiers with deep pockets. Many ordinary New Yorkers are piling in.
The sister of a friend of mine paid $300,000 for an imposing townhouse in the late 90s and now it is worth at least six times that.
Business opportunities
Gentrification is swiftly changing Harlem.

New housing developments are proving to be attractive to investorsOn a stretch of Madison Avenue which was once bleak and half-abandoned there are rows of new condos in the style of 19th Century brownstones, the name that stems from the dark brown finish applied to the original houses.
Next to a brand new wine store is the Harlem tea room, just opened by 33-year-old Patrice Clayton.
She grew up in Harlem when black middle class families like hers were having a thin time amid the mayhem of street gangs and the failure of New York's political establishment.
Now she is relaxed and happy.
"I think the subconscious reason I moved back here was the 9/11 tragedy, " says Patrice, "I worked in Wall Street and I saw the two planes fly into the World Trade Center next door."
We have to be careful that in the process of gentrification we don't wash away all those families who can't afford the rapidly rising rents
Kenneth Knuckles, Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation After a pause she adds: "For two years after, my office view every day was of the 'pit', as we called the excavation site of what was left of the Twin Towers. So it was pretty traumatic for me."
There are many examples of young African American entrepreneurs like Patrice investing in Harlem.
Some get backing from an influential body called the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation headed by an executive named Kenneth Knuckles.
He thinks it is inevitable that gentrification is controversial.
"We need this transformation, the money coming in on the scale it is now," says Mr Knuckles.
"But we have to be careful that in the process of gentrification we don't wash away all those families who can't afford the rapidly rising rents."
Eviction threat

Some residents are facing eviction to make way for new tenantsIt is not hard to find public misgiving.
"Whites out of Harlem, whites out of Harlem," chants a middle-aged black woman as I walk towards her.
At least she is smiling.
She tells me her protest is directed against newcomers buying and renting the luxury apartment blocks around the corner.
One of the most famous streets is Astor Row, lined with tree-shaded properties, now dilapidated, but dating from a century or more ago when Harlem was a sanctuary for the rich.
What's happening is unfair and it's causing fear and unhappiness here
Reverend Wayne DodsonInside St Ambrose Episcopal Church, a weekly protest meeting against gentrification is under way.
The Reverend Wayne Dodson, a British-educated black pastor in his 40s, says many families in Astor Row are being evicted by landlords cashing in on Harlem's property boom.
"What's happening is unfair and it's causing fear and unhappiness here," says Mr Dodson.
Cultural change
This being New York, market forces seem bound to win the day.
But sympathetic voices can be heard - including some political leaders - calling for more low-cost housing so that Harlem is not drained of its long-term residents.
Still, among many positive changes, are cultural things like a well-attended book signing in a new African American bookshop by a young woman publishing her first, semi-autobiographical novel. A harrowing tale of a troubled childhood.
A few hours later I was in another new attraction.
The rebuilt Minton Playhouse, famous as a jazz centre in the "Roaring Twenties", and hopping again after being shut for over 30 years.
Harlem is rejoining the New York mainstream and no longer do you fear for your wallet, or your safety, as you step outside the door at midnight.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 2 September, 2006 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

LOOKING FORWARD TO A LEEDS RETURN!

Looking forward to a Leeds return

By Guto Harri BBC News in Brooklyn Cancer sufferer Jane Tomlinson of Leeds, in Yorkshire, has completed an epic 4,200 mile bike ride across the US. Mrs Tomlinson is keen to get home to Yorkshire "Bless you," said the Polish waitress as I coughed. It was 0820 and I'd cycled nine miles to get to her cafe. A fruit salad and a coffee had revived me but I wasn't feeling my best. Then the door opened and Jane Tomlinson walked in - slight, short and clad in tight cycling gear which emphasised her small stature. Even there, in the tough neighbourhood of Brooklyn, however, she looked tough. Six years ago, doctors gave her six months to live. Diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, many in her position would have given up. She moved up a gear. I didn't expect to bump into the 42-year-old mother of three at that point but I knew she'd be crossing Brooklyn Bridge at 0900. Last leg That short, scenic hop into Manhattan has inspired millions of people over the years. Scaling its wooden boards was often the end of a turbulent journey across continents for countless immigrants in the past. When we set out, it felt like it would be a huge adventure but it's actually been quite an ordeal Jane Tomlinson Jane ends trip on high For Mrs Tomlinson, it was the last leg of a 4,200 mile journey which began with a long ride across another bridge, the Golden Gate of San Francisco. "When we set out, it felt like it would be a huge adventure but it's actually been quite an ordeal." Jane Tomlinson seems more relieved than elated when she finally pedals down the last 100m along the Hudson river. A handful of supporters applaud limply. There is some champagne. But what she wants most is a hug from son Stephen, nine, and her husband Mike. "I wouldn't have started, to be honest, if Michael hadn't been with me and Stephen's actually been very encouraging along the way. He's probably the reason why I finished." A few days ago, she hit a bad patch. Her health seemed close to breaking. Media opportunities were pulled. "Sometimes we didn't think we'd be here," she says without going into detail. But "just getting on the bike again and again" had clearly been a challenge over time. Ploughing on Mrs Tomlinson's husband often tried to talk her out of it. "We told her about 20 times to give up and not continue because she was going through too much pain on a lot of the journey but, like always, she was right and ignored me," he said. One major motivation for ploughing on was to raise money. The target was £1m. But this was also about the triumph of the human spirit, defying the doctors and a terminal disease which scares most people rigid. "I have enjoyed some of the things I've done and the physical feats I've done but I'm sure there are things that other people can do in their lives that they'll enjoy which will give them a more positive outlook when they have quite a bleak future." Sometimes you just count down the miles - and there's a lot of them to count down Jane Tomlinson That spirit has seen Mrs Tomlinson through a number of marathons and triathlons on both sides of the Atlantic before this latest ordeal. Two friends joined her on this trip but it was still a solitary exercise. "What did you think about?" I asked, immediately regretting such an insensitive question to someone who might not have long to live. "Sometimes you just count down the miles - and there's a lot of them to count down." "And other times?" "You count down the miles again!" I leave her with the family, looking forward to a night in New York, but far more eager to get home to Leeds. BBC NEWS REPORT.

