EGYPT FORBIDS FEMALE CIRCUMCISION !

Egypt forbids female circumcision
By Magdi Abdelhadi BBC Arab Affairs Analyst.

Suzanne Mubarak campaigned to ban the practice. Egypt has announced that it is imposing a complete ban on female circumcision, also known as genital mutilation.
The announcement follows a public outcry after a young girl died during the operation.
A ban was introduced nearly 10 years ago but the practice continued to be allowed in exceptional circumstances.
A health ministry spokesman said no member of the medical profession would be allowed to perform the operation in public or private establishments.
Those who broke the law would be punished, the spokesman said.
Psychological violence
The new ban cancels out a provision that allowed the operation to be performed by qualified doctors in exceptional cases only.
But the death of a 12-year-old girl in Upper Egypt a few days ago triggered an angry barrage of appeals from human rights groups to both the government and the medical profession to act swiftly and stamp out the practice.
The doctor who carried out the operation has been arrested.
Egypt's first lady, Susanne Mubarak, has spoken out strongly against female circumcision, saying that it is a flagrant example of continued physical and psychological violence against children which must stop.
The country's top religious authorities also expressed unequivocal support for the ban.
The Grand Mufti and the head of the Coptic Church said female circumcision had no basis either in the Koran or in the Bible.
Recent studies have shown that some 90% of Egyptian women have been circumcised.
The practice is common among Muslim as well as Christian families in Egypt and other African countries, but is rare in the Arab world.
It is believed to be part of an ancient Egyptian rite of passage and is more common in rural areas.
Conservative families believe that circumcision is a way of protecting the girls' chastity.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'DEAL' ON N KOREA REACTOR CLOSURE !

Olli Heinonen said a timetable had to be agreed by the six nations. The UN's nuclear watchdog says it has reached an "understanding" with North Korea on how it will monitor the closure of a major nuclear reactor.
The head of an International Atomic Energy Agency team said the terms of a deal had been agreed "in principle".
Olli Heinonen said he would report to the IAEA board next week but any further terms had to be agreed by the five nations in talks with Pyongyang.
North Korea agreed in February to shut the plant in return for foreign aid.
The deal was agreed between North Korea and its partners in nuclear disarmament talks - the US, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
The Yongbyon nuclear site, about 100km (65 miles) from the capital, is the centrepiece of North Korea's nuclear programme.

N KOREA NUCLEAR DEAL

N Korea to "shut down and seal" Yongbyon reactor, then disable all nuclear facilities
In return, will be given 1m tons of heavy fuel oil
N Korea to invite IAEA back to monitor deal
Under earlier 2005 deal, N Korea agreed to end nuclear programme and return to non-proliferation treaty
N Korea's demand for light water reactor to be discussed at "appropriate time"

New tactics in nuclear dispute
Q&A: N Korea standoff
N Korea timeline

Mr Heinonen told the AP news agency in Pyongyang that the IAEA had agreed the terms of a deal to monitor Yongbyon's closure.
"We have concluded this understanding, what our monitoring and verification activities are in principle," he said.
He did not give any more details.
He is quoted as saying his team plans to submit its report to the IAEA board next week.
However, he said, the ultimate timing of the reactor's closure would have to be agreed by the six nations involved in the disarmament talks.
"This is for the six parties to decide. You have to ask them the time scale," he is quoted as saying.
'Active obligations'
Mr Heinonen earlier said his team was "satisfied" with a tour of the Yongbyon reactor site.
"We were able to see all of the places we wanted to see. I'm satisfied with the inspection," Japan's Kyodo News agency quoted Mr Heinonen as saying.
"The North Korea side has been extremely co-operative," he said at the conclusion of the two-day inspection.
Pyongyang invited the four-member delegation to discuss details of the closure of the reactor under an international deal agreed in February.
Speaking on Thursday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she hoped for swift action.
"We hope for now rapid progress given the beginning, we believe, of the North Korean efforts to meet their initial action obligations," she said.
Monitoring officials were expelled from Yongbyon in December 2002, after which the reactor went into operation, allegedly producing enough plutonium for up to 12 nuclear devices.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IVORIANS MOURN ROYAL KILLED IN IRAQ !

Ivorians mourn royal killed in Iraq
By James Copnall BBC News, Abidjan.

Firmin Emolo, to be buried on Saturday, is one of the most unusual casualties of the war in Iraq.

Specialist Emolo was fondly remembered by his comrades. Specialist Emolo, a member of the 82nd airborne division, was killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) in April - just like hundreds of other US soldiers.
But Emolo's origins, as his name suggests, were not in Detroit or San Francisco, but in Ivory Coast. The 33 year old was a close cousin of Nanan Boa Kouassi III, king of the Agni ethnic group in the east of the West African country.

So how did a member of an Ivorian royal family end his days as a US soldier?

Paratroopers he served with remember him as always vigilant in his duties, one of the most physically fit soldiers, extremely proud to be in the army -Major Gen David T Zabecki.
"Like many of our young men, he went to America to study," explains family friend and local member of parliament Boa Thiemele Edjampan.
"Then he married an American, got American nationality, and joined the military."
Unusually, the US military flew Specialist Emolo's remains back to Ivory Coast, so he could be buried in his home town of Abengourou.
Emolo was not well known in Ivory Coast, but some Ivorians have been surprised to learn that one of their countrymen died in Iraq.
'Proud'
US Major Gen David T Zabecki accompanied the body as it arrived at Abidjan airport and paid tribute to the Ivorian-American soldier.
"As a soldier Specialist Emolo was one of the best.
I will always remember his smile, he had a beautiful smile"-Sabine Emolo.

Other paratroopers he served with remember him as always vigilant in his duties, one of the most physically fit soldiers, extremely proud to be in the army and even prouder of becoming an American citizen."
US soldiers in crisp green uniforms carried his coffin onto a plinth bearing an Ivorian flag, a potent symbol of the young man's dual loyalties.
Some 100 friends and family members wept at the airport gathering, as trumpets played in his honour.
Sabine Emolo, Firmin's sister, spoke, in a voice that trembled slightly with emotion, of the money Firmin sent home to his family, and his pride in being a soldier.
"I can't regret him joining the army," she told the BBC.
"I can only regret that he went so soon."
Dog tags
She insisted that he should be buried in Ivory Coast, a decision the king is thought to have approved of wholeheartedly.
The king lead the tributes to his relative in the death notices in the local newspapers.
"The king is a very important man in Abengourou and throughout all of Ivory Coast," says Mr Thiemele Edjampan.
"Even in the current political situation, when the king says something it is very important, because it is always for peace and reconciliation."
Wearing a T-shirt with a photo of her brother, and his military dog tags around her neck, Sabine said she would never forget him.
"I will always remember his smile, he had a beautiful smile."
Firmin Emolo's great objectives in life were to become American, and serve in the military.
He achieved them both, but he didn't live long enough to enjoy the achievement.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOMALI PM WANTS UN PEACEKEEPERS !

Mr Ghedi says the government is committed to peace talks. The prime minister of war-torn Somalia has asked for UN peacekeepers to take over from the African Union mission.
"Failure to act at this critical period will be very costly in the future," Ali Mohamed Ghedi told the UN Security Council, AP news agency reports.
But diplomats say council members were cautious about the proposal, wanting first to see progress through the reconciliation summit due next month.
Only 1,600 troops of a proposed 8,000-strong AU force are in Somalia.
There are deadly attacks on civilians, government officials and Ethiopian troops almost every day in the capital, Mogadishu.
Islamists and gunmen from the Hawiye clan - the largest in Mogadishu - are believed to be responsible.
Ethiopian troops are also in the country to back government troops.
Together they ousted the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), the Islamist group that controlled most of Somalia for six months last year, in December.
A national reconciliation conference has been delayed several times and Islamist leaders and a growing number of other Somali groups say they will not take part in any peace negotiations until the Ethiopians leave their country.
'Not fair'
The UK's UN ambassador said Emyr Jones Parry said the reconciliation conference was key to finding peace in Somalia.
"There's a window of opportunity to move forward on the political [front] and my worry is if that isn't grasped vigorously enough, the country will spiral down into further conflict and chaos," he told reporters.

Some 1,600 AU troops are in Mogadishu "We can only do so much. You can't put peacekeeping troops in if there's no peace to keep, that's the reality," he said.
Mr Ghedi said his government was fully committed to the reconciliation conference.
And he agreed with Mr Jones Parry that it was important to reinforce AU troops on the ground, but voiced his disappointment that UN troops were not in the offing.
"It's not fair to say: 'Make peace and I will come and keep it,'" he told reporters after the UN Security Council session.
Nigeria, Burundi and Ghana have all promised to contribute to the AU force which began its deployment in March with the arrival of some 1,600 Ugandan soldiers.
Last week, the authorities in Mogadishu ordered a night-time curfew in the capital in order to end a wave of violence.
The UN refugee agency say more than 3,500 people have fled the city this month amid an escalation of attacks.
It says only 123,000 of the estimated 401,000 civilians who fled the heavy fighting that raged in Mogadishu between February and May have returned to the capital.
Meanwhile, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf has ordered the release of 200 prisoners being held in the central jail in Mogadishu.
Central prison governor General Abdulahi Moallin Ali told the BBC he had received orders to free the prisoners, who had been rounded up after the transitional government took control of the capital at the end of last year.
No explanation has so far been offered for the decision.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

S.A.'S PRESS WELCOMES END OF STRIKE !

The four-week strike brought large parts of the country to a standstill. South African newspapers welcome the end of a four-week strike by the main trade unions, which closed most of the country's schools and hospitals. The strike was the biggest since the end of apartheid in 1994.
Some papers worry about the effect the bitter industrial dispute will have on relations between the unions and the African National Congress (ANC) government. Others voice concern at the heavy financial losses incurred by workers over the course of the strike.
A business daily says people's alienation from the political process contributed to the length of the dispute.

EDITORIAL IN THE SOWETAN
Hallelujah. The strike is over, public servants can get back to work and continue providing the services we all need so desperately... Serious socioeconomic problems should never again be turned into a stage for political posturing while the whole country is held to ransom.

EDITORIAL IN CAPE ARGUS
Government negotiators who made their 'final offer' last week have been taken to task for breaching the constitution of the public sector bargaining council, which prohibits ultimatums... Unions have been concerned that a political agenda has shaped the strategy and timing of the strike plan... For many of their members, the extra loss of income is a massive cost they cannot afford.

EDITORIAL IN THE MERCURY
Was the lengthy strike worth it for the workers, who are faced with the prospect of "no work, no pay"?... The union leaders, on the other hand, have hopefully learned a valuable lesson, which is that industrial action should not last for as long as this one did. The government, on the other hand, has been accused of trying to bulldoze its way during the wage negotiations. But that said, now is the time for the hard work to begin.

WILLIAM M GUMEDE IN BUSINESS DAY
It is because people are excluded from the policy-making process that the public service strike has gone on for so long. It is why sporadic community protests over provincial borders that were unilaterally drawn up have gone from strength to strength. Since the Africa National Congress (ANC) party is so dominant and the opposition parties so irrelevant, a lack of democracy within the ANC and weak democratic institutions outside it will become a brake on future economic growth and reduce the quality of our democracy.

EDITORIAL IN THE CITIZEN
Nevertheless, the strike exposed deep dissatisfaction within the teaching profession which the government ignores at its peril. But we wonder whether the violent behaviour of some strikers - tearing up exam scripts and threatening private schools - will not permanently undermine the status of teachers... Some healing lessons will need to be placed on timetables when schools reopen.

BBC Monitoring selects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KAZAKH HIV MEDICS FOUND GUILTY !

Not all of the accused were given jail sentences. A court in the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan has found 21 medical workers guilty of causing an HIV outbreak which has so far killed 10 children.
At least 119 children and babies contracted the virus after receiving treatment in hospitals in Shymkent.
The judge said that the accused had acted recklessly, and that corruption and malpractice led to the outbreak.
The HIV outbreak was first discovered last year, but the number of cases is still rising.
The night before the verdict, another child died. He was two years old.
This trial is over but the Shymkent HIV problem is not, says the BBC's Natalia Antelava in the town.
Unnecessary transfusions
The judge announced that all 21 medical workers on trial were guilty. But for each defendant he announced a different punishment.
Medical workers accused of trading illegal blood were sentenced to eight years in prison.
Several doctors were sentenced from three to five years.
But the former head of the regional health department and four of her deputies had their sentences suspended.
Mothers of the victims wailed and shouted as they heard that one woman, who many local people hold responsible for the outbreak, would not be jailed.
Many said that this was not the kind of justice they were hoping for, and added that they would appeal.
An investigation into the outbreak found that many children had unnecessary and often multiple blood transfusions.
Medical equipment was often not sterilised properly.
One boy, who is now aged two, contracted the virus after receiving a blood transfusion prescribed to treat pneumonia.
The prosecutors alleged that the doctors were selling blood to make money.
It is unclear why the suspected infected transfusions affected only children.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ITALIAN HELD OVER MADELEINE CASE !

