ETHIOPIA HIT BY NEW DEADLY FLOODS !

At least 67 people have been killed by floods in Ethiopia's eastern Ogaden region, aid workers say. Almost 300,000 have been affected after the Shabelle river burst its banks, an aid worker told the BBC. There are also unconfirmed reports that crocodiles have killed two people in the floods. Accurate information is hard to get from the remote area.
The area was also hit by devastating floods earlier this year, which killed hundreds and left thousands homeless.
The BBC's Amber Henshaw in Ethiopia says some people had only just returned home when they were forced to flee again following torrential rain.
Government spokesman Sisay Tadesse said measures were being taken to avoid a wider catastrophe in the Gode area about 650 km south-east of the capital, Addis Ababa.
Almost 20,000 metric tones of food aid have been sent to the remote region and more will soon be on its way.
The spokesman said they were also sending plastic sheeting, jerry cans and cooking equipment.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GREEN GOVERNMENT PLAN A 'FIASCO' !

Green government plan 'a fiasco'
By Matthew Chapman Five Live Report

Governments are coming under pressure to protect the environment. Money pledged by the UK to help an African township cut energy costs is paying for bureaucrats and accountants, BBC's Five Live Report has found out. The donation was meant to make up for the pollution caused by the world leaders flying to last years G8 summit in Gleneagles hosted by Tony Blair.
The revelations led to Friends of the Earth calling the scheme "a fiasco".

Questions have also been raised about the UK government promoting firms that offset pollution with other measures. For example, under carbon offset schemes, companies are offering to plant trees or invest in energy saving projects on behalf of air travellers to compensate for the pollution their flights have caused. Ministers announced that last year's G8 meeting would be the first ever carbon neutral summit and pledged that £50,000 would be given to a scheme in a township in Cape Town which provided energy saving light bulbs and fuel efficient stoves to local residents. The money is being routed through the United Nations-run Clean Development Mechanism, which gives the stamp of approval to energy saving schemes.

The travel industry has come under scrutiny over its green credentials. However, the BBC has learned that the whole scheme has turned into a bureaucratic nightmare for the local council who face being left in debt. Council spokeswoman Shirene Rosenberg said the British money would have to be spent on auditors hired from an international accountancy firm who would check on the efficiency of the scheme. Other sources have said that one of the jobs of the auditors may be to count the light bulbs to check how many have been broken. "It's been a complicated and onerous process," said Ms Rosenberg. "It would definitely make the council think twice about being involved in another project like this."

The scheme allows the council to engage in carbon trading whereby they calculate how many tonnes of carbon dioxide could be saved by the project and then sell off these potential saved pollutants, or carbon rights, to Western donors like the UK government. South South North, an independent organisation involved in the project, has calculated that the scheme will raise £37,000 pounds from selling these carbon rights, which should then be invested back into the poverty stricken township.

However, they have then calculated that filling in all the forms demanded by CDM, as well as hiring auditors, will cost £54,000, leaving Cape Town council in debt to the tune of £17,000.
It has also emerged that the South African energy firm Eskom has launched its own scheme to supply energy efficient light bulbs in the very same area potentially replicated the work done on the project.

Environmental campaigners say the G8 leaders should have come up with a programme to reduce greenhouse gasses rather than get involved in carbon offset schemes. "The whole of this G8 offsets scheme has been a fiasco from start to finish," said Mike Childs of campaign group Friends of the Earth. "The government would have done better to concentrate on the supply of low energy light bulbs in the UK before moving on to Africa."
What tree?
The South African project was meant to help fulfil a promise by ministers to create a carbon-neutral government. The Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) has responded to the allegations saying that the government wanted the CDM system to become faster and more efficient. They also said that auditors were needed to check the project was delivering energy efficiency. Defra is thought to be weeks away from announcing which company will have the contract to handle up to £1m of government money aimed at buying carbon offsets to compensate for all the air travel taken by ministers and civil servants.

Can planting trees really help offset the effects of a plane journey?
One of the favourites is thought to be the Carbon Neutral Company, which along with Climate Care is being promoted on several government websites to airline travellers in the UK. The Carbon Neutral Company allows people to buy into forests in the UK, but despite references to "your forest" on their website, some customers do not realise they have not bought a tree with their money. Instead some mistakenly make the trek to a remote forest on the Isle of Skye. "Unfortunately yes they do seem to labour under that misconception," said Kevin Sutton, who manages the Orbst Forest on behalf of its owners, a government quango called Highlands and Island Enterprise. "They ask 'where is the tree that I bought?' I have to refer them back to the company," he explained.

What customers of the Carbon Neutral Company have bought stems from a contract between the company and the owners of the forest agreeing not to cut the tree down for 99 years. This allows the company to sell the carbon rights of each tree for 99 years. Several landowners contacted by the BBC, including the Highlands and Island Enterprise, said the forests were going to be grown anyway and being public forests were unlikely to have been cut down. They said the Carbon Neutral Company's investment was relatively small in the overall budgets of the forests. A spokesman for the Carbon Neutral Company said they had a raft of quality assurance measures in place to make sure that all their projects represented the best practice in the market. They said all their projects were continuously reviewed by an independent advisory board.

Matthew Chapman's report, Trading Trees can be heard on Five Live Report on Sunday 29 October at 1100 GMT and will also be available at the Five Live Report website.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGER MARCH FOR ARAB EXPULSIONS !

Some 5,000 people have held a demonstration in the eastern Niger town of Diffa, calling on the government to go ahead with its plans to expel Arabs. The protesters accuse members of the 150,000-strong Mahamid Arab community of robbery and say their camels disturb the grazing of cattle and goats. A BBC reporter in the area says the dispute is largely related to competition for land and water.

The government last week reversed its policy of deporting the Arabs to Chad. Many of the Mahamid crossed into Niger more than 30 years ago to escape drought, famine and fighting in Chad. The decision to suspend the expulsions came after a cabinet meeting on Friday.

NIGER'S MAHAMID ARABS
Originally nomads from Chad
150,000 live mainly in Diffa State
Many came after 1974 drought
More fled 1980s Chad fighting
Fought against 1990s Tuareg rebellion

Some say that the Mahamid, many of whom are wealthy and control the much of eastern Niger's economy, are backing a politician who plans to challenge President Mamadou Tandja in elections due in 2008. On Wednesday, Mahamid leaders told reporters they would defend themselves against attack and called on the United Nations to intervene. They insisted they were citizens of Niger and "have no other country to go to", after being given five days to leave the country.

Like the rest of the country, the east of Niger is extremely arid. With the Sahara desert expanding quite quickly, there are growing fears that the scarcity of water could spark future problems in many African countries in the region.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGERIAN CRASH AIRLINE GROUNDED !

The plane reportedly burst into flames just after take-off.

Crash aftermath

Nigeria has suspended the licence of the airline involved in Sunday's crash, in which 96 people were killed. ADC's Boeing 737 passenger jet came down almost immediately after take-off from the capital, Abuja, on a flight to the northern city of Sokoto. Among the dead was the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, the Sultan of Sokoto. Nine people are reported to have survived the crash.
This is Nigeria's third major civilian air disaster in less than a year. ADC is one of Nigeria's most popular private airlines. Three days of national mourning have been announced for the victims and an inquiry has begun.
President Olusegun Obasanjo on Monday visited Sokoto to pay his respects at the sultan's palace. "I have come with so much sadness and sorrow to condole the people and government of Sokoto and all Nigerians over this tragedy" he said. "The sultan was a man of peace who lived and died for peace.

Most shops and businesses are closed in Sokoto and the city's motorbike-taxi riders have parked their bikes out of respect for the deceased sultan. Residents are gathering at mosques and the sultan's palace to pray. The BBC's Alex Last in Nigeria says there is a lot of anger over the latest crash, as well as grief. "Nigeria's aviation industry needs urgent overhaul. This is one crash too many," said Ishaq Akintola, director of civil society group Muslim Rights Concern.
Nigeria's aviation minister has said the pilot ignored advice to wait for better weather before taking off.

"The pilot of the unfortunate accident refused to take advantage of the weather advice and the opinion of the [control] tower to exercise patience and allow the weather to clear for a safe take off," Aviation Minister Babalola Borishade said at a news conference. The jet came down just after take-off, ploughing into a cornfield about two kilometres from Abuja airport. Our correspondent says the plane broke up on impact, scattering debris and passengers' belongings across an area the size of a football pitch.

The body of the Sultan of Sokoto, Mohammadu Maccido - the spiritual leader of the country's estimated 70 million Muslims - was buried in Sokoto within hours of the crash. Several other leading Nigerian politicians, including one of the sultan's sons, were also killed in the crash. The survivors are being treated in a hospital in Abuja.
Corruption and corner-cutting
After visiting the crash site, Federal Territory Minister Mallam Nasir el-Rufai told the BBC that the condition of the plane was "deplorable", with "bald tyres".

Crash site eyewitness
In pictures: Nigeria crash

The government had already announced a plan to overhaul the aviation industry and improve safety following last year's disasters, in which more than 200 people died.
Last month 10 senior army commanders were killed when their military plane crashed.
Several airlines were grounded while safety checks were carried out. ADC planes were not involved in the crashes.
President Obasanjo blamed corruption and corner-cutting for poor safety standards.
Our correspondent says that air travel in Nigeria has boomed in recent years, but this crash will raise further questions as to how these safety reforms are being implemented.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SYDNEY MUSLIM CLERIC SEEKS LEAVE !

Sheikh Hilali again apologised for his comments. Australia's top Muslim cleric at the centre of a storm over his comments about immodestly dressed women has asked for "indefinite leave".
Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali had asked for leave from his duties at Sydney's main Lakemba Mosque, he said in a statement read on his behalf.
Earlier, he was taken to hospital with chest pains after collapsing.
He again apologised for his comments comparing immodestly dressed women to "uncovered meat".
The pressure of the last couple of days has had an obvious effect on my health and wellbeing
Sheikh Hilali
He said his suggestion that women who did not wear a headscarf attracted sexual assault had been taken out of context and "misinterpreted".
But he conceded the analogy had been "inappropriate and unacceptable for the Australian society and the western society in general".
While Sydney's mosque association had suspended him for three months following the publication of his comments, Sheikh Hilali indicated at the end of last week he would not resign.
'Inappropriate'
On Monday, at a meeting with the Lebanese Muslim Association, he collapsed and was rushed to hospital.
He was said to be in a stable condition but would remain in hospital for at least three days.

SHEIKH TAJ EL-DIN AL-HILALI
Born in Egypt
Aged 64
Imam in Sydney
Appointed mufti of Australia in 1989

Controversial mufti
Australia's Muslims fear backlash

Outside the hospital, Lebanese Muslim Association Tom Zreika released a statement from the sheikh, which said he had "asked for indefinite leave from my duties at Lakemba Mosque".
"The pressure of the last couple of days has had an obvious effect on my health and wellbeing. I ask the public to give my family and I some privacy, time and space to recover," the statement said.
His comments were delivered in a sermon to some 500 worshippers in Sydney last month, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
But it was not until they were published in The Australian newspaper last week that a wave of anger was unleashed.
"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside... and the cats come and eat it... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat?" Sheikh Hilali was quoted as asking during the sermon.
"If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab [headscarf], no problem would have occurred," he added.
'Lasting damage'
Despite the three-month suspension imposed by Muslim leaders, Sheikh Hilali has been under increasing pressure to resign as the Mufti of Australia.
Prime Minister John Howard said that "unless this matter is satisfactorily resolved by the Islamic community, there is a real worry that some lasting damage will be done."
Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward accused the imam of inciting rape and said he should be thrown out of the country.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CLIMATE CHANGE FIGHT 'CAN'T WAIT' !

Climate change fight 'can't wait'

At-a-glance: Stern Review
Analysis: A stark warning
Will Stern make a difference?
International battle ahead

The world cannot afford to wait before tackling climate change, the UK prime minister has warned.
A report by economist Sir Nicholas Stern suggests that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%.
But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product, the 700-page study says.
Tony Blair said the Stern Review showed that scientific evidence of global warming was "overwhelming" and its consequences "disastrous".
International response
The review coincides with the release of new data by the United Nations showing an upward trend in emission of greenhouse gases - a development for which Sir Nicholas said that rich countries must shoulder most of the responsibility.

Graph: How new CO2 targets could curb emissions

And Chancellor Gordon Brown promised the UK would lead the international response to tackle climate change.
Environment secretary David Miliband said the Queen's Speech would now feature a climate bill to establish an independent Carbon Committee to "work with government to reduce emissions over time and across the economy".
The report says that without action, up to 200 million people could become refugees as their homes are hit by drought or flood.
"Whilst there is much more we need to understand - both in science and economics - we know enough now to be clear about the magnitude of the risks, the timescale for action and how to act effectively," Sir Nicholas said.

We have the time and knowledge to act but only if we act internationally, strongly and urgently
Sir Nicholas Stern

Stern Review summary
Sir Nicholas' presentation
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Download the reader here

"That's why I'm optimistic - having done this review - that we have the time and knowledge to act. But only if we act internationally, strongly and urgently."
Mr Blair said the consequences for the planet of inaction were "literally disastrous".
"This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime," he said.
"Investment now will pay us back many times in the future, not just environmentally but economically as well."
"For every £1 invested now we can save £5, or possibly more, by acting now.
"We can't wait the five years it took to negotiate Kyoto - we simply don't have the time. We accept we have to go further (than Kyoto)."
Large risks
Sir Nicholas, a former chief economist of the World Bank, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Unless it's international, we will not make the reductions on the scale which will be required."

He went on: "What we have shown is the magnitude of these risks is very large and has to be taken into account in the kind of investments the world makes today and the consumption patterns it has."
The Stern Review forecasts that 1% of global gross domestic product (GDP) must be spent on tackling climate change immediately.
It warns that if no action is taken:
Floods from rising sea levels could displace up to 100 million people
Melting glaciers could cause water shortages for 1 in 6 of the world's population
Wildlife will be harmed; at worst up to 40% of species could become extinct
Droughts may create tens or even hundreds of millions of "climate refugees"
Clear objectives
The study is the first major contribution to the global warming debate by an economist, rather than an environmental scientist.
Mr Brown, who commissioned the report, has also recruited former US Vice President Al Gore as an environment adviser.
There is the greatest opportunity of all, the prize of securing and safeguarding the planet for our generations to come
Gordon Brown

Reactions to the Stern Review

"In the 20th century our national economic ambitions were the twin objectives of achieving stable economic growth and full employment," Mr Brown said.
"Now in the 21st century our new objectives are clear, they are threefold: growth, full employment and environmental care."
He said the green challenge was also an opportunity "for new markets, for new jobs, new technologies, new exports where companies, universities and social enterprises in Britain can lead the world".
"And then there is the greatest opportunity of all, the prize of securing and safeguarding the planet for our generations to come."
Mr Brown called for a long-term framework of a worldwide carbon market that would lead to "a low-carbon global economy". Among his plans are:
Reducing European-wide emissions by 30% by 2020, and at least 60% by 2050
By 2010, having 5% of all UK vehicles running on biofuels
Creating an independent environmental authority to work with the government
Establishing trade links with Brazil, Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica to ensure sustainable forestry
Working with China on clean coal technologies.
The review was welcomed by groups including the European Commission and business group the CBI.
"Provided we act with sufficient speed, we will not have to make a choice between averting climate change and promoting growth and investment," said head of the CBI, Richard Lambert.
Pia Hansen, of the European Commission said the report "clearly makes a case for action".
"Climate change is not a problem that Europe can afford to put into the 'too difficult' pile," she said.
"It is not an option to wait and see, and we must act now."


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BBC NEWS REPORT.

RARE UNITY OVER SERB CONSTITUTION

Rare unity over Serb constitution.
By Nick Hawton BBC News, Belgrade.

The vote marks a significant moment in modern Serb historyAs if on cue, the thunder and lightning burst across the Belgrade skyline as the Referendum Commission announced the result of the landmark vote.
A majority of the entire electorate of Serbia, around 3.4 million people, had voted to accept the country's first new constitution since the days of the former leader, Slobodan Milosevic.
"This is a moment for Serbia to rejoice," said the Prime Minister, Vojislav Kostunica.
"It is an historic moment, the start of a new period in the development of Serbia," he said.
In a rare share of unity, all the main political parties had backed the draft constitution.
Even the head of Serbia's Christian Orthodox Church, 92-year-old Patriarch Pavle cast his ballot, the first time he had voted in his life.
Serbian President Boris Tadic said the result showed the citizens supported a "European Serbia".
"We have accomplished one task. But we shouldn't celebrate too much. We have a lot of things to do tomorrow," said Mr Tadic.
Kosovo issue
One immediate task for tomorrow is the issue of Kosovo, something that has hung over the referendum campaign from the start.
Serbs living in Kosovo turned out in large numbers to support the new constitution.

We have accomplished one task but we shouldn't celebrate too much
Serbian President Boris Tadic
Some celebrated in the streets when the preliminary results were announced, waving Serbian flags and chanting: "Kosovo, we won't give you up." But the future is uncertain.
Kosovo is officially a part of Serbia but has been run by the UN since the war ended in 1999.
The vast majority of the population are Kosovo Albanians who are demanding independence from Serbia. Serbs want the province to remain a part of Serbia.
In perhaps the new constitution's most controversial part, the text proclaims the province to be an "integral part of the territory of Serbia".
Albanian political leaders have said the constitutional referendum in Serbia was irrelevant for their future.
The international community has said it wants a long-term solution to the Kosovo problem by the end of this year.
But the Serb and Albanian sides seem unlikely to reach agreement and a decision may be imposed by the international community.
'Electoral backlash'
One of the key reasons why this new draft constitution has been rushed through - and why a general election is likely to be called in the near future - is because Serbia's fragile government wants to be re-elected before a decision is made on the province's future.

A settlement for Kosovo's future remains elusiveSerb political leaders sense that Kosovo will be granted some form of independence. Any government which is in power in Belgrade if and when Kosovo gains independence could suffer an electoral backlash.
The parties in power want to be re-elected for a four-year mandate before any such decision is made.
Opposition groups accused the government of rushing through the text of the constitution without sufficient consultation. There were also allegations of ballot-rigging in the immediate aftermath of the vote.
The Serbian Parliament will officially proclaim the constitution in the next few days. There is then expected to be a general election either at the end of the year or the start of 2007.
Not much more than 50% of the Serbian electorate decided to take part in this constitutional referendum - a sign of the continuing apathy and disillusionment which afflicts political life here.
But in other ways this does mark a significant moment in modern Serbian history - finally updating the constitution that had been in use since the days of Slobodan Milosevic.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MEXICAN RIOT POLICE RE-TAKE OAXACA

Mexico riot police re-take Oaxaca.

Burning barricades were pulled down by federal police
Riot police move in

Mexican riot police have seized control of the southern city of Oaxaca, ending a five-month occupation by striking teachers and leftist activists.
The demonstrators had been calling for the resignation of the state governor.
The 4,000 federal officers, backed by armoured trucks and helicopters, met little resistance. One man is reported to have died in the operation.
The president ordered the action after gunmen killed three people, including a US journalist, on Friday.
The federal police were met with little resistance when they entered the city from several directions.
Water cannons were used to split up small groups of protesters. Barricades made of burning tyres and old furniture were pulled down.

In pictures: Oaxaca clashes

One man is reported to have died after being hit by a tear gas canister.
President Fox ordered the offensive on Saturday, a day after gunfire killed two Mexicans and a US cameraman working with independent news group Indymedia.
Interior Minister Carlos Abascal said it was necessary to send in troops to restore peace because of the "inability" of Governor Ulises Ruiz to handle the situation.
Political tensions
The demonstrators have been seeking to oust Gov Ruiz, whom they say has rigged elections and over-used force to try to break up the protest.
Thousands of schools have been closed since the strike began in May, leaving 1.3 million children out of school.
The teachers initially staged the walk-out, demanding higher pay and better working conditions.
However, after police attacked one of their demonstrations in June, they extended their demands to include a call for the resignation of Gov Ruiz. The teachers were joined in their protest by left-wing groups.
Some 70,000 teachers have voted to return to school on Monday - a move which may ease tensions in the city, says the BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Mexico.
However, some protesters have said they will continue to fight for the removal of Mr Ruiz.
President Fox, who leaves office on 1 December, may have succeeded in bringing the stand-off to an end, but the underlying political tensions remain, our correspondent says.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUOTES

"THERE IS AS MUCH DIGNITY IN TILLING A FIELD

AS IN WRITING A POEM" !

## Booker T Washington ##

CHINA'S 20-YEAR GROWTH SPURT !

China's 20-year growth spurt
By Stephen Jessel BBC News, Lijiang.

Twenty five years ago, Stephen Jessel went out to what was then called Peking as the second BBC correspondent to be based in China.

Naxi music is sometimes called a 'living fossil' of Chinese music. For the last four years he has been back every year, but his latest visit left him more astounded at the pace of change than ever. In the afternoon the grannies of Lijiang come out to dance in the main square of the town, situated in breathtaking scenery two-and-a-half thousand metres up, under Jade Dragon Snow mountain in the cloudy high country of Yunnan in the far southwest.
The ladies wear the blue and white traditional dress of the Naxi minority which predominates in these parts, and blue peaked cloth caps.
In a long line they do a sort of shuffle: one, two, three, hop, check, turn.
The more adventurous tourists join in and the event is recorded by a battery of digital cameras and camcorders.
Diminishing character
Fifteen years ago, Lijiang must have been pure enchantment: before the earthquake that destroyed much of the south of the town and before it became a magnet for tourists.

Old cobbled streets are under threat from commercial enterprise
Cobbled streets run between tiled wooden two storey houses with tip-tilted eaves, flanked by streams of clean, clear running water.
At night thousands of red lanterns cast their warm glow.
But these days many of the wooden houses are reconstructions and virtually all are overpriced speciality food, gift and souvenir shops, restaurants and guesthouses.
Unesco world heritage site status, a new airport and the tourist boom have destroyed the old character, though traces of it can still be found in two neighbouring villages.
The streets are clogged with well-dressed visitors toting expensive cameras led by guides waving little coloured flags.
Imagine Venice in July. Think theme park.
But these are not Western tourists (who make up a negligible proportion of the town's visitors).
These are the newly affluent middle classes of China, ready and able to spend their swelling incomes on travel inside their enormous country.
Ideology and ambition
It is 25 years exactly since I arrived in China to take over from the BBC's first correspondent there, Philip Short.
Dear heaven, it was a drab, grim, surly place.
People's ambitions were known as the three rounds: a watch, a sewing machine and a bicycle
Foreigners were rare and unwelcome.
The cultural revolution was over but ideological slogans still pervaded daily life.
Holidays, such as they were, were taken at the Chinese New Year when millions packed into trains for brief visits to their families.
There is a Chinese word meaning to have fun or enjoy oneself - wanr - but not much "wanr-ing" took place in the monochrome early 1980s.
People's ambitions were known as the three rounds: a watch, a sewing machine and a bicycle.
Hong Kong-style
On the plane out of China at the end of my three-year stint, I swore I would never go back.

Three years later I broke that promise by filling in briefly for my successor and came back open-mouthed at the changes.
Fast forward to 2003 and a decision to put a toe back in the water with a trip to the south-west, which I had visited 20 years before.
Kunming, capital of Yunnan, had been a sleepy provincial town of wooden shop houses, the usual million bicycles, lights out at 2100.
Only now it had become Hong Kong: designer boutiques, neon, traffic jams, high rise buildings, teenagers on their mobile phones.
New goals
I got back last month from another trip, my fourth in as many years.
These have taken me to Lhasa in Tibet, Kashgar in the far north-west, Beijing in the east, Xi'an in the centre, Guangzhou - or Canton - in the south, and Chengdu and Chongqing in the south-west.
In the cities the transformation has been astounding
If I had not seen it I would not have believed it.
Never in history can the living standards of so many people have risen so fast.
I suppose that is what 20 years of explosive economic growth do for you.
People's ambitions have changed a little.
They now have their sights on a computer, a camcorder and a diamond ring.
It is true that on the back roads of the provinces you see villages where not much seems to have changed, but in the cities the transformation has been astounding... and in the space of a generation.
Passing the baton
I am quite aware that China remains an authoritarian police state; the dancing grannies of Lijiang are not paid but are, how shall we put it, encouraged by the authorities to strut their stuff.
But the state seems to have given up any attempt to control personal behaviour to judge from what you can see on the streets and back streets of the cities.
In 1984 I returned to Europe and the next year took over in Brussels from my colleague Paul Reynolds, whose young son James I met briefly at the time.
James is the new Beijing correspondent, to whom I sent all good wishes while observing that he cannot possibly have the remotest idea of what the place used to be like.
Every now and then I think I may be getting old.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Thursday, 26 October, 2006 at 1100 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CONGOLESE VOTERS' VIEWS: RUN-OFF !

Congolese voters' views: Run-off

Our panel of Congolese voters give their views on Sunday's presidential run-off vote which will conclude the country's first fully democratic polls since independence in 1960.