KEY SOMALIA TALKS GET UNDER WAY!

The Islamists control much of central and southern Somalia. Direct talks between Somalia's interim government and rival Islamists have begun in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, with power-sharing high on the agenda. The sides have not met since June when the Union of Islamic Courts seized control of the capital, Mogadishu, and then many central and southern regions. Another key issue at the talks will be the presence of foreign peacekeepers, which the Islamists oppose. Somalia has had no effective central government since 1991. "I appeal to you to negotiate honestly to end your differences and Sudan will help you achieve that," Sudanese minister of state for foreign affairs Ali Karti said at the opening. One Somali interim government official said the gathering was expected to last about 10 days or so, "depending on what happens," Reuters news agency reported. The talks come more than two months after the rivals agreed a pact to cease hostilities, although both sides have traded accusations claiming violations of the truce.

Q&A: Islamist advance

The BBC's East Africa correspondent, Karen Allen, says the fact that the two sides are back in talks - the result of concerted diplomatic efforts - will be seen as a sign of real progress. Since the last meeting relations have worsened, our correspondent says. The government has been criticised for sanctioning the presence of Ethiopian troops on Somali soil while the Islamists have been accused of seeking to expand their sphere of control. The talks will mainly focus on the issue of power sharing. At the moment the Islamists have no representation in the transitional government, which is confined to the southern town of Baidoa. One cabinet minister, Mohamud Said Aden, told the Associated Press news agency the UN-backed government was willing to offer the Islamists some cabinet, departmental and judiciary posts.

But the two sides face divisions over the issue of foreign peacekeepers. The government has insisted on the need for foreign troops to help stabilise the war-ravaged country, but the Islamists object to Ethiopia contributing to any force. Nevertheless, both sides say they are optimistic about the talks, to be mediated by the Arab League in Khartoum. The head of the government delegation, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, told the BBC he believed that a peace settlement could be reached. "They'll be genuine talks that will resolve all the issues," he said.The leader of the Islamic Courts delegation, Ibrahim Hassan Adow, said: "Both sides are committed to unity and to quickly ending the 16 years of chaos."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

MESSAGE FROM CATHY BUCKLE -

have had a burglary - computers, cell phone, glasses, tv etc all lost. I will not be able to send letter this week.
Cathy

NIGERIA POLICE TO GET ARMS BOOST!

Fifty thousand new recruits are currently being trainedNigeria's police are planning to buy 80,000 new firearms ahead of elections due in April next year. Police spokesman Haz Iwendi told the BBC that the guns were needed to arm 50,000 new police officers. He said the arms, including 70,000 assault rifles, were needed to confront armed criminals.

Elections in 2003 were marred by several assassinations and three high-profile politicians have been murdered this year. Since the end of military rule in 1999, thousands of people have been killed in ethnic and religious violence. "The federal government decided the police need to be further equipped to face the challenges of electioneering - before, during and after the election," Mr Iwendi told the BBC's Network Africa programme. He said it was a "bold step" but said people should not be worried about police intimidation and obsolete arms would be destroyed.

Mr Iwendi said the new arms that were being ordered were:
40,000 AK47 rifles
30,000 K2 rifles
10,000 pistol Berettas.
"We need the equipment to match the ferocity of the criminals," he said.

The southern oil-producing Niger Delta is awash with weapons and kidnappings have become an almost daily occurrence. Some armed groups in the region have been used by politicians to help win elections in the past. The BBC's Sola Odunfa in Lagos says there is also growing concern there could be a spate of assassinations, the most prominent of which was the ruling party candidate for governor in Lagos state, Funsho Williams. Our correspondent says the states most vulnerable to pre-election violence are those where the incumbent governors are seeking re-election and any opposition from either within or outside their parties is not tolerated.

The elections could mark the first successful democratic transfer of power from one civilian president to another since Nigerian independence in 1960. President Olusegun Obasanjo will have served two terms, the maximum allowed under the constitution, since being elected in 1999.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GADDAFI WARNS REVOLUTION ENEMIES!