Madeleine has been missing since 3 May. An Italian man has been arrested in southern Spain over the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, reports say.
Spain's El Pais newspaper says the man was arrested in Algeciras - a few hours drive from the Portuguese resort where Madeleine disappeared on 3 May.
The paper says a woman, who they believe could be the man's wife, was also arrested.
A spokesperson for the Spanish National Police says that, at this stage, they cannot confirm the information.

The Spanish interior ministry told the AFP news agency that the man was arrested after the authorities issued an international arrest warrant for him.
"Police are examining the possibility of a link" with the Madeleine case, the spokesman told AFP.
El Pais said the national police had arrested an Italian man and a woman at a property in Cadiz province, who they suspected could be linked to Madeleine's disappearance.
The newspaper's website said the operation started at about 0500 in a town near Algeciras in Cadiz province.

Officers from the specialist and violent crimes unit searched a property for several hours, according to a local resident.
But the police were being cautious and refusing to give details about the man arrested, said the website.
Portuguese Chief Inspector Olegario de Sousa told BBC News that he did not believe the arrests were directly connected to Madeleine's kidnapping.
He added that he could not confirm reports that the arrests were connected to charges of attempting to extort money from the McCanns.
'Hopes dashed'
A spokeswoman for the McCanns said the family were not commenting directly on the potential development.
"They will be looking to the Portuguese police to advise them on any developments.
"They treat everything fairly and they look to the Portuguese as to what is given more weight and what is given less weight," said the spokeswoman.
Madeleine's great uncle, Brian Kennedy, had not heard about the potential development in the investigation until he was contacted by the media.
He said the family was trying not to get its hopes up too much because they had so frequently been dashed.
The McCanns went to Spain last month to ask for assistance to help find Madeleine.
They think it is one of the places she might have been taken because of its proximity to Portugal.
Border controls were not put on alert for the first 12 hours of Madeleine's disappearance.
Madeleine was taken from her apartment as she slept in the Algarve village of Praia da Luz on 3 May.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYATTA RETURNS AS KANU LEADER !

Uhuru Kenyatta is the son of Kenya's first leader. The High Court in Kenya has reinstated Uhuru Kenyatta as chairman of the country's oldest party, the Kenya African National Union (Kanu).
This follows a fierce battle for control of the party between two rival camps, which culminated in a leadership coup last year.
Nicholas Biwott secured the Kanu leadership after his faction held elections in November 2006.
The party split over whether to join an opposition alliance.
Mr Biwott, a close ally of former President Daniel arap Moi, was opposed to Kanu joining the Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya (ODM).
The ODM-Kenya is set to announce a single candidate for this year's presidential elections on Friday.
However, Mr Kenyatta, the son of Kenya's first president, has not handed in his nomination papers to represent the opposition alliance. The deadline is Saturday 30 June.
There has been conflict within ODM on how to pick the torchbearer, with one camp supporting nomination through consensus and the other demanding that party delegates elect the candidate.
Although President Mwai Kibaki is yet to formally announce whether he is vying for a second term, he is widely expected to seek another term in office.
Kanu was in power for almost 40 years after independence in 1963, until President Kibaki defeated Mr Kenyatta in 2002 elections.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

UGANDAN VICTIM 'LEFT FOR DEAD' !

Tuesday 26 June is the UN's Day Against Torture. Twenty years since the UN convention against the use of torture came into force, a Ugandan victim of torture, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells the BBC how he was picked up in the capital, Kampala, by government security forces after being accused of robbery.
He said he was tortured in a so-called "safe house" for about eight days before he passed out and woke up in a military hospital. He remained in custody for 11 months until the case against him collapsed about three years ago.
Uganda's government, once hailed as a democratic model, is now increasingly being accused of repressive methods against its perceived enemies and criminal suspects.
But it says it is working the country's Human Rights Commission, which paid out $160,000 to torture victims last year, to ensure all reported cases of torture are dealt with.

There was a lot of torturing in that place. They would beat everyone there.
I don't think I will ever be the same again -Ugandan victim of torture.
They would use each and everything - tying, flat irons, pliers to remove fingernails...
They did it to me in my foot.
They pulled my toe nails out with pliers.
They used a hosepipe to push water in my ears.
My left ear drum was perforated and I am still suffering.
They beat me terribly.
In fact, I have got scars all over my left side.
And then, they left me for dead.
I don't think I will ever be the same again.
I don't think so because at times, the sores I have ooze with pus.
I use eye drops, swallow some tablets, get some injections...
But still, all my left side is not functioning like it should.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TURKISH GENERAL SEEKS IRAQ RAIDS !

Gen Buyukanit said a military offensive could inflict a blow on the PKK. The head of the Turkish armed forces has repeated his view that a military incursion into northern Iraq would help to defeat Kurdish rebels based there.
General Yasar Buyukanit told reporters at a news conference that the military needed guidelines from the government for any such cross-border operation.
Gen Buyukanit stressed the need for parliamentary approval for a serious incursion into northern Iraq.
The government says its priority is defeating rebels in Turkey itself.
BBC correspondents say attacks in Turkey by rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have increased recently, sometimes carried out by rebels based across the border in northern Iraq.
'Legal basis'
Gen Buyukanit's comments put pressure on Turkey's government to allow a military operation, just weeks before parliamentary polls in which security and terrorism issues will be high on the agenda.
"I have said that we need a cross-border operation and that this would bring benefits. I repeat this view now," he said.
"We have to conduct our fight on a legal basis. We cannot go beyond the laws," he added.
Turkey's parliament, now in recess ahead of the 22 July elections, would have to reconvene to authorise any serious cross-border military operation.
Political analysts say the generals are trying to portray the Islamist-rooted ruling AK Party as weak on terrorism.
AK, which denies any Islamist agenda, is widely expected to win re-election in July.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Reuters last week that military action would be taken if necessary.
But any incursion would strain relations with Washington and Iraq, which oppose unilateral Turkish action.
More than 30,000 people have been killed in fighting between security forces and rebels of the outlawed PKK since the group launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

UN ISSUES DESERTIFICATION WARNING !

Desertification could displace up to 50m people over the next decade. Tens of millions of people could be driven from their homes by encroaching deserts, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, a report says.
The study by the United Nations University suggests climate change is making desertification "the greatest environmental challenge of our times".
If action is not taken, the report warns that some 50 million people could be displaced within the next 10 years.
The study was produced by more than 200 experts from 25 countries.

See map of projected human impact on deserts

This report does not pull any punches, says BBC environment reporter Matt McGrath.
One third of the Earth's population - home to about two billion people - are potential victims of its creeping effect, it says.

Tree-planting schemes may put pressure on scarce water resources
"Desertification has emerged as an environmental crisis of global proportions, currently affecting an estimated 100 to 200 million people, and threatening the lives and livelihoods of a much larger number," the study said.
The overexploitation of land and unsustainable irrigation practices are making matters worse, while climate change is also a major factor degrading the soil, it says.

READ THE REPORT IN FULL
Re-thinking Policies to Cope with Desertification(1.75MB)
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Download the reader here

People displaced by desertification put new strains on natural resources and on other societies nearby and threaten international instability, the study adds.
"There is a chain reaction. It leads to social turmoil," said Zafaar Adeel, the study's lead author and head of the UN University's International Network on Water, Environment and Health.
The largest area affected was probably sub-Saharan Africa, where people are moving to northern Africa or to Europe, while the second area is the former Soviet republics in central Asia, he added.
Way forward
The UN report suggests that new farming practices, such as encouraging forests in dryland areas, were simple measures that could remove more carbon from the atmosphere and also prevent the spread of deserts.
"It says to dryland dwellers we need to provide alternative livelihoods - not the traditional cropping based on irrigation, cattle farming, etcetera - but rather introduce more innovative livelihoods which don't put pressure on the natural resources," Mr Adeel said.
"Things like ecotourism or using solar energy to create other activities."
Some countries like China have embarked on tree-planting programmes to stem the advance of deserts.
But according to the author, in some cases the trees being planted needed large amounts of water, putting even more pressure on scarce resources.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHRISTIANS PROTEST OVER ERITREA !

Christians protest over Eritrea.
By Martin Plaut BBC Africa analyst.

A service has been held in London to protest against the treatment of the head of the Eritrean orthodox church.
Patriarch Antonious is the head of two million orthodox believers and is a high-profile prisoner of conscience.
He was removed from his position earlier this year, after criticising the Eritrean government for interference in church activities.
Amnesty International says Eritrea displays one of the most extreme forms of religious persecution in the world.
The meeting heard that this was only the latest example of religious repression.
Health fears
In 1994, followers of Jehovah's Witness - who refused military service on religious grounds - were stripped of all rights, including citizenship.
Then in 2002 the crackdown was extended to the evangelical churches.
And now the patriarch of the orthodox church, to which most Eritrean Christians belong, has been removed from his post and imprisoned after objecting to Eritrean government attempts to stop a bible-reading group.
The head of the British Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Seraphim, told the BBC he was very worried about his health.
"He's 79. He is known to have diabetes. And he's been kept in a darkened room in his residence and he complained on one occasion he was unable to even read his Bible."
Eritrea has a history of considerable religious tolerance between its Muslim and Christian communities, but the government comes from a Marxist-Leninist tradition.
The church says it believes quiet pressure has failed, and it will now take the issue of Patriarch Antonios to the British government.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOUTH AFRICA UNIONS CALL OFF STRIKE !

The military has been helping out in South African hospitals. South Africa's main trade unions have ended their four-week strike, which has closed most of the country's schools and hospitals.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has decided to accept the government's offer of a 7.5% pay rise - they had demanded 9%.
The government had originally offered 6%, while the unions had wanted 12%.
Correspondents say it has been the biggest strike since the end of apartheid in 1994.
Cosatu said the strike, which involved hundreds of thousands of people, had been a "historic turning point in the lives of public-sector workers".
"This combination of unity and militancy means that never again will the employer dare to treat us with the callous indifference they have displayed in the past and during this dispute, until they were forced to compromise when confronted by the militancy and determination of their workforce," it said.
Before the decision was announced, one union official told the Business Day newspaper that teachers wanted to end the strike, as school holidays had started.

In pictures: SA strike
Strike voices
Unions flex their muscles

But a Cosatu statement said that teaching unions were not prepared to sign the deal and would continue talks with the government.
On Monday, two independent unions pulled out of the strike, accusing Cosatu of being "greedy and opportunistic", saying the 7.5% offer was "fantastic".
The labour movement accuses the government of promoting big business at the expenses of poor South Africans.
BBC correspondent in Johannesburg Peter Biles says the strike has been hugely disruptive and many workers are beginning to feel the impact caused by the loss of wages.
Economists estimate that the cost to South Africa's economy could be as much as 3bn rand ($418m).
Inflation fears and resulting interest rate hikes have prompted the central bank to warn against large wage increases.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

VILLAGE DISPUTES STORY OF DEADLY ATTACK !

The US military said the dead were al-Qaeda gunmen. A group of villagers in Iraq is bitterly disputing the US account of a deadly air attack on 22 June, in the latest example of the confusion surrounding the reporting of combat incidents there. The BBC's Jim Muir investigates:

On 22 June the US military announced that its attack helicopters, armed with missiles, engaged and killed 17 al-Qaeda gunmen who had been trying to infiltrate the village of al-Khalis, north of Baquba, where operation "Arrowhead Ripper" had been under way for the previous three days.
The item was duly carried by international news agencies and received widespread coverage, including on the BBC News website.
But villagers in largely-Shia al-Khalis say that those who died had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. They say they were local village guards trying to protect the township from exactly the kind of attack by insurgents the US military says it foiled.
The incident highlights the problems the news media face in verifying such combat incidents in remote areas.

'Al-Qaeda gunmen' killed

They say that of 16 guards, 11 were killed and five others injured - two of them seriously - when US helicopters fired rockets at them and then strafed them with heavy machinegun fire.
Minutes before the attack, they had been co-operating with an Iraqi police unit raiding a suspected insurgent hideout, the villagers said.
They added that the guards, lightly armed with the AK47 assault rifles that are a feature of practically every home in Iraq, were essentially a local neighbourhood watch paid by the village to monitor the dangerous insurgent-ridden area to the immediate south-west at Arab Shawkeh and Hibhib, where the al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed a year ago.
US account
Here is the version of the incident issued by the US-led Multinational Forces on 22 June:
"Coalition Forces attack helicopters engaged and killed 17 al-Qaeda gunmen southwest of Khalis, Friday.
"Iraqi police were conducting security operations in and around the village when Coalition attack helicopters from the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade and ground forces from 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, observed more than 15 armed men attempting to circumvent the IPs and infiltrate the village.
"The attack helicopters, armed with missiles, engaged and killed 17 al-Qaeda gunmen and destroyed the vehicle they were using."