Adolphe AmbikileTeacher, 30Kinshasa
'I believe that Bemba will make my life better but sure, he is not God'

Leopold MusafiriEconomist, 39Bukavu
'Kabila's capability to confront and to manage crises is why I am going to vote for him'

Kudra KatemboStudent, 21Kisangani
'There are many reasons why I want Kabila to win but his vision is most necessary'

Alain MatuTeacher, 34Kinshasa
'Mr Bemba will put in place and implement laws and so easily solve our problems'

We asked our panel who they felt would make the best president. Read their views and then click on the links at the bottom of each page to respond to their comments and have your say.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

AUTHOR NADINE G0RDIMER ATTACKED !

Gordimer campaigned against censorship during the apartheid era. Former Booker winner and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Nadine Gordimer, has been attacked at her home in South Africa.
Gordimer, 83, was assaulted when three men broke into her home in Johannesburg on Thursday, taking cash and jewellery. The author, who was locked in a store room with her maid while the burglars fled the scene, did not receive any serious injuries.
Police spokesman Sergeant Sanku Tsunke said no arrests had been made.
Despite demands to hand over her jewellery, Gordimer refused to part with her wedding ring from her marriage to art dealer Reinhold Cassirer, who died in 2001.
The author, who is well-known for her anti-apartheid works, was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1991.
Several of her novels, which include The Conservationist and July's People, were banned under the apartheid regime.
Her most recent work, Get A Life, was long-listed for the 2006 Booker prize.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGERIAN SULTAN AMONG THE CRASH DEAD !

The spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims was among those killed after a plane carrying about 100 people crashed near the capital, Abuja, officials say.
The Sultan of Sokoto Mohammadu Maccido and his son, a senator, and other northern leaders were on board the ADC airlines flight to the city of Sokoto.
The plane crashed in a storm shortly after take-off, state radio said. Four people have reportedly survived.
This is Nigeria's third major air disaster in a little over a year.
The BBC's Alex Last in Nigeria says twisted, smouldering remnants of the plane litter the crash site on the edge of Abuja airport.
'Flames'
Sokoto State government spokesman Mustapha Sheu said that the northern state's deputy governor, education commissioner and another senator were killed, along with the sultan and his son.
"The plane crashed and burst into flames at the outskirts of Abuja," said National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Ibrahim Farinloye.

Leads Nigeria's 70m Muslims
Sokoto base for 19th Century jihad, spreading Islam across northern Nigeria
Sokoto still Nigeria's centre for Islamic learning

Obituary: Sultan of Sokoto

"President Olusegun Obasanjo is deeply and profoundly shocked and saddened by the news of the reported air crash," presidential spokeswoman Oluremi Oyo said in a statement.
The president has ordered an investigation, she said.
Nigeria's Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) secretary-general Lateef Adegbite described the sultan's death as a tragedy, reports the AFP news agency.
"We are devastated by the tragic plane crash. It has left the Muslim faithfuls without leadership," he said.
Sokoto State Governor Attahiru Bafarawa announced five days of mourning for the sultan and the other victims of the crash, AFP reports.
AP news agency says that the plane was a Boeing 727.
The government had already announced a major plan to overhaul the aviation industry and improve safety following last year's disasters, which killed more than 200 people.
Several airlines were grounded while safety checks were carried out.
ADC planes were not involved in last year's crashes.
The president himself blamed corruption and corner-cutting for poor safety standards.
Last month 10 senior army commanders were killed when their military plane crashed.
Our correspondent says that air travel in Nigeria has boomed in recent years, but this crash will raise further questions as to how these safety reforms are being implement.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HUMOUR ABOUNDS AMID LAGOS CHAOS!

Humour abounds amid Lagos chaos
By Kieran Cooke BBC News, Nigeria.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous country and has the potential to be one of the richest, but has been plagued by corruption since independence in 1960. But as our correspondent found on a visit to the sprawling city of Lagos, there's another side to life - the unfailing humour with which Nigerians confront the trials of daily living.

It happened as the aircraft was about to lift off. A muffled explosion followed by a grating, turbulent sound, rather like a dishwasher gone berserk.
We were flung forward as engines were reversed, brakes slammed on.
The ornate red hat of the podgy man next to me went flying down the cabin, closely followed by a pile of newspapers, a handbag and, the most strange sight of all, a carton of washing powder.
My friend Ibim, a local journalist intent on showing me what she called "the real Nigeria" far away from Lagos, grabbed my thigh in a blood-stopping clasp. We came to a halt, slightly skewed, not far from the end of the runway.
What was most impressive about the incident at Lagos airport - besides the split second decision making of the pilot - was the behaviour of those on board.
Lagos is one of those places where you wonder just how anything manages to function
No screams, no tears. A shrugging of shoulders - and then, chuckles and laughter.
"You see," said Ibim. "We Nigerians can take anything."
It is as if locals combat the haphazard, often frightening world they inhabit with bellyfuls of humour.
"Welcome to Nigeria, the happiest country in Africa" says the sign at the airport - while another carries a more worrying message - "Mind the Roof", it says.
We limped back to the terminal. The pilot - he had a Russian accent - announced that there had been what he called a "bird strike".

Lagos buses carry messages as well as people around the city
It must have been some bird. After inspection, one of the two engines was found to be more or less wrecked.
Lagos is one of those places where you wonder just how anything manages to function. It is a city of, well, no-one is entirely sure of the population, but estimates vary between 13-15 million.
Built on a swamp and a series of islands, it is sinking. There is no mass transit system, no proper sewage network, drinking water for only a small portion of the city, and a power supply that is more off than on.
All this in a country which is one of the world's biggest oil producers but where the majority live in poverty. Nigeria recently celebrated 46 years of independence. Reading the newspapers was a sad business.
"Where did we go wrong?" they asked. Education and health systems which were among the best in Africa, in shambles.

For years the state coffers have been pillaged by the privileged few: again the figures vary widely, but there is no doubt billions of pounds have "gone missing" from state funds over the years.
And yet - amid all the chaos, the potholes and the blackouts - there is a vibrant energy about Lagos, a sense of living on the edge and again, that humour.
Sit in a Lagos traffic jam and look at the dented, people-crammed yellow buses that limp and belch their way round the city.
All seem to have messages elegantly written on them.
"Such is Life" says one. "No Tension" says another - horn blaring.
Ugly hulks
And - painted on the side of a particularly rusty, blue-smoking, smashed-up-looking bus, my favourite, thought provoking, message: "The downfall of man is not the end of his life."
In 1991, the capital was moved from Lagos to the far more orderly, new city of Abuja in the centre of the country. All over Lagos there are the abandoned, ugly hulks of what were once central government offices and ministries.
But each weekend officials scurry back from Abuja to this sinking city by the sea, seeming to crave its chaos and its madness.
Such is the state of Lagos traffic - it is not unusual for people to spend six hours a day getting to and from work - that many people do not go shopping, rather the shops come to them.

Lagos, despite its problems, is a 'vibrant' city
You can buy everything you need from hawkers who patrol the queues of buses, cars and trucks.
Need a curtain rail? No problem, just wind down the car window.
A mirror? Your groceries? A book, chair or a lampshade? It is all there, in the midst of the choking traffic. One man even had armfuls of toilet seats on offer.
One of the more important roadside industries is the manufacture of formidable looking iron doors and gates.
Vibrant music
The wealthy of Lagos live in fortresses - high walls topped with rolls of razor wire. Armed guards. Surveillance cameras.
But then, there is the other side of life. One of the most vibrant music scenes in Africa. Churches of every description side by side with mosques. A strong literary culture.
Back at the airport there is an announcement.
"The replacement aircraft is being serviced" said a cheery voice. "You'll be on your way just as soon as we've put the plane back together again."
Ibim and I - and the other passengers - collapsed in fits of thigh-grabbing, shoulder-thumping laughter.
We did get there in the end.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 28 October, 2006 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

Dear Family and Friends,

There were about sixty people standing in a line that snaked across the car park outside a post office a few days before the end of the month. This is October and the month notorious for seethingly hot temperatures and this day was no exception. Before 8.30 in the morning jerseys and jackets had been discarded, most people were wearing slip slops or sandals and short sleeved tops. The queue was made up of people waiting to draw money out of post office savings accounts. A few minutes before opening time a man emerged carrying a small pile of brown cardboard squares, each the size of a thumbnail. On each scrap of grimy, slimy cardboard was written a number from one to fifty and the man prepared to start giving them out to the people in the line. A peaceful, patient line turned immediately into chaos and it was like watching a spreading pool of petrol and waiting for someone to drop a match. Louts that hadn't been in the queue ran across the car park to grab a square of cardboard, desperate people at the back surged forward, arms stretched out, voices rose up and angry shouts were heard. Then suddenly it was over, the squares of cardboard had been issued and it was simple - no bit of cardboard equals no money for you. Only the people with a numbered square of cardboard would be able to draw their money out today - there just isn't enough money to go round anymore and so the levels of deprivation increase another peg.

I drafted this letter one day before rural council and mayoral elections got underway across the country. In the run up to the vote it has been blatantly obvious that the ruling party are as bereft of ideas as the post office is of money. Year after year, election after election - absolutely nothing changes. In the last week the President of the Council of Chiefs publicly declared that villagers who did not vote for the ruling party would be evicted from their homes. TV news reports have showed ruling party officials addressing rallies and from both speakers and audiences its just the same old same old. The clenched fist-raising in praise of the ruling party, the stream of "pasi na" (down with) slogans which are declared about anyone who dares to differ, and the predictable shouting and berating by the leaders and candidates who don't seem to know how to charm or persuade audiences and so they just tell them off. Ever present too is the huge range of clothing decorated with the President's face and the gyrating women dancing frantically in front of the candidates. All this takes place outside in the open in the dripping October sun and there is no laughter, pleasure or even interest on peoples faces. Zimbabwe's rural infrastructure is crumbling, everyone sees and knows it - roads, clinics, schools, boreholes and transport systems. It is not all hard to know who to vote for in rural elections. It is very very hard to pay attention to the shouting, berating and anger of prospective candidates when you know this and some of the other facts about life in Zimbabwe this week: A four rung, five foot wooden ladder, unvarnished and untreated cost 76 thousand dollars, this is 8 times more than the monthly wage of a garden, house or farm worker. A consultation and filling at a private dentist costs 38.5 thousand dollars - this is more than most government school teachers take home in a normal month. One orange from a roadside vendor this week cost 550 dollars - this was how much a 1000 acre farm cost just a little over ten years ago - a farm with 2 dams, a dairy, tobacco barn, trading store, large farmhouse and 10 farm workers houses.

This week it doesn't matter where you go or who you talk to, rural or urban, everywhere the clarion call is the same - how much longer. Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 28 October 2006. http:/africantears.netfirms.com My books "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from: orders@africabookcentre.com

'IRREVERENT' COMEDIAN INDIA BOUND !

'Irreverent' comedian India bound
By Alastair Lawson BBC News.

Shazia Mirza has performed in the US and Europe (pictures by Steve Ullathorne)
"I'm Shazia Mirza," she once famously said soon after the World Trade Centre attacks of 2001. "At least that's what it says on my pilot's licence."
Now this self-declared rarity - a young British Muslim female comedian - is about to take her highly acclaimed stand-up act to India.
And no-one need be in any doubt that the gags will flow thick and fast.
She will perform in the states of Maharashtra and Goa - promising to be "irreverent but not offensive".
Next month's tour is part of a programme funded by the UK's worldwide cultural body, the British Council, aimed at young people in India.
Parental myths
"My show is entitled 'Fun in Paradise'," Ms Mirza told the BBC News website.
"One of the aims is to dispel one of my mother's maxims when I was a child growing up in Birmingham.
"She said that life was not about having fun - you can have fun in paradise."

I feel that I'm making a difference just by standing on that stage as a young British Muslim woman - Shazia Mirza.
Ms Mirza, 30, says that the show also dispels other parental myths such as:

holidays are only for white people
all white women are whores
women should not drink or listen to rock music
it is wrong to wear make-up and low tops

her Uncle Latif wears high heels because he is ashamed of being short.

Ms Mirza says that she and her parents enjoy a warm relationship, even if they did have one or two "misconceptions" about life in the UK in general and Uncle Latif's choice of footwear in particular.
Her show does not just poke fun at her parents "somewhat conservative" values, though.
It also contains an entertaining description of a meeting with the queen and the joys of attending her first rock concert.
"It was given by UB40 and they were brilliant - but I didn't tell my parents that," she says.
'My religion'
Simon Gammell, director of the British Council's West India branch, said that the comedian was invited as part of a wider programme of work to reach out to young Indian people using a variety of art forms including stand-up comedy, music and film.
"Her visit is designed to foster greater mutual understanding between the two countries and to present the UK as a contemporary, fun-loving country which is prepared to debate the issues of the day in an open and civilised environment," he said.

I think if I were a practising Muslim and a stripper, then there would be a problem - but there isn't a problem with me being a practising Muslim and a stand-up comic
Shazia Mirza
Mr Gammell said the question of Muslim women wearing the veil - a contentious issue in Britain at the moment - would not feature among the comedian's jokes.
Although she has never travelled to India before, Ms Mirza does have family connections in South Asia - her mother was from Punjab in India and her father was from Rawalpindi in Pakistan.
"I am looking forward to going to the beauty salons there," she jokes, "because I am told they are brilliant at moving unwanted bodily hair."
Does she worry that her show may offend some in India?
"I try not to tell jokes about my religion," she says. "My aim is to make people laugh and think at the same time.
"I have often had men come up to me after my shows and ask: 'Is it true that [Muslim] women have to walk behind their husband, is that true?' - I say 'Yes, they look better from behind'."
But Ms Mirza insists her work is not just for laughs. She sometimes performs wearing a head scarf and describes herself as a "devout Muslim".
But she is keen to challenge the view held by some in the West that "all Muslim women are oppressed, all Asian women have arranged marriages and women are not funny".
"I feel that I'm making a difference just by standing on that stage as a young British Muslim woman.
"It shows that we Muslims can laugh and have fun just as much as anybody else."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

THE GROWTH OF 'ONLINE JIHADISM' !

The growth of 'online Jihadism'
By Frank Gardner BBC Security Correspondent, Norway.

Housed in a shallow valley just outside Oslo is the Norwegian Defence Research Institute. Propaganda is the primary purpose of using the net, say researchersIt is an unremarkable place to look at, but inside sits one of Europe's leading teams of researchers into the growing phenomenon known as "online Jihadism", or al-Qaeda-inspired extremism on the internet.
They are neither intelligence agents nor soldiers, but academics who use their fluent Arabic to produce unclassified research.
Like many who study this subject, they disguise their real identity by using false Arabic names and proxy addresses.
Brynjar Lia, a senior team member and author of an acclaimed book about terrorism and the internet, says al-Qaeda and its affiliates use the internet for several purposes.
Training for interrogations
"Propaganda, calling people to jihad, is the primary purpose," he said.
"It has always been like that from the beginning, but secondly it is to communicate to the internal community of jihadis with the message to continue to fight and build up the spirit of combat, and also internal communication with cell members and so on.
"This can be via e-mail or encrypted messages. Usually they don't use much encryption, they only use easy codes, simple codes that can be read by people but interpreted as something that doesn't have anything to do with terrorism.
These forums are like the sort of town square of online jihadism
Thomas HegghammerNorwegian Defence Research Institute
"Then there is also the external audience, those enemies who they want to frighten and terrorise.
"The idea is to produce videos that are very scary, like decapitations and other similar movies.
"Then there is also the electronic jihad part of it, which is to destroy enemy websites which are critical of the jihadi movement.
"The last area is training. That could be anything from providing security instructions, how to withstand interrogations, how to evade surveillance but it could also be how to produce explosives, how to put together a mine, how to place the mine and so on."
English subtitles
In the last year, say the Norwegian analysts, the jihadists have been adapting their online recruiting efforts to target audiences in Europe, including Britain.
Videos of speeches, such as those by al-Qaeda chief strategist Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, now come with English subtitles.
One of the areas where jihadist propagandists have been most successful and innovative is in targeting the youth market
Al-Qaeda's Californian-born spokesman Adam Gadahn addresses Western audiences in American English, drawing attention to what he sees as the hypocrisy of Western civilisation.
Other jihadi videos are being dubbed into German, Spanish, Swedish and other European languages with the aims of both attracting potential recruits and intimidating those seen as the enemy.
Other innovations include increasingly high quality film footage, fresh from the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan, and sophisticated instructions on bomb-making and weapon handling.
But one of the areas where jihadist propagandists have been most successful and innovative is in targeting the youth market, reaching out to teenagers and young men through internet chat rooms in cyberspace.
Their attention is grabbed by catchy videos like the 2004 rap hit Dirty Kuffar by Sheikh Terra, online games where points are scored by simulating attacks on US soldiers with the click of a mouse, and even a video equating goals scored in the World Cup with improvised bomb attacks on coalition forces in Iraq, accompanied by tumultuous applause.
Governments slow
Thomas Hegghammer from the Norwegian Defence Research Institute describes how al-Qaeda sympathisers log onto certain internet forums to discuss the films and the latest news from Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, always trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities.
"These forums are like the sort of town square of online jihadism, it's where people meet to collect information and discuss topics," he said.
"If you look at the address it's quite anonymous, it's just numbers and this is because they move around all the time to avoid hackers and government agencies that try and take them down, so some of these sites more around on a weekly basis or even daily basis and the way you find these addresses is from other forums.
I believe the British have been happy just to monitor the internet
Camille TawilOnline jihadism expert
"So there is always a redundancy. So if one forum is shut down then you go to the other one to get the new address."
Western governments have been slow to wake up to the enormous potential for jihadists to recruit over the internet, but British officials now believe that, after face-to-face meetings, the internet has become the prime means of radicalisation and recruitment.
The problem has been urgently debated at this week's meeting of European security and interior ministers in Stratford-upon-Avon.
"The home secretary takes it very seriously," said a Home Office official, adding: "We are engaged in a battle of ideas and values."
'Lost battle'
But one London-based Arab journalist who monitors online jihadism contends that the British government is essentially passive when it comes to the wave of jihadist propaganda out there on the internet.
Camille Tawil said: "I believe the British have been happy just to monitor the internet.
"My impression is that they believe it's a lost battle to counter the al-Qaeda message on the internet.
"The Americans however have been a little bit ahead of the British in countering that message.
"What they do is they have people who pretend to be Islamic militants trying to lure some people from al-Qaeda or extremists into saying something, and that would lead to their arrest - however in Britain we haven't seen anything like this.
"The Americans are well ahead of the British in this."
British government officials deny they are doing nothing, but not surprisingly they decline to discuss anything to do with secret intelligence operations.
"We are doing a number of things, some overt and some covert," says the Home Office official, adding with a degree of weary candour: "But we admit some of them are not working".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

AUSTRALIA PLANS MAJOR SOLAR PLANT !

Australia is suffering one of its worst droughts for decades. Australia is to build one of the world's biggest solar power plants as part of a major new strategy by the government to combat climate change.
Canberra said it would be contributing A$75m (US$57m) to the A$420m plant due to be built in the state of Victoria.
The government also announced A$50m in funding towards a major project to reduce carbon emissions from coal.
Australia, a leading exporter in coal - has been criticised for failing to sign the Kyoto Protocol.
The government had argued that the 1997 agreement on greenhouse gas emissions would damage the domestic economy.
But the country has been forced to confront the issue of climate change with a prolonged drought - the worst in a century - that is destroying the livelihoods of thousands of farmers.
National grid
On Monday, Prime Minister John Howard announced that the government would be investing A$500m (US$379m) in clean technology.
One of the first projects to get funding is what Finance Minister Peter Costello said aimed to be the "biggest photovoltaic project in the world".
The plant in Victoria will use mirrored panels to concentrate the sun's rays and produce power that can go into the national grid, he told Australian radio.
Work is due to get under way in 2008 and reach full capacity by 2013.
The government is also investing in a A$360m pilot project, based at an existing coal-fired power station also in Victoria, which is aimed at capturing and storing carbon emissions.
"This will make a major contribution to emission reduction in Australia and it just shows practical, considered, financially viable, workable technologies which can improve the emissions problem that will help us on our way to reduce global warming," Mr Costello said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IRAN DENIES ARGENTINA BOMB CHARGE !

The blast was the worst terror attack in Argentina's history. Iran has strongly criticised charges against former high-level Iranian officials over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires.
Argentine prosecutors are calling for the arrest of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani and seven others.
Iranian authorities are accused of directing Lebanese militia group Hezbollah to carry out the attack, which killed 85 people and injured 300.
The Iranian foreign ministry described the move as "a Zionist plot".
Hezbollah and Iran both deny that they were involved in the blast.
Speaking on state radio, foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hoseyni said: "The new fabrications are conducted within the framework of a Zionist plot."
Mr Hoseyni said the charges were intended to divert "world attention from the perpetration of crimes by the Zionists against women and children in Palestine".
The blast, on 18 July 1994, reduced the seven-storey Jewish-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) community centre to rubble.
No-one has ever been convicted of the attack, but the current government has said it is determined to secure justice.
'Hallmarks'
Over the years, the case has been marked by rumours of cover-ups and accusations of incompetence, but little in the way of hard evidence.
Minor figures have been named, including a policeman who sold the van used in the attack, but no-one has been convicted.
Local Jewish groups have long said the bombing bore the hallmarks of Iranian-backed Islamic militants.
Iran has repeatedly and vehemently denied any involvement in the attack.
Last November, an Argentine prosecutor said a member of Hezbollah was behind the attack and had been identified in a joint operation by Argentine intelligence and the FBI.
But Hezbollah said that the man, Ibrahim Hussein Berro, had died in southern Lebanon while fighting Israel.
The 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people, also remains unsolved.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUOTES

"DO NOT TAKE LIFE TOO SERIOUSLY: YOU WILL NEVER GET OUT OF IT ALIVE" !

## Elbert Hubbard ##

STRIKING KENYAN LECTURERS SACKED !

Three Kenyan university lecturers, who are also trade union leaders, have been sacked for taking part in illegal strike action.
More than 3,500 teachers walked out on Monday at six universities, calling for big pay rises and better conditions.
A Nairobi judge had ordered that they return to their classrooms by Wednesday or face disciplinary action.
Kenya's education minister told the BBC he backed any action the universities take against lecturers still on strike.
Unions are calling for the reinstatement of the three teachers and say they will continue with the strike.
"Despite the court order, we shall be out of the classrooms until the government comes to the negotiating table," union leader Sammy Kubasu told AFP news agency.
The strike at Kenya's publicly funded universities is the third by lecturers in 12 years.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

D.R. CONGO LEADER'S ALLY SEIZED !

President Kabila's ally Nzanga Mobutu was seized in his hometown. A key ally of DR Congo's President Joseph Kabila has been seized ahead of Sunday's run-off presidential election, according to UN sources. Nzanga Mobutu, son of late Congolese ruler Mobutu Sese Seko, was campaigning on behalf of President Kabila in Gbadolite, in the north of the country. Supporters of rival candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba seized him at a radio station, the sources said. It comes after rioting broke out at a prison in the capital Kinshasa. The brother of Mr Mobutu told AFP news agency that shots were fired when Nzanga Mobutu went to the Radio Liberte offices in Gbadolite.

Gbadolite is the Mobutu family's home town but Mr Bemba has strong support there. The apparent hostage-taking comes just hours after rioting broke out at the main prison in Kinshasa. The BBC's Arnaud Zajtman says the situation is quiet after several hours of gunfire.

Kabila's kingdom
Bemba: rebel contender

Reports of casualties vary. Some inmates have said three people were killed, others said five, says our correspondent. The head of police told him that nine people were injured but no-one was killed. The riot started after relatives were stopped from bringing food to prisoners after a breakout earlier in the week. The escapees were convicted of killing former President Laurent Kabila.

Joseph Kabila, his son, faces former rebel leader Mr Bemba in Sunday's presidential run-off. The 14 soldiers who escaped on Monday had been sentenced to death for their role in the 2001 assassination. They were among scores of people convicted for Laurent Kabila's death. Our correspondent says the event around the prison on Thursday afternoon looked spontaneous. But he says those accused of Mr Kabila's murder expected to be freed before the election as part of an amnesty but the Supreme Court ruled against it. Shortly after the riot began he and another reporter were detained by the authorities. They were released several hours later. Tensions are high in DR Congo ahead of Sunday's presidential vote because the two candidates were belligerents in the civil war and both still have loyal armed forces.

The second round will conclude the country's first fully democratic polls since independence in 1960.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PRIZE OFFERED TO AFRICA'S LEADERS

Mo Ibrahim wants to combat corruption in Africa. A $5m prize for Africa's most effective head of state is being launched by one of the continent's top businessmen.
UK-based mobile phone entrepreneur Mo Ibrahim - who was born in Egypt - is behind the plan to rate governance in 53 African countries each year.
The contest, launched in London, will award winning leaders $5m (£2.7m) over 10 years when they leave office, plus $200,000 (£107,000) a year for life.
"We need to remove corruption and improve governance," Mr Ibrahim said. Then the continent would not need any aid, said Mr Ibrahim, who sold Cel Tel, his pan-African mobile phone company, to MTC in Kuwait for $3.4bn (£1.8bn) last year.

The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership is being launched on Thursday.
The award will go to African heads of state who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their constituents.
In an interview with the Financial Times newspaper, Mr Ibrahim, 60, said leaders had no life after office.
"Suddenly all the mansions, cars, food, wine is withdrawn. Some find it difficult to rent a house in the capital. That incites corruption; it incites people to cling to power.
"The prize will offer essentially good people, who may be wavering, the chance to opt for the good life after office," said Mr Ibrahim.

BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut said it would be the world's richest prize - exceeding the $1.3m (£700,000) awarded by the Nobel Peace Prize.
The people who are doing badly and are killing their own people or stealing state resources are going to carry on doing that -Patrick Smith, Africa Confidential.
It will be available only to a president who democratically transfers power to his successor.
Harvard University will assess how well the president has served his or her people while in office.
Nelson Mandela, former US President Bill Clinton and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan are among those who have welcomed the initiative.
Mr Mandela described it as an example to the world. Mr Clinton said he wished Mr Ibrahim and his foundation "much success in its important work".

And Mr Annan thanked the businessman for "establishing such a generous prize as an incentive".
But not everyone agrees.
Patrick Smith, of specialist publication Africa Confidential, said: "The people who know what to do and have done well are already doing it.
"And the people who are doing badly and are killing their own people or stealing state resources are going to carry on doing that."
Africa has one of the world's richest concentrations of minerals precious metals, yet 300 million of its residents live on less than a dollar a day.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WEB WATCHDOG OUTLINES PORN BATTLE !

The foundation gets an average of 1,000 alerts from users each month. More than 30,000 websites containing child pornography have been removed in the last 10 years, new figures show.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said the key to addressing the problem was a partnership between the public, global authorities and web providers.
The number of these sites from the UK and containing illegal material fell from 18% to 0.2% in the decade.
The figures marked the IWF's first 10 years and its chief executive Peter Robbins said reporting porn was vital.
He said: "We need to get people reporting these incidents.
"Any complaint against something here in the UK we can deal with through the IWF, otherwise we advise the relevant country through their hotline, if they have one, or the police that there is a problem."
He added: "It's a partnership approach - we get in touch with the hosting provider to get them to remove it, and try to find out who the person was that put it up there so they can be dealt with."

REPORTS TO THE IWF

85% relate to suspected child abuse websites
10% relate to suspected criminally obscene websites
5% relate to incitement to suspected racial hatred websites

Tackling child abuse online

Since its inception in 1996, the IWF has received on average 1,000 reports of illegal internet content each month - a total of 120,000 reports. The vast majority concern suspected child abuse websites.
In its first year, it received 615 complaints. In 2006 it has had 27,750.
Although the number of UK websites providing such content has fallen, the severity of the images has significantly increased in the last 12 months.
Mr Robbins blames this on pay-per-view sites that use sophisticated means to avoid detection.
The IWF released the data to mark its 10th anniversary at a conference in central London of police, local authorities, government officials and the IT industry.
Message boards
Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said: "The government is determined to do everything it can to protect children from the insidious use of the internet by paedophiles.
"It is crucial to raise awareness amongst UK internet users about the IWF as a vehicle to report their inadvertent exposure to illegal content."
He said if web users came across pornography accidentally they should report it to the police without fear of prosecution.
Over the past decade, 51% of the illegal images were thought to have come from the US, 20% from Russia, 7% from Spain, 5% from Japan and 1.6% from the UK.
The IWF works with 24 countries which have set up equivalent organisations.
Technological developments and increasingly sophisticated tracing methods target online photo sharing services and message boards as well as newsgroups and websites.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

OLIVE HARVEST SPARKS TENSIONS!

Olive harvest sparks tensions.
By Martin Patience BBC News, Jerusalem

Some Palestinians fear going to the groves on their own. Before dawn, Kanaan al-Jamal, 38, hauls his two young children from their beds and along with his wife they set off to tend the olive groves close to their home.
In olive groves dotted across the rolling West Bank, Palestinian farmers are preparing for the harvest: pruning the trees, collecting spoilt olives, and preparing ground sheets under the trees to catch the fruit.
But the Palestinian farmers are also preparing for violent clashes.
"It's a difficult time," says Mr Jamal, referring to the harvest. "But the olive tree is part of our religion; it is part of our culture."
During the olive picking season, tensions run high between Jewish settlers and the Israeli military on the one hand, and Palestinian farmers on the other.
Access Problems
Many of the West Bank's olive groves lie close to Jewish settlements and there are frequent clashes between the two sides.
For years settlers have been attacking Palestinian farmers and chopping down their trees.
But this olive picking season is set to be different, insists the Israeli army.

A two-year court battle led by human rights groups now means that the Israeli army is required to beef up its protection of Palestinian olive farmers and allow them full access to their lands.
Palestinian farmers often require a permit from the army to visit their lands which lie close to Jewish settlements.
Last month, Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz announced that anyone interfering or harassing the farmers during the picking season would be dealt with severely.
Israeli Human rights groups are praising the move but say more needs to be done.
"I think the military has finally realised that it will have to offer some protection for the Palestinian farmers," says Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem.
"But access often depends on commanders in local areas and on a day-to-day basis."

Israeli police try to keep the farmers and the settlers apart.
Mr Jamal, however, says that the Israeli army frequently prevents farmers from his town of Assera Shamiliya - located 5km north of Nablus - reaching their land.
"They say we have to co-ordinate with them," he says. "But it's impossible and it often takes days to get a permit. We don't bother. Why should we? It's our land."
Mr Jamal says that Israeli soldiers riding in military jeeps often appear in the town's groves. The soldiers fire tear gas and live bullets and bark at the villagers through loudspeakers to leave the area, he says.
Bumper Harvest
Some human rights groups accompany the Palestinian farmers to their groves to ensure they can gather their harvest.
Rabbi Ascherman, co-director of Rabbis for Human Rights, insists that the presence of his group helps the Palestinians negotiate with the army and ward off attacks by Jewish settlers.
"But the ideal situation would be if we didn't need to be there," he says. "The ideal situation would be if the farmers could just harvest in peace."
For Mr Jamal and his family the coming weeks mean earlier mornings and harder work. But this is only the start, he says.
Problems arise when Palestinian farmers try and sell their produce because transport restrictions in the West Bank.
"When we start trying to sell the olives it's a whole new battle with the Israeli authorities," says Mr Jamal.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ARMY ALERT TO COUNTER CHAD REBELS !

The army has been unable to end the rebellion. Security has been tightened in the Chad capital, N'Djamena, amid reports that rebels are moving towards the city.
A BBC correspondent says that tanks are stationed in key areas, such as outside the presidential palace, and military vehicles are on patrol.
Troops have been recalled to base despite the Muslim holiday of Eid - the biggest festival of the year in Chad.
The rebels began their offensive in the east at the weekend but are now said to be near the central town of Mongo.
The BBC's Stephanie Hancock in Chad says there are reports that the outskirts of the capital are heavily fortified with government troops.
Rapid advance
On Monday night, the rebels claimed to have seized the town of Am Timan, some 600km from N'Djamena but they are now reported to be just five hours' drive from the capital.
The government has denied that Am Timan had fallen and urged the capital's residents to stay calm.

In pictures: Janjaweed in Chad

"The government appeals to the population to remain calm and to go normally about one's business," said spokesman Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor.
On Sunday, the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD) rebel seized the small town of Gos Beida.
Our correspondent says there has also been fierce fighting in the border town of Ade.
In April, the rebels took just four days to reach the capital, which they entered, before being repelled.
Chad says the government of neighbouring Sudan backs the rebels - claims denied by Khartoum.
Sudan in turn accuses Chad of backing rebels in the war-torn Darfur region.
Eastern Chad has a similar ethnic make-up to Darfur, where Arab militias are accused of carrying out a genocide against black Africans.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IVORIANS TO SUE 'TOXIC SHIP' FIRM !

The waste is believed to have caused the deaths of 10 people. A Dutch lawyer representing some 1,000 victims of toxic waste dumped in Ivory Coast says he is suing the company that shipped the waste there.
Dutch firm Trafigura has denied responsibility for dumping the waste in the city of Abidjan, saying it employed a local company to dispose of it.
But the lawyer says Trafigura should pay $12.5m within two weeks as a preliminary settlement.
Ten people died and many thousands more needed treatment after the dumping.
About 40,000 people were treated in hospital for nausea, breathing problems and nosebleeds.
Charges
Correspondents say other legal teams are preparing cases against the people that handled the waste.
"Trafigura is responsible because they knew what it [the waste] was or they should have known," Dutch lawyer Bob van der Goen told Reuters news agency.

Instead of being incinerated the waste was dumped. "They should have known that Ivory Coast couldn't process this waste. They should have known the danger for people and the environment."
Journalist Pauline Bax in Abidjan says the lawyer believes this is just a preliminary claim and the real amount will be much higher.
Ten people, including two French Trafigura executives, have been charged in connection with the discharge.
Trafigura first attempted to discharge the chemical slops, which contains mercaptan, from one of its tankers, the Probo Koala in the Dutch port of Amsterdam in early August.
But the company that was to dispose of the waste suddenly increased its charges dramatically - asking for 40 times more to treat the waste.
Trafigura refused, and the tanker proceeded to Nigeria.
There it tried to offload the waste, but again failed to reach an agreement with two local firms.
It was only in Ivory Coast that it managed to find a company to handle the waste at a cost the company would accept.
On 19 August the waste was discharged near Abidjan. Two weeks later the first complaints arose.
Instead of being incinerated as it should have been, the waste had been dumped.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

RAWLINGS 'SEEKING FUNDS FOR COUP' !

Jerry Rawlings was president for 19 years. Ghana's President John Kufuor has accused his predecessor Jerry Rawlings of trying to solicit funds for a coup.

Mr Kufuor told a by-election rally that he had credible intelligence reports that Mr Rawlings had asked an unnamed oil-rich country for money. Mr Rawlings seized power in 1979 and 1981 but stood down at the 2000 elections, in which Mr Kufuor beat the candidate of Mr Rawlings' NDC party.

The former president has not commented on the allegations. Ghana is generally seen as one of the most stable countries in West Africa. Mr Kufuor was re-elected in 2004. He was speaking at a rally ahead of Tuesday's by-election in Offinso South constituency.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.S. JAILS EGYPT PAIR FOR SLAVERY !

Two Egyptians have been jailed by a US court after pleading guilty to enslaving a 10-year-old Egyptian girl at their south California home.
Abdel Nasser Ibrahim was given three years in prison while his ex-wife, Amal Motelib, received a 22-month sentence.
They were also ordered to pay more than $76,000 (£40,500) to the girl for two years of forced labour during which she served the couple's family of seven.
She worked 16-hour days and was denied access to education, prosecutors said.
Ibrahim and Motelib will be deported after serving their sentences, officials said.
"The young victim in this case was subject to inhumane conditions that included both physical and verbal abuse," US Attorney Debra Wong Yang said.
The girl, who is now 16, has been granted a visa allowing her to stay in the US.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MBEKI MAKES WORLD CUP VOW !

South Africa will be the first African country to host the World Cup.
South Africa president Thabo Mbeki has vowed that his country will confound international sceptics by meeting all its deadlines and stage a well-organised World Cup in 2010.
Speaking at a workshop attended by senior officials from football's world governing body Fifa, Mbeki said his government would spare no effort to ensure the tournament passes off smoothly when it is staged in Africa for the first time.
"There is absolutely no reason why 2010 will not surprise the sceptics not only about the prowess of the millions of African footballers, but also about Africa's capacity successfully to provide an outstanding home for a global tournament of universal joy and celebration," said Mbeki in Cape Town on Tuesday.
"Each and every one of us will spare no effort to ensure that everything necessary for a truly successful (tournament) is done on time, and preferably ahead of schedule, meeting all the specifications set by Fifa and all the things expected us by the billions of football fans across the world."
Fifa president Sepp Blatter voiced concerns last month that construction and renovation of the 10 stadia due to stage matches had still to begin in earnest, saying he had "yet to see the pickaxes and spades needed to start the work".
German football legend Franz Beckenbauer, the chief organiser of this year's finals, also warned recently that the tournament in South Africa was "beset by big problems".
However Danny Jordaan, the head of the 2010 local organising committee insisted last week that South Africa was "well ahead of plans based on a timeframe set by us and Fifa."
Mbeki is due to stand down a year before the finals but he said that a successful tournament would be his government's main priority.
"I would like to assure the Fifa delegation that is with us today that our government and the entirety of our people have dedicated the period up to 2010 to the resounding success of the World Cup," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGER ORDERS EXPULSIONS OF ARABS !

The government of Niger has ordered around 150,000 Arabs who live in the east of the country to leave.
Most of the Arabs, known as Mahamid, are nomads who have fled conflict in Chad. A BBC correspondent says many have lived in Niger for decades.
The governor of Diffa State, where most of the Mahamid live, told them it was "high time" to pack and return to Chad.
No reason for the order has been given, but government officials are meeting local elders in the capital, Niamey.
The BBC Idy Baraou in Niamey says many Mahamid are citizens of Niger and hold senior positions in the army, government and business.
Others look after camels and donkeys around Lake Chad.
But other communities in Niger often accuse the Mahamid of theft and rape.
Our correspondent says police have rounded up several hundred Mahamid at Kabalewa village, 75 km east of Diffa.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

OIL AND GAS DISCOVERED IN ZAMBIA!

Zambia has announced its first discoveries of oil and gas reserves.
The discoveries were made in western Zambia, near the border with Angola, already a major oil exporter.
President Levy Mwanawasa said that samples from 12 sites have proved positive in tests conducted in Germany.
Exploration had been carried out for the past two years, as part of efforts to diversify the economy away from copper exports.
'Strengthen the economy'
Mr Mwanawasa said the government would now appoint a special cabinet committee to select foreign oil firms to conduct comprehensive exploration.

"These results confirm the presence of oil and gas in the sub-surface of the two districts of Chavuma and Zambezi," he said.
He said he hoped they could also look for oil in other parts of the country.
"It is hoped that the country will see more exploration and extraction activities for oil and gas in different parts that would strengthen the country's economy," said Mr Mwanawasa.
The president won a second term in office in September, having campaigned on his economic record.
Western donors have praised him for boosting economic growth above 5% and attracting foreign investments, helped by his anti-corruption campaign.
Yet Mr Mwanawasa's main rival for the presidency, Michael Sata, alleged that he was cheated of victory.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUOTES

"WHILE ONE PERSON HESITATES BECAUSE HE FEELS INFERIOR,

THE OTHER IS BUSY MAKING MISTAKES AND BECOMING SUPERIOR"!

## Norman Vincent Peale ##

SLUM DISPUTE OVER COMMONWEALTH GAMES !

Slum dispute over Commonwealth Games.
By John Sudworth BBC News, Delhi.

The Indian air rifle shot Tejawini Stewart hopes to triumph at the next Commonwealth Games.
Naresh Halder, his wife and five children have just moved home.
They used to live on the banks of the Yamuna river, the polluted waterway that winds its sluggish way through the centre of Delhi.
But the Halders were forcibly relocated.
"Near the Yamuna, my kids were safe because we knew the community there, they were going to a government school and I had work, but here I have no way of finding a job," Naresh says.
Homes demolished
The new plot of land that the family has been allocated is more than 40km, and three bus rides, from the centre of Delhi.
In the last two years, more than a quarter of a million people have had their homes demolished along the banks of the Yamuna.
The city authorities plan to make Delhi completely slum-free in time for the arrival of thousands of foreign athletes and spectators for the next Commonwealth Games, due to be held here in 2010.
"World class city" is a phrase you often hear associated with the forthcoming tournament.
Delhi's Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, sees the Games as a chance to modernise.

This clearance had to be done, and it has been done
Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit
"They're a watershed, a kind of mark," she says. "The ambition is to create a world class city. Please don't think it's a magic wand, that just by saying it's going to happen it will. But that's the ambition."
There's a lot to do. More than US$1bn will be spent overhauling the city's transport links, securing reliable electricity and water supplies, and regenerating the city centre, not to mention building the sports facilities.
But it is the slum clearances that some people fear are at odds with one of the mission statements of the Commonwealth Games: "To develop sport for the benefit of the people."
'Kicked and shoved'
The "athletes' village" will be built on part of the east bank of the Yamuna, now cleared of slum dwellers.
Those who have been relocated, albeit many miles away, are actually the lucky ones.

The site for the Games has yet to be developed
Dr Kirin Martin, a paediatrician and founder of Asha, a charity that provides support to slum dwellers in Delhi, says many people didn't qualify for alternative housing.
"Many of them actually just moved to patches of land elsewhere in the city," she says, "and again they were just kicked and shoved by the police only to go to yet another place.
"I think that if the athletes ever came to know at what cost these facilities are being created, they would be very unhappy.
"People have been living here for 15 or 20 years... is this the way to treat a poor man?"
The authorities insist Delhi will be slum-free in time for the Games. More slums face demolition.
'City for the rich'
Chief Minister Dikshit says more than 100,000 low-cost homes are being built, and ultimately the strategy will serve the long term interests of the poor.
"The poorest residents have been moved because the Yamuna had to be cleaned up anyway," she says.
"All of those who qualify are being given their little plots of land, with water, power and schools. It takes a little time, there are problems, but we will overcome them.

The Indian table tennis team will be hoping to win in 2010
"This clearance had to be done, and it has been done."
Dr Kirin Martin says it falls a long way short of what is needed.
If the Games are a catalyst for building a new Delhi, she believes it is one that does not include the poor.
"It's only going to be a world class city for the rich," she says.
"You can't ever see any of these benefits coming to the urban poor, who form one third of this city's population.
"So what world class city are we talking about for these people?"

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TOTAL EXECUTIVE IN BRIBERY PROBE !

The probe relates to the United Nations oil-for-food programme. French oil firm Total says its head of exploration and production, Christophe de Margerie, is being investigated over claims that he paid bribes to win bids. A French judge has also placed former Total executive Bernard de Combret under investigation.
Total said the allegations centred on deals relating to the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
The lawyer for Mr de Margerie, who is due to become Total's chief executive, said the inquiry was "groundless".
Total support
A number of global figures have been caught up in the oil-for-food scandal, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in September that he took personal responsibility for the failures of the programme.
In September, a report by an independent panel told the UN that it had found instances of "illicit, unethical and corrupt" behaviour within the $64bn scheme.
It concluded that the UN was in urgent need of sweeping reform.
A French judge is now investigating claims that Mr de Margerie paid illegal kickbacks to win favours for his company between 1996 and 2002.
The investigation into Mr de Combret focuses on the years between 2000 and 2002.
Countering the latest claims, Total said that it wanted to "reassure Mr de Margerie of its total support".
Total added that "at no time did the group circumvent the UN embargo against Iraq" and that it "strictly adhered to the rules of the oil-for-food programme".
"The group has never purchased, either directly or indirectly, oil that has been smuggled illegally from Iraq," it added.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

D.R. CONGO'S JUSTICE FOR SALE !

DR Congo's justice for sale
By Joseph Winter BBC News, Kinshasa,

Lawyers are trained to never admit being satisfied, but those in the Democratic Republic of Congo have more reason than most to complain.

Octavius Nasena says being a lawyer in DR Congo is frustrating"I've already paid the judge, so why should I pay you too?" is a question they have to contend with from their clients.
After many years when the law was basically whatever the rich and powerful wanted it to be, DR Congo's legal system needs to be rebuilt, almost from scratch.
This is one of the tasks awaiting whoever wins this week's presidential election run-off.
Lawyer Octavius Nasena recounts a case when someone dared to question why his opponent in a property dispute had brazenly given an envelope full of money to the judge.
"After he complained, the judge called the police to arrest my client on charges of insulting him," Mr Nasena told the BBC News website.
The lawyer complained to the authorities, who ordered the judge's chambers to be searched, despite the judge's protestations that no-one had the right to know the contents of his private correspondence.
An envelope matching the one described by the client was found containing $1,000 in cash, and the judge was eventually suspended, although he was not disbarred.
Sharp practice
Mr Nasena says he comes across many more cases of corruption which are less blatant and so it is hard to find evidence.
"It is frustrating to work as a lawyer here," he says.

If you put most judges in the world in the conditions we have to put up with, they would simply refuse to work
Judge Philippe Vokayandiki MbumbaOn the streets of the capital, Kinshasa, it is not hard to find evidence of sharp legal practices.
Many property owners have resorted to writing: "Beware of conmen, this house is not for sale" on the walls of their houses.
When justice is for sale, you do not always need title deeds to sell a house, and the rightful owner may need considerable patience and funding to get their property back.
However, a representative of DR Congo's judges says the extent of the corruption has been exaggerated.
"Our judges are not corrupt," says Philippe Vokayandiki Mbumba, president of the Congolese Union of Christian Magistrates, Synchremac.
"If you put most judges in the world in the conditions we have to put up with, they would simply refuse to work."
He says that judge in DR Congo do not get paid a salary, just an allowance which until recently was just $100 a month.
Mr Mbumba says that paying judges properly is the first step towards eliminating the temptation to take bribes.
And far more money - in the right places - is needed for DR Congo's legal system to run really smoothly.
Although the court building I am interviewing Mr Mbumba in is new, it does not have a telephone line - people have to turn up in person if they want to contact court officials.

Owners write warnings, saying their property is not for saleThere are also no computers.
"We write all our judgements by hand and secretaries then type them up, so we do the work twice," he says.
Lots of judges have already resigned because they cannot work in such conditions, further undermining DR Congo's legal system, he says.
As he talks, the cry of "thief" goes up from the overcrowded district which threatens to engulf the smart new aid donor-funded courthouse where he works.
Many Congolese prefer to exact their own justice rather than rely on the fragile state system.
Two-way bribery
Another lawyer, Didier Dimina, says that a functioning judiciary is the basis of a successful state - which DR Congo is hoping to become, following years of conflict and mismanagement.
He says that foreign investors will not put their job-creating funds in a country where the laws are not properly enforced.
"Our laws are fine in theory," he says. "But the reality is another matter."
Mr Dimina says the situation is slightly better than in the days of Mobutu Sese Seko, when his word was the law.
He points to the case of a group of soldiers, who were last year convicted of mass rape on the basis of international war crimes law, as offering a glimmer of hope for DR Congo's judiciary.
Mr Dimina hopes that whoever wins this month's presidential election will continue to make progress but he is not overly confident.
He says that following each of the changes in government in the past decade, things have improved for a while, before the new rulers have ended up copying their predecessors - even in the little things.
"When ministers and even their relatives feel they can speed through red lights, it gives a signal that those in power feel they can break the law," he says.
In the meantime, lawyers will continue to struggle to work normally.
So how do they answer when clients ask why they should be paid?
"Because the other party may have bribed the judge as well and so the case may just be decided on the law," Mr Nasena says.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

REBELS ATTACK EASTERN CHAD TOWN !

The rebels want to oust President Idriss Deby's government. Fighting has broken out in the town of Goz Beida in eastern Chad, reports say.
Up to 60 rebel vehicles were said to have entered the town, which is about 100 miles (161km) from the Sudanese border.
Rebels claimed to be in control of the town, but a government spokesman said that the rebel attack had been "repelled" by the army.
There was no information on casualties, but an aid worker said shots had been heard in the town.
"Our forces have taken over this evening the town of Goz Beida," Acheikh Ibn Oumar told the French news agency AFP.
"There was fighting but government forces didn't resist long," he said.
Mr Oumar claimed to speak for three rebel groups which had just decided to form a Union of Forces for Democracy, the agency said.
The new alliance comprises Mr Oumar's Democratic Revolutionary Council (CDR), the Union of Forces for Progress and Democracy (UFPD) and the United Front for Change (FUC).
But government spokesman Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor, while confirming that "the rebel forces infiltrated Goz Beida", said the military had fought off the attack.
'Deteriorate further'
In recent months, violence from neighbouring Darfur has been spilling over into Chad.
Several rebel groups hostile to Chadian President Idriss Deby also operate in the east of the country.