Gaddafi warns revolution enemies.
By David Bamford BBC World Service.

Col Gaddafi called his opponents ignorant and immature. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has urged supporters to kill those trying to reverse the gains of his revolution, on the 37th anniversary of his coup. In a speech to mark the anniversary, Col Gaddafi said those who wanted to change what he called Libya's direct democracy were ignorant and immature. The tone of the speech is in sharp contrast to recent comments by Col Gadaffi's son, Seif al-Islam. He is widely seen as a possible successor to the Libyan leader.

The anniversary of the Libyan revolution falls on 1 September, the day in 1969 when as a 27-year-old British trained junior officer, Muammar Gaddafi overthrew the pro-Western Libyan monarchy and began what became known as the Green Revolution. Thanks God - our revolution has won... Our enemies have been crushed inside Libya and you have to be ready to kill them if they emerge anew - Col Gaddafi.

Nearly four decades on, Colonel Gaddafi gave his two-hour televised speech saying that revolution - which in effect gives him absolute power in Libya - was still alive and well, and those who were trying to change it should be killed. They were ignorant and immature, he said, and if the enemy showed his head, he should be finished off.

This message is the exact reverse of the one given in another speech just 10 days ago on Libyan television by Seif al-Islam Gaddafi. Seif al-Islam Gaddafi called for an end to the revolutionary era, saying it had not brought people-power to Libya. It is unclear to what extent this marks a rift between father and son that could have political consequences for the Libyans, or whether it is an example of Colonel Gaddafi's penchant for bluster and bravado that is part of his unpredictable nature.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MAKING A MILESTONE AT THE BBC!

Marking a milestone at the BBC

By John Simpson BBC World Affairs Editor.

John Simpson - post prime minister's punch, pre-war in IraqForty years ago, just after 10 o'clock on the morning of Thursday 1 September 1966, I pushed open the heavy bronze doors of Broadcasting House for the first time.
At 22, newly graduated, I was about to start work as a sub-editor in radio news.
I was scarcely a great success at it. But soon, through a stroke of luck, I got a much more enjoyable job as a reporter. That is what I still am.
Since then, the world has changed utterly. Newsmen - there were very few newswomen then - were far more deferential.
We did not interrupt people when we interviewed them. Nor did we suggest that they should answer the question.
My very first reporting assignment was a photo call for the prime minister, Harold Wilson, at Euston Station, in London.
The newspapers were full of election talk, so I went up to him and asked when he was going to name the date.
Prime ministerial punch
Wilson exploded. He punched me in the stomach, tried to wrench the microphone from me, and threatened to complain formally about my outrageous behaviour.
The incident was observed by the entire British national media, yet no hint of it appeared in the newspapers or on radio or television.
In those days "Prime Minister punches journalist" wasn't a story; it was all my fault for daring to ask him a question.

John Simpson's career has taken him to many of the world's hotspots
The BBC has changed utterly, too. Forty years ago it was just one of a number of middle-ranking national broadcasters.
It had a good reputation, because of its reporting during the Second World War. Having resisted Winston Churchill's demands early on that it should keep quiet about Allied defeats, it was generally believed when it reported Allied successes.
But it was dwarfed by the big American broadcasting networks.
Nowadays the BBC is the world's biggest international broadcaster, leaving rivals like CNN, Fox or Al-Jazeera behind, both in terms of its bureaux and correspondents and its vast worldwide audiences.
And the American networks scarcely register nowadays in the reporting of international news.
Yet we have lost a lot, also.
Robust defence
The BBC used to be managed by charming, tweed-clad, middle-aged men who watched over your career and made the corporation a pleasant place to work.
Nowadays it is tightly run and impersonal. You still don't work for the BBC for the money. But the work was fascinating, the BBC was much respected, and you stayed with it for life.
Well, it is still wonderfully interesting. The BBC gives you a freedom and a scope which no other broadcasting organisation can offer. It is still as highly-respected as ever.

He survived a "friendly fire" attack in Iraq in 2003
But the management style is tougher and less benign. There is less job security, and people in the lower and middle ranks often resent the salaries at the top.
Of course, the BBC took a big hit at the time of the Kelly/Gilligan affair in 2004, when we reported that the Blair government had knowingly exaggerated the evidence for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The government hit back with unparalleled ferocity. We defended ourselves robustly, but an inquiry by a senior judge, Lord Hutton, went against the BBC.
Culture of truth
Yet the BBC's reporting, though flawed, has largely been vindicated. There was an immense upsurge of public support for us. Our self-confidence was shaken, but it has long-since returned in full.
Future British governments will surely think more carefully before attacking the BBC.
Over 40 years I myself have made many mistakes, every single one of which I feel badly about.
But, like my colleagues, I can honestly say I have never broadcast anything I did not believe to be correct. The culture of telling the truth for its own sake is as deeply embedded in the BBC in 2006 as it was in 1966.
It's a funny old outfit: slow, cumbersome, and sometimes intensely irritating. But it still does its level best to be honest and unbiased.
For that I remain profoundly grateful.

BBC REPORT BY JOHN SIMPSON.