Iraqi version
This is the story as told to the BBC by several local villagers:
At around 2am on Friday morning, the village guards were at their usual base in an unfinished building on the edge of the Hayy al-Junoud quarter about 2km (1.2 miles) south-west of al-Khalis village centre.

THE VICTIMS
Jassem Khalil, the Mukhtar of Hayy al-Junoud
Abbas Khalil, his brother
Ali Khalil, his other brother
Kamal Hadi, their cousin
Shaker Adnan
Abdul Wahhab Ibrahim
Mohammad al-Zubaie
Abbas Muzhir Fadhel
Jamal Hussein Alwan
Abdul Hussein Abdullah
Ali Jawad Kadhem

They were surprised when a convoy of Iraqi police suddenly turned up, headed by the commander of the Khalis emergency squad, Col Hussein Kadhim.
The police told them they were about to raid a suspect house in nearby al-Akrad Street and asked for the village mukhtar (headman) to accompany them.
The Mukhtar of Hayy al-Junoud, Jassem Khalil, and his brothers Abbas and Ali, went with the police. Some of the other guards, about half altogether, also offered to go along.
The raid turned out to be a false alarm - there was nothing suspicious at the house in question.
But as the police and guards began to return, the police received an urgent radio message from the Joint Operations Centre saying that US helicopters were about to raid the area.
The police disappeared immediately. But before the guards could even get to their own car, they were hit by a rocket strike by American helicopters which suddenly appeared overhead.
So too were the remainder of the guards, still at their base in the unfinished building nearby.

The rocket attacks were followed by a prolonged period of strafing by heavy machinegun fire from the helicopters.
"It was like a battlefront, but with the fire going only in one direction," said a local witness. "There was no return fire".
When frightened villagers ventured out at first light, they found 11 of the village guards dead, some of their bodies cut into small pieces by the munitions used against them.
Those who survived with injuries were Bashir (an off-duty policeman), Alwan Hussein, Abu Ra'id, Salam, and Saif Khalil, the son of Abbas Khalil who died.
Questions raised
The families of those who died are seeking a meeting with the head of the al-Khalis town council. They are incensed that the village guards should be described as "al-Qaeda gunmen".
All but two of those killed were Shia and they have been buried at Najaf. The other two who were from the local minority Sunni community.
A spokesman for the US-led Multinational Forces said they were investigating the incident in the light of the allegations.
If the villagers' account is true, the incident would raise many questions, including:
On what basis did the US helicopters launch their attack that night?
How many other coalition reports of successes against "al-Qaeda fighters" are based on similar mistakes, especially when powerful remote weaponry is used?
The incident also highlights the problems the news media face in verifying such combat incidents in remote areas where communications are disrupted, where direct independent access is impossible because of the many lethal dangers they would face, and where only the official military version of events is available.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DARFUR TESTS NEW FRENCH RESOLVE !

Darfur tests new French resolve
By Jonah Fisher BBC News, Paris.

Millions of people have been displaced by the fighting in Darfur. After appearing to care little about Darfur for the last four years - five weeks of the Sarkozy presidency have thrust France into the centre of efforts to resolve the conflict.
"Silence kills," Nicholas Sarkozy told a day long conference in Paris. "We want to mobilise the international community to say that's enough."
More than two million people have been displaced from their homes since the conflict began - and it's thought that at least 200,000 people have been killed.
Eighteen countries were represented at the talks, as well as the heads of the United Nations and the Arab League.
More noticeable through were the absentees.
None of the conflict's protagonists - Sudan, Chad or the Darfur rebels - were invited.
And most surprising of all, the African Union, the region's current peacekeepers, declined to attend.

African Union peacekeepers have been unable to end the fighting.
Evidently not everyone is thrilled about France's sudden wish to get involved.
Two weeks ago, Sudan gave it's approval for a joint United Nations-African Union force to be deployed into Darfur.
If it was expecting a few verbal pats on the back it was to be disappointed.
"We can no longer afford a situation in Darfur in which agreements are made and then not kept," US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said.
"The United States will continue to argue that there must be consequences for Sudan if it does not live up to the obligations that it has undertaken."
There is still plenty of scope for Sudan to delay the deployment.

The ball is actually in the court of the UN - Lam Akol, Sudan foreign minister.
The make-up of the hybrid African Union-United Nations force has yet to be finalised - with details such as the exact composition of the force unresolved.
It is not even the first time that Sudan has agreed to this force. In November last year they gave it their approval before proceeding to reject almost every detail that was proposed.
"We are ready to have the force deployed at any time - the matter is on the other side," Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol told the BBC.
"The ball is actually in the court of the United Nations to expedite the operation."
But despite Mr Akol's lofty title - his thoughts are rarely the final word on Khartoum's policy.
It is the ministers controlling Sudan's security apparatus who have the real power - and they are likely to assert their views only when the actual mechanics of troop deployment are discussed.
Roadmap to nowhere?
Even with Sudan's complete acquiescence it is likely to be 2008 before most of the troops arrive.
Three thousand UN troops are expected this autumn followed by up to 10,000 the following year.
"It's cumbersome," said UN special envoy for Darfur, Jan Eliasson. "But the most pressing issue is that we establish a political process so that when the peacekeepers do arrive there is actually a peace for them to keep."
Mr Eliasson has made four trips to Sudan this year - and has drawn up a roadmap towards planned negotiations in August.
So far there has been no indication that anyone else is using the same map.
One of the biggest hurdles is the state of Darfur's rebel movements.
When the conflict started in 2003 there were just two rebel groups. Now there are at least 10.
Rival commanders with widely ranging aspirations now control most of Darfur's arid countryside.
For peace talks to take place - the rebels will have to unite around a negotiating team and some common objectives.
Up until now there has been little sign of that taking place. The Sudanese government faces a crisis of credibility.
It signed a peace agreement with one rebel faction in May 2006 but has implemented few of its provisions.
If a lasting peace deal is to be made Khartoum will have to convince whoever they negotiate with that they are genuinely committed to sharing wealth and power.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CIA DETAILS COLD WAR SKULDUGGERY !

The CIA reveals it spied on opponents of the Vietnam war. The CIA has made public the details of its illicit Cold-War-era activities, including spy plots, assassination attempts and experiments with drugs.
Documents declassified on its website include plans to use Mafia help to kill Cuba's Communist leader Fidel Castro.
They reveal the extent to which the CIA spied on US journalists and dissidents and on the Soviet Union.
They are part of a report commissioned by a former CIA chief in 1973 in response to the Watergate scandal.
Press reports from the period had implicated the CIA in the burglary which took place at Democratic Party offices at the Watergate Hotel.
A newspaper investigation into the burglary eventually led to the downfall of the Republican President, Richard Nixon.
The spy agency's former director, James Schlesinger, responded by ordering all "senior operating officials" to report on all activities, past and present, "which might be construed to be outside the legislative charter of this agency".
The CIA is barred by law from conducting spy activities within the US.
'Unflattering history'
CIA officers in service in 1973 largely used their memory to compile the 693-page report for Mr Schlesinger.
The abuses and illicit activities listed within date from the 1950s to the 1970s.

The CIA tried to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro (left)The documents were initially referred to as "skeletons" by Mr Schlesinger's successor at the CIA, William Colby. They were later nicknamed the "family jewels" and have been referred to as such ever since.
Much of the information contained within them was already known.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed in the New York Times newspaper in 1974 that the CIA had been spying on anti-war dissidents and civil rights campaigners.
However, the documents declassified on Tuesday provide a more comprehensive accounts of events.
Last week, CIA chief Michael Hayden announced the decision to declassify the records, saying the documents were "unflattering but part of CIA history".
The documents detail assassination plots, domestic spying, wiretapping, and kidnapping.
The incidents include:
the confinement of a Soviet KGB defector, Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko, in the mid-1960s
attempts to use a suspected Mafia mobster, Johnny Roselli, in a plot to assassinate Cuba's Fidel Castro
the wiretapping and surveillance of journalists, including in 1972 columnist Jack Anderson who broke a string of scandals
Among the documents is a request in 1972 for someone "who was accomplished at picking locks" who might be retiring or resigning from the agency.
'Soviet succession'
Another set of documents, also just declassified, is known as the CAESAR-POLO-ESAU papers.
This is an 11,000-page analysis, done between 1953 and 1973, on Soviet and Chinese internal politics and Sino-Soviet relations.
Among the papers are an analysis of the Soviet leadership completed some four months after the death of Josef Stalin in 1953.
The CIA's report, stamped "Top Secret", said the Soviets carried out a hasty shake-up of top posts to head off possible "panic and disarray" following Stalin's death.
"It is strongly suggested that the leaders in this moment of crisis had moved swiftly to show their unity and to gird themselves for any battle that might be coming from inside and out," the CIA report said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BOMB KILLS SOMALI CLEANING WOMEN !

Deadly attacks occur almost daily in Mogadishu. A huge roadside bomb has gone off in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing at least five people.
The bomb was hidden under a pile of rubbish in the main Bakara market and four of those killed were women cleaning the streets, witnesses say.
The bomb follows a fierce gun battle between heavily armed insurgents and police in the north-east of the city.
A BBC correspondent says residents feel that last week's dusk-to-dawn curfew has failed to curb the violence.
The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says that hundreds of police officers have sealed off the area after the market bomb.
"It was an ugly scene with blood everywhere. I could not count the dead, I just glanced at once and ran away for my life," businesswoman Hawa Jama told Reuters news agency.
Food aid deaths
The gun battle was sparked by an ambush on a police patrol in north-eastern Mogadishu - seen as an insurgent stronghold.
Our reporter says that most of the area's residents have fled.
This is the first time there have been face-to-face clashes since the curfew was imposed last week.

Bakara market is normally the busiest in the capital. There are no details yet of any casualties from the fighting, in which insurgents used rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns.
The insurgents are believed to be Islamist fighters and gunmen from the Hawiye clan - the largest in Mogadishu.
On Monday, at least three people were killed after security forces opened fire at a crowd demanding food aid in Mogadishu.
Hundreds of people tried to storm a police station where food was being handed out, they say.
"Police opened fire and killed five people," said Abdiqadir Mohamed Ilbir, as he wept for his brother, who was among the dead.
Meanwhile, the 1,600 Ugandan peacekeepers in Somalia have reportedly been paid.
They had been unhappy at a delay in their payments since they were deployed as the first contingent of a proposed 8,000-strong African Union force.
Somalia has been racked by violence since it last had a government in 1991.
Ethiopian and government troops ousted the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), the Islamist group that controlled most of Somalia for six months last year, in December.
The government is planning a national reconciliation conference next month but Islamist leaders and a growing number of other Somali groups say they will not take part in any peace negotiations until the Ethiopians leave their country.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CAR CHILDREN 'SEIZED FOR RANSOM !

CAR refugees are jumping from the frying pan into the fire of Sudan. Armed gangs are seizing children for ransom payments in the lawless north of the Central African Republic, human rights body Amnesty International says.
Some parents have paid up to $4,000 for their children to be freed - other minors have been killed, Amnesty says.
The region is a "free-for-all" for rebels, soldiers and armed bandits, a researcher who has just returned says.
CAR has accused neighbouring Sudan of backing the rebels, with attacks coming from Darfur. Sudan denies the charges.
Some families have had their children kidnapped seven times, says Amnesty researcher Godfrey Byaruhanga.
'Ridiculous'
"News is clearly spreading to criminal elements throughout the region that they can have free rein in northern CAR, as there is an almost total absence of any authority," he said.
Civilians were fleeing "from the frying pan into the fire" by heading to Chad and Sudan, he said.

Map of Darfur conflict zones

More than 280,000 people have fled their homes in the past year.
Rebels killed anyone who refused to fight with them, while government soldiers killed suspected rebel sympathisers, he said.
Presidential spokesman Cyriaque Gonda denied that the army was killing civilians.
"This is not true, this is a ridiculous accusation and those accusations not founded at all," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
"What the government troops are doing is first of all to protect themselves when they are being attacked and to go after the rebels who are keeping the population under terror."
Mr Byaruhanga said the government was failing to protect the population and only controlled the capital, Bangui.
Mr Gonda renewed a call for the UN to send peacekeepers - an idea also supported by Mr Byaruhanga.
"This situation is too dangerous and simply cannot wait," he said.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

'INSULT ESSAY' WRITERS ARE GUILTY !

President Toure was hailed after ending military dictatorship. Five journalists and a teacher have been found guilty of insulting Mali's president over a school essay. All were given suspended jail terms at a closed door trial in the capital.
Teacher Bassirou Kassim Minta asked his final-year secondary school class to write a humorous essay about the mistress of a fictional African leader.
He was arrested, along with a journalist who wrote about the task. The arrests have been condemned by press freedom organisations.
The BBC's Salif Sanogo in Bamako says that about 300 people turned up for the trial before being told they were barred.
He says that security was tight around the court.
Defence lawyers boycotted the proceedings.
"We want to show by our absence that the freedom of the press is being violated in Mali," defence lawyer Mamadou Gakou told the AFP news agency.
'Another age'
Journalist Seydina Oumar Diarra wrote an article, called The Mistress of the President of the Republic, in the Info-Matin newspaper about the essay.
Police then arrested him and Mr Minta.
They were given suspended sentences of eight months each.