While this appears to be an isolated incident, observers are mindful of the last time Chadian rebels came through this region, says the BBC's Stephanie Hancock in the capital N'Djamena.
Back in April, rebels passed through eastern Chad before driving directly to the, N'Djamena and attempting to overthrow the president.
Their attack was foiled, but the rebellion is still in place and still intent on toppling Mr Deby.
Diplomatic sources also say that with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan drawing to a close, they expect security in eastern Chad to deteriorate even further.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

Dear Family and Friends,

I do not remember what month or even what year it was when I came face to face, for the first time, with the reality of those strange sounding words I'd learnt at school: pellagra, beri beri, scurvy and rickets. It was in the mid 1970's and I was in my late teens. Zimbabwe's Independence was near - just a few years away - and I was doing a placement for my training as a social worker. I had been sent to a high density suburb - in those days called townships - where thousands of people, displaced by the war, were sitting it out in extreme poverty, just waiting for the time when they could go home.
The task was simple - identify and then assist people most in need - and they were literally all around me. That was thirty years ago but there are parts of it I remember as if it were today. Everywhere I looked there it was - not words in text books but living proof of pellagra, beri beri, scurvy and rickets. If ever a mother needed to explain to their child why they had to eat their vegetables - here it was. Arms and legs as thin as sticks; deep cracks and open sores on feet, shins and arms; bow legs, sunken faces and staring lethargy. And scabies too - scores and scores of children itching and itching and itching as the mites were everywhere, in their hair, in their dirty raggy clothes and probably even in the sand under their bare feet.
What little we had as trainee social workers in the middle of a civil war, didn't go very far. We had vitamin supplements, red carbolic soap, antiseptic liquid and plastic basins. Forever I will remember squatting down in the dust, picking up a naked screaming infant and bathing it in disinfectant in a bright green plastic bowl. The child was absolutely terrified and screamed hysterically - I can still hear that sound now. Those are not images I like to remember but every now and again I do think of them, it helps to know how shockingly bad things were then, just before independence.
I didn't think I would ever see those things again, at least not in Zimbabwe. This week I saw one of those words again: pellagra - and it bought memories of 30 years ago flooding back. On page 7 of a weekly newspaper there was a report which I wish had been on the front page and I wish it had been accompanied by photographs. " Malnutrition claims five at Ingutsheni" is the headline. Ingutsheni is not a high density suburb or a camp for refugees, it is a mental hospital in Bulawayo. The report details the dire conditions currently prevailing. Severe shortages of food and medicine, a very unbalanced diet and extreme financial problems.
The report told of people at Ingutsheni suffering from pellagra lesions, weight loss, nutritional diseases and serious malnutrition problems. Ingutsheni is not alone. Similar situations are there for any who care, or dare, to go and see for themselves. I have a friend whose son is in a home for mentally handicapped adults. It is bad, very bad, I have seen it with my own eyes and it breaks my heart to know that this is happening in our beautiful, bountiful land. At homes for the mentally handicapped, the mentally ill, the elderly, orphanages -oh God help us - people who cannot help themselves are suffering and dying, out of sight and out of mind in Zimbabwe's institutions.
People barely surviving on only maize meal, people who need eggs, fruit, milk, meat, nuts, cereals. Memories of a naked, screaming child from thirty years ago are vivid in my mind this week. I cannot stop myself from wondering where that child is now, if he is even still alive. This is 2006, we are not at war and this should not be happening but it seems nothing and no one can do a thing to stop it. I write this letter for David and his colleagues in a home for mentally handicapped adults - you have no voice, I know and I am so sorry.

Until next week, with love, cathy.

FINANCING S.A.' BLACK MIDDLE CLASS !

Financing SA's black middle class
By Jamie Robertson BBC World business reporter in South Africa

South Africa's growing middle class is fueling a construction boom
Part of South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) rules has demanded the opening up of the financial services industry to the black majority.
Now new housing estates are springing up to the meet the needs of an emerging black middle class, and new funding has become available as well.
Home ownership
Bogani Mtsishi and his fiancé have just bought their first house.
He is a mining engineer who has, with several colleagues, formed his own company.
With luck he's hoping it may list on the Johannesburg stock exchange next year.
For him his own house is the logical next step. But where he's chosen to buy is a little different.
The Cosmo City estate, south of Johannesburg, is the biggest in South Africa with some 12,500 units, and deliberately mixes low cost and subsidised housing with high end property.

Readily available credit is helping people join the housing market
Around 7,500 of them will be sold on the open market.
And there's a new property-owning class in the making of which Bogani has just become a part.
"I came here because I liked what was being built around here, the way the government was trying to bring societies together - and basically, the houses are affordable," Bogani says.
Property risk
Yet estates like Cosmo City are not universally popular.
Some of Bognani's friends are worried that the value of the properties will lag behind the market because - just down the road - the neighbours are living in subsidised government housing.
But that's the way the designers planned it: and all the amenities, playgrounds, shops and particularly schools have catchment areas overlapping each level of housing from the richest to the poorest.
And as the BEE rules prise open the financial services for the black majority, the mortgage industry has found itself a new market.
Easy money
The banks have embraced the concept eagerly. Easy money is fast becoming a feature of the new South African economy.
There have been warnings from the Reserve Bank as the demand for credit rose 25% over the last year.
Economists are anxious that borrowers, many of them home owners, will be badly stung if, as expected, interest rates rise.
Absa at the moment is the market leader in mortgage lending at Cosmo City.
Louis von Zeuner, executive director of retail banking at Absa, believes there is a real risk.
"We must also have a thorough education of consumers - the responsibility of taking on a mortgage account, the discipline of a instalments and so forth," he says.
"We are also finding that the bulk of the growth in our consumer banking is coming from the emerging black market.
"But we believe that the cornerstone of a healthy society is the ownership of property."
New savings schemes
And with home ownership and mortgages comes the concept of savings.
Bogani is managing to put money away into shares and a range of savings schemes.
In Soweto, a few miles to the west, at Absa's mobile bank outside the township's biggest taxi rank, the contributions are more humble, but the customer numbers are huge.
Although the bank is meant to be mobile, it hasn't moved since it was craned into position 18 months ago.
Now its tellers on average deal with one customer every two minutes.
"We are meeting the needs of the hawkers outside in the street, the taxi drivers, the taxi owners and a lot school kids as well," said branch manager Nthabiseng Mohlabisi.
"The hawkers bring in every cent they make from selling what they have in their stalls."
It may have taken the black empowerment rules to prise open financial services - but now they are available - the black majority are only too eager to embrace them - savings, loans, pensions - in short the bricks and mortar of a modern economic system.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CLIMATE WATER THREAT TO MILLIONS !

Climate water threat to millions.
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website.

Drought can devastate human populations and their livestockClimate change threatens supplies of water for millions of people in poorer countries, warns a new report from the Christian development agency Tearfund.
Recent research suggests that by 2050, five times as much land is likely to be under "extreme" drought as now.
Tearfund wants richer states to look at helping poorer ones adjust to drought at next month's UN climate summit.
This week the UK's climate minister said he was confident of reaching an deal on adaptation funds at the talks.
There was an "urgent need" for such measures, Ian Pearson told a parliamentary committee.
It's the extremes of water which are going to provide the biggest threat to the developing world from climate change
Sir John Houghton
The Tearfund report, Feeling the Heat, urges donors to ramp up assistance quickly. Other charities are likely to make similar pleas in the run-up to the Nairobi summit, which begins on 6 November.
Citing research by the Oxford academic Norman Myers, Tearfund suggests there will be as many as 200 million climate refugees by 2050.
Areas where people are already on the move to avoid climate excesses include, the report says:
Brazil, where one in five people born in the arid northeast region relocates to avoid drought
China, where three provinces are seeing the spread of the Gobi desert
Nigeria, where about 2,000 sq km is becoming desert each year
Attributing the movement of people to climate impacts is, however, a difficult issue, with many other factors including economic opportunity behind decisions to relocate.
Level of rhetoric
One of Britain's leading climate scientists, Sir John Houghton, said the severity of climate change was getting through to world leaders "at a level of rhetoric", but not yet at a level of action.
"There were promises made at the G8 summit and at the last UN meeting in Montreal about money for adaptation," he told the BBC News website, "but I understand that very little of that has come through."
Sir John, who contributed a foreword to the Tearfund report, said water shortages would be the biggest climate threat to developing countries.

Dealing with drought.

"It's the extremes of water which are going to provide the biggest threat to the developing world from climate change," he said.
"Without being able to be too specific about exactly where, droughts will tend to be longer, and that's very bad news. Extreme droughts currently cover about 2% of the world's land area, and that is going to spread to about 10% by 2050."
Overall, he said, climate models show a drying out of sub-Saharan Africa, while some other areas of the world will see more severe flooding.
Sir John is a former head of the UK Meteorological Office, former chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, and co-chaired one of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working groups.
He is now chairman of the John Ray Initiative, whose mission is to "connect environment, science and Christianity".
The positive side of the Tearfund report is that simple measures to "climate-proof" water problems, both drought and flood, have proven to be very effective in some areas.
In Niger, the charity says that building low, stone dykes across contours has helped prevent runoff and get more water into the soil; while in Bihar, northern India, embankments have been built to connect villages during floods, with culverts allowing drainage.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGERIAN LEADERS STOLE $380 bn !

Nigeria's chief corruption fighter Nuhu Ribadu says he will not relent More than $380bn has either been stolen or wasted by Nigerian governments since independence in 1960, the chief corruption fighter has said. Nuhu Ribadu told the BBC that Nigeria has "nothing much" to show for the missing money. He said the worst period for corruption was the 1980s and '90s, but currently two-thirds of governors are being investigated by Mr Ribadu's agency. Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil exporter but most people are poor. The country is regularly ranked as one of the most corrupt by graft watchdog Transparency International. President Olusegun Obasanjo declared a state of emergency in Ekiti State on Thursday after the governor was found guilty of siphoning state funds into personal bank accounts and receiving kickbacks. Mr Ribadu said he had come up with his figure of $380bn stolen or wasted since independence "easily" through records kept by the Nigerian central bank and the ministry of finance. "Basically, this money has gone to waste, nothing much to show for it," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme. WHAT DOES $384.6BN BUY? 225 Space Shuttles 795,115 Rolls Royce Phantoms 400m PC computers 32m primary school rooms 3,800kg rice for each Nigerian "Of course, probably part of it will have gone to outside stealing." Mr Obasanjo's critics say the fight against corruption is being used to victimise his opponents ahead of next year's elections. Mr Obasanjo is not standing after an attempt to let him seek a third term was defeated. But Mr Ribadu denied he has a political motive in his fight against corruption. "When you are doing this kind of work, you will always be accused of one thing or another." Last month, Vice-President Atiku Abubakar was indicted on charges of corruption, which could stop him from running for office. He denies allegations he diverted $125m into personal business interests. Mr Ribadu has led Nigeria's battle against corruption as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The EFCC says in the past two years it has recovered more than $5bn and has successfully prosecuted 82 people. Mr Ribadu told the BBC that $140m had been recovered from one unnamed former Nigerian leader and that nearly $400m of illegally gained assets had been identified in the possession of a former governor of Bayelsa State. Vice-President Abubakar denies corruption allegations Last year, Nigeria recovered $458m found in Swiss bank accounts linked to the country's late military ruler Sani Abacha. Mr Abacha was in power from 1993 to 1998 and is thought to have embezzled billions of dollars. Last year his son, Abba Sani Abacha, was charged with money laundering and fraud after being extradited to Switzerland. Despite the missing money Nigeria has managed to pay off its multi-billion dollar debt to the Paris Club of major lenders, thanks to high oil prices. About $5bn is still owed to other lenders including the World Bank and the private sector. BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOMALIS UNDER SEIGE IN SOUTH AFRICA!

Somalis under siege in South Africa
By Mohammed Allie BBC News, Cape Town

South Africa is believed to have around 5 million illegal immigrants. A spate of murders over the past two months has left Cape Town's Somali community, especially those who run businesses in townships, fearing for their lives.
The Somalis claim 40 traders have been the victims of targeted killings since the attacks started in August.
Cape Town police however, say they are only aware of 20 such killings in the past 10 months.
While police initially insisted the killings were part of South Africa's high crime rates, beleaguered Somalis are convinced they are being targeted, pointing out that the perpetrators often did not touch money or other valuables belonging to the victims.
Police have in recent weeks admitted that xenophobia rather than criminality could be behind the attacks.
Often the perpetrators walk into the township shops run by Somalis and simply fire at the owner before fleeing the scene.
Unfair competition?
The xenophobic nature of the attacks against the Somalis was clearly illustrated in August when a group of about 200 locals attacked Somali-owned shops forcing them to flee the seaside township of Masiphumelele. The action forced the provincial government to intervene to restore calm to the area.

REFUGEES IN SOUTH AFRICA

DR Congo 9,516 refugees and 4,622 asylum applications
Somalia 7,118 refugees and 3,893 asylum applications
Zimbabwe 5,789 asylum applications
Ethiopia 2,795 asylum applications
Angola 5,774 refugees
Burundi 2,075 refugees
Rwanda 1,266 refugees
Source: UN, 2004

Little welcome for refugees in SA .

Township businessmen, who are alleged to be directing the attacks, claim the Somalis are attracting their customers by offering cheaper prices and forcing them to shut up shop.
The situation seems to have improved following meetings involving members of the provincial government, the local community and the Human Rights Commission.
Security Minister Charles Nqakula has admitted that police do not have the exact figures on how many Somalis have been killed over the past two years.
In reply to a parliamentary question from Tony Leon, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, Mr Nqakula said obtaining such information would require too much time and resources.
"This attitude displays a monumental indifference to the plight of the Somali community, members of which are coming under attack on an almost daily basis," Mr Leon said in a statement.
Street patrols
It has been calm recently in the sprawling impoverished township of Khayelitsha where several Somali traders were killed in August.
Nash Mohammed, a Somali refugee, who has been in Cape Town for two years, says he had lost two family members over the past year and feared for his own life.

They have even given me a local name, Bongani and a clan name of Radebe
Nash Mohammed, Somali refugee
Speaking at his shop which blends in with the corrugated iron shacks of the area, Mr Nash says he feels safer now than he did last month when several Somalis were killed in townships across the Cape Town area.
"The local community here have formed street committees and they patrol the area, especially where there are Somali shops. We get along very well with the community. The problem seems to come from a small group of gangsters who are targeting Somali traders," he says.
A sign of how much a part of Khayelitsha he has become is that Mr Nash converses with his customers in the local Xhosa language.
"They have even given me a local name, Bongani and a clan name of Radebe," he says.
"We really don't have a problem with the Somalis in our area," says Nkosinathi Present, who popped in to buy some maize meal, by far the most popular product sold by Mr Nash.
"It seems to be the businessmen who are angry with the Somalis but if they have a problem why can't they talk it out? The Somalis are skilled businessmen and perhaps they can help the locals," she says.
As the Somali death toll climbs, police say they have arrested and charged nine people in connection with 20 murders.
It may seem a small percentage of the official figure of 18,500 murders committed in South Africa last year, but it is little comfort for a community who feel they are under siege.
Mutual rights
Since the advent of democratic rule in 1994 refugees from developing countries, especially Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and Somalia as well as Pakistan and India, have flooded to South Africa in search of a better life.

Somali shopkeepers are accused of undercutting their local competitors
South Africa, with a population of more than 44 million, officially has nearly 30,000 refugees and 100,000 asylum seekers but unofficially there are believed to be more than five million illegal immigrants in the country.
The refugees were not always been welcomed, especially in poorer black communities, since they were seen as competing for the same scarce resources and jobs.
Many African refugees have been victims of xenophobic attacks, much to the embarrassment of the government, many of whose members were offered a safe haven in exile by African countries during the anti-apartheid struggle.
Roll Back Xenophobia, a UNHCR-funded advocacy body, in partnership with government and non-governmental stakeholders, is about to embark on a campaign to reduce tensions between local communities and refugees and make both sides aware of their mutual rights and obligations.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.K. 'NUMBER ONE AL-QAEDA TARGET'!

The bombings on 7 July last year killed 52 people. Al-Qaeda has become more organised and sophisticated and has made Britain its top target, counter-terrorism officials have told the BBC. Security sources say the situation has never been so grim, said BBC home affairs correspondent Margaret Gilmore. They believe the network is now operating a cell structure in the UK - like the IRA did - and sees the 7 July bomb attacks "as just the beginning".
Each cell has a leader, a quartermaster dealing with weapons, and volunteers. According to our correspondent, each cell works on separate, different plots, with masterminds controlling several different cells. They were often aware they were being followed and so were meeting in public spaces. In addition, training is taking place in the UK and Pakistan.

It was thought that five years ago al-Qaeda was a number of "loosely-connected organisations" with common aims, but it is now more organised, she said. Security officials are concerned the group is targeting universities and the community, and are "less worried" about mosques, she added. The network is targeting "carefully selected" new recruits - mainly young Muslim men - according to the Guardian newspaper, which also quotes security sources.

The paper tells how recruits are then put through a "psychologically compelling" indoctrination of weekend and evening briefings. This starts with religious lectures and prayer, but moves gradually to more radical teachings and political discussions about the position of Islam in relation to the western world. BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said the view was Britain was particularly vulnerable because "it may be easier for al-Qaeda to strike the UK than other targets". He said these views were "based on activity they are actually seeing. Plots they're disrupting, trials which might be coming up soon". "There is hard evidence behind it, rather than just theories," said our correspondent. "That's based partly on what they are seeing, in terms of the types of activity, and partly based on the coincidence, that al-Qaeda's leadership is based in the tribal areas of Pakistan where there are links to the UK and flows of people going back and forwards. "It makes it easier to make the UK a target than the other countries it might wish to target."

The network also appeared to be better organised, he continued. "The leadership of al-Qaeda does appear to have been re-grouping and to be more coherent and organised than had been thought in recent years. "The view is it clearly was an organised group before 9/11, but the campaign in Afghanistan disrupted that leadership very heavily. "But in recent years, particularly in the tribal areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda leadership has been able to re-group and re-organise itself. "In doing so it's able to open up channels of communication, contact, recruitment and planning around the world, and operate those in a more coherent fashion than maybe we were seeing three years' ago."
However, intelligence analyst Crispin Black said another attack in the UK "was not inevitable", citing the UK's "considerable successes against the IRA". He said the security services had a good idea about who they were dealing with, saying: "We still have that expertise and training present within our military forces and intelligence." "It is no longer about looking for a needle in a haystack. We have some pretty good clues and information on where we should be looking."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MCAVOY'S AFRICAN ADVENTURE.

The London Film Festival celebrates its 50th anniversary this week with a gala screening of The Last King of Scotland to mark its 50th anniversary.
Actor James McAvoy talks to the BBC about his role in the film, which is set in Idi Amin's Uganda.
The film, an adaptation of Giles Foden's novel, centres on Uganda's dictator Idi Amin - played by Forest Whitaker - and explores an imagined relationship between him and his Scottish doctor, McAvoy's character Nicholas Garrigan.
The title refers to Amin's bizarre belief that he should be allowed to become king of Scotland - he was a fanatic about the country, and even took to wearing a kilt.
McAvoy told the BBC that he feels there is a dilemma facing Westerners who wish to make films about Africa, such as The Last King Of Scotland and last year's The Constant Gardener.
"We have to make films in Africa now, because we live in multi-racial societies," he said.
"To thoroughly examine our history and who we are, we must remember that we're multi-cultural, and so we have to look into the histories of other countries."
"However, if you're a white writer or white director, I don't think you can write the story of that African man. But if you are that Westerner, you have to write what you know, and the film is about the British presence in Africa at the time."
Rooted in reality
The actor, who won widespread acclaim for his performance as Mr Tumnus in last year's The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, said he did not initially have much enthusiasm for the role of Dr Garrigan.

I knew he was a dictator, that he killed lots of people, and that he was by turns a clownish figure and a terrifying, horrific figure, but that's all I knew
James McAvoy on Idi Amin"What didn't appeal to me was that it was a story of a young white guy in Africa, and I didn't like that," he stated.
"However, then I realised he wasn't a hero - he's actually quite vain, arrogant and self-serving."
McAvoy explained that most of the film's plot is rooted in reality.
Although his character does not exist, he is a composite of three different real people.
"He gets to Africa and realises he's not having a great time, he's not having the African adventure that he thought he would have," he said.
"He bumps into the President, Idi Amin, and gets inducted into his life and becomes his official doctor, eventually becoming his unofficial right-hand man.
"By the time that he sees past his ego and his new empowerment, he realises that Amin has been killing hundreds and thousands of people and that he's actually a monster.
"Then, when he tries to get out, he can't get out."
Clownish figure
McAvoy's co-star, Forest Whitaker, has already described how he became so immersed in playing Amin, he would dream like the dictator.

The film premiered at the Toronto Film FestivalHe has also said that it took him a long time to lose the Ugandan accent he acquired for the film.
In contrast, McAvoy said that, when working on the film, he made a conscious effort to learn as little about Amin as possible.
"The director was very adamant he didn't want me to learn about Idi, he didn't want me to learn about Uganda," he said.
"He let me do research about my character, and who influenced him - but that was it. So he had me coming to it naive, very much like the character himself, so I didn't have any pre-conceived ideas.
"I knew he was a dictator, that he killed lots of people, and that he was by turns a clownish figure and a terrifying, horrific figure, but that's all I knew."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

D.R. CONGO HIPPOS 'FACE EXTINCTION' !

The hippopotamus is now on the list of threatened speciesPoaching has brought the hippopotamus population in Democratic Republic of Congo to within a few months of extinction, wildlife experts say.
Researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) say the population has halved in the last two weeks.
They say the Mai Mai militia has set up camp in Virunga National Park and catches the animals for meat and ivory.
The hippo entered the Red List of Threatened Species this year, and is declining in many parts of Africa.
ZSL says the militia killed hundreds of hippos in a two week period, and numbers now are below 400.
Its scientists warn the entire population may disappear before the end of the year without urgent action.
Big challenge
Twenty years ago there were about 22,000 hippos in Virunga Park, but the country's civil war brought numbers crashing down.
Its location on the border with Uganda and Rwanda has made it prone to incursions. Rwandan rebels fled to the area after the 1994 genocide.
The situation had stabilised after campaigns by Congolese and UN troops to oust the rebels and the establishment of an elite ranger corps within the park.
Some of these rangers have reportedly been attacked by the Mai Mai group.
ZSL's Bushmeat and Forests Conservation Programme Coordinator, Lyndsay Gale, who spends about half of her time in Virunga, said: "This is one of the biggest challenges the park rangers have had to face since the war.

Battle for Virunga's wildlife

"It comes as a devastating blow after recent surveys indicated wildlife populations were beginning to recover from over a decade of civil war."
As well as hippos, the militia is also hunting buffalo and elephant, ZSL reports.
The Society is appealing for more funds to go into its work with local conservation groups and rangers.
There are thought to be about 130,000 hippopotamus in Africa, with Zambia holding the biggest population.
But a continent-wide decline of about 30% in 30 years brought its inclusion on this year's Red List as a species vulnerable to extinction.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SUDAN DENIES DIRECTING JANJAWEED !

The Janjaweed are accused of 'ethnic cleansing'. Sudan's government has rejected new allegations that it is giving direct support and orders to the Janjaweed Arab militia in the Darfur region.
A Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman told the BBC his government was instead working hard to try to disarm them.
Earlier, a UK asylum seeker known as Ali, who said he was in the Janjaweed, told the BBC he saw ministers giving orders at their training camps.
Ali said he took part in village raids after bombings by Sudan's air force.
He said the majority of casualties were civilians and that he had witnessed Janjaweed fighters raping women.
Khartoum has always denied any links to the Janjaweed, who have been accused of war crimes against civilians in Darfur.
More than two million people have fled their homes during the three-year conflict and more than 200,000 are estimated to have died. Sudanese government spokesman Ali al-Sadek told the BBC's Arabic Service that he believed the former Janjaweed fighter made his allegations on the BBC television programme Newsnight because he is claiming political asylum in the UK.

Excerpts: 'Ali's' story

"I think this is a pretext that weakens everything he alleged," Mr Sadek said.
The spokesman also said the interior minister mentioned by Ali was not Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hussein - although Mr Hussein held the post until 2005.
Mr Al-Sadek reiterated the Sudanese government's denial of aiding any militias in Darfur, adding that the government was cooperating with the United Nations.
"We are seeking to seize the weapons of this bandit militia. We are exerting efforts alongside the UN and many other organisations in order to establish security and peace."
"Ali"
The former fighter, Ali, said the men who had trained them were wearing the uniforms of the Sudanese military, adding that Mr Hussein was a "regular visitor".

"The Janjaweed don't make decisions. The orders always come from the government," he said.
"They gave us orders, and they say that after we are trained they will give us guns and ammunition."
Hilary Benn, a British government minister who visited Darfur on Monday, said the man's evidence was "clearly very serious".
Mr Benn urged him to speak to investigators from the International Criminal Court.

Meanwhile the Aegis Trust, which campaigns against genocide, has revealed details of a letter it believes is genuine and it says provides evidence of a systematic campaign to drive Africans from Darfur.
The US State Department is reported to have considerable doubts about its authenticity.
The copy of the letter, which has been seen by the BBC, is dated 16 August 2004 and is translated from Arabic.
Aegis Trust say they obtained it from a US Marines captain serving as an adviser to the African Union mission in Darfur.
It is signed by a Janjaweed commander and describes orders from Sudan's president to "change the demography of Darfur".
"We confirm that directives have been issued - to change the demography of Darfur and make it void of tribes of African origin - to kill, burn all farms, confiscate the belongings of tribes of African origin, forcibly displace them from Darfur, and kill their intellectuals and the youth, because they can join the fight with the rebels," the letter says.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TYCOON HOLES DREAM PICASSO DEAL !

A US casino mogul has pulled out of a deal to sell his Picasso painting for a record $139m (£74m) after accidentally elbowing a hole in the middle.
Las Vegas magnate Steve Wynn was showing Le Reve (The Dream) to guests at his office in Las Vegas last month.
Mr Wynn, who has retinitis pigmentosa, an eye disease affecting peripheral vision, tore a coin-sized hole.
He will now keep the painting, which he bought in 1997 for $48.4m, and repair it, his spokeswoman said.

Mr Wynn had finalised the sale of the 1932 painting to art collector Steven Cohen.
The $139m price tag would have been $4m higher than the previous private-sale record - for Gustav Klimt's 1907 portrait, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, in July this year.
Picasso's Boy With a Pipe, which fetched $104.1m in 2004, holds the record for art sold at auction.
Mr Wynn, known for gesturing with hands while speaking, was showing the painting at his office at Wynn Las Vegas when he struck it with his right elbow, spokeswoman Denise Randazzo said.
Director and screenwriter Nora Ephron was at the incident and wrote about it on a blog site.
She said Mr Wynn raised his hand then "at that moment, his elbow crashed backward right through the canvas. There was a terrible noise".
"Smack in the middle... was a black hole the size of a silver dollar. 'Look what I've done' he said. 'Thank goodness it was me.'"
Mr Wynn, a high-profile art collector, developed The Mirage and Bellagio resorts in Las Vegas in the 1990s.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN QUEEN !