Mali leader's life in pictures

Following the detentions, the article was reprinted in other newspapers, leading to the arrest of four more journalists and editors.
They were given suspended three month sentences as accomplices.
After the trial, all six were taken back to prison to carry out the formalities before being freed.
Reporters Without Borders last week urged President Amadou Toumani Toure to release those detained.
"The result of a prosecutor's absurd zeal, these two arrests are worthy of another age and are clearly an abuse of authority," the press freedom group said.
"Mali was hailed as an example of democracy in Africa, but as this case goes from bad to worse, it is looking more and more like an authoritarian regime, crippled by taboos and dangerous for those who show a lack of respect for an untouchable president."
Earlier this month, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) urged African countries to scrap their laws on insulting leaders at a congress in South Africa.
Its declaration said such laws, which are in force in 48 out of 53 African countries, were "the greatest scourge" of press freedom on the continent.
President Toure was last month re-elected for a second five-year term in first-round presidential elections.
International monitors said the vote appeared to have gone smoothly, but opposition candidates alleged fraud.
Mr Toure, known as "ATT", was hailed after ending Mali's military dictatorship with a coup 16 years ago and then stepping down after organising elections.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOUTH AFRICA UNIONS SPLIT OVER STRIKE !

The military has been helping out in South African hospitals. Two of South Africa's independent unions have broken ranks with the main labour movement, calling off their three-week old strike.
Their leaders accused unions affiliated with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) of being "greedy and opportunistic".
This follows Cosatu's rejection of a pay offer worth 7.5%.
The breakaway unions from the education and health sectors represent about 25% of civil servants in Cosatu.
'Hostage'
Independent teachers' union Naptosa decided to "suspend participation in the strike... in the interests of our children." said its leader Henry Hendrick.
Cosatu was holding other workers "hostage", said President of the Health and Other Services Personnel Trade Union of South Africa, Hospersa, Gavin Moultrie, who described the government's offer as "fantastic".

In pictures: SA strike

Strike voices

Workers had originally wanted a 12% increase.
Cosatu has indicated they are still holding out for at least a 9% increase.
The labour movement accuses the government of promoting big business at the expenses of poor South Africans.
BBC correspondent in Johannesburg Peter Biles says the strike has been hugely disruptive and many workers are beginning to feel the impact caused by the loss of wages.
The strike, entering its fourth week, has shut many schools and has left many hospitals reliant on army medical staff.
Economists estimate that the cost to South Africa's economy could be as much as 3 billion rand ($418 million).
Inflation fears and resulting interest rate hikes have prompted the central bank to warn against large wage increases.
The government's offer will remain on the table for another month, says Public Services and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE PROPOSES BLACK-RUN FIRMS !

Robert Mugabe aims to give more ownership to indigenous people. President Robert Mugabe's government has published a bill to move majority control of "public companies and any other business" to black Zimbabweans.
The goal is to ensure at least a 51% shareholding by indigenous black people in the majority of businesses.
Critics say it could hurt investor confidence in Zimbabwe, suffering from the world's highest inflation and food, fuel and foreign currency shortages.
Now the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Bill will go to parliament.
'Financing of acquisitions'
It is expected to back the bill, which stipulates that no company restructuring, merger or acquisition can be approved unless 51% of the firm goes to indigenous Zimbabweans.
The empowerment bill says that "indigenous Zimbabwean" is anyone disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on race grounds before independence in 1980.
It also provides for the establishment of an empowerment fund which will offer assistance to the "financing of share acquisitions" from the public-owned firms or assist in "management buy-ins and buy-outs."
And all government departments and statutory bodies will be asked to obtain 51% of their goods and services from businesses in which controlling interest is held by indigenous Zimbabweans.
Dual listings
"For a start, it's not very clear how they are going to implement this, but going by their record it could be another chaotic and disastrous exercise," Zimbabwean economic consultant John Robertson told Reuters news agency.
"Those [companies] already here are likely to hold back on any expansion programmes, while possible new foreign investors are likely to also hold back to watch how this is going to work."
Some firms dually listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and London Securities Exchange firms include Old Mutual, NMB bank and Hwange.
Multi-national firms that may be affected by the new policy include Barclays Bank, Bindura Nickel Corporation and miner Rio Zim.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

POISONED IVORIANS REJECT PAYOUT !

Victims suffered headaches, vomiting and breathing difficulties. Victims of last year's toxic waste scandal in Ivory Coast have rejected the government's offer of compensation.
The families of 16 people who died when the waste was dumped in Abidjan were offered $200,000 (£100,000) each, with smaller sums to thousands who fell ill.
Victims' groups dismissed the offer as cynical. The amount is less than half the total allocated to the government.
The Dutch company which chartered the vessel said it would pay $198m (£102m) for a clean-up and investigation.
The oil-trading group Trafigura agreed to pay the money in February but said it was not liable for dumping the waste.
'Huge tension'
Several victims' associations complained they had not been consulted about the pay scheme, announced by President Laurent Gbagbo on Friday.
The BBC's James Copnall in Abidjan says the victims are incensed that those who were made sick by the toxic waste will receive only $408.
Instead of being incinerated the waste was dumped.
Aime, one of the thousands of victims, said the payout was not enough to cover the health costs over a prolonged period.
"Many efforts have been made by the victims to stay alive, so the government must recognise the efforts," she told the BBC.
Under the scheme the families of the dead were allocated $200,000 each, the 75 people who were hospitalised about $4,000 and $408 for those who fell ill.
However, about two-thirds of the compensation payments will be made to the state and local government to improve health and sanitary facilities and reimburse a clean-up operation.
One angry victim said he could not believe money he felt he should have received would go to what he called "development projects".
Our correspondent says the toxic waste scandal has been a source of huge tension in Ivory Coast and that looks set to continue for some time.
Local company
Trafigura first attempted to discharge the chemical slops from one of its tankers, the Probo Koala, in the Dutch port of Amsterdam in early August 2006.
But the company that was to dispose of the waste suddenly increased its charges dramatically - asking for more to treat the waste. Trafigura refused, and the tanker proceeded to Nigeria.
There it failed to reach an agreement with two local firms about offloading the waste and only in Ivory Coast did it find a company to handle the waste.
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.
Trafigura said it had been given to a local accredited company in Abidjan's main port to deal with properly.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUEUES AS NIGERIA RETURNS TO WORK !

Many Nigerians buy their fuel on the black market. Nigerians formed long queues for fuel and transport on Monday morning as they returned to work after a four-day general strike.
A BBC reporter in Lagos says many commuters were stranded at bus stops.
Businesses and schools reopened for the first time since the stoppage began last Wednesday.
Trade unions called off their strike over recent rises in petrol prices and value-added tax, after talks with government officials on Saturday.
Union leaders said they had accepted the government's proposal to freeze petrol prices for at least a year at the compromise price of 70 naira (55 US cents) per litre.
'No winner'
Some filling stations have yet to reflect the new price on the pumps but the government says the new prices would soon be posted everywhere.
The government had already agreed to reduce its increase in prices as one of a series of offers made before the strike began on Wednesday.

President Umaru Yar'Adua has survived his first test Unions had called the strike over rises in fuel prices and value-added tax and the sale of two major oil refineries.
The unions were angry at a series of measures pushed through in the last days of the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo, who stepped down last month.
The price of petrol was increased from 65 naira (51 US cents) a litre to 75.
"There is no winner or loser," Babagana Kingibe, who led the negotiations for the government, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.
"If there's a loser, it's the Nigerian people."
The BBC's Alex Last in the biggest city, Lagos, says the deal can be seen as a victory for the unions but not a total one.
He says the price of fuel is a sensitive issue in the country because it is one of the few benefits Nigerians get from the government, which receives billions of dollars in oil revenues but fails to provide even basic amenities.
New President Umaru Yar'Adua has emerged from this first major test just about intact, our correspondent says.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer but has to import most of its petrol because of the poor state of its refineries.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SHOOTING AT SOMALI FOOD AID CRUSH !

Food aid for Somalia has been blocked in Kenya. At least three people have died after Somali security forces opened fire at a crowd demanding food aid in the capital, Mogadishu, witnesses say.
Hundreds of people tried to storm a police station where food was being handed out, they say.
"Police opened fire and killed five people including my brother," said Abdiqadir Mohamed Ilbir, as he wept for his brother, who was among the dead.
Somalia has been racked by violence since it last had a government in 1991.
Earlier this year, up to a third of the population of Mogadishu fled their homes, with aid agencies unable to get enough food for them all.
Some 140 trucks carrying food aid have been stranded at the Kenyan border for more than a month, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) says.
Kenya closed its border with Somalia in January to people and commercial traffic but humanitarian assistance has previously been allowed across.
Police attacked
"The people were waiting for food aid that was to be distributed by a local organisation. This is cold-blooded murder," said witness Halimo Abdullahi.
There have also been two attacks on police officers patrolling elsewhere in Mogadishu.
The government has been trying to collect guns from Mogadishu.
A grenade was thrown at a patrol in the central Bakara market. The police then opened fire, killing a woman waiting for a bus, witnesses say.
And a policeman was fatally shot dead by a gunman.
The government last week imposed a curfew in order to reduce the violence.
The attacks are believed to be carried out by both Islamist fighters and gunmen from the Hawiye clan - the largest in Mogadishu.
Ethiopian and government troops ousted the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), the Islamist group that controlled most of Somalia for six months last year, in December.
The government is planning a national reconciliation conference next month but Islamist leaders and a growing number of other Somali groups say they will not take part in any peace negotiations until the Ethiopians leave their country.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's weekly letter from Zimbabwe !

RATHER DIE OF HUNGER !

Dear Family and Friends,

I am writing this letter late at night when the electricity is on because supplies during the day, both in the week and at weekends, are now very sporadic. At any time, without warning the power goes off, sometimes for just an hour or two but more often it is for solid chunks of 8 or even 10 hours at a time. When all these power cuts began we were told that it was because all the electricity we had was going to go to the wheat farmers who needed to irrigate the crop for the nation's daily bread. Some people sort of half heartedly believed that story but not for long. As it was last year and the two previous years - the growing wheat crop is just not there for us to see.

This week the propaganda peddlers began preparing the way for yet another disaster. As always they treat us like complete idiots! Ignoring the fact that we are all sitting in the cold and dark because they'd told us all the electricity was irrigating wheat, this week they told us that the projected crop is going to be far less than anticipated. This is apparently because the wheat farmers can't irrigate because of the electricity cuts.

Even this ludicrous irony doesn't ring true because for most of us the last report we saw on the winter wheat crop was in the government sponsored Herald newspaper and that took the Emperors clothes off for all to see. Written just ten days before the last date for planting wheat in late May, the report said that Secretary for Agriculture Dr Shadreck Mlambo had addressed a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee. The report stated, and I quote : "of the projected 76 000hectares, only 8 000 hectares have so far been put under wheat."

It's hard to believe that a massive 68 thousand hectares of wheat were planted in those last few days of May - before it was too late - but now, another new spin is emerging. Government agricultural voices have begun warning that quelea birds are preparing to decimate the country's winter wheat crop - the crop that either wasn't planted in the first place or hasn't been watered because there's been no electricity for the irrigation pumps. We are told that there is only one aeroplane in the country that can be used to spray the birds and apparently four are needed to "cover the whole crop". Its not being said if the whole crop consists of 8 thousand hectares spread out in lots of little squares or if its actually 76 thousand hectares.

Keeping up with both the facts and the propaganda about events in Zimbabwe has become almost impossible as electricity cuts silence all but the most determined and innovative lines of communication. It took a message from outside of Zimbabwe to tell me what our Minister of Lands said this week and for millions of cold, tired and hungry Zimbabweans, they are sickening words. Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa said: "The position is that food shortages or no food shortages,we are going ahead to remove the remaining whites. We would all rather die of hunger but knowing full well that the land is in the hands of black people."

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 23 June2007.www.cathybuckle.comMy books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.com

ESSAY 'INSULTS' MALI'S PRESIDENT !

President Toure has been urged to free those detained. Journalists in Mali have held a protest march after six people were arrested over an article about a school essay which allegedly insulted the president.
The five journalists and the teacher who set the essay to his class are due to appear in court next Tuesday.
Teacher Bassirou Kassim Minta asked his final-year secondary school class to write a humorous essay about the mistress of a fictional African leader.
The arrests have been condemned by Reporters Without Borders.
The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called the arrests "outrageous".
Journalist Seydina Oumar Diarra wrote an article called The Mistress of the President of the Republic, in the Info-Matin newspaper about the essay.
Police then arrested him and Mr Minta.

Mali leader's life in pictures

Following the detentions, the article was reprinted in other newspapers, leading to the arrest of four more journalists and editors.
Reporters Without Borders has urged President Amadou Toumani Toure to release those detained.
"The result of a prosecutor's absurd zeal, these two arrests are worthy of another age and are clearly an abuse of authority," the press freedom group said.
"Mali was hailed as an example of democracy in Africa, but as this case goes from bad to worse, it is looking more and more like an authoritarian regime, crippled by taboos and dangerous for those who show a lack of respect for an untouchable president."
Earlier this month, the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) urged African countries to scrap their laws on insulting leaders at a congress in South Africa.
Its declaration said such laws, which are in force in 48 out of 53 African countries, were "the greatest scourge" of press freedom on the continent.
President Amadou Toumani Toure was last month re-elected for a second five-year term in first-round presidential elections.
International monitors said the vote appeared to have gone smoothly, but opposition candidates alleged fraud.
Mr Toure, known as "ATT", was hailed after ending Mali's military dictatorship with a coup 16 years ago and then stepping down after organising elections.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

SUDAN 'MUST ADDRESS CLIMATE ILLS' !

Sudan has the world's largest refugee population, the UN says. There is little hope of peace in war-ravaged Sudan unless it addresses widespread environmental damage and climate change, a UN study has found.
The conflict in Darfur is spreading deserts and deforestation, threatening to raise ethnic tensions, it found.
But it says drought helped spark the Darfur conflict, as African farmers and Arab nomads fought over water and land.
At least 200,000 people have died and more than 2.4m have fled amid rape and looting in the four-year Darfur crisis.
Last week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said climate change was partly to blame for the conflict in Darfur in an editorial for US newspaper The Washington Post.
'Fight for resources'
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report says competition over oil, gas, water, timber and land use are behind the "instigation and perpetuation" of decades of fighting throughout Sudan.
Ignoring these environmental issues will ensure that some political and social problems remain unsolvable
UN's Sudan Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment.

Read the UN report in full

It says environmental degradation is one of the root causes of the conflicts - alongside economic, political and social issues - as these natural resources are depleted.
With more than five million internally displaced and international refugees, Sudan has the largest refugee population in the world today, the UN says.
It points to the spread of deserts by an average of 100km in the last 40 years, a loss of almost 12% of forest cover in 15 years and overgrazing of fragile soil.
"Ignoring these environmental issues will ensure that some political and social problems remain unsolvable and even likely to worsen, as environmental degradation mounts at the same time as population increases," the report said.
Oil revenues
Refugee camps set up to provide shelter and care for the 2.4 million people who fled their homes amid the ongoing violence are causing further damage, the report says.
Boreholes dug to provide much-needed water supplies are depleting underground water reserves, and forests are disappearing as trees are chopped for firewood used by the refugees.

And as families attempt to rebuild their lives when the conflicts end, there will be a further drain on scarce resources such as land and wood.
The report also warns that the tragedy in Darfur could be repeated throughout North Africa and the Middle East as growing populations fight for limited water supplies.
The UN recommends Sudan work to reduce the environmental impact of its oil industry and agricultural practices, and prevent local conflicts over natural resources. It says rising oil revenues mean the country should be able to invest in these practices.
It also says all UN aid projects in the country should improve environmental practices in their operations.
The violence in Darfur started in early 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated government.
The rebels said the government was oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs amid tensions over water, land and grazing rights between the groups.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CIA TO REVEAL DECADES OF MISDEEDS !

The US Central Intelligence Agency is to declassify hundreds of documents detailing some of the agency's worst illegal abuses from the 1950s to 1970s.
The papers, to be released next week, will detail assassination plots, domestic spying and wiretapping, kidnapping and human experiments.
Many of the incidents are already known, but the documents are expected to give more comprehensive accounts.
It is "unflattering" but part of agency history, CIA chief Michael Hayden said.
"This is about telling the American people what we have done in their name," Gen Hayden told a conference of foreign policy historians.
The documents, dubbed the "Family Jewels", offer a "glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency".
The full 693-page file detailing CIA illegal activities was compiled on the orders of the then CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973.
He had been alarmed by accounts of CIA involvement in the Watergate scandal under his predecessor and asked CIA officials to inform him of all activities that fell outside the agency's legal charter.
'Skeletons'
Ahead of the documents' release by the CIA, the National Security Archive, an independent research body, on Thursday published related papers it had obtained.
These detail government discussions in 1975 of the CIA abuses and briefings by Mr Schlesinger's successor at the CIA, William Colby, who said the CIA had "done some things it shouldn't have".
Among the incidents that were said to "present legal questions" were:
the confinement of a Soviet defector in the mid-1960s
assassination plots of foreign leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro
wiretapping and surveillance of journalists
behaviour modification experiments on "unwitting" US citizens
surveillance of dissident groups between 1967 and 1971
opening from 1953 to 1973 of letters to and from the Soviet Union; from 1969 to 1972 of mail to and from China
The papers also convey mounting concern in President Gerald Ford's administration that what were dubbed the CIA's "skeletons" were surfacing in the media.
Henry Kissinger, then both secretary of state and national security adviser, was against Mr Colby's moves to investigate the CIA's past abuses and the fact that agency secrets were being divulged.
Accusations appearing in the media about the CIA were "worse than in the days of McCarthy", Mr Kissinger said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'AFGHANS KILLED' IN AIR STRIKES !

Afghan civilians are suffering unnecessarily, Mr Karzai says. Some 25 civilians have died during aerial bombing by foreign forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, local residents and senior police say.
The Nato-led force (Isaf) said a small number of civilians may have been killed, possibly by insurgents.
President Hamid Karzai told the BBC this week that civilian deaths caused by foreign forces would have to stop.
If not, Mr Karzai warned that Afghans might turn against those countries with a military presence in Afghanistan.
He added, however, that people were still grateful for that involvement.
'No consultation'
Speaking to the BBC's correspondent in southern Afghanistan, people from the village of De Adam Khan, near the town of Gereshk in Helmand, said heavy bombings of the area had resulted in the civilian deaths.

AFGHANISTAN'S FUTURE
This week, BBC News is taking an in-depth look at the challenges facing Afghanistan's people and the peacekeepers. Stories include: the state of the Taleban; corruption; the drugs problem; and attacks on schools.
Taleban interview in full
Afghanistan in-depth
Can Afghanistan be won?

They said nine women and three children were among those killed.
The accounts were backed by the district police chief, and the provincial police chief, Mohammed Husain Andiwal.
Mr Andiwal said Taleban fighters attacked Nato forces first.
"Last night, around 01:30, Nato forces bombed the village... as a result of the bombing 25 people were killed. They included women, three babies between 6 to 10 months one, one mullah of a mosque and other elders."
Mr Andiwal alleged that foreign forces had launched air strikes on the village without consulting with their Afghan counterparts.
Isaf says it is investigating the reports.
An Isaf statement said its forces were attacked on Thursday night near Gereshk and responded with small arms fire and an air strike.
It said that up to 30 insurgents were believed to have occupied a compound and that most of them were subsequently killed.
Isaf said it was trying to determine whether "a small number of civilians" were killed or injured by either insurgents or Isaf action.
In the neighbouring province of Uruzgan, Isaf has said that days of fighting appeared to have caused civilian deaths, some of which might have come from air strikes against Taleban insurgents.
Worst year
There are two international missions in Afghanistan: Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), with 37,000 troops from 37 countries including the US. Its aim is to help the Afghan government bring security, development and better governance.
The US-led coalition - under the banner of Operation Enduring Freedom - is a counter-terrorism mission that involves mainly special forces.
The south of the country has this year seen the worst violence since the Taleban were ousted from power in 2001 by US-led troops.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SPECTOR JURY HEARS BLOOD EVIDENCE !

Ms Herold is considered one of the prosecution's key witnesses. Phil Spector was probably standing within two feet of actress Lana Clarkson when she was shot, the record producer's murder trial has heard.
Evidence given by forensic expert Lynne Herold to a Los Angeles court suggests blood splatter on Mr Spector's white jacket proves he could have shot her.
She also said the gun may have been wiped before police found it.
Mr Spector, 67, denies murdering Ms Clarkson, who was found dead at his Los Angeles home in February 2003.
The defence claim Ms Clarkson, best known for her role in the film Barbarian Queen, shot herself.
'Mist-like stains'
Ms Herold said blood spatter on the front and back of Mr Spector's white jacket suggested he was standing within two feet of Ms Clarkson, with his hands raised, at the time of the shooting.
She said: "Most of the bloodstains on the jacket are mist-like. You can barely see them."
But when magnified 60 times, Ms Herold said they showed that the "piece of fabric was within two to three feet of the bloodletting event".
Mr Spector faces between 15 years and life in prison if found guilty.
She added that the jacket was on Ms Clarkson's right-hand side and was "forward-facing and the arms had to be raised so the spatter could get on the back".
Ms Herold's opinion is expected to come under attack by the defence, which maintains the same scientific data points to Mr Spector being six feet away from Ms Clarkson at the time of the shooting.
"Are you aware of German research that shows that backspatter can go five to six feet?" asked defence lawyer Linda Kenney-Baden.
"No," said Ms Herold.
Ms Herold also offered analysis of bloodstains on Mr Spector's trousers, a piece of bloodied cloth found in the bathroom, as well as blood smearing on the gun used to kill Ms Clarkson.
"Something bloody came in contact with the inside of the left pants pocket," she said, suggesting it could have come from Mr Spector placing the gun in his trouser pocket.
She also said there was "smeared blood" on the .38-caliber revolver that killed 40-year-old Ms Clarkson.
"It indicates to me there was some movement. There are places on the gun that would show some of the blood was moved or removed," said Ms Herold.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DAY OF PAKISTAN RUSHDIE PROTESTS !

Radical Islamic groups in Pakistan have been staging protests over the UK's decision to confer a knighthood on the author Salman Rushdie.
They have held small-scale demonstrations in the southern port of Karachi, the eastern city of Lahore and in the capital, Islamabad.
Around 300 people in Islamabad chanted "Damn Rushdie" and "Down with Britain".
Sir Salman's 1988 book, The Satanic Verses, was condemned by Islamic states as insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
'Deserve death'
"Giving an award to such a big criminal is an insult to the entire Muslim world," Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, a pro-Taleban cleric and parliamentary opposition leader, said.
Religious leaders across the country echoed his views.
Sir Salman has said he is thrilled by the honour.
"Rushdie hurt the feelings of the Islamic world by writing a blasphemous book. Awarding the knighthood is an attempt to weaken the ongoing dialogue between religions," Liaquat Baloch, parliamentary leader of the radical MMA alliance of religious parties, told the AFP news agency.
The Speaker of the Punjab provincial assembly, Chaudhry Mohammad Afzal Sahi, said that he would kill Sir Salman Rushdie if he came face to face with him.
"Such blasphemers deserve death. Islam does not allow suicide attacks but it would be justified in the case of a blasphemer, who is worthy of death," he said.
Some protesters also called on Pakistan to expel the British high commissioner, a demand which correspondents say is unlikely to be met.
Giving an award to such a big criminal is an insult to the entire Muslim world
Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, Pakistani opposition leader
The chief minister of southern province of Sindh, Arbab Ghulam Rahim, said he was so enraged by the decision to honour Sir Salman that he was returning medals won by his grandfather and other relatives to the British High Commission.
Meanwhile the Pakistani parliament has renewed a call to withdraw for Britain to withdraw the knighthood.
"The British government has not withdrawn the title which has not only disappointed the entire Pakistani nation but has also hurt it," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi told the assembly.
"This august house again calls on the British government and its Prime Minister Tony Blair to immediately withdraw the title... and tender an apology to the Muslim world."
'Clear misunderstandings'
Britain has defended the knighthood - which entitles the author to be known as Sir Salman - arguing that it upholds free speech and is part of its desire to honour Muslims in the British community.
Protests called by religious and militant groups have also been held in Indian-administered Kashmir, where a shutdown is being observed in the capital Srinagar and other towns.
The BBC's Altaf Hussain in Srinagar says that shops in most parts of the capital are closed and traffic has been affected.
On Thursday, a group of Pakistani Islamic scholars said they had awarded their highest honour to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in reaction to the British move.
The Ulema Council said it had awarded Bin Laden the title of "Saifullah", or "the Sword of Allah".
The Pakistani religious affairs minister said that he hoped to go to the UK soon to help "clear misunderstandings" about the Rushdie affair.
He said earlier this week that extremists could justify suicide attacks because the knighthood insulted the Prophet Muhammad.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOMALIA FOOD AID TRUCKS STANDED !