The South African queen
By Sean Coughlan BBC News Magazine.

How a beauty queen was helped by Nelson Mandela to catch up on her lost education. The story of Peggy Sue Khumalo and a changing South Africa.
When beauty queens are crowned, what are they going to take away as a prize?
Peggy Sue Khumalo, winner of Miss South Africa, had a steely certainty about what she wanted: the university education that she'd been denied.
Unconventional perhaps. But Peggy Sue, who grew up in the grinding unfairness of apartheid, has spent a lifetime defying other people's stereotypes.
Blocked ambition
"I was born in a very rural setting in KwaZulu Natal. My mum didn't have an education, not because she wanted it that way but because of apartheid, she wasn't afforded an opportunity," says Peggy Sue, speaking in the City of London where she now works as a banker.
"All her life she was a domestic worker or maid. All she did was look after people, look after other people's children and serve them."
But her mother was determined that Peggy Sue should have a better chance in life.
"The little money she had she spent on my education, buying me a school uniform, sending me to school. I drew my motivation from her struggle," says Peggy Sue.
There were also political struggles taking place outside the classroom ­ and in 1990, the year that she finished high school, Nelson Mandela was released from prison. This didn't mean any instant changes.
"I wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to defend people when someone had done wrong to them," she says. "But it was a far-fetched dream. We couldn't afford it and that was hard to accept."
Serious smiles
Instead of becoming a lawyer, she was trapped in a series of menial jobs and without any prospect of a professional career, Peggy Sue needed to find another way out.
Her escape route was a local beauty contest.
But when she entered - in a competition with furniture as a first prize - her mother was refused time off to attend the contest, which infuriated Peggy Sue.
"I was even more driven, I've got to win this - I've got to get my mum out of this environment, where people can dictate what she can and cannot do."
She won and in 1996 she became a contestant in the Miss South Africa competition.
From the outside, this beauty show might have seemed to be about glamour, glitz and small-talk. But for Peggy Sue it was an intensely serious opportunity.
Living with her mother, in the house where her mother worked, she couldn't afford to lose.
"I thought this is my moment now - no-one is going to take it away," she says.
Miss university
It proved a successful night for her in a way that she hadn't anticipated.

After putting on the winner's sash she had a phone call from Nelson Mandela, now the country's president, who had been watching the show on television. He wanted Peggy Sue and her mother to pay him a visit the next day in Pretoria.
"If there's anything I can do to make your year a success, let me know," Mandela told the newly-crowned beauty queen.
While some beauty queens wanted to "pop champagne bottles, cut ribbons, look pretty and find a rich man - that wasn't my plan", she says.
Her ambition wasn't so much Miss Universe as not to miss university - and she asked the president to help her find a way into higher education.
"He's very passionate about education," she says - and Mandela arranged for the Investec investment bank to sponsor Peggy Sue to go to university.
Mandela had great faith in British universities and he guided her towards Manchester, where she graduated in 2004 with a MSc degree in economics.

Peggy Sue must have been an exotic undergraduate. While the other students had just finished their A-levels, she had just come fourth in Miss World.
And whenever she went home for her holidays, she went to see her famous mentor, Nelson Mandela.
"He was with me every step of the way, encouraging me when it was difficult. He remains a very humble, genuine person - and he told me never to forget where I came from.
"He's a moral image for South Africa - it's about being valued and having principles."
Having grown up in a rural area where people still used candle-light, Peggy Sue is now working in an investment bank among the flickering computer screens of the City of London.

But she remains deeply influenced by her own struggle ­ and the tough years faced by her mother. South Africa 'has tough challenges ahead' Next month she is moving back home, where she hopes to use her skills to help the modern South Africa. Peggy Sue is already involved in supporting projects ­ including the Starfish charity, which supports HIV/Aids orphans - and she has set up a scholarship to help young women through university.

And as part of the changing identity of South Africa, she is also using her Zulu name, as Nonhlanhla Peggy Sue Khumalo. She has no illusions about the scale of the problems facing her country - highlighting crime, unemployment, lack of skills and HIV/Aids as among the biggest issues. "I've witnessed so many people lose their lives through HIV and Aids, we've all got a moral obligation to do something about it. It's gone beyond a crisis - it's now an emergency."
And she warns about the poverty still blighting rural South Africa, where people are "still living hand to mouth", where lives have changed little since the end of apartheid.

But she is resolutely optimistic about the capacity for progress. "Ordinary women who have made a difference for their communities, they are the people who inspire me."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ASYLUM FOR CIRCUMCISION-FEAR TEEN!

Asylum for circumcision-fear teen.

Female circumcision remains widespread in parts of the worldA teenager who fears being subjected to female circumcision if returned to Sierra Leone has been granted asylum.
Five Law Lords overturned decisions by an Immigration Appeal Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, who ruled asylum laws did not apply to Zainab Fornah, 18.
The Refugee Convention says successful asylum seekers must come from a social group fearing persecution.
The Law Lords ruled female members of tribes where female genital mutilation was almost universal were such a group.
Baroness Hale of Richmond added it was a mystery why the case had reached the House of Lords as it was so "blindingly obvious" that asylum laws applied.
Last year the Court of Appeal ruled young women facing female genital mutilation could not be considered as "a social group fearing persecution" under the terms of the convention.
That was because the custom was so widespread in Sierra Leone and so bound up with its culture and traditions.
But on Wednesday Lord Bingham of Cornhill ruled that women in Sierra Leone were clearly "a group of persons sharing a common characteristic which, without a fundamental change in social mores, is unchangeable - namely a position of social inferiority as compared with men".
Even the lower classes of Sierra Leonean society regard uninitiated indigenous women as an abomination fit only for the worst sort of sexual exploitation
Lord Bingham of Cornhill
He added: "They are perceived by society as inferior. That is true of all women, those who accept or willingly embrace their inferior position and those who do not."
Female genital mutilation was an extreme manifestation of the discrimination to which all women were subjected in Sierra Leone, Lord Bingham added.
The practice had been internationally condemned as cruel, discriminatory and degrading and was against the law in this country, he said.
Female circumcision is legal in Sierra Leone and often performed before puberty.
Up to 90% of women have faced the procedure in the west African country, which sees part or all of the clitoris surgically removed, often resulting in reduced or no sexual feeling.
The operation is carried out, sometimes forcibly, on as many as 6,000 girls a day worldwide and health organisations report subsequent health problems.
'Horrendous treatment'
Women carry out the surgery as part of an initiation rite to adulthood.
Lord Bingham said: "The operation, often very crudely performed, causes excruciating pain.
"It can give rise to serious long-term ill effects, physical and mental, and it is sometimes fatal.
"Even the lower classes of Sierra Leonean society regard uninitiated indigenous women as an abomination fit only for the worst sort of sexual exploitation."
The UN Refugee Agency's UK representative, Bemma Donkoh, told BBC News the agency had "consistently advocated that the refugee definition, if properly interpreted, can encompass women who have been persecuted for gender-related reasons".
"Significantly, all the parties involved in this case accepted the fact that female genital mutilation constitutes a particularly horrendous form of treatment and a violation of human rights that amounts to persecution," she added.
The Law Lords' judgment would provide "invaluable guidance on the interpretation of the refugee definition as set out in the 1951 Refugee Convention", Ms Donkoh said.
What "membership of a social group" meant in the context of the convention's definition of refugees had been the subject of "much consideration and analysis", she added.
"This judgment has greatly assisted in interpreting this part of the refugee convention."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NEW RULES FOR TANZANIAN TRADERS !

New rules for Tanzanian traders
By Vicky Ntetema BBC News, Dar es Salaam

The stalls in Kigogo market are still under construction. Thousands of Tanzanian market traders are up in arms after being moved away from the centre of the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.
More than 40,000 traders have been relocated to the city's remote Kigogo area. They say they now have to pay taxes before they can ply their wares.
The government insists the hawkers will not be taxed, but admits the new market is not completely ready.
The place is empty, there is no power and the stalls are still being built.
The latest crackdown comes after a clean up campaign in March was suspended following clashes with police.
Local authorities and vendors were given six months to prepare for a more orderly relocation to the suburbs.
But it seems the vendors are still not satisfied.
'Remote suburbia'
The government is planning to register all petty traders - a move which has made the hawkers suspicious of the state's intentions.
"We are not going to pay taxes," the traders angrily shouted.

The traders were forced to leave the city's lucrative commercial centre
"Where will we get the money from?" one of them asked.
"All of us are poor, petty traders. The government has moved us from the city centre to this remote suburb where there are no customers," the same trader complained.
But the government insists that the traders have been occupying space in the city centre illegally - preventing the installation of sewage and clean water pipes and reducing traffic in the busy area to a single lane.
Vendors and touts have been blamed for a rise in petty crime.
"What we want to do is to assist these people, facilitate them to get into real business," Dar es Salaam's regional commissioner Abbas Kandoro explained.
"We want them to become middle businessmen and then graduate to being big businessmen," he said.
He promised the state would help by providing them with education.
Cleaning up
The government also believes business will pick up.
"Once those hawkers go there, get settled with their products then naturally people will flock into those places to get their supplies," Mr Kandoro insisted.

The hawkers are deeply unhappy about the relocation
However, power lines have yet to be erected and, although there are toilet facilities, these cannot be used at the moment.
There are severe water shortages in Dar es Salaam, due to major repairs on the main pipe which supplies water to four million residents in the commercial capital.
There has also been continued unrest as some street vendors have refused to give up their positions in the commercial area.
In March, two people were killed in violent clashes between police and street vendors in the northern town of Mwanza.
Many people were also injured in rioting in Dar es Salaam which began after police and security guards confiscated vendors' wares and destroyed kiosks in the capital.
The operation was part of a crackdown on street vendors and bus ticket touts.
The government originally envisaged completing the clean-up within three months but conceded that more time was needed.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MOROCCO DISBANDS RIOT POLICE UNIT!

Morocco disbands riot police unit
By Richard Hamilton BBC News, Rabat

The move is intended to improve the efficiency of the security forces The Moroccan security forces have disbanded their riot police unit - the GUS - as part of a major reorganisation within the police and army.
The unit was criticised for the way it dealt with protests and demonstrations.
The 5,000 members of the GUS would be re-integrated into other parts of the security services, a statement said.
The riot police were introduced in 2004 after the threat of terrorism was thought to increase following bombings in Casablanca in 2003 which killed 45.
The statement said the move would improve the efficiency of the security forces and allow them to protect the well-being of the country's citizens.
Brutal approach
That is the closest the government has come to an admission that all has not been well with the riot police for some time.
The reality is that they had become deeply unpopular for their heavy-handed and at times brutal approach to riot control.
The force was even accused of causing several deaths as it broke up demonstrations in Layounne in Western Sahara.
When the GUS took part in parades in May this year - marking the 50th anniversary of the creation of the country's armed forces - spectators booed them.
In September General Hamidou Laanigri, who had been responsible for creating the GUS, was replaced as head of the security service in a wide-ranging shake-up.
The police will now deal with demonstrations in the same way that they did before the GUS came into existence - with ordinary police officers - and hopefully in a way that is neither insensitive nor antagonistic.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINESE UNIVERSITY IN GOLF DRIVE!

Golf has grown in popularity in China. Golf lessons are going to be made compulsory for some students at one Chinese university, reports say.
The president of Xiamen University in south-east China was quoted as saying it would help produce "socially elite people with the best education".
Golf, once frowned upon by China's Communist Party, is now enjoyed by the country's rich and powerful, and has grown in popularity in recent years.
One critic accused the university of "vulgar elitism", state media reported.
Zhu Chongshi, president of Xiamen University in Fujian province, said golf lessons would be on offer to all students in the next two months.
But he said those majoring in management, law, economic and software engineering courses would "be required" to take the course, the China Daily newspaper reports.
"Golf is not only good exercise, but will teach students communication skills and benefit their future careers," he was quoted as saying.
"The highest embodiment of the education system is producing socially elite people with the best education."
Alex Jin, President of the Centre for International Education Group, was quoted as saying: "To try to make golf compulsory is rather vulgar. China can ill afford golf."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MADONNA ROW CHILD FLIES INTO U..K.

The Malawian child Madonna is seeking to adopt has been taken to the US singer's London home.
One-year-old David Banda flew from Johannesburg overnight with a bodyguard and Madonna's personal assistant.
The baby arrived at London's Heathrow airport at 0630 BST, despite claims by some charities that the rules on adoption have been bent for the star.
A statement from the star's publicist confirmed Madonna had been granted an interim adoption of the child.
The decision by a Malawian court gives the singer and her husband, film-maker Guy Ritchie, temporary custody of 13-month-old David Banda for 18 months.
A group of charities in Malawi had tried to stop the adoption, claiming it was unlawful because Madonna has not lived in the African country.

Adoption bid splits Malawi
Q&A: Inter-country adoption

David was carried by the assistant through the airport, with a grey-hooded top hiding him from the view of surrounding press.
He was taken to the star's home near London's Marble Arch, where many of the world's media were waiting.
He was reported to be remarkably alert following the long flight.
The couple's statement, issued on Monday evening, said the boy had been given a passport and visa.
"It is expected that the family will be reunited within the next few days," it said.
Madonna's publicist Liz Rosenberg said the star was "going to do her best to not make it a public circus".
'Alien adoption'
During 18 months of temporary custody the couple "will be evaluated by the courts of Malawi per the tribal customs of the country," the statement said.
The baby was flown out of Malawi by private plane to South Africa on Monday, where the party boarded a scheduled flight for London.
The singer, 48, returned to the UK three days earlier, but David was unable to travel as he did not have a passport.
The Human Rights Consultative Committee of 67 Malawian organisations had been due to go to court on Monday seeking an injunction to halt the adoption process.
But it deferred the move, saying it wanted to interview an unidentified uncle of David's who was "said to be opposed to the adoption plan".
Father's wishes
The committee insists that Malawian law prohibits international adoption and requires a minimum of 18 months' assessment.
But Penston Kilembe, director of child welfare in the ministry of gender, Child Welfare and Community Services, said Madonna and her husband had broken no laws.
"The process did not start today - Madonna's people have been pushing the papers for some time and her coming was just to sign the papers to conclude the process," he said.
The boy's father, Yohame Banda, has agreed to the adoption.
"What I want is a good life for my child," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

S.A. WINS U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL SEAT!

South Africa has secured a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for the first time.
Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said her country was "greatly privileged and honoured".
Monday saw South Africa receive the necessary votes to win a two-year seat on the Security Council along with Indonesia, Italy and Belgium.
Ms Dlamini-Zuma said the nation would "serve the peoples of Africa, the south and the world in this capacity".
She said it would "work with all members of the Security Council, and regional organisations in pursuit of peace and stability in all regions of the world, especially in the Middle East".
The foreign minister also said South Africa would pursue UN reform, including the expansion of the security council.
The five permanent members of the UN's top body - the US, France, Britain, China and Russia - have the power of veto, the 10 rotating members do not.
The non-permanent seats are filled from regional groupings for two-year stretches. Five are replaced every year.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYA REPORTS REFUGEE POLIO CASE !

Kenya has reported its first case of polio in 22 years, discovered in a three-year-old Somali girl at a refugee camp near the border with Somalia.
The World Health Organization said the virus strain originated in Nigeria but reached Kenya via Somalia.
The girl's mother said her daughter had been vaccinated for polio in the camp where she was born and had never visited Somalia.
The girl has been isolated to ensure the disease does not spread.
Sona Bari, a spokeswoman on polio at the WHO, said more cases might be found at the Dadaab refugee camp.
She said that for every case of polio, there were 200 people who showed no symptoms of the disease but carried and spread the virus.
Eradication campaign
Polio reappeared in Somalia in 2005, after a three-year absence.
More than 200 cases have been reported across the country.
Renewed fighting between militias and the government has sent thousands of refugees to both Kenya and Ethiopia.
The WHO's Fadela Chaib said that outbreaks of polio were widespread among the ethnic Somali population in Ethiopia.
Although the mother of the infected girl in Kenya said her daughter had been vaccinated, Ms Chaib said that until full immunisation is completed, polio can still be contracted.
The WHO launched a worldwide campaign in 1988 to try and eradicate the virus, but failed in its bid to wipe out polio infections by 2005.
The programme suffered a setback three years ago when northern Nigeria suspended immunisation for more than a year.
The virus spread, re-infecting once polio-free countries, but the WHO is confident it is being brought back under control in Nigeria.
Three million children are being immunised this year across the Horn of Africa.
Polio is a highly infectious disease which affects the nervous system and can result in paralysis.
It is transmitted through contaminated food and water, or contact with faeces from an infected person.
It has been eradicated in much of the world but is still endemic in some countries.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

Jackaranda

Jackaranda
US population reaches 300 million.

It is not possible to identify an official 300-millionth AmericanThe US population has hit 300 million people, just 39 years after it reached 200 million, according to US Census Bureau estimates.
The population reached the milestone at 0746 (1146GMT) - a timing based on calculations that factor in birth and death rates and migration.
The bureau's maths suggests that the US gains one person every 11 seconds.
But it is not possible to say if the 300-millionth American was a new-born or crossed one of the US borders.

See how the population of the US has risen.

Correspondents say that there is not expected to be the same hullabaloo as when the figure of 100 million was reached in 1915, or the double century in 1967 when President Johnson gave a speech and newborn Robert Ken Woo Jr was hailed the 200-millionth American by Life magazine.

Today, the population figure is mired in the divisive politics of immigration - a hot-button issue ahead of the 7 November mid-term elections, they say.
The population in the US is the third largest in the world, behind China and India.
According to the Census Bureau, 14% of the current US population is Hispanic, compared to 4% in 1966, and it is projected that a quarter of the population will be Hispanic in 2050.
It is also expected that in the next 50 years there will be more Hispanic births in the US than immigrants.

Planet Earth: Too crowded for modern Utopia?
Have Your Say: How has the USA changed?

Environmental groups have also cautioned on America's growing consumer consumption, and what they say are damaging "patterns" of population expansion.
Michael Replogle, of Environmental Defense, told the Associated Press news agency: "If the population grows in thriving existing communities, restoring the historic density of older communities, we can easily sustain that growth and create a more efficient economy without sacrificing the environment."

Vicky Markham, director of the Center for Environment and Population, said "sprawl has become the most predominant form of land use", with the US becoming a "suburban nation".
"Sprawl is, by definition, more spread out. That of course requires more vehicles and more vehicle miles travelled," she told AP.
Other figures released by the Census Bureau, show how America has been changing since previous population milestones.
In 1915, immigrant citizens came mostly from Germany; in 1967 from Italy; and in 2006 mostly from Mexico
The average US family had 4.5 people in 1915, 3.3 in 1967 and 2.6 in 2006
Some 45.9% of Americans were property owners in 1915. That grew to 63.6% in 1967 and reached 68.9% in 2006
There were 4.5 million people aged 65 and older in 1915, or 4.5%; 19.1 million in 1967 (9.5%) and 36.8 million in 2006 (12.4%)
Life expectancy was 54.5 years in 1915, 70.5 years in 1967 and 77.8 years in 2006
About 23% of women were in the work force in 1915, compared to 41% in 1967 and 58% in 2006
There were 2.5 million cars in 1915, 98.9 million in 1967 and 237.2 million in 2006
John and Mary topped the list of most popular names in 1915; Michael and Lisa were favourites in 1967; and Jacob and Emily were preferred in 2006.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUOTES

" THE QUICKEST WAY FOR A PARENT TO GET A CHILD'S ATTENTION

IS TO SIT DOWN AND LOOK COMFORTABLE" !

# Lan Olinghouse #

CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

"MAKE A PLAN" !

Dear Family and Friends,

Zimbabweans are notorious, possibly even world famous, for their ability to "Make A Plan." It is because we are so ingenious, creative, versatile and adaptable that the country has held together for the last seven years. Life shouldn't be like this in the first decade of the 21st century but we have learnt to cope with almost every deprivation that has been forced upon us.

In every home we have a botched up emergency plan for electricity and water cuts, fuel and food shortages, non existent municipal services and crumbling infrastructure. As individuals, however, as our hold on normal life grows ever more tenuous, so does that of the State. Every month there are less and less taxpayers as companies continue to cut their costs,reduce their workforce or close down altogether. As our economy shrinks,there is less and less money and resources available to keep the government going and so they cast their nets further afield.

This week the bands of financial control got much tighter in Zimbabwe and it is hard to see how ordinary people will be able to make a plan to survive the new rules. For a few weeks you have not been able to cash a cheque for more than one hundred thousand dollars in a bank. No reason is given. If you ask, the tellers just shrug their shoulders and say they are following orders from above. For over a month investment and savings institutions have been refusing to accept any new customers. Existing customers can only make deposits if other customers have made withdrawals for similar amounts. This week 16 Money Transfer Agencies were closed down without any warning by the Governor of the Reserve Bank. In an unexpected swoop, the Governor said the operating licences were withdrawn with immediate effect for what he called "non performance and deviant behaviour. "Almost all Zimbabweans who have left the country but still have family or friends here, send money home every month through these Money TransferAgencies.

This is how families who have been split up by economic necessity have survived for the last seven years. One family member goes and earns outside the country, sending money home to support the rest of the family. It is not money for luxuries but for survival. It is money which pays school fees, bills, rentals and medical expenses. People have being using Money Transfer Agencies rather than government channels because they get up to five times more money on the exchange rate. If a relation overseas was sending say 100 American dollars a month it translated into 130 000 Zimbabwe dollars through a Money Transfer Agency. Now that same 100 USdollars sent through the government, will only realise 25 000 dollars. This is a dramatic difference which is going to have a devastatingly cruel effect on hundreds of thousands of people. It means that relations abroad will have to send five times as much money home for their families every month just to maintain the same level of support.

Undoubtedly some people will be able to "Make a Plan" to get around the new ruling but many will not. Many hundreds of people are already illegally crossing Zimbabwe's borders every day for a better life in neighbouring countries, the numbers are bound to rise now.

Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy

Copyright cathy buckle 14 October 2006.http:/africantears.netfirms.comMy books "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.com

PARALLEL JUSTICE, MAOIST STYLE !

Parallel justice, Maoist style,
By Charles Haviland BBC News, Bardiya, Nepal

In a large warehouse in the humid flatlands of western Nepal, portraits of Lenin, Stalin and Mao adorn the walls, with communist slogans and a picture of the Nepalese Maoist leader, Prachanda.
Until recently this was a government cotton concern. Now it is used by the Maoists as a 'People's Court' to dispense justice.
The Maoists regard their court system as the heart of their 'People's Government', running in parallel with the official government through much of the country.
If current peace talks succeed, they may be asked to dismantle that government - but for the moment they are hanging on to it tenaciously.
In this court sit two judges and their clerks. On either side, on the floor, two opposing families. And witnesses.
On trial is a young man, 23-year-old Arjun, charged with having sex with a 15-year-old girl. Even if it is consensual, this counts as rape because she is under 16 - punishable, under Maoist law, by two years in a labour camp.
There's also a charge of assault laid against the girl's family, who beat up Arjun when they discovered the sexual relationship.
The floor is given to alternating witnesses from each side. The only 'lawyers' are the judges, who mediate.

Arjun looks frightened at being the centre of attention.
At the end of the day the judges draw up a document for both sides to sign.
The girl's family is told to keep the peace and, if they attack Arjun again, pay him compensation. As for the sex crime, judgment is deferred as the girl has not turned up for the day's proceedings.

Arjun presents his case before the court.
In the dusk outside, villagers guard two young boys described as thieves, apparently to be tried soon. The older boy looks petrified.
The Maoist judges explain that they got the job after one or two days' training which, they insist, is sufficient since these cases are often a matter of common sense.
Justice - Maoist style - is quick and simple and, according to their legal code, aimed at reforming the criminal.
But its critics say it is not meticulous and intrudes into areas which have nothing to do with the law, such as sexual relations between adults and other family matters.

"The Maoist court frames charges, investigates and gives punishment. So we oppose it," says Subodh Pyakurel, who chairs the national human rights group, INSEC.
"This is contrary to judicial norms and civil rights. [They're] deciding whom you should marry or not, the business you should do or not."
He cites the case of a pregnant woman who was reportedly killed by Maoists shortly after remarrying - remarriage of widows is frowned upon by many traditional villagers in Nepal.
Paradoxically, though, some Maoist courts have won admirers for their treatment of social matters.
Kunda Dixit, chief editor of the Nepali Times newspaper, says the rebels have used their justice system to combat caste discrimination and secure equal rights for women, for instance reducing polygamy.

Villagers watch the proceedings of a People's Court
"Although the courts may be kangaroo-type, you see justice being done," he says.
"Suddenly there's a decision in favour of women, in favour of inheritance for daughters - that's extremely important.
"I think it's a big threat for the government - more of a threat than guns. Because you have a parallel system that can be more efficient about delivery of justice, which would actually undermine the state's legitimacy," he says.

The positive and negative aspects of this justice system can be seen a few kilometres apart.
In a scruffy location where goats scratch around outside the town of Kohalpur, the Maoists have set up a court in a derelict house. People have brought cases before the judge Anil Chhetri because, they say, it is better than the official system.
One, who has brought a land dispute, says government courts closed his case 35 days after he filed it, without a solution.