The stranded food would feed 100,000 people for three months. The UN has appealed to Kenya to allow food aid for more than 100,000 people through its border to war-torn Somalia.
The 140 trucks have been stranded on the border for nearly a month, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) says.
Kenya closed its border with Somalia in January to people and commercial traffic but humanitarian assistance has previously been allowed to across.
Thousands have fled continued unrest around the capital, Mogadishu, where a curfew comes into force on Friday.
Sea routes to Somalia plagued by pirate attacks
WFP's Peter Goossens
Ethiopian and government troops ousted the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), the Islamist group that controlled most of Somalia for six months last year, in December.
The UN has warned of rising malnutrition rates in Somalia where it plans to assist more than 1m people.
Bomb
The WFP says their contracted trucks left the Kenyan port of Mombasa and were unexpectedly stopped when trying to cross at El-Wak.

"The Kenyan overland route was chosen because of major problems with sea routes to Somalia plagued by pirate attacks," said the WFP's Peter Goossens.
"Delays in distributing food this month to 108,000 people in Gedo district risks further aggravating the alarming rates of malnutrition that are already reported there."
Many trucks have waited so long at the border that they have been unloaded in recent days and the food moved to a local warehouse, the UN says.
In Gedo region, which borders Kenya, acute malnutrition rates of 15-20% were reported in April.
Earlier this month, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that malnutrition was increasing in the Middle and Lower Shabelle regions - areas around the capital.
Meanwhile, in Mogadishu, a huge roadside bomb exploded near the main seaport killing four policemen and one civilian on Friday morning.
The curfew, which will run between 1900 (1600 GMT) and 0500 (0200 GMT), comes into effect on Friday and will continue indefinitely.
Ethiopian troops are conducting a weapons' search in city's main Bakara market where eight people were killed on Thursday.
Fragmenting
Correspondents say five people died on Friday morning in fierce fighting in Kismayo between clan militia seeking control of the southern port.
Explosions have also been reported in the central Bay and Hiraan regions.
BBC Africa analyst Mary Harper says the overall picture for southern and central Somalia is of a country collapsing into conflict.
The area previously controlled by the UIC is fragmenting into a patchwork of unstable regions, each beset with insecurity, she says.
The violence does not appear to be co-ordinated and it is rare for anybody to claim responsibility for the attacks.
It is unlikely that a national reconciliation conference due to start in Mogadishu next month will have an immediate effect on the situation.
Islamist leaders and a growing number of other Somali groups say they will not take part in any peace negotiations until the Ethiopians leave their country.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

US SAYS ZIMBABWE CHANGE IS AFOOT !

Hyperinflation has made food expensive to produce and buy. Zimbabwe's hyperinflation will force President Robert Mugabe from power, the US ambassador to the country has said.
Speaking to a UK newspaper, Christopher Dell predicted that inflation will leap to 1.5m% by the end of the year.
He said political discontent at Mr Mugabe's "disastrous economic policies" meant Zimbabwe was "committing regime change upon itself".
Zimbabwe has 80% unemployment and independent economists say inflation is running at 11,000% per year.
On Thursday, the value of the Zimbabwean dollar plummeted with black market exchange rates reaching 300,000 Zimbabwean dollars to one US dollar. The official rate is 15,000 to one.
'Lost faith'
"I believe inflation will hit 1.5m% by the end of 2007, if not before," Mr Dell told the Guardian newspaper, adding that he believed this was a "modest forecast".
He said prices were going up twice a day and people were turning to bartering rather than using rapidly devaluing cash.

ZIMBABWE CRISIS
Inflation: 4,500% (official estimate)
Unemployment: 80%
4m need food aid
Life expectancy: 37 (men), 34 (women)

Mobiles to beat fuel queues

"It destabilises everything. People have completely lost faith in the currency and that means they have completely lost faith in the government that issues it."
Mr Mugabe, 83, has already made it clear that he wants to stand for re-election but Mr Dell said he thought change would come sooner.
"Things have reached a critical point. I believe the excitement will come in a matter of months, if not weeks. The Mugabe government is reaching end game, it is running out of options."
On Thursday, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai made similar predictions of an impending end to Mr Mugabe's rule.
"He's got an economy that's down on its knees, he knows he cannot sustain it," Mr Tsvangirai told the Associated Press.
"He knows he has an army that is jittery. He knows all his popular pillars of support are up against him."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYA SECT LEADER SENT TO PRISON !

Recent grisly murders have shocked Kenyans. The former leader of Kenya's outlawed Mungiki sect has been jailed for having an illegal gun and drugs.
John Kamunya, alias Maina Njenga, was sentenced to five years in jail by a Nairobi court for possessing a gun and nearly 5kg of marijuana.
After the sentencing, his two wives became hysterical, shouting insults at the police and pushing reporters.
Kamunya, now a Christian convert, was last month freed on another charge of recruiting Mungiki members.
The sect is blamed for beheading some 30 people in Nairobi and central Kenya last month.
Protection fees
A crackdown by the police in slums on the outskirts of the capital, Nairobi and central Kenya has netted about alleged 1,000 followers of the Mungiki sect in the past month.

KENYA'S SECRETIVE MUNGIKI

Banned in 2002
Thought to be ethnic Kikuyu militants
Mungiki means multitude in Kikuyu
Inspired by the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s
Claim to have more than 1m followers
Promote female circumcision and oath-taking
Believed to be linked to high-profile politicians
Control public transport routes, demanding levies
Blamed for revenge murders in the central region

Profile: Mungiki sect

"Credible witnesses who are police officers have proved the case against you and I have no choice but to sentence you for the crimes committed," magistrate Rosemelle Mutoka said.
Assistant Internal Security Minister Peter Munya told parliament this week the government was determined to wipe out the gang.
Mungiki followers have been demanding protection fees from public transport operators, slum dwellers and other businessmen in Nairobi.
Those who refuse are brutally murdered.
The Mungiki are thought to be militants from Kenya's biggest ethnic group, the Kikuyu.
Some commentators have linked them to politicians wanting to cause unrest and fear ahead of December elections.
The sect promotes female circumcision and oath-taking and was outlawed in 2002.

ZIMBABWE DENTIST : "WE PERSEVERE" !

In response to a recent report suggesting the health service has collapsed in Zimbabwe, the BBC News website asks a dental surgeon (name withheld for safety concerns), 55, about how he keeps his private practice going. Inflation is already 3,714% - the highest rate in the world, and just one adult in five is believed to have a regular job.

The dental surgeon's wife travels to Dubai to buy basic supplies It has become extremely difficult to practise normal dental procedures that require a quotation because what you quote today will have changed by the time you start the procedure.
The only practical thing is to quote a patient in US dollars.
We take this approach because the currency is so unstable.
Obtaining materials, equipment, spare parts and replacements is very hard to do because there are no suppliers in the country.
One cannot buy foreign currency from the government. Buying from the parallel market is the only way.
I have to send anything that needs repairing to South Africa and payment has to somehow be arranged between myself and the company there... getting the money to them is a real nightmare.
Limited treatment
Basic things like local anaesthetic, sutures and bandages are always scarce. My wife travels to Dubai to buy my supplies.

Our most current problem is my staff not being able to afford their transportation to work
Dental surgeon, 55Harare, Zimbabwe
We are operating under difficult circumstances indeed.
But I am determined to carry on. We Zimbabweans, we persevere.
Despite what some say, Zimbabwe's health system has not collapsed completely. I say this because patients can still visit hospitals where they will receive treatment, albeit limited.
And there is much lacking.
Qualified personnel have immigrated en masse. Then there's the issue of post-operative care... because of the lack of drugs and other items necessary that specialised care requires many operations are not possible at government-funded hospitals here anymore.
Subsidising
Private clinic and hospitals are still operating though.

Carrying out normal dental procedures is extremely difficult
Our most current problem is my staff not being able to afford their transportation to work and then back home again each day.
It is the most recent difficulty. So far we are getting round it by subsidising. I can't keep increasing their salaries outright because then they will just get taxed at a higher bracket.
Instead we call it a travel allowance.
A lot of my colleagues have left and gone to neighbouring countries or overseas. But if you have been in practise a long time - 27 years, like me - you own your own practise, your home... What does one do?
You can't just pack your bags and leave. I can't. Who will look after everything I have worked so hard to get?
Poor country, poor family
I trained overseas and then I came home because I felt I had a contribution to make.
The worst scenario I have in my personal life is that I cannot provide for all of my children's needs.
When I was at college overseas I used to tell my friends that I was poor. I came from a poor country and a poor family.
All my father owned was a bicycle.
But, I would tell them don't worry, once I am a professional I will go back to my country and become successful and wealthy. Life would be good.
But now, because of the situation in Zimbabwe, I find that I am calling on those same friends of mine again to help with my children's tuition fees.
It is very hurtful to feel that you can't look after your own children.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's weekly letter from Zimbabwe !

ROCK BOTTOM !

Dear Family and Friends,

I stood for over forty minutes in a line at the bank to withdraw my own money this week - its not unusual to have to queue for even longer than this. There was no electricity - again - so the ATM machines were not working - again. Even if the ATM's were working, those queues often need an hour and a half to get to the front. Because of the oppressive, iron-fist regulations from Harare, individuals are only allowed to withdraw one and a half million dollars at a time from the bank - even if they have just deposited a hundred times that amount the same day. The bank charges a 'handling fee' for the withdrawal of amounts of one and a half million dollars or less but you can cannot withdraw more without applying for permission from the Reserve Bank in Harare. To put all these figures in perspective, let me explain! You have to stand in a queue in the bank for four days in a row - each day drawing out the maximum amount, each day paying the 'handling fee," in order to purchase one tank of fuel for your car. Three days of maximum withdrawals will give you enough for one filling at the dentist. By the time you've got enough money together, the prices will have gone up again but for most of us all these things are just dreams anyway because now even a visit to the dentist has become an unaffordable luxury. Who would ever have imagined that a dental visit would be thought of as a luxury!

A combination of iron fist regulations, prices going up by an estimated 10 percent every day, and a government which appears completely clueless about what to do next, I think it would be accurate to say we have reached rock bottom. Thisweek the legislation enabling the government to read our emails, listen to ourphone calls and intercept our letters sailed through parliament and it producedbarely a ripple. Everyone is now only looking at the day to day human suffering and major national and international groupings have begun issuing the most frightening warnings.The Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights said recently :"It can no longer be said that the health service is -near collapse, It has collapsed."The International Committee of the Red Cross said that our health delivery system has collapsed to such levels as to be comparable to "a war situation."A Heads of Agencies Contact Group which includes 34 major organisations such asthe U N and Oxfam said: "economic collapse is expected before the end of 2007."They warn that by that time our currency will have become unusable and shops and services will have stopped operating. The Contact Group said: "it is inevitable,not just a possibility."And so how do we survive this last stretch? Frankly most of us don't know. Thisweek I heard the grim news from a friend whose wife is eight months pregnant. She lives in a rural area and has been told at the nearest health clinic that in addition to the financial charge, she must also bring a twenty litre container of water with her when she comes to give birth or they will have no choice but to turn her away. This is the reality of what we all hope is finally rockbottom.

Thanks for reading, until next week, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle16 June 2007.www.cathybuckle.comMy books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.

SUPPORT FOR SEARCH FOR MADELEINE !

Madeleine McCann has now been missing for more than a month. People in Liverpool are helping to promote the continued search for missing toddler Madeleine McCann.
A thousand messages of support attached to helium balloons will be released later by Madeleine's grandparents Sue and Brian Healey.
The 4-year-old's grandparents live in the Mossley Hill area - Madeline's mum Kate grew up in the city.
The four-year-old was snatched from her bed while on holiday in Portugal's Praia da Luz resort on 3 May.
The local community want to show support for the appeal.
Failed search
The balloons will cost a pound to sponsor and all money will go to the Madeleine appeal fund.
The Chief Constable of Merseyside Police - Bernard Hogan Howe will lead the release of balloons on the highest point of Liverpool inner city on Mossley Hill Field at 1400 BST.
Portuguese police conducted a search of scrubland nine miles from where Madeleine went missing after a Dutch newspaper published a letter which claimed her body was under rocks there.
Officers failed to recover anything and that line of inquiry has now been discarded.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ATHLETES' REMAINS FOUND IN IRAQ !

The decomposed bodies of 13 members of an Iraqi taekwondo team seized a year ago have been found, officials say.
Fifteen members of the team had been abducted last May in Anbar province, an al-Qaeda stronghold west of Baghdad, on their way to a training camp in Jordan.
The bodies were found in western Iraq, near the town of Ramadi. Two of the team are still missing.
In the past two years many Iraqi sports officials have been seized in sectarian attacks or held for ransom.
Olympic hopes
Members of the Sunni Anbar Salvation Council, a group fighting al-Qaeda in the province, found the remains of the 13 taekwondo team members, Iraqi police said.

The remains - including bones, skulls and shreds of uniforms - were taken to Imam Ali Hospital in the Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City, Baghdad.
DNA tests will be used to identify the athletes, a hospital official told Associated Press news agency.
The athletes were members of a club that aimed to send competitors to the Olympics, Hussein al-Obeidi, secretary-general of Iraq's National Olympic Committee, told AP.

Many athletes and sports officials have been abducted in Iraq
"We were hoping that we would see them alive and competing for their country in international championships," Mr Obeidi said.
Hundreds of mourners gathered in Sadr City on Saturday at a funeral procession for the athletes, who will be buried in the Shia holy city of Najaf.
Last year, an Iraqi international football referee, a member of the Iraqi Olympic football team and a national volleyball player were abducted.
Iraq's national wrestling coach was killed in Baghdad, while 30 other Iraqi sports officials, including the chairman of Iraq's Olympic Committee, were also seized from a sports conference in Baghdad.
Some were victims of sectarian attacks or held for ransom, others were targeted by radical Islamists who disapproved of their activities.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BUOYANT INDUSTRY CHEERS AS PARIS KICKS OFF !

Buoyant industry cheers as Paris kicks off
By Jorn Madslien Business reporter, BBC News, Paris air show.

Boeing is "back in the game", analysts say.
There is a mood of almost cocky confidence as the world's largest air show kicks off at Le Bourget airport on the outskirts of Paris.
The signing of deals worth more than $300m (£150m) - equivalent to some 300 aircraft sold - are expected at the show, which is set to receive almost a quarter of a million industry visitors.
"Plane orders are increasing on the back of global economic growth," observes aerospace analyst Pierre Boucheny from Kepler Equities in Paris.
"The show falls at a good point in the cycle of the airline industry."
And the only way is up, according to US aerospace giant Boeing, which recently raised its sales forecast for the industry from $2.6 trillion to $2.8 trillion over the next two decades - equivalent to 28,600 planes.
Boeing in the lead
Boeing is in rude health, having landed almost 600 orders for its 787 Dreamliner aircraft, a plane built using modern composite materials that is due to fly for the first time next month.

"Since the last show, Boeing has got well back into the game," observes aerospace analyst Christophe Quarante of Natexis Bleichroeder in Paris.
Boeing's European rival, Airbus, meanwhile is struggling.
Customers have yet to take delivery of its A380 superjumbo, which made its first public appearance at an airshow at Le Bourget two years ago. The two-year delay, which was caused by a mixture of wiring difficulties within the aircraft itself and crossed wires at management level.
And its efforts to offer a rival to the 787 Dreamliner have been slow and unsuccessful, with orders for its A350 few and far between.
So far, only 13 firm orders have been signed, though this number could see a significant lift this week.
Airbus recovery?
Indeed, Airbus too is due a recovery after a disastrous couple of years, predicts James McNerney, chief executive of Boeing, in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde over the weekend.

Is Airbus going to turn the corner from its struggles?
Boeing has re-discovered its "self-confidence", says Mr McNerney, while predicting that Airbus is set to re-emerge stronger than ever from its ongoing crisis.
"Airbus will make it," agrees John Newhouse, author of Boeing versus Airbus. "But it's going to take a while."
More pollution
And yet, as the show gets underway, the noise and the fumes from some 40 air displays will serve as regular reminders that the aerospace industry is still facing enormous challenges.

Buoyant industry
Expected deals in Paris worth $300m (£150m)
Almost a quarter of a million trade visitors
Industry expected to sell 28,600 planes in next 20 years

True, tomorrow's planes will be lighter and more efficient than current models, and thus they will be quieter and emit less CO2 than current models.
But the sheer number of new planes entering the market in the years ahead will mean the industry as a whole is about to pump out a great deal more CO2 in the future than it does today.
Currently, planes and other aircraft account for just 0.6% of total CO2 emissions. This is set to rise to 5% by 2050, according to predictions cited in the Stern report.
Some solutions beyond better aircraft are already being implemented, though. Currently, 80% of the seats are occupied on an average flight, up from 70% a decade ago, Boeing points out.
Future fuels?
Other solutions could involve cleaner fuels, industry officials insist.
Hence, the aircraft makers will no doubt spend a lot of time at the show talking about how airlines could soon fill up with supposedly greener biofuels that would enable them to reduce CO2 emissions.
Do not expect such talk to be backed by investment commitments, however. Aircraft makers consistently insist that it is too expensive to modify existing aircraft, many with a couple of decades of flying ahead of them.
The challenge, thus, goes out to fuel suppliers, which are urged to produce the stuff. And to airlines, which are urged to buy it.
Hence, to the extent there are quick fixes to the green challenge, they are not forthcoming from the aircraft makers.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WARNINGS OF 'INTERNET OVERLOAD' !

Warnings of 'internet overload'
By Spencer Kelly Click presenter.

As the flood of data across the internet continues to increase, there are those that say sometime soon it is going to collapse under its own weight. But that is what they said last year. Web traffic in the 90s was much smaller than today. Back in the early 90s, those of us that were online were just sending text e-mails of a few bytes each, traffic across the main US data lines was estimated at a few terabytes a month, steadily doubling every year. But the mid 90s saw the arrival of picture-rich websites, and the invention of the MP3. Suddenly each net user wanted megabytes of pictures and music, and the monthly traffic figure exploded.

For the next few years we saw more steady growth with traffic again roughly doubling every year. But since 2003, we have seen another change in the way we use the net. The YouTube generation want to stream video, and download gigabytes of data in one go. "In one day YouTube sends data equivalent to 75 billion e-mails, so it's clearly very different," said Phil Smith, head of technology and corporate marketing at Cisco Systems. "The network is growing up, is starting to get more capacity than it ever had, but it is a challenge. "Video is real-time, it needs to not have mistakes or errors. E-mail can be a little slow. You wouldn't notice if it was 11 seconds rather than ten, but you would notice that on a video."

Spending our inheritance.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, every year someone says the internet is going to collapse under the weight of the traffic. The net's backbone was built thanks to the 90s dotcom boom. Looking at the figures, that seems a reasonable prediction. "Back in the days of the dotcom boom in the late 90s, billions of dollars were invested around the world in laying cables," said net expert Bill Thompson. "Then there was the crash of 2000 and since then we've been spending that inheritance, using that capacity, growing services to fill the space that was left over by all those companies that went out of business."

Router reliability
Much more high-speed optic fibre has been laid than we currently need, and scientists are confident that each strand can be pushed to carry almost limitless amounts of data in the form of light. But long before a backbone wire itself gets overloaded, the strain may begin to show on the devices at either end - the routers. "If we take a backbone link across the Atlantic, there's billions of bits of data arriving every second and it's all got to go to different destinations," explained Mr Thompson.

"The router sits at the end of that very high speed link and decides where each small piece of data has to go. That's not a difficult computational task, but it has to make millions of decisions a second." The manufacturer of most of the world's routers is Cisco. When I pushed them on the subject of router overload, they were understandably confident. "Routers have come a long way since they started," said Mr Smith. "The routers we're talking about now can handle 92 terabits per second. "We have enough capacity to do that and drive a billion phone calls from those same people who are playing a video game at the same time they're having a text chat."

Congestion

Even if the routers can continue to take what the fibre delivers, there is another problem - the internet is not all fibre. A lot of the end connections, the ones that go to our individual home computers, are made of decades-old copper. "The real issue that people are going to face, and are already noticing at home, is that ISPs are starting to cut back on the bandwidth that is available to people in their homes," said Mr Thompson. "They call it bandwidth shaping." "They do this because they have a limited capacity to deliver to 100 or 200 homes, and if everybody's using the internet at the same time then the whole thing starts to get congested. Before that happens they cut back on the heavy users."

Obstacles
But digital meltdown is not the only threat facing the net. There are other, more sudden, real world hazards which the net has to protect against. Anything from terror attacks to, would you believe it shark bites, can and have taken out major links and routers."There's a perception that the internet is very resilient," said Paul Wood, senior analyst of security firm MessageLabs. "The way it was designed means that if any particular part of it is disrupted then the traffic will find another route. "It only takes an earthquake, as we saw at the end of last year, to take out a significant segment of internet infrastructure. Then the traffic finds another route, but it goes over a very slow route, which then becomes saturated and can't handle the bandwidth. Then you lose the traffic and that part of the world goes dark for a while."

For decades the internet has kept pace with our demands on it. And demand continues to grow.
And the service providers will continue to insist that the net will survive, and the doomsayers will continue to insist that it is just about to collapse.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HAMILTON ON POLE AT US GRAND PRIX !

Hamilton, 22, is on pole for the second successive race. McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton will start on pole for Sunday's US Grand Prix, after beating team-mate and world champion Fernando Alonso in qualifying.
The 22-year-old Briton clocked a fastest time of one minute 12.331 seconds, 0.169secs ahead of Alonso, to claim his second pole in as many races.
Alonso was fastest in practice and the first two qualifying sessions but lost out in the third at Indianapolis.
The Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen will make up the second row.
German teenager Sebastian Vettel finished an impressive seventh, filling in for injured BMW-Sauber driver Robert Kubica.
Afterwards, a clearly delighted Hamilton admitted he was rather surprised to find himself on the second pole position of his fledgling career.
606: DEBATE

The race for glory at the IMS looks to be between the McLarens
PP
"I'm quite surprised to be honest," said Hamilton, who leads the world championship standings, eight points ahead of his team-mate.
"Going into qualifying we hadn't found the optimum set-up and I knew Fernando was quick here.
"It's good to see we're ahead of the Ferraris. I had to pull it all out but my last two laps in third qualifying were just right."
Just to rub in his supremacy, Hamilton improved his provisional pole on the final lap, having seen Alonso fail to better the provisional pole time on his own last lap.
But the Spaniard was keen to look for positives from his display.
"It's a good weekend for me now," he said.
"I was fastest in practice and in qualifying one and two, but not in qualifying three.
"But being fastest all weekend has given me a lot of confidence - we'll have a strong race on Sunday."
Sunday's race will be the third consecutive grand prix with an all-McLaren front row.

Qualifying results for US Grand Prix:

1 L Hamilton (GB) McLaren 1:12.3312 F Alonso (Spn) McLaren 1:12.5003 F Massa (Brz) Ferrari 1:12.7034 K Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:12.8395 N Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:12.8476 H Kovalainen (Fin) Renault 1:13.3087 S Vettel (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:13.5138 J Trulli (Ita) Toyota 1:13.7899 M Webber (Aus) RedBull-Renault 1:13.87110 G Fisichella (Ita) Renault 1:13.95311 D Coulthard (GB) RedBull-Renault 1:12.87312 R Schumacher (Ger) Toyota 1:12.92013 J Button (GB) Honda 1:12.99814 N Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota 1:13.06015 R Barrichello (Brz) Honda 1:13.20116 A Davidson (GB) Super Aguri-Honda 1:13.25917 A Wurz (Aut) Williams-Toyota 1:13.44118 T Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri-Honda 1:13.47719 V Liuzzi (Ita) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:13.48420 S Speed (US) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:13.71221 A Sutil (Ger) Spyker-Ferrari 1:14.122 22 C Albers (Ned) Spyker-Ferrari 1:14.597
Live coverage of Sunday's US Grand Prix on BBC Five Live and this website 1800 BST

BBC SPORTS REPORT.

FRESH HOPES FOR NORTH DARFUR !

Fresh hopes for North Darfur.
By Julie Flint Darfur.

At least two and a half million people have fled their homes in fear of the government-backed Arab Janjaweed militia in Darfur. Despite the ongoing crisis, there are signs of progress in the North.
We were halfway across a valley in rebel-controlled North Darfur when the first shots were fired, apparently from a nearby hill.
Soon they were coming thick and fast.
Our driver stopped. We all got out and hid, as best we could, behind our vehicle.
It was painfully clear that we were being shot at - not over.
Patrolling the valley
Our escort, a law graduate from Khartoum University who is now a commander in the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) - the main rebel group in Darfur - eventually located the source of fire and determined that it was friendly fire.
He walked towards the attackers with his hands in the air.
To us, crouching behind the car with bullets flying all around, it seemed as if he walked for ever.
Finally, the shooting stopped and our escort returned.
He explained that an SLA commander patrolling the valley on the look out for government forces, had thought we were Janjaweed: militiamen who move on horse and camelback but who occasionally have vehicles similar to those of the government forces.

The Janjaweed are accused of ethnic cleansing. We were returning from a village that had been burned by the Janjaweed in 2003, at the very beginning of the war in Darfur.
The village is still uninhabited.
Perhaps understandably, we were mistaken for the enemy.
Terrifying statistics
It was a very unnerving 15 minutes or so.
But it was the only time we heard shots fired in anger in more than three weeks behind rebel lines in North Darfur.