Arjun signs the agreement. Another is here to retrieve a debt. He alleges the government system is "run by nepotism", whereas the Maoist system charges him only about 1500 rupees ($20).
Even a police inspector is waiting at this Maoist court.
Most people say they are drawn to its cheap and speedy system of justice.
But in an impoverished village nearby, there are signs of injustice.
A family clusters round me to relate their ill-treatment by local Maoists.
The Maoists accused the family's grown-up son of stealing a goat and - according to the family - beat him and his parents for hours.
Injuries were visible on their backs and legs.

Beatings, even killings, in the name of the People's Courts are often reported and have been documented by the United Nations human rights office in Nepal.
In Kathmandu I asked Khim Lal Devkota, a Maoist legal expert who wrote the party's legal code, how they could justify beating people to death.
"Most of the reports are biased," he said. "If it is real it is not our policy."
He said irregularities may happen sometimes because despite the five-month ceasefire, Nepal is still "in a war". But Maoists doing such things would be investigated and punished, he added.
Capital punishment is not permitted under the Maoist legal code. Their favoured punishment is sending the guilty to the labour camp.
I have not been able to gain access to such camps, but am told they guard prisoners on land they have confiscated and make them do manual work for the Maoists.
The Maoist legal system is a mixed record of both popular laws and some which are outright brutal.
Elements of it are likely to be incorporated into Nepal's future judicial system.
Experts say the challenge is to make two parallel governments into one - keeping what is good from both and rejecting what is bad.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GAZA FISHERMEN RISK ISRAELI FIRE !

Gaza fishermen risk Israeli fire
By Alan Johnston BBC News, Gaza.

Tens of thousands of Gazans depend on fishing. Every night off Gaza beach you can see the lights of fishing boats rising and falling in the swell. But they are defying an Israeli ban on all Palestinian fishing, and Rami al-Habeel knows how dangerous that can be. Last week, he saw his friend, Hani al-Najaar, shot dead on the deck of their trawler.

For more than three months the Israelis have ordered all fishing craft to stay in port. They say this is to prevent militants who have captured an Israeli soldier in Gaza, smuggling him out by sea. The fishermen though have no doubt that this is an example of what a UN human rights observer recently described as "collective punishment" in the territory. They say the blockade is an Israeli attempt to force the civilian population to put pressure on the militants. Tens of thousands of Gazans depend on fishing, and - as their desperation has mounted - some have been putting out to sea regardless of the ban.

In pictures: Gaza fishermen

The navy now seems to let this pass, provided the vessels stay within about four kilometres of the shore. But there is always the danger that the gunboats will move in. And Mr Habeel says that is what happened last week when he and his crewmates were fishing off the town of Dier Ballah. He says a gunboat steamed up from the south. According to Mr Habeel, it did not issue any verbal warning, but opened fire first at the cables holding the nets - cutting them adrift. Then he says the Israelis circled the unarmed fishermen spraying their craft with machine gun fire from no more than 20m away. Mr Habeel says that one of the bullets hit Hani al-Najaar - ripping open the side of his head. "I saw him killed," Mr Habeel says. "I couldn't bear it. God bless him." Mr Najaar leaves two children.

The Israelis say that on the day in question boats had been pushing too far out to sea. On a number of occasions warning shots were fired. "We did not identify in any situation any of our warning shots hitting a boat - at all," said a military spokeswoman. "So we are not aware of any fisherman being hit." But later, as the trawler lays beached for repairs in Gaza City harbour, well over 100 bullet holes are clearly visible.

Both sides of the hull had been raked with fire, and the controls in the wheelhouse had been shot out. You could see where hydraulic steering cables had had to be replaced. Not far away, in Shaateh refugee camp, Hani al-Najaar's family and friends were mourning his passing. Among them was his cousin, Mohammad al-Najaar who was also aboard the trawler. "It happened in front of me," he said. "I could have been killed. I'll stay at home until they re-open sea." Asked how he would support his family, he said simply: "God will not forget us." It might be a long time before Mohammad goes down to the sea again.

There are always Israeli navy restrictions on fishing off Gaza's coast, but they are likely to remain particularly severe as long as the Israeli soldier, Corp Gilad Shalit remains a captive somewhere in the territory. Hamas, the militant group that runs the Palestinian Authority, says that in return for the freeing of its soldier, Israel must release some of the several thousand Palestinians held in its jails.

For now, there is no sign of any deal on the captured Israeli.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DRILL HOLE BEGINS HOMERIC QUEST !

Drill hole begins Homeric quest
By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News.

A UK-led team is challenging cherished ideas on Greek mythology by proposing an alternative site for Ithaca. The island was said to be the home of Odysseus, whose 10-year journey back from the Trojan War is chronicled in Homer's epic poem the Odyssey.
Most people think the modern-day Ionian island of Ithaki is the location. But geologists are this week sinking a borehole on nearby Kefalonia in an attempt to test whether its western peninsula of Paliki is the real site.
The scientists hope to find evidence that the peninsula once stood proud, separated from Kefalonia by a narrow, navigable marine channel. It is only in the last 2,500-3,000 years - and after Homer's time - that the channel has been filled in, the team contends.
"We can't prove the story of the Odyssey is true, but we can test whether Homer got his geography right," said Edinburgh University geologist Professor John Underhill, who is supervising the drilling operation.

At issue are a few lines of hotly debated text, in which Homer describes Odysseus' native land.

Click here to read the passage

He talks of low-lying terrain, furthest out to sea and facing dusk.

The team, which includes geologists, classicists and archaeologists, argues that modern-day Ithaki does not fit this description. It is dominated by high ground and, being on the eastern side of the Ionian arc of islands, actually looks - if anywhere - towards "dawn and sun".
"This has always been a contentious issue since antiquity," said James Diggle, a professor of Greek and Latin and fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge.
"Many different candidates have been suggested and the general feeling has been that the island that has the same name now - Ithaki - must be Ithaca, but it simply doesn't square with all the geographical information we have about the original Ithaca. "The suggestion we advocate, and are now testing with the geology, is a radically new one; involving as it does splitting the island of Kefalonia into two," he told BBC News.

The Paliki solution was first proposed in Robert Bittlestone's 2005 book, Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer's Ithaca. Paliki is certainly flatter than Ithaki, and the most westerly point in the Ionian arc.
But to prove its hypothesis, the team will have to show - at the very least - that the sea once flowed through a tight channel that is now the Thinia isthmus joining Paliki to the main part of Kefalonia.

Homer and his poems have been placed in the 8th Century BCOn the face of it, this a tall order - literally: the highest point on the isthmus is some 180m above sea level. To suggest the Mycenaean landscape could have changed so radically in so short a time seems extraordinary, especially since modern seismic surveys in the area indicate the amount of uplift experienced by Kefalonia over the past 3,000-5,000 years is perhaps 6m at most.

The team's argument is that the channel has been covered by a colossal infall of rock from the surrounding hills, particularly those on the eastern side of the Thinia valley. "The bedding planes all dip very steeply towards the valley, and they are natural planes along which landslip and rockfall can occur - and do, periodically," explained Professor Underhill. "This happens in winter, never mind in the frequent earthquakes they experience there. There are very interesting Pathe news pictures taken after the devastating earthquake of 1953 which demonstrate that whole hillside degraded significantly; huge volumes of rock came off the slopes."

This week's investigations involve sinking a 100m-plus borehole at the southern end of the valley. If the Paliki solution stands up, it should find a loose aggregation of rock and debris through the core's entire length. "If we hit hard rock, the theory will not fly," said Professor Underhill.

Archaeological investigations have put Troy in TurkeyBut assuming the borehole is successful, then the team will apply for funding to carry out a more extensive programme of drilling. Ground-penetrating radar, gravity and seismic surveys have already been conducted; carbon-14 and other dating techniques would need to be brought in to prove the infall occurred in the right timescale. The team is encouraged by the writings of the 1st-Century-BC Greek geographer Strabo, who mentions the existence of a channel many years after Homer is presumed to have lived in the Ionian region.

And, of course, this is by no means the first time that science has sought to match current features on the landscape with Homeric descriptions. The city of Troy featured in the Iliad is now widely recognised to have been in north-western Turkey. A study of river sediments in the region would even seem to fit with aspects of the military campaign that Homer's story says eventually led to the destruction of the city.

If the existence of a Bronze Age channel on Kefalonia is proven, it is quite likely to set off anew heated arguments about specifics and meaning in the Odyssey. And some will continue to contest Ithaca's location. Sarantis Symeonoglou is professor of art history and archaeology at Washington University in St Louis, US. He has spent years trying to tie locations on Ithaki to details in the poem. "I have been digging [there] longer than anyone, since 1984. I already have solid evidence that the site of the city of Odysseus is where Homer says, on the saddle of Aetos, at modern (and ancient) Ithaca. The palace is in a terrible ruined condition, but identifiable! I found a corner of it," he told BBC News in an e-mail.

John Bennet, a professor of Aegean archaeology at Sheffield University, UK, commented that any new discovery of a channel should be viewed in a wider context. "For the archaeological world, what is very interesting is the possibility that there has been major geographical, geomorphological change on the island of Kefalonia, which means the way people have lived on the island has changed significantly from the Bronze Age into the broadly Classical period. "As a result of that there will be a new phase of general archaeological data that will benefit all of us."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MAN ADMITS UK-US TERROR BOMB PLOT !

One of the targets was the New York Stock Exchange A man has pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder people in a series of bombings on British and US targets. Dhiren Barot, of north London, planned to use a radioactive "dirty bomb" in one of a series of attacks in the UK, Woolwich Crown Court heard. He intended to cause "injury, fear, terror and chaos", prosecutors said. Barot, 34, also allegedly plotted to cause explosions at several US financial buildings "designed to kill as many innocent people as possible". Prosecuting QC Edmund Lawson said plans had been found by police on a computer after Barot was arrested in August 2004. Sites of the alleged American targets of the plot The plans were for attacks on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank buildings in Washington, the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup buildings in New York and the Prudential buildings in Newark, New Jersey. "These being plans...to carry out explosions at those premises with no warning, they were basically designed to kill as many innocent people as possible," said Mr Lawson. The defendant also plotted to blow up three limousines "packed" with gas cylinders and explosives in underground car parks in the UK, the court heard. Mr Lawson said the plot - known as the Gas Limos Project - was to form the "main cornerstone" of a series of synchronised attacks in the UK. Other bombings being planned included a so-called "dirty bomb project". Mr Lawson said this plot was designed to achieve "a number of further and collateral objectives such as to cause injury, fear, terror and chaos". According to expert evidence, if the radiation (dirty bomb) project had been carried out, it would have been unlikely to cause deaths, but was designed to affect about 500 people, he said. The Crown could not dispute claims from the defence that no funding had been received for the projects, nor any vehicles or bomb-making materials acquired, he said. Barot had also faced 12 other charges: one of conspiracy to commit public nuisance, seven of making a record of information for terrorist purposes and four of possessing a record of information for terrorist purposes. The judge ordered all these charges to lie on file following his guilty plea to conspiracy to murder. Mr Lawson said that by pleading guilty, Barot made "no admission with regard to the involvement of any of his seven co-defendants in the conspiracy". Seven other men are due to face trial next year. Barot will be sentenced at a later date. BBC NEWS REPORT.

ROW BLOCKS MOI'S KENYA PEACE ROLE!

Ex-President Moi has set up a peace foundation since stepping down. Kenya's former President Daniel arap Moi is unhappy with the offer of becoming a regional peace envoy, his spokesman has told the BBC.
Lee Njiru said the former leader was upset that he had been approached by the foreign minister not the president.
"It was lack of social tact on the part of the foreign minister," he said.
Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju had said that Mr Moi had accepted the job of mediating in regional conflicts, such as those in Somalia and Sudan.
"The former president cannot be appointed or be answerable to a minister. Can you imagine the former president in Tuju's waiting room? It is for President Mwai Kibaki to appoint the former president," Mr Njiru said.
However, Mr Moi does approve of the idea in principle, and would "definitely consider it", if asked by President Kibaki, his spokesman said.

On Wednesday, Mr Tuju had said: "We want to change the way we do diplomacy that is why we are reaching out to people like the retired president."
Mr Moi led Kenya for 24 years before standing down after the 2001 elections, in which his Kanu party was defeated.
Since leaving power, he has set up an institute working for peace in Africa.
Mr Moi was criticised for presiding over a government riddled with corruption but during his time, Kenya hosted various peace talks for regional conflicts.
Earlier this year, Kenya was also tasked with mediating the simmering row between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUOTES!

"EACH OF US HAS A SPARK OF LIFE INSIDE US.

AND OUR HIGHEST ENDEAVOUR OUGHT TO BE

TO SET OFF THAT SPARK IN ONE ANOTHER"!

# KENNY AUSUBEL #

AFRICA WARNED OVER LOCUST SWARMS!

A swarm of locusts can devour as much food as 2,500 people. Countries in north and west Africa have been warned to be on alert for an outbreak of locusts, which devastated Mauritania two years ago.
Locusts had been found in Mauritania, and were laying eggs that were expected to hatch in the next 10 days, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
It warned Algeria, Mali, Morocco and Senegal to step up monitoring and to prepare to treat any outbreaks quickly.
"We are taking it very seriously," FAO official Keith Cressman told the BBC.
He said that while locust infestations were not uncommon in the area at this time of year, they must be dealt with or they could develop into the devastating swarms seen in 2004.
They swept across north and west Africa, leaving 60% of Mauritania's population - 400,000 people - needing food aid.
The FAO said the outbreak would offer the chance to test a new environmentally friendly pesticide which uses a natural fungus which kills locusts within one to three weeks.
Desert locusts breed rapidly, maturing in just three weeks, and are capable of travelling up to 100km (60 miles) a day.
Locusts can eat their own weight in food every day, which means a single swarm can consume as much food as several thousand people.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MADONNA ADOPTION PAPERS APPROVED!

Madonna has visited several orphanages while in Malawi. A judge in Malawi has approved an official application filed by pop star Madonna, confirming claims she has adopted a one-year-old boy.
Judge Andrew Nyirenda issued an interim order allowing the singer and husband Guy Ritchie to take custody of David at a high court in Lilongwe on Thursday.
No official statement has been released by the London-based singer.
"This has been going on for some time. Now this is the completion point," said government official Benston Kilembe.
Mr Kilembe, Malawi's director of child welfare services, said the celebrity couple had "followed the normal processes".
Madonna promised me that as the child grows she will bring him back to visit - Yohame Banda, natural father of the adopted boy
The boy's father, Yohame Banda, said he met Madonna and Ritchie at the court as part of the formalities.
"They are a lovely couple," said Mr Banda. "She asked me many questions. She and her husband seem happy with David. I am happy for him."
"Madonna promised me that as the child grows she will bring him back to visit."
On Wednesday, Mr Banda told reporters that his wife Marita died a month after the baby's birth from childbirth complications.
Since then the child had been cared for at the Home of Hope Orphan Care Centre in Mchinji, a village near the border with Zambia.
The 48-year-old singer already has two children, five-year-old son Rocco and nine-year-old daughter Lourdes.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE BANS CASH TRANSFER FIRMS !

Many Zimbabwean lives depend on the money sent by relatives abroad. Zimbabwe has banned 16 money transfer agencies from operating in the country, accusing them of abusing their licences by doing deals on the black market.
Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono cited "non-performance and deviant behaviour" by most transfer agencies as reasons.
Thousands were stranded at post offices and banks after discovering they could no longer access money sent to them by relatives abroad.
Illegal transfer agencies are still operating and so far unaffected.
Standard Chartered Bank and Stanbic were among the high-profile banks affected, as are agencies such as Western Union and Fedex.
Surprise
The government's own Homelink money transfer scheme remains unaffected and a few unnamed commercial and merchant banks have reportedly retained their licences.
ZIMBABWE CRISIS

Life expectancy: men 37, women 34 years
High dependency on food aid
20% adult HIV prevalence
Shortages of basic foodstuffs
High unemployment
Inflation 1,200%
New high for inflation

Most of the estimated 3.5m Zimbabweans who live and work abroad have increasingly shied away from sending money through traditional routes because they only receive the official exchange rate - $250ZD for each US dollar.
Informal transfers - either through agencies, other third parties and parallel market deals - give you almost five times more: $1,200ZD.
Dr Gono said the transfer agencies whose licenses were suspended on Monday have until the end of the month to appeal.
He also claimed that this latest move - a measure that caught many by surprise - would help in turning round the country's shrinking economy.
But critics claim that the government is trying to bolster its failing Homelink scheme by getting rid of the competition.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MASSIVE DIAMOND BOUGHT FOR $12M

The diamond is said to be the 15th largest ever discovered.

The huge diamond

The Lesotho Promise - one of the world's largest diamonds - has been sold in the Belgian city of Antwerp for US$12.4m (£6.7m).
The diamond, an uncut, 603-carat white gem, weighing 120g (4.2oz), was found in Lesotho on 22 August.
The buyers have been identified as the South African Diamond Corporation.
The diamond - about the size of a golf ball - is said to be the 15th largest ever discovered. It will be cut into one large and several smaller stones.
The Lesotho Promise was found in the Letseng mine, which is jointly owned by the Gem Diamond Mining Company of Africa and the Lesotho government.
It is the biggest uncut diamond discovered since the Millennium Star, at 777 carats, was found in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1993.
But the largest diamond ever recorded is the Cullinan, found in 1905 in South Africa, which weighted in at 3,106 carats.
The 530-carat Star of Africa was cut from it and now forms part of the British crown jewels displayed in the Tower of London.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KOREAN PROPOSED AS NEW U.N. CHIEF !

Ban Ki-moon could be the first Asian UN chief since 1971. South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has been nominated by the UN Security Council as the successor to Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The General Assembly is now expected to endorse the choice in a vote likely to take place later this week.
Mr Annan is due to step down on 31 December after heading the UN for two five-year terms.
Correspondents say Mr Ban will inherit an organisation where Darfur, Iran and UN reform top the agenda.
'Low-key'
The 15 council members confirmed their choice for the eighth UN chief in a formal vote on the issue.
The 62-year-old Mr Ban had won all four of the council's informal polls and his five opponents had withdrawn from the race.
There is a broad consensus within the UN that an Asian should be the next secretary general, the first since the Burmese U Thant from 1961 to 1971.
Mr Ban is a career diplomat who rose to become South Korea's foreign minister.
He has promised to make the UN more effective, efficient and relevant, while giving few details.
The BBC's Chris Morris at the UN says some believe Mr Ban is too low-key and that the UN needs a higher-profile candidate to lead it through difficult times.
However, the most powerful member states, particularly the US, want a world-class administrator rather than a globe-trotting diplomatic star - and in Mr Ban they may have found their man, he adds.
Challenges
Correspondents say he will take on an organisation at the centre of many of the world's most intractable problems, from Lebanon to Sudan.
If Mr Annan is unable to solve the problems in Sudan's troubled Darfur region in the next few months, this will be top of the agenda.
International policy on Iran's nuclear programme will also figure prominently.
A key issue has been the UN's commitment to the responsibility to protect civilians in strife-torn countries.
He will need to carry out the sweeping reforms that most agree are badly needed for the world body, which has been hit by accusations of waste, mismanagement and the Iraq oil-for-food scandal.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOMALIS VOW HOLY WAR ON ETHIOPIA !

Mr Ahmed is seen as the Islamists' moderate voice. Somalia's Islamists have accused Ethiopian troops of attacking a town and have vowed a "holy war" in revenge.
The town of Bur Haqaba lies on the road from the government base in Baidoa to the Islamist-held capital, Mogadishu.
Ethiopia denies that its troops have crossed the border but does support the government against the Islamists.
An Islamist leader, wearing fatigues and holding an AK-47, said a "jihad" had been declared on Ethiopia, raising fears of a regional conflict.
"Heavily armed Ethiopian troops have invaded Somalia," said Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, seen as a moderate within the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).
"They have captured Bur Haqaba. History shows that Somalis always win when they are attacked from outside."

Residents of the town, 60km from Baidoa on the main road to Mogadishu, say government fighters backed up by Ethiopians, took the town, before the Islamists recaptured it several hours later.
No fighting has been reported in either takeover - each side withdrew in the face of the other's advance.

The government has not yet commented on the claims.
Earlier, the BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Baidoa saw a convoy of Ethiopian army trucks pass through, with about 200 troops.
Government forces may also be preparing a second front.
Our reporter says troops loyal to the ousted leader of Kismayo, Defence Minister Barre Hiraale are preparing to try and retake the city, which the UIC seized last month.
The UIC control most of southern Somalia, except for a small areas around Baidoa.
Ethiopia, the US and the Somali government all accuse the UIC of having links to al-Qaeda - which it strongly denies.
The UIC controls most of southern Somalia - over the weekend, they set up a new administration in the port city of Kismayo, which they seized last month.
Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

OUTCRY AT N. KOREA 'NUCLEAR TEST' !

South Korea said it had the capability to cope. North Korea's claim that it has successfully tested a nuclear weapon has sparked international condemnation.
The White House called for a swift response from the UN Security Council, calling Pyongyang's move "provocative".
Japan and South Korea also condemned the test and even Pyongyang's closest ally China expressed its "resolute opposition", calling the move "brazen".
Diplomats say an emergency Security Council meeting on the issue is taking place in New York.
The underground test, which South Korean media said took place in Gilju in Hamgyong province at 1036 (0136 GMT), has still to be confirmed.

N KOREA NUCLEAR PROGRAMME
Believed to have 'handful' of nuclear weapons
But not thought to have any small enough to put in a missile
Could try dropping from plane, though world watching closely.

Nuclear test: World roundup
Q&A: Nuclear stand-off

But both the US and Japan said they had detected seismic waves. Russia said it was "100% certain" a nuclear test had occurred.
The size of the bomb is uncertain. South Korean reports put it as low as 550 tons of destructive power but Russia said it was between five and 15 kilotons. The 1945 Hiroshima bomb was 12.5-15 kilotons.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says North Korea's claimed test does not necessarily mean it has a fully-fledged nuclear bomb or warhead that it can deliver to a target.
'Unpardonable'
The US led calls for a swift UN response. White House spokesman Tony Snow said: "We expect the UN Security Council to take immediate actions to respond to this unprovoked act."
Japan's foreign ministry said US President George W Bush and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had spoken by telephone and agreed there should be "decisive UN action".
Mr Abe, currently visiting Seoul, earlier called the claimed test "unpardonable".
The region was "entering a new, dangerous nuclear age", Mr Abe said.

We expect the UN Security Council to take immediate actions to respond to this unprovoked act -Tony SnowWhite House spokesman.

Reaction to nuclear test
Full text: N Korea statement

He said Japan and the US would step up co-operation on the missile defence system they began after a North Korean missile test in 1998.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said it would be "difficult" to maintain his country's policy of engagement with the North.
He feared the move could "spark a nuclear arms build-up in other countries", although Japan quickly said it would maintain its ban on nuclear weapons.
The South Korean military - which has been put on a heightened state of alert - had the capability to cope with any North Korean provocation, Mr Roh said.
The head of the South's intelligence service told lawmakers it had detected more movement at a North Korean test site and he could not rule out further nuclear tests.
In Seoul, about 500 protesters rallied against the claimed test, burning a portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
South Korea has also suspended a scheduled aid shipment of concrete to North Korea.
The North has relied on international help to feed its 23 million people for more than a decade and there are concerns the latest move could further compromise its ability to feed its most vulnerable people.
In an unusually strong statement against its ally, China said the claimed test "defied the universal opposition of international society".
The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Beijing says China's statement is an indication of how strongly it is angered by North Korea's action, although Beijing will still be loath to support tougher sanctions against Pyongyang.
When it announced the test, the North's KCNA media agency described it as an "historic event that brought happiness to our military and people".

KOREAN NUCLEAR CRISIS
Sept 2005: At first hailed as a breakthrough, North Korea agrees to give up nuclear activities
Next day, N Korea says it will not scrap its activities unless it gets a civilian nuclear reactor
US imposes financial sanctions on N Korea businesses
July 2006: N Korea test-fires seven missiles
UN Security Council votes to impose sanctions over the tests
Oct 2006: N Korea claims to have carried out nuclear test.

N Korea's mercurial leader
N Korea nuclear timeline

It said the test would maintain "peace and stability" in the region and was "a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous, powerful socialist nation". There was no radiation leak, it said.
The development comes three days after the UN Security Council agreed on a formal statement urging North Korea to cancel any planned nuclear test and return to disarmament talks.
Pyongyang pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and has refused for a year to attend talks aimed at ending its nuclear ambitions.
North Korea's official media has long warned that the US was preparing to attack and developing a nuclear capability was the only way to prevent this.
If confirmed, the test would make North Korea the ninth country known to have nuclear weapons.

BBC NEWS REPORT

QUOTES

"IT IS ONLY WITH THE HEART THAT ONE CAN SEE RIGHTLY;

WHAT IS ESSENTIAL IS INVISIBLE TO THE EYE"

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery ~

THE HITMEN WHO STALK RUSSIA !

The hitmen who stalk Russia.
By Patrick Jackson BBC News

The killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya bore the hallmarks of a contract killing, according to anonymous police sources interviewed by Russian media.
The hitman or killer (pronounced "keeler" in Russian) is a phenomenon of the country's shock transition from communism to a market economy.
You would use the Russian verb zakazat' to order a pizza or a plane ticket but when you "order someone", in the popular parlance, it means you want them killed by one of these hired hitmen.
If Russian media accounts are to be believed, his wages can range from a modest $100 to sums running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the target.
When Ms Politkovskaya was shot at her home, there did not appear to be any attempt at robbery and the presumed weapon, a Makarov pistol, was left at the scene together with its used cartridges.
When Russian television broadcast CCTV footage from the apartment block entrance, it showed the chief suspect to be a thin man in a baseball cap, his face a blur.
If this was a contract killing, identifying the perpetrator - and those behind him - will be difficult.
One of my memories of Moscow in the winter of 1996 was passing a set of bullet-holes in a subway on my way to work.

SUSPECTED CONTRACT KILLINGS

October 2006 - campaigning Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya shot dead in Moscow
Sept 2006 - first deputy chairman of Russia's central bank Andrei Kozlov shot dead in Moscow
Oct 2005 - former bank head Alexander Slesarev gunned down near Moscow
July 2004 - US editor of Forbes' Russian edition Paul Klebnikov shot dead in Moscow
Oct 2002 - Magadan governor Valentin Tsvetkov killed in Moscow
Nov 1998 - liberal MP Galina Starovoitova killed in St Petersburg
March 1995 - leading journalist Vladislav Listyev shot dead in Moscow.

Nobody seemed in a rush to fix the chipped tiles, just a short distance from a luxury hotel.
For those who knew, the holes marked the spot where US businessman Paul Tatum was machine-gunned to death.
The chief lesson from his unsolved death appeared to be that prominent foreigners could be targets too.
The death of much-loved TV anchorman Vlad Listyev the previous year had already established that fame was no protection from the hired guns.
A wave of contract killings washed through Russia in the 1990s, sweeping away new bankers and businessmen.
With the security apparatus in freefall and war raging in the Caucasus, the country seemed awash with guns. Another memory for me is descending an empty escalator in a metro station beside Red Square one night and seeing one "wide boy" slapping another on his knees as he held a pistol to his head.
By the early years of this century - with Vladimir Putin in power - the wave seemed to be receding.
And then came the murder of another American, Forbes journalist Paul Klebnikov, in 2004 and, this September, deputy head of the Central Bank Andrei Kozlov.
Both were shot dead - Klebnikov outside his office, Kozlov in his car.
Nobody has ever been convicted of their murders despite hopes for a while that the Klebnikov case would be solved.
But while "unsolved" is a word you associate almost automatically with contract killings in Russia, occasionally a killer is caught.

Alexander Solonik, aka Alexander The Great, aka superkiller, confessed to assassinating a string of Moscow underworld figures in the early 1990s without, it is said, revealing his paymasters. The killer of Politkovskaya appears to have been caught on CCTV.
He also cut a bloody swathe through the capital's police force before his arrest in 1994.
Solonik's main "qualifications" for the work of a hired killer appear to have been a period of military service, an early spell in prison, good physical fitness and a reputed ability to shoot with both hands.
Escaping from Moscow's famous Matrosskaya Tishina (Sailor's Rest) prison in 1995, he fled abroad only to be murdered along with his girl-friend in Greece a couple of years later.
Russian film director Alexei Balabanov's 2005 black comedy Zhmurki (Blind Man's Buff), about hitmen, begins in a morgue where some fresh corpses are soon added to the display.
Sub-titled "For those who survived the '90s", it struck a popular chord, capturing a grotesque world of casual killers, rapacious New Russians and cowed police.
There may be fewer raspberry-red blazers and long leather jackets in Moscow today, and the city now teems with hard-faced police, but it seems the phenomenon of the killer survived the '90s too.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MOROCCO MOVES TO DROP HEADSCARF !

Morocco moves to drop headscarf
By Richard Hamilton BBC News, Rabat

Headscarves are more popular with older Moroccan women. Morocco is making major changes to religious education, in particular regarding whether young girls should wear headscarves.
A picture of a mother and her daughter wearing headscarves is being removed from the latest editions of a text book.
A verse from the Koran that says girls should don veils has already been taken out of the books.
Other Arab countries have made similar changes, worrying that the veil could be used as a symbol of extremism.

There are few things that have become such obvious and controversial symbols of Islamic identity as the headscarf.
But until now it has not been a controversial issue in Morocco.

On Avenue Mohammed V, the main avenue in central Rabat, older women in particular can be seen wearing traditional long robes with full headscarves.
But younger women wear everything from that to more modern clothes such as trainers, jeans and T-shirts, with nothing on their heads - except perhaps some expensive designer sunglasses.
The variety of clothes and head dresses seems to reflect the fact that Morocco is seen as a liberal country with some pro-western leanings.
But for some more conservative people this latest move is an underhand way of undermining Morocco's Islamic roots.
Abdelkarim El Houichre from the Association of Teachers of Islamic Education does not trust the government's motives:
"I think there is pressure coming from the United States, which believes that teaching about traditional Islam and teaching girls to wear headscarves will somehow encourage extremism and terrorism," he says.
"But I think Islamic education has to be kept within mainstream teaching in our schools because that way we can control it. If we deny it to them in school then they will only go and find out more outside of school and they are more likely to fall into the wrong hands."
In the current climate, the Moroccan government is worried about anything that might fan the flames of Islamic fundamentalism and says it does not want the headscarf to become a rallying cry for extreme organisations.

This image is being removed from text booksEducation ministry official Aboulkacem Samir says the headscarf has political overtones:
"This issue isn't really about religion, its about politics," he says.
"The headscarf for women is a political symbol, in the same way as the beard is for men. But we in the ministry must be very careful that the books are fair to all Moroccans and do not represent just one political faction."
Across the Arab world the headscarf issue seems to be gathering momentum.
In Tunisia for example, young women who wear veils say they have been harassed by the authorities who are forcing the girls to remove their veils at schools and universities.
The veil is perhaps a microcosm of a much broader dilemma - should Arab countries in north Africa turn towards secular democracies or to more traditional Islamist countries for their guidance and inspiration?
Morocco is treading a fine line between these competing influences and the headscarf might just be something that trips it up.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHAD SETTLES OIL TAXES DISPUTE!

Chad has settled a dispute with two foreign oil companies after they agreed to pay the country more than $280m (£150m) in overdue taxes.
In August, President Idriss Deby threatened to expel Malaysian-run Petronas and US firm Chevron, saying they owed more than $500m (£267m).
But the two firms signed an agreement on Friday, allowing them to continue to operate in the country.
Chad also agreed to waive a charge of $64m (£34m) as a gesture of goodwill.
The country's finance minister, Abbas Mahamat Tolli, and the Africa director of Chevron - who represented both companies - signed the memorandum.
Further tensions
Under the agreement, the money must be paid within the next seven days.
It will also render the original tax agreement, signed in 2000, as invalid.
However tensions over Chad's plans to join the oil consortium in producing oil remain unresolved.
Mr Deby initially said Chad should have a 60% stake in the consortium - the same share that the two firms hold between them.
Exxon Mobil hold the remaining 40%.
The consortium is said to be against the idea, but Mr Deby is said to be a tough negotiator.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DARFUR CAMPAIGN CUTS SUDAN MONEY!

Darfur campaign cuts Sudan money
Martin Plaut Africa editor, BBC News.

Actors Don Cheadle and George Clooney supported the new law. A campaign in the United States to put pressure on Sudan over its policies in Darfur received a boost this week when California passed laws limiting business links with Sudan's government.
It is the latest example of a growing drive to stop companies doing business with Khartoum.
So far six states have enacted legislation, and a further 18 are considering what action to take.

On Monday the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed his state's latest piece of legislation.
The law requires the state's pension funds to sell their investments in companies trading with Sudan.
By his side was another actor - Don Cheadle, the star of Hotel Rwanda. The link was clear: genocide in Rwanda, and genocide in Sudan.
The governor urged President Bush to follow the same path.
Mr Schwarzenegger wrote to the president on Thursday, calling on him to sign the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act.
"With a stroke of your pen, you can do far more than any one state to ease the suffering of millions in this war-torn region," he wrote.

The campaign is run by the Sudan Divestment Task Force.
Having started at Harvard University, it now includes cities and institutions across the country.
It is beginning to gain the kind of momentum it took anti-apartheid pressure groups 20 years to achieve.
In just 18 months a movement has grown up across the United States to try to halt the atrocities in Darfur.
"Genocide is an expensive venture," said Adam Sterling, the executive director of the task force.
"The Sudanese government relies heavily on foreign investment to fund its military and the brutal militias seeking to eliminate the non-Arab population of Darfur."

Two million people have fled their homes in Darfur.
The campaigning group has developed a sophisticated online website to allowing individuals to screen their investment funds for investments in companies supporting the Sudanese government.
Its targets are not American companies, which have been prohibited from doing business with Sudan since 1997. Rather it is companies like China's PetroChina, India's Bharat Heavy Electrical and Sudan Telecom that are coming under pressure.
Lobbying by American companies has so far prevented tougher legislation being passed by Congress.
But if the momentum is maintained it could become as difficult for corporations to do business with Sudan as it once was to do deals with South Africa.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGERIANS DIVIDED BY BABANGIDA!

Nigerians divided by Babangida.
By Sola Odunfa BBC Focus On Africa magazine.

Gen Babangida wants to run for the ruling People's Democratic Party. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, the stupendously wealthy former military ruler of Nigeria, is only one of some 20 presidential aspirants in upcoming polls - but none excite half as much emotion as he does.
His supporters are fanatical with admiration; his opponents dislike him with an equal passion.
Hardly any Nigerian is indifferent to IBB, as he is known. And with the country's general and presidential elections due in April 2007, Mr Babangida's figure looms large over the political landscape.
During his years in power between 1985 and 1993, the press nicknamed him Maradona for his deft political dribbling skills - demonstrated in particular when his elaborate plan to hand over to civilian rule ate deep into the nation's purse for three years, yet produced no democracy.
But having given himself the title "evil genius", he is now tasked with convincing Nigerian voters that he means no evil. But the field he faces is hostile indeed.
On Mr Babangida's 65th birthday in August, a group called the Citizens For Nigeria spoiled the party with a full-page newspaper advertisement proclaiming that "the bedrock for today's economic and financial problems in Nigeria was laid by this man".
They blamed him for the "institutionalisation of the culture of corruption" in Nigeria.
And the concerted public campaign to rubbish Mr Babangida began as far back as May, when his former chief of defence staff, General Domkat Bali, revealed a minister who was executed for allegedly plotting a coup was convicted on "weak" evidence.
"I am not sure whether we were right to have killed him," General Bali said.

Obasanjo has been blocked from running for a third termThe widow of the executed minister, General Mamman Vasta, then wrote to President Olusegun Obasanjo protesting her husband's innocence and demanding that Mr Babangida be prosecuted for her husband's "murder".
Even without a decision on whether the matter will be officially pursued, incalculable political harm had been done to the former military ruler.
Meanwhile, the heat drew nearer to home in August when Mr Babangida's son, Mohammed, was arrested by anti-corruption agents.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) made no allegations of impropriety, but he was questioned about his financial affairs and alleged investment in the local telecommunications company, Globacom. He spent three days behind bars before he was released on bail.
However, his father's supporters were quick to point the blame for his detention on Mr Obasanjo's government - and added that the EFCC's target was in fact Mr Babangida himself, with the intention of finding something with which to discredit him.
They also took issue with the earlier arrest and interrogation of Mike Adenuga, the highly respected owner of Globacom, claiming he is being harassed because of his close relationship with Mr Babangida.

On his birthday, Mr Babangida gave his first personal response to these mounting problems.
"I can understand because we are getting into politics," he said, adding that the Vatsa execution had now been added "into the vocabulary of the atrocities committed by IBB".
But he called for people to "understand and to be fair in their condemnation."
"Nigeria is bigger than Babangida or any other person - so, we should be thinking on what to do to better our country," he added.
However, it is not yet certain whether Mr Babangida's name will even appear on the ballot papers - with a major hurdle for him being a recommendation to government that he and two other ex-military rulers, who rejected summonses to appear before the Human Rights Violations Investigations Commission, be banned from leading Nigeria again.
The decision to implement the recommendation rests with President Obasanjo - and perhaps ultimately with the courts of appeal.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HOW SAFE IS A SAFARI HOLIDAY?

Elephants can be the highlight of a safari holiday. The death of a British tourist, killed by an elephant in Kenya, raises the question of how safe it is to go on an animal safari.
Journalist Peter Gould recently returned from a trip to neighbouring Tanzania.
The first thing you realise on an African safari is that the usual relationship between animals and humans has been reversed.
In the national parks of countries like Kenya and Tanzania, you are on their territory, not yours. Forget that, and you place yourself in peril.
For tourists from Europe and America, used to observing wild animals in the controlled safety of zoos, it can be an unsettling experience.
On the wide open spaces of the Masai Mara and the Serengeti, the beasts roam free.
It is the humans who are enclosed - for their own safety - in guarded safari lodges and four-wheel drive vehicles.

There is always the chance of an unexpected encounter on safari.
Some holiday companies organise walking tours, which often involve staying in tented camps.
The attraction is the chance to get even closer to the wildlife. But the risks are obvious, and tourists are usually accompanied by an experienced guide.
However carefully such expeditions are organised, there is always the chance of an unexpected encounter, and animals like elephants can be unpredictable.
Even Africans, who grow up in this environment, sometimes get caught out.
So most tourists view the scenery from the relative safety of a safari company Land Cruiser, bumping across well-marked tracks in search of the animals.
You do not get out unless the driver says it is safe to do so. And even then you have to remain alert, ready to jump back into the vehicle.
If you are not careful, the metal cocoon of the vehicle can give you a false sense of security. A few feet away, the lions stroll past with an air of studied indifference.

Families of elephants are often seen crossing the road.
Then you see them tearing apart a wildebeest and you realise they are simply saving their energy for a more accessible prey.
Predators like lions and leopards may appear to pose the greatest risk, but an angry Cape Buffalo or a stampeding elephant can be just as dangerous.
For many tourists, the elephants are one of the highlights of a safari holiday. In a national park like Tarangire in Tanzania, you see them in family groups, frequently crossing the roads used by the safari vehicles.
We are fascinated by them because of their size, their social behaviour and their obvious intelligence. For the most part they appear benign, but they can quickly become aggressive, especially when they are protecting their young.
If you get too close, they let you know. The ears start to flap and they turn to face you head on, trumpeting their displeasure. You have two choices - either to remain very still and quiet, or to back away.
Tragically, the British man killed in Kenya was on foot and unable to get out of the way quickly enough.
The strength of the elephant was apparent when I saw a five-ton bull feeding beneath a large tree. Unable to reach the leaves on the top branches, it placed its forehead against the trunk of the tree and pushed. With a resounding crack, the 30-foot tree toppled over.

The safari vehicles can give a false sense of security.
What, I wondered, could such an animal do to the thin metal skin of the vehicle I was sitting in?
The four-wheel drive safari carries its own risks, and you cannot assume you are safe when you get back to the lodge at the end of the day.
At one place I stayed, the staff insisted on escorting guests between buildings after dark. They explained that buffalo routinely wandered through the compound at night, and a leopard had recently turned up in reception.
So are these close encounters with wildlife worth the risk? Ask anyone who has been on safari, and they will probably tell you it was the holiday of a lifetime.
For a few days you are in the domain of the animals, a place not entirely conquered by humans. And that is part of the attraction.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.K. IMMIGRATION HITS ALL-TIME HIGH!

UK immigration hits all-time high
By Evan Davis Economics Editor, BBC News.

The surge has come from eastern Europe.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published its most comprehensive assessment of the numbers of migrant workers in Britain.
It confirms the general picture of a recent surge in immigration.
The ONS concludes that opening the UK to workers from the EU accession countries "initiated what is almost certainly the largest single wave of in-migration that the British Isles have ever experienced".
In 2005, it says, one in 19 workers in Britain was a foreign national.
Up to now, debate on migration has been confused by a plethora of different statistical sources covering different groups, often with out-of-date figures.
But the ONS study pulled together as much of the available evidence as possible for recent years.
The conclusions are not surprising. Last year, 400,000 foreign workers came to the UK, the largest ever number, taking the total foreign workforce to 1.5 million.
But is this the biggest influx in the history of the British Isles, as the authors claim?
"Probably", is the answer.
French protestants
Look back to the Huguenots, protestants who fled France in the 16th and 17th centuries. They made up about 1% of Britain's population, and 5% of London's.
But there were only tens of thousands of Huguenots, spread across two waves a 100 years apart.
More recently, net immigration from the new commonwealth peaked at an annual 50,000 in the late 60s.
The Asians arriving after expulsion from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972, numbered fewer than 30,000.
Of course, we don't know how long the current inflow of central Europeans to Britain will last, or for how long they'll choose to stay.
But clearly - perhaps thanks to advances in transport - migration moves quickly these days.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.K. MUST JUSTIFY KENYAN TRAVEL BAN!

Mr Murungaru was sacked after corruption allegations. A British judge has ordered the government to explain fully why it has banned a former Kenyan cabinet minister from entering the United Kingdom.
When the ex-minister, Chris Murungaru, was barred in July last year, the UK government said his presence "would not be conducive to the public good".
But the authorities have refused to be more specific on the grounds of national security.
Mr Murungaru is facing corruption allegations in Kenya, which he denies.
He challenged the ban at the High Court in London after the Home Office withdrew his visa, citing his "character, conduct and associations".
Limbo
The judge's ruling means Mr Murungaru remains in "visa limbo" said one of his legal spokesmen in the UK.
"It is going to drag on".
But at a news conference in Nairobi, Mr Murungaru hailed the judge's ruling as one that vindicated his fight against an "unlawful and irrational" ban.
"This was a witchhunt and I am very happy that the British government was ordered to produce proof of why it stopped me from travelling or transiting through the country," he said.
A Home Office spokesman downplayed the significance of the ruling.
"The judge said that he needed more time to review the full contents of the evidence before he can make his decision," a spokesman told AFP news agency.
Mr Murungaru is a close ally of President Mwai Kibakibut but was forced from cabinet after allegations of involvement in the Anglo Leasing scandal, in which government contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars were awarded to a phantom firm.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

THAI GENERALS CHART LIKELY FUTURE!

Thai generals chart likely future
By Kate McGeown BBC News, Bangkok.

The coup leaders do not want to appear dictatorial.The leaders of Thailand's military coup have done what they promised to do - draft an interim constitution and hand over power to a designated prime minister within weeks of seizing control.
But questions about the military rulers' longer-term intentions still remain.
Perhaps the biggest clue to their plans is the hastily drawn-up interim constitution, which will remain valid until democratic elections due to be held in October next year.
This document gives substantial powers to the coup leaders - who now call themselves the Council for National Security (CNS). They are able to dismiss the prime minister if they choose, and are also influential in deciding the committee to draft the next, full, constitution.
"The military is keeping a lot of power for itself, and I would rather this wasn't the case," said Gothom Arya, from Mahidol University.
The CNS does not deny this, but insists such controls are essential in order to keep the peace.

Bangkok residents react to coup
In pictures
"This is an abnormal situation. We need to make sure the environment is right, otherwise the government will not be able to do its job," said Maj Gen Thawip Netniyom, a spokesman for the military council.
Lessons from the past
According to law lecturer Parinya Tevanarumitkul, the interim constitution is similar to a temporary charter drawn up in 1991, after the country's last coup.
That document failed to bring lasting peace, with violence breaking out just 15 months after the military took over.
But Prof Parinya said the current coup leaders seem to have learnt from the mistakes of the past.
"This time, the military has specified a definite time frame for elections and the drafting of a new [permanent] constitution," he said, adding that they had also refrained from giving themselves absolute power.
But there are various clauses of this temporary charter that continue to cause concern - chief of which is the wording on human rights.
"This draft is very short on basic guidelines about rights and liberties," said Mr Gothom. "I'd like to see a guarantee of freedom of expression, and freedom of the press."
His comments echo international concerns about restrictions on media freedom and political gatherings that the military have issued since the coup.
Prof Parinya said that while a guarantee of human rights was at least mentioned in article three of the interim charter, it was unclear how this would work when put in conjunction with article 36, which states that all orders from the CNS will remain effective.
"I'm worried because as a lawyer, I don't know what this will mean in practice," he said.
Repeat process
Much of the interim charter is taken up with detailing how the next, full, constitution will be put together.
The CNS will appoint a 2,000-member National Assembly, which will be gradually reduced to a core drafting committee made up of 25 members.
While people can start out with good intentions, they can easily get corrupted along the way
Abhisit Vejjajiva, Democrat Party leaderBut in reality, the military will be heavily involved in the whole selection process, and is even able to add another 10 members of their choosing to the final 25.
"On one hand they would like public participation, but on the other they are present in every step," said Mr Gothom.
It appears that the last full constitution, which was drafted in 1997 and was lauded at the time as an important advance in Asian democracy, will be used as a guideline for the new document.
The drafting committee is required to explain any departures from the 1997 accord before the new charter is approved.
Prof Parinya believes the military should never have nullified the 1997 constitution at all - just made some changes to it.
"This is the eighth time we have had to draft a new constitution," he said. "It takes a lot of time, and we could have had new elections sooner if they hadn't abolished it."
But it is widely acknowledged that at least some changes needed to be made, to stop the alleged manipulation of power blamed on ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The military took over in a coup on 19 SeptemberAccording to Abhisit Vejjajiva, the head of the Democrat Party - the main opposition to Mr Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party - there were two main problems with the 1997 constitution.
"We need more guarantees of human rights, and more checks and balances on those in power," he said. "What went wrong with the Thaksin regime was that he was able to avoid those checks and balances."
But right now, the new constitution is only one of many pressing issues facing the military generals and their new prime minister, retired General Surayud Chulanont.
They have to keep the peace, form a working government and ensure Thailand's economy remains on an even keel, allaying the concerns of the international community.
Mr Abhisit, relegated for now to the sidelines of his country's politics, summed up the feelings of many Thais when he said: "We're really pleased the coup-makers are showing no signs of political ambitions, but we are still concerned because the challenges facing them are huge."
"While people can start out with good intentions, they can easily get corrupted along the way."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

FAMOUS FLAMINGOS LEAVE KENYA LAKE!

Famous flamingos leave Kenya lake.
By Wanyama wa Chebusiri BBC News, Nakuru

Lake Nakuru's flocks of flamingos turn its shores pink. Kenya's Lake Nakuru is in danger of losing its famous pink shores to environmental degradation and pollution.
Located in a closed basin in Kenya's Rift Valley region, the shallow salty Lake Nakuru is a unique tourist destination.
The lake is world famous for its flocks of flamingo, which literally turn its shores pink.
The elegant birds are the main attraction for tourists visiting the surrounding Lake Nakuru National Park.
But this site, which provides tourists with one of Kenya's best known images, is on the verge of disappearing.

Thousands of flamingos died after consuming toxic waste.
Environmental experts are warning that the lake, which is home to millions of flamingos in their natural habitation, may dry up due to constant destruction of catchment areas and massive pollution.
Alice Kahihia, a scientist based at the lake explained, "The level of water has drastically receded. It has reduced by about 300m."
Flamingos flock to Lake Nakuru to feed on algae that forms on the lake's bed.
However, according to a government study, flamingos are now migrating elsewhere due to a scarcity of algae caused by the drop in water levels.
The study also revealed that thousands of flamingos died after consuming toxic waste spilling into the lake from the nearby town of Nakuru.
Less birds, less bookings
This trend has alarmed hoteliers in the area who depend heavily on tourists.
The manager of Sarova tourist resort in Nakuru town, John Njoroge, said: "It is obviously very bad news for people in the hotel industry, such as ourselves, because when the shoreline recedes, it means you have less flamingos.
"Once you have less flamingos, or none at all, it will mean visitors will cancel their bookings.
"And we will suffer."
Early this year, the government's move to forcefully evict squatters from water catchment areas in the region was heavily criticised by civil society groups and local politicians as an abuse of human rights.
Lake Nakuru is one of the leading tourism income earners for the government, generating some $1.3m (£700,000) per month.
Against this background a conservation lobby group, Friends of Lake Nakuru, has embarked on a diplomatic mission to save the lake and the precious birds.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA CALLS FOR CALM OVER NORTH KOREA!

There have been protests in South Korea against the announcement. China has appealed for calm following North Korea's announcement that it planned to test a nuclear bomb.
"We hope that North Korea will exercise necessary calm and restraint," a foreign ministry spokesman said, urging other states not to escalate tensions.
North Korea announced the test on state TV on Monday, saying it would boost security in the face of US hostility.
The US said such an action would be "provocative", while Japan said it would be "unacceptable".
The US has already indicated it would raise the issue with the UN Security Council, but Beijing says the issue should be handled by ongoing six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
It would be a threat to peace that is absolutely unforgivable - Taro AsoJapanese Foreign Minister

Public voices fears
Press weighs test threat

These talks have been stalled for almost a year, with Pyongyang refusing to return to the table unless the US first lifts financial sanctions.
Despite a flurry of diplomatic activity in recent months, after the North conducted internationally condemned missile tests, little progress has been made.
China, the nearest the North has to an ally, has often advocated quiet diplomacy in efforts to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear programme.
But other countries involved in the six-nation talks - notably the US and Japan - have frequently taken a harder line. North Korea said its nuclear test would prove its claim, made publicly last year, that it had nuclear weapons.

KOREAN NUCLEAR CRISIS

Sept 2005:At first hailed as a breakthrough, North Korea agrees to give up nuclear activities
Next day, N Korea says it will not scrap its activities unless it gets a civilian nuclear reactor
US imposes financial sanctions on N Korea businesses
July 2006: N Korea test-fires seven missiles
UN Security Council votes to impose sanctions over the tests
Oct 2006: N Korea threatens nuclear test

N Korean statement on test
N Korea nuclear timeline

Pyongyang did not give a date for its planned nuclear test, but North Korean diplomat Pak Myong-guk told the BBC the country had been forced to act because of Washington's stance.
"These kinds of threats of nuclear war and sanctions and pressure by the United States compel us to conduct a nuclear test," he said.
But there was little sympathy among the international community for Pyongyang's reasons.
Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament on Wednesday that Tokyo "simply could not accept if North Korea were to conduct a nuclear test".
South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan has suggested that a North Korean nuclear test could provoke a regional arms race and "could provide a pretext for Japan's nuclear armament".
South Korea also warned that it might abandon its long policy of pursuing engagement with the North if the tests went ahead.
Russia and various other European nations have also expressed concern, and a spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said a test would only provoke universal condemnation and do nothing towards strengthening North Korea's security.
But China said it would be better to revive the six-nation talks, which stalled almost a year ago.
"If the six-party talks cannot do anything about it, I don't think the Council is in a position to do it," China's envoy to the UN, Wang Guangya, told reporters.
Nuclear capabilities

North Korea is thought to have developed a handful of warheads but never before announced it would test one.
US and South Korean reports suggest the North has at least one underground test site.
The North appears increasingly angry at sanctions imposed by the US and other countries on North Korean businesses accused of arms sales and illegal activities.
In 2002, it restarted its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and forced two UN nuclear monitors to leave the country. It is unclear how far work has progressed at the plant since then.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CIGARS AND SEX BOOST CUBA LIVES !

Centenarians say cigars, sex and coffee boosted their life expectancy. Cuba's high number of centenarians say their longevity is down to laying off alcohol, but indulging in coffee, cigars and sex.
The findings are the result of a study that looked into the lives of 54 out of the more than 100 centenarians who live in Villa Clara province.
More than 60% of them had parents who also lived to be over 100.
Cuba, with a population of 11.2 million, has about 3,000 people who have lived for more than a century.
The results of the study were reported to the National Geriatrics and Social Work workshop in Santa Clara town, the newspaper Juventud Rebelde said.
In the study, the lives of the centenarians were found to be disciplined, but not austere.
None was alcoholic, and they said they loved coffee and cigars, which they consumed in large quantity.
They had a healthy interest in a number of areas, including sex, said Dr Nancy Nepomuceno, who carried out the study.
Most of the centenarians were mentally alert, had a good lifestyle and did manual labour in rural areas.
Almost all ate a diet which included fish, eggs, milk, white meat and vegetables, cooked with little salt and natural seasonings.
The life expectancy in Cuba is 76, but in Villa Clara province, where the study was carried out, it is 78.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

RAPE RISK SPIRALS FOR DARFUR WOMEN !

Rape risk spirals for Darfur women.
By Karen Allen BBC News,

Kutum Hawa was raped in broad daylight, the way it often happens here in northern Darfur.

Daily tasks, like collecting firewood, have become dangerous for womenClutching a baby to her breast, she relived her ordeal from Kassab camp which is sanctuary to more than 20,000 people displaced by Darfur's bloody conflict.
"I left the camp with two other girls, to get grass for the donkeys," she remembers.
"Along the way we met more than four men with guns. One of them grabbed my arms and another one grabbed my legs. They said they would kill me if I didn't co-operate."
Because of the alarming reports of rapes, I came to the camp which is a few dusty miles outside Kutum, some 130km (80 miles) north of the regional administrative capital of El Fashir.
Inhabitants are packed close together in makeshift huts to ensure safety in numbers.
But the numbers of women raped are on the rise since African Union troops were forced to abandon "firewood patrols", which once escorted them to the periphery of the camp to collect wood for fuel.
I found 21 women and girls have been raped in the camp in the past two weeks.
It is a staggering figure that gives some insight into the vulnerability of areas where peacekeepers are absent.

Hawa blames the government-backed Arab militias or Janjaweed that linger outside.
But, in truth, the rebel groups also account for their fair share of crime.
There are similar stories of rapes across Darfur, the figure rising in areas that are now hard to reach.
This is the territory where the Janjaweed - the Arab militia - roam, and 5km (3 miles) north of Kutum is where a handful of militia groups are now fighting for territory.
It is a civil war that, since the signing of a peace deal back in May, has grown far more complex.
Fragmenting conflict
With fighting between a growing number of rival rebel groups, some of them very small, Darfur now resembles Somalia - with warlords recruiting private militias to extort money, wield power and terrorise the local population.
The worsening security situation means that for AU troops, sections of this region are now totally out of bounds.

African Union troops are overstretched in Darfur.
Kutum's is a desolate landscape, and that sense of desolation is shared by the troops posted here.
Iron-rich sand, a vivid shade of orange, is all that meets the eye for miles around.
The AU soldiers are sent to patrol the airstrip or ride in convoys through the market, in an effort to be a "presence" and give some reassurance to people who call this home.
But, within minutes of us arriving by helicopter, another vehicle had been stolen from AU forces.
Taken at gunpoint from one of their contractors, it is the fifth vehicle lost to rebels since July.
For militia groups starting out, it is important to have assets and AU forces, along with humanitarian organisations, have a ready supply.
Monitoring a flaky peace in this environment of impunity does little for the African troops' morale.
As one soldier confided, on condition I withheld his name: "It's like trying to monitor the peace with one hand tied behind your back."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WHERE OLD AEROPLANES GO TO DIE !

Where old aeroplanes go to die.
By Chris Ledgard BBC News, Chateauroux, France.

Manufacturers are thinking now about the whole lifecycle of their products. It was 38 years ago this weekend that the 747, the "jumbo jet", first rolled out of a factory in Everett, Washington State.
It was famous for one thing - being big - and phrases like "the size of a jumbo" soon became commonplace. And it was big for a reason: Boeing, like everyone else, foresaw a surge in air travel in the 70s, and to meet a huge demand it helps to have a huge plane.
For many people, the jumbo ruled the skies, but time is now up for the early 747s.
The life span of most commercial aeroplanes is said to be around 30 years; and so, just as there was a 1970s explosion in aircraft production, now there's a big jump in the number of planes beyond use.
What's to be done with them? Aircraft contain toxic materials, so dumping them at a far-off airfield or throwing them in the sea is clearly unacceptable. But that's just what has been happening, according to Bill Glover, Boeing's director of environmental performance for commercial aeroplanes.
We're going to do it before they tell us to do it
Jim Toomey, Evergreen Air Centre"There were some specific instances - I won't say they were widespread by any means - of bits of planes found in waterways. That obviously raised a flag for everyone concerned."
Concerned by this and aware that getting rid of aeroplanes was only going to become more of an issue, Boeing set up the Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association (Afra). It's a union of recycling companies with two airports - Chateauroux in central France and Evergreen Air Centre in Arizona.
Separated scrap
A visit to Chateauroux is slightly unnerving. The airport is run by Martin Fraissignes (also the executive director of Afra), who estimates as many as 8,000 aircraft may be retired in the next decade.
As we examine a plane which has been sliced in half, he points out the thinness and apparent fragility of the shell and chuckles: "You're flying 900km per hour at 30,000ft... in this!"

Old planes are dismantled on Chateauroux's concrete surfaceOnly half-joking, he says it's good this is a freight airport which doesn't take passengers - the sight of these smashed up planes would do nothing for their nerves.
Heaps of metal and tangled wire litter Chateauroux's concrete surface on which all the dismantling and recycling takes place.
Parts that still work are taken away for re-sale. Metals are separated for re-use. But in years to come, plane recycling will become less of an exercise in processing scrap metal.
Increasingly, aircraft are being made of carbon fibre - the substance makes up 50% of Boeing's 787. And this, says the company's Bill Glover, presents a new recycling challenge.
"We realised that we needed to take some steps to address the ability to recycle that material at end of life. So we set out to find that technology." And how happy are Boeing with what they've found? "We're just tickled pink," says Glover.
Moulding change
At the Milled Carbon factory in West Bromwich you can see what's tickling him.
Here, carbon fibre is recycled in a process taking just 20 minutes. The quality of the end product is so good, say Boeing, they're confident it can go back into planes.
Milled Carbon is run by John Davidson. He's a founder member and director of Afra and gives an insight into why it was set up.

Thousands of aircraft will have to go this wayOn top of the concern about dumped planes and a desire to develop best practice, there was a political motive, he says.
Aircraft aren't covered by the End of Life Vehicles Regulations that pass the cost of dismantling cars onto manufacturers; but that could change and Afra, says Mr Davidson, is keen to pre-empt new laws:
"There are no set rules for doing this. So if we sit down and talk about what are the best ways - the most environmental and economical ways of doing this - and then present that as a set of rules for the legislators to work with, so much the better."
'Our business'
Another founding member of Afra agrees. Jim Toomey runs the Evergreen Air Centre in Arizona, the US counterpart of Chateauroux.
"Why is Afra going to be great? Number one, it's going to get the best practices established. Number two, it's going to keep us at the cutting edge of recycling technology. And number three, it's going to do it without government regulation and interference.
"We're going to do it before they tell us to do it, and we're going to come up with practices we can live with and which are better than maybe they can enforce because this is our business."

The latest planes use carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic compositesObservers of the aviation world won't be surprised to hear that while Boeing pursue the Afra project, Airbus have a similar scheme called Pamela - Process for Advanced Management of End of Life Aircraft.
The programme is also based in France, and Airbus says it differs from Afra in being a research tool rather than an industrialised process. Three-point-two million euros are being invested in this research. Some of the money has come from the European Union.
So both major manufacturers are clearly concerned about this issue. Each is drawing up a code of good practice and maybe environmental legislators will reward their efforts. And, after all those years of service, surely those jumbos deserve a decent end.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYA BEEFS UP SOMALIA SECURITY!

Fighters have been in control of the capital Mogadishu since June. Security in northern Kenya is being stepped up after last month's capture by the Union of Islamic Courts militia of the southern Somali port of Kismayo.
Islamic leaders have confirmed their occupation of several other towns closer to the Kenya border.
The UIC says it poses no security threat to neighbouring countries.
But senior Kenyan officers have completed anti-insurgency courses and officials have undergone anti-terrorist training, reports Kenya's media.
With residents on both sides of the border hailing from the same clans and sharing relations, there are now fears that the UIC's influence could extend far into Somali-inhabited north-east Kenya.
Kenya backs regional moves to send an African peacekeeping force into southern Somalia - which is opposed by the Islamic Courts militia.
Tour
Meanwhile, the United Nations special envoy to Somalia, Francois Fall, has arrived in Ethiopia at the start of a regional tour ahead of talks between the UIC and the transitional government due later this month.
Mr Fall is also due to visit Eritrea - which Ethiopia says is arming the Islamist militia - as well as Yemen, Sudan, Egypt and Uganda.

There are fears that the Islamist takeover of southern Somalia could turn into a full-scale regional war pulling in neighbouring countries and even involving the Americans, who accuse the Islamists of having links to al-Qaeda.
"One of the points of my mission is to ease tensions in the region because the Somali crisis has regional repercussions," Mr Fall told AFP news agency.
Kismayo, Somalia's third largest city, fell to the UIC without a shot being fired last month. Since then the towns of Afmadow, Bu'alle and Sakow have also fallen under their control.
A demonstration against foreign peacekeepers was held in Kismayo.
"The time for ambiguity and hypocrisy has ended. By God, we will wage a holy war against our enemies," senior Islamic official Mohammed Wali Sheik Ahmed told a crowd there.
The UIC has steadily increased its hold across southern Somalia since its fighters took control of the capital, Mogadishu, in June.
The country's transitional government is confined to a single town, Baidoa, and its president was the victim of a recent assassination attempt.
However, it remains recognised internationally as the sovereign authority of Somalia, which has not had an effective national government for 15 years.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUOTES

"BEFORE STRONGLY DESIRING ANYTHING,

WE SHOULD LOOK CAREFULLY INTO

THE HAPPINESS OF ITS PRESENT OWNER"!

~~ La Rochefoucauld ~~

IRAN PUSHES FRANCE NUCLEAR DEAL !

Mohammad Saeedi's plan would still see uranium enriched in Iran. Iran has suggested that France monitor its nuclear programme, by setting up a nuclear fuel consortium inside Iran.
The announcement was made by the deputy head of Iran's atomic energy agency. France said Iran's offers had to go through the EU's foreign policy chief.
But Javier Solana has concluded that Iran is unlikely to suspend nuclear enrichment, said a senior UK official.
Key world powers have agreed to seek a new UN Security Council resolution to impose sanctions, the official said.
The official stressed that this did not prevent further negotiation with Iran to try to persuade it of the benefit of complying with UN requirements to halt their nuclear programme.
Conflicting signals
The deputy director of Iran's atomic energy agency, Mohammad Saeedi, told French radio that a solution to the nuclear issue could be a consortium with France to enrich uranium in Iran.
"That way France... could control in a tangible way our enrichment activities," Mohammad Saeedi, deputy chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told France-Info radio.
Mr Saeedi presented this as a new idea, but more than a year ago Iran's president suggested foreign companies should enter into joint ventures with Iran to develop its nuclear power industry, says the BBC's Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison.
Iran has given out confusing and conflicting signals about how far it is willing to go in what many suspect may be a deliberate attempt to delay, says our correspondent.
France said it was taken by surprise by the latest Iranian move.
"There is a channel of dialogue with the Iranians" that must pass through Mr Solana, said Jean-Baptiste Mattei, a spokesman for the French foreign ministry.
"It's through this channel we await a response from the Iranians on the suspension" of uranium enrichment, as demanded by the UN Security Council, Mr Mattei told reporters.
Speaking in Helsinki, Mr Solana said the Iranian offer was "something we have to analyse in greater detail".
He described a telephone conversation with Iran's nuclear chief Ali Larijani as "cordial and constructive".
But he added: "We still have some elements that need to be agreed. We will continue talking."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DEATHS IN EASTERN D.R.CONGO ATTACK !

Fourteen people have been killed in fighting between rebels and government forces in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A local army commander said 12 militiamen and two soldiers were killed during an attack by the Ituri Patriotic Resistance Front (FRPI).
In July three rebel groups in Ituri agreed to a ceasefire ahead of the first round of presidential elections.
The second round is due to take place at the end of October.
United Nations officials had hoped the east would remain quiet ahead of the second round.
"The fighting was very serious and lasted seven hours," General Nsiona Mbuayama told Reuters news agency by phone from near Bunia.
"The militia fled in the end, taking some dead, but they left at least 12 bodies."
Some of the worst fighting during DR Congo's conflict has taken place in the north-eastern Ituri region, where local ethnic conflicts have been fuelled by clashes over minerals.
The FRPI militia, led by a man known as Cobra Matata, is one of several groups that has not joined the peace process. President Joseph Kabila and ex-rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba are contesting the run-off polls on 29 October.
The UN is spending $1bn a year on its 17,000-strong peacekeeping mission in DR Congo - the largest in the world.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IRON ORE DEAL 'BAD FOR LIBERIA'

Mittal employs more than 300,000 workers in 60 countries. The world's largest steel company, Mittal, has been accused of setting up a state within a state in one of Africa's poorest countries, Liberia.
Lobby group Global Witness say a $900m deal to mine iron ore allows Mittal to opt out of human rights and environmental laws and is inequitable.
Liberia is trying to recover from 14 years of conflict, which left the country in ruins.
The contract is being reviewed by Liberia's new, elected government.
Global Witness calls the deal a missed opportunity for Liberia.
Mittal declined to comment on the report.
Strong position
BBC developing world correspondent David Loyn says Liberia's economy will undoubtedly be strengthened and the contract will provide jobs.

President Johnson-Sirleaf is reviewing all contracts signed by the former governmentBut Global Witness say the contract means Mittal will be unaccountable to the democratic government and not give it high enough returns.
Mittal is planning to almost double in size in the next 25 years and half of the ore needed for that expansion is set to come from Liberia.
Global Witness Director Patrick Alley told the BBC's Network Africa programme that this put Liberia in a strong position to negotiate a better deal.
Under the contract, Mittal will be able to opt out of Liberian laws governing human rights or environmental standards and they will pay no tax for five years, in a deal which appears to be renewable by them.
When they do finally pay tax, it will be at a price set by them.
"There is no guarantee for the Liberian government of how much money they will actually receive," Mr Alley said.
The deal was signed last year by Liberia's interim power-sharing government, set up to end the long civil war.
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who took office in January, has said she will review all contracts signed by the interim government.
Global Witness says the first round of negotiations in September were inconclusive and are set to resume later this month.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GAMBLING FIRMS SEE SHARES PLUNGE!

US politicians are worried about gambling and consumer debt. Shares of online gaming firms have plunged after the US Congress passed a bill cracking down on internet gambling, threatening their business.
Shares in Partygaming were down 58% at close of London trade, while shares in 888 Holdings tumbled by 26%.
Sportingbet shares dropped by 64% while Empire Online shares slid by 25%.
Several firms have said they could stop taking bets from US customers if the bill is signed into law by President George W Bush in the next two weeks.
The law, part of a sustained clampdown on online gaming in the US, would make it illegal for banks and credit card firms to process online gaming payments from the US.
'Shadow industry'
Companies in the online gambling arena have faced a turbulent year as the threat of a US legal crackdown has depressed share prices.
I can understand investors will feel a bit of panic
Gigi Levy, 888 Holdings
See Partygaming shares
See Sportingbet shares
See Empire Online shares
Bosses from two firms, Sportingbet and Betonsports, were arrested on illegal gambling charges.
Most analysts expected there would not be enough time for Congress to pass a specific law against online gambling before next month's mid-term elections.
But lawmakers took the industry by surprise when an "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act" was eventually attached to an unrelated bill aimed at improving port security.
President Bush is thought unlikely to veto a bill which a senior Republican said was needed to regulate a "shadow industry".
'Clear implications'
Partygaming, 75% of whose revenues derive from the US, said the development was a "significant setback" for it and the whole industry.
One of the other firms affected said the move had come as a surprise.
It is quite clear that the bill as is has a very clear implication on the legality of our activities in the US
Gigi Levy, chief operating officer, 888 Holdings
See impact of gaming ban
"It has a specific criminal offence for taking these funds which is something completely new," Gigi Levy, chief operating officer of 888 Holdings, told the BBC.
"It is quite clear that the bill as is has a very clear implication on the legality of our activities in the US."
Mr Levy said his company was less dependent on the US market than it had been a year ago, having promoted itself in other countries.
"I can understand investors will feel a bit of panic," he said, while adding that he was "quite confident" that the firm would recover.

Gaming firms which have floated their shares over the past 18 months warned investors that their prospects could be affected by legal uncertainties in the US.
Analysts were divided over the extent of the likely damage to the online gaming business and its global ambitions.
One described it as "major shock" to the industry while another said it would remove the uncertainty hanging over the sector.
"I think there is still a lot of non-US business there and it is not as if these companies are going to disappear," said Richard Carter, an analyst at Numis Securities.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WARRANTS FOR DJIBOUTI JUDGE DEATH!

France has issued arrest warrants for two top Djibouti officials in connection with the mysterious death of a French judge in 1995.
Djibouti Chief Prosecutor Djama Souleiman and security chief Hassan Said are accused of interfering with witnesses in the investigation.
The burnt body of Bernard Borrel was found in just a T-shirt and underpants.
Djibouti authorities initially said his death was a suicide, but his widow says he was assassinated.
At the time of his death, Borrel was acting as a consultant to the Djibouti justice ministry.
France and Djibouti are close allies, with Djibouti hosting France's largest overseas military base, as well as a US anti-terror task force.
"The magistrates are showing that they are not afraid to seek the truth even if it is displeasing to the political authorities of France and Djibouti," said Olivier Morice, a lawyer for the Borrel family.
But Mr Said told the AFP news agency that Djibouti would not recognise the warrants.
"Djibouti will never bow to the wishes of the French justice in which my country no longer has confidence."
Earlier this year, Djibouti asked the International Court of Justice to rule that French investigators did not have the right to summon high-level witnesses, as they enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PROFILE : ZAMBIA'S CONTROVERSIAL ARCHBISHOP!

Profile: Zambia's controversial archbishop
By David Willey BBC News, Rome.

Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo wants celibacy to be optional for priests
I first met Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo when he was suddenly sacked by the Pope and summoned to Rome in 1983.
He was archbishop of Lusaka and the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Zambia.
Some of his fellow bishops were uneasy about the popularity of his faith healing activities.
He used to carry out exorcisms at the local football stadium, and was accused by some of being a "witch doctor".
He was sent to Milan for psychiatric tests and given a desk job inside the Vatican so that his superiors could keep an eye on him but he soon revived his faith healing activities, attracting many Italians to his prayer sessions.
Exorcisms
People used to write to him from all over Africa and from many other countries asking for his prayers for the sick.
I once attended one of his exorcism sessions in Rome which was attended by many thousands of believers.
I remember him telling me: "I am not a witch doctor. In Europe you have psychiatrists. In Africa we cast out evil spirits. Even Jesus did that."
But finally the Vatican clamped down on him and told him to restrict his faith healing activities.

Milingo attended a married priests conference with Maria in 2006Archbishop Milingo went off to America where he married an acupuncturist from South Korea, Maria Sung at a ceremony conducted by the Rev Sung Myung Moon of the Unification Church.
He came rushing back to Rome when summoned by the late Pope John Paul II to explain his actions.
He apparently decided to ask for forgiveness and at a news conference in a Rome Hotel said he was leaving his wife.
Catholic clergy are not allowed to marry.
He then spent some years under the supervision of a religious community near Rome, but was not very happy about the way he had been treated.
Now once again he is in hot water with the Vatican.
He returned to America and began to live again with the woman he married.
The new Pope has now formally excommunicated him, thrown him out of the Catholic Church, for ignoring church teaching and attempting earlier this month to consecrate four married priests in America as bishops.
Confrontation
But Archbishop Milingo refuses to accept his punishment, although he says he does not expect the Vatican to change its mind.

Milingo's marriage shocked the Catholic Church in 2001He is unlikely to come begging for forgiveness again to Rome.
The former Archbishop of Lusaka really believes that as an African he has some special gifts that he can offer to the Catholic Church.
He has written several books about his beliefs and at the age of 76 is unlikely to recant.
He will simply go his own way and ignore what Rome says.
And he says he now wants to spend the rest of his life back in Africa.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.N. 'MUST DROP' DARFUR PEACE FORCE!

African Union troops are overstretched in Darfur. Top UN officials say the world body must abandon efforts to pressure Sudan to accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur.
UN Sudan envoy Jan Pronk says the existing African Union force should instead be strengthened.
Sudan has always argued that the AU should remain in charge of peacekeeping in Darfur, rather than the UN.
Outgoing deputy secretary general Mark Malloch Brown has meanwhile said the US and UK's use of "megaphone diplomacy" is almost "counterproductive" in Sudan.
The cash-strapped and poorly equipped AU force currently stationed in Darfur was meant to leave at the end of the month but its mission was recently prolonged until the year's end.
We're shooting ourselves in the foot each time
UN Sudan envoy Jan PronkThe 7,000 AU troops have not been able to stop the conflict, which has worsened in recent months.
The UN Security Council has approved sending a larger, better equipped UN peacekeeping force to protect civilians and guarantee the security of aid workers.
But this was dependent on Sudan's approval, and Khartoum rejected the resolution.
'Crusade victims'
In an interview with the UK-based Independent newspaper, Mr Malloch Brown said UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush "need to get beyond this posturing and grandstanding".
He said the two leaders' "megaphone diplomacy" was not "plausible".

"Sudan doesn't see a united international community," Mr Malloch Brown said.
He said this meant Khartoum had come to regard itself as the latest front in the "war on terror" - "the victims of the next crusade after Iraq and Afghanistan".
Mr Malloch Brown said major Arab and African states, as well as China, should play a greater role in diplomacy over Darfur.
China and Russia, which have strong trade ties to Sudan, have blocked previous attempts to get a strong UN resolution on Darfur.
'More funds'
Mr Pronk has meanwhile told the Associated Press news agency he does not expect Khartoum to accept UN peacekeepers any time soon.
"The international community should instead push for the African Union's mission to be prolonged and reinforced," Mr Pronk is quoted as saying.
He said the AU force's mandate should be extended indefinitely to ensure relief continued to reach Darfur's refugees.
Mr Pronk is quoted as saying he was certain Khartoum would allow the AU force to stay on in Darfur.
World leaders, he said, must guarantee more funds for the AU so it can carry out necessary peacekeeping work.
"Otherwise, we're shooting ourselves in the foot each time," he said.
"Our first priority must be to help the people of Darfur."
More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003 in violence blamed on rebels and pro-government militia groups.
More than 2 million have been displaced by the fighting.

BBC NEWS REPORT.