Mass graves line the sandy plains of North Darfur. A catastrophe of almost unimaginable proportions has engulfed Darfur in the five years since the rebels took up arms to fight for an end to marginalisation and oppression, and for an end to government support for Arab militias.
The statistics are terrifying, yet statistics do not tell the whole story.
There are some encouraging signs in some rebel-controlled areas of Darfur.
Especially in the areas that I visited: the part of North Darfur that is controlled by rebels who reject the peace agreement signed last year by the government and one rebel group - the faction of the SLA that is controlled by Minni Minawi.
Committed to peace talks
Since Minawi signed the Darfur Peace Agreement, his forces have been expelled from rural North Darfur.
The rebel commanders who have replaced him are not completely united, but they have a unity of purpose that is encouraging, and that marks a clear break with the often criminal behaviour of Minawi's men.
The men now in charge want a negotiated solution to the war and are committed to new peace talks - if, and it is a big "if" - the SLA can unite behind a common platform all across Darfur. Not just in the north.
They have begun making overtures to neighbouring Arab tribes who have been fighting against them and have abolished the crippling taxes that Minawi imposed on civilians - civilians already pushed to the brink by the death and devastation heaped upon them by the government and its Janjaweed allies.
They have stopped bringing civilians in front of military courts and have begun asking community leaders to re-open the civilian courts that Minawi closed.
Civilian rights
In the village of Bakaore, I met Omda Hamid Manna, a chief who once presided over one of the most important civilian courts in North Darfur, in the village of Dor.
He related how he had been kidnapped by Minawi's men, tortured and only released after payment of a whopping ransom.
A few days before we met, he had been approached by the SLA faction that ousted Minawi and asked to re-open his court.
Some power was being handed back to civilians, and he was jubilant.
"Minawi did very bad things," he said. "He took our animals and collected our money. He took food aid from civilians. If you protested, you were beaten or killed. But the SLA is good now. It is not taking away our rights."
Late last year, the government tried to recapture the parts of North Darfur that are controlled by Minawi's opponents. It failed.
The sandy plains surrounding the village of Um Sidir bear witness to the magnitude of its defeat.

The skeleton of a government commander lies on the sand in Um Sidir. For as far as the eye can see, the sands are covered in half-buried skeletons, brightly coloured toothbrushes and piles of weapons that were abandoned as Khartoum's men ran for their lives on the 9 September 2006.
Signs of progress
Only one government commander did not flee when the rebels attacked, with the sun behind them shining straight into their enemy's eyes.
Today his burnt and cannibalised car stands alone in the middle of the battlefield.
We buried what we thought was his body as best we could with the only thing to hand - a piece of cardboard.
Since then, violence in this part of Darfur has decreased significantly.
People are terrified of the Janjaweed but no longer, on the whole, afraid of their own rebel movement.
It is not a peace, and what it is is fragile, and localised. But it is a beginning and it deserves recognition and encouragement.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Thursday 14 June , 2007 at 1100 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

CASH ROW AT WILDLIFE TRADE FORUM !

Cash row at wildlife trade forum
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website, The Hague.

Delegates sought to improve protection for animals and plantsA budget row dominated the final day of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) forum.
Member states approved a cut in real terms in CITES' budget, which could compromise attempts to control the illegal wildlife trade.
In a blow to whaling countries, delegates upheld an earlier ruling that CITES would not assess whale stocks.
An earlier proposal to prevent corals being used in jewellery was overturned, to the dismay of conservation groups.
And a renewed bid by the European Union to restrict trade in the spiny dogfish - sold in British fish and chip shops as huss, or rock salmon - was defeated.
The final day of the meeting was marked by acrimonious rhetoric, political wrangling and farcical scenes as the electronic voting system malfunctioned, delegates delayed proceedings by raising point after point of order, and a number of countries' seats emptied as people left for early flights home, missing the crucial late votes.
Over capacity
The biggest single issue had been resolved on Thursday, when delegates voted to allow southern African countries a one-off sale of stockpiled ivory, the third such sale since the ivory trade was banned in 1989.

Delegates agree ivory deal

But there is deep concern about the documented rise in illegal trading in ivory and rhinoceros horn, which is partly down to the low capacity of some central and west African nations to control poaching and domestic markets.
"Ultimately, CITES is about the ability of countries to implement it," said Sue Mainka of the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
"That runs from customs authorities being able to recognise a specimen that's under CITES control, to being able to handle anything that's confiscated, to general public awareness campaigns about why all this is important.
"It's national-level capacity that will make CITES a success."
By implication, lack of national capacity will make CITES a relative failure; and the funding increase of just 6% voted through by delegates is in real terms a sharp decline, which may reduce the ability of the CITES organisation to improve that situation.
CITES secretary-general Willem Wijnstekers said the organisation needed a funding increase of 20% just to stand still. It receives funds in US dollars, but disburses money in Swiss francs, and the recent dollar devaluation has hurt its finances.
The US and Japan, the two biggest funders, said they had no mandate from their governments to approve any funding increase.
Sea change
The major disappointments for conservation groups concerned the marine environment.

CITES EXPLAINED
Threatened organisms listed on three appendices depending on level of risk
Appendix 1 - all international trade banned
Appendix 2 - international trade monitored and regulated
Appendix 3 - trade bans by individual governments, others asked to assist
"Uplisting" - moving organism to a more protective appendix, "downlisting" - the reverse
Conferences of the Parties (COPs) held every three years
CITES administered by UN Environment Programme (Unep)
The European Union re-opened a proposal to have the spiny dogfish, a shark species, listed on CITES Appendix 2, which allows international trade under permits.

It believed fresh data might persuade delegates who had voted the motion down earlier in the meeting to approve it this time around; but in a secret ballot, it fell again.
"In general, the progress on conservation of marine species is being outpaced by the depletion of marine species," noted Sonja Fordham of the Shark Alliance.
"We've been fighting a serious bloc of countries that have been opposed to listing on CITES of any sharks; now we're dealing with commercially valuable shark species, and it's even more of an uphill battle."
Another secret ballot overturned the earlier Appendix 2 listing of Corallium, a group of red and pink corals.

Conservationists fear certain corals face a bleak future.
Some conservation scientists believe that by the time of the next CITES meeting, Corallium will be so depleted that it will have to go on Appendix 1, which bans international trade.
The leader of the EU delegation, Germany's Jochen Flasbarth, believes that CITES' inclusion in recent years of commercially valuable species such as hardwoods, fish, whales and coral in its remit may have stimulated the politicking.
"If you look for the real problems of biological diversity around the world, it's clear that they lie in the forests and the marine environment," he said.
"And as soon as you interfere in these areas you are confronted with huge economic interests."
Victory no fluke
Whaling had threatened to prove almost as controversial as ivory during this meeting, which followed hard on the heels of the International Whaling Convention's (IWC) annual gathering in Alaska, where pro-whaling Japan and its allies suffered a number of defeats.

Whale request rejected

Proposals here asked CITES to review whale stocks.
An assessment that stocks are healthy could potentially lead to approval of the whale meat trade, and hence of commercial whaling itself.
Not only were these proposals defeated, but an Australian amendment, that CITES should never review whale stocks while the 21-year IWC moratorium remained in force, was approved.
Attempts by Japan's traditional allies to re-open this issue on the meeting's final day failed.
"It's another huge defeat for the whalers," commented Nicolas Entrup of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
"They lost at the International Whaling Commission meeting, they lost again here, and on top of that CITES has agreed not to consider whales again while the IWC moratorium remains in force."
The next CITES summit is scheduled for three years' time, and is likely to be held in Qatar.
With 150 species being lost each day according to the UN, and with international trade partly responsible, it is likely to see many more protection requests from conservation groups, but equally implacable opposition from countries that feel their commercial interests being threatened.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GRENADE ATTACK ON SOMALI CINEMA !

The presence of Ethiopian soldiers is still causing unrest. A grenade thrown at a cinema in the central Somali town of Baidoa has killed five people and injured nine.
Eyewitnesses say the video hall, known to have shown films that have had naked scenes, was packed with people.
In the capital, Mogadishu, unidentified gunmen have thrown grenades at road junctions, killing at least one person.
The attacks come as the United States handed over $4m in development aid to Somalia, some of it earmarked for twice-postponed peace talks.
Government critics say convening the reconciliation conference while Ethiopian troops are in Mogadishu is pointless.
Ethiopian soldiers have been in Somalia since December, when they helped oust an Islamist group that had taken power.
Islamists and Mogadishu's dominant Hawiye clan are opposed to Ethiopia's presence in Somalia.
'Immorality'
Correspondents say the motive for the attack in Baidoa on Thursday night is not yet known.

But residents in the area had complained to the cinema owner because some of the films being screened had scenes of nudity.
Militant Islamists, who have been fighting the interim government, have often broken up public viewings of Indian and Western films, which they say promote immorality.
The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says the grenade attacks took place at the Sana and Afarta Jaridna junctions in the north of the city.
Eyewitnesses say two Ethiopian soldiers and a civilian were wounded at Sana junction and at least one person was killed and two injured at Afarta Jaridna, where the grenade was hurled at a passing government vehicle.
One government soldier was seen lying in the street, but it is not known if he died.
On Friday morning, Ethiopian troops displayed a wide range of weaponry confiscated during house-to-house searches - an extensive operation started in late April after Ethiopian-backed forces drove insurgents from the northern suburbs.
The weapons - including a large number of rocket-propelled grenades, launchers and mortar bombs - have been handed over to the African Union mission in the city.
But warlord and MP Osman Ali Atto accused the Ethiopian troops of taking money and valuables from his house while they were searching for weapons.
Some 1,600 Ugandan troops are in Mogadishu, the first contingent of a proposed 8,000-strong AU force.
'Dangerous'
Meanwhile, in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, the US ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger has presided over an official ceremony to hand over the $4m aid money.
What the government lacks is a lot of funding - we're talking in the hundreds of millions of dollars
Ali AbdillahiSomali government adviser
It includes $1.25m for reconciliation conference, a US embassy statement said.
The money is to be channelled through the UN Development Programme and correspondents say no Somali government officials were at the ceremony.
Some analysts have called for funding to go directly to the government to enable it to establish itself and its authority.
"What the government lacks is a lot of funding," Ali Abdillahi, a Nairobi-based adviser to the Somali government, told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
"We're talking in the hundreds of millions of dollars - that's what can bring in good governance and development."
For too long the country's finances have been in the hands of the development agencies, Mr Abdillahi said.
"That's dangerous as far as state security or state development is concerned because the international community should have engaged the transitional federal government directly."
Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

OSPREY SOAP OPERA !

The story so far -
It's the soap opera with wings, talons and wet fish.
Staff and hundreds of visitors to the Loch Garten Osprey Centre have been both horrified and enthralled by the twists of this year's breeding season.
The feathered stars of the drama are Henry, his long-time mate EJ and older rogue male VS.
Here's the story so far of the raptors from when they returned to the site from their winter hideaway 3,000 miles (4,828km) away.
LOVE NEST

It is late April when Henry arrives at Loch Garten, near Aviemore, at the end of a marathon journey from west Africa.
There are ruffled feathers when he finds EJ incubating the eggs of his arch-rival VS.
A BAD EGG

RSPB staff are concerned about EJ's choice of mate. VS is known to be something of a rogue, having disrupted breeding at the site in the past.
Henry - EJ's regular mate - has always been the favoured male as he is attentive and can be relied on to bring home the fish for the female and their chicks.
AIR RAGE

Observers and staff at the reserve watch in disbelief as Henry kicks his rival's clutch of eggs from the nest.
His actions deliver a terrible blow to hopes of a successful breeding season for the Loch Garten birds.
Bird kicks rival's eggs from nest
NEW HOPE

Early May and there is good news when the reserve reports that EJ has laid three new eggs fathered by Henry.
The last time this happened at the site was 25 years ago.
Jealous osprey makes up with mate
CHICKS HATCH

It is now mid June and the first of three chicks hatches, much to the delight of the reserve staff at Loch Garten.
The other two are expected to appear over the next few days and, provided there is enough food, they should all survive.
The saga continues...
Staff ecstatic as chick hatches

BBC NEWS REPORT.

INDIA AGREE DEAL ON GRAND PRIX !

Ecclestone has been keen to take Formula One to India. The Indian Olympic Association says it has reached an agreement with Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone to stage a Grand Prix in New Delhi from 2009.
IOA president Suresh Kalmadi said the agreement was preliminary and conditional on having a venue approved.
The city does not currently have a racing track.
"We have received a letter in this regard from Bernie Ecclestone," said Kalmadi. "The IOA will be the promoter, the first event will be held in 2009."
He added: We are looking to identify suitable land for a world-class track. It's a tough task, but we're hoping to meet the challenge."
Should the Indian GP organisers meet the demands of Formula One Management (FOM), the race would become the fifth new venue to be added to the calendar in recent months.
Valencia and Singapore will hold races for the first time in 2008, while Abu Dhabi will enter the fray in 2009 followed by South Korea a year later.
There is no indication at present which of the current GPs would make way for the new events.
New Delhi is preparing to host the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
The city, however, lost its bid to organise the 2014 Asian Games and opted out of the race for the 2016 Olympics.

BBC SPORTS REPORT.

MADELEINE POLICE BEGIN NEW SEARCH !

Madeleine McCann has now been missing for more than a month. Portuguese police have begun searching an area of scrubland nine miles (14.5km) from where four-year-old Madeleine McCann went missing.
A Dutch newspaper has published details of an anonymous letter it received alleging Madeleine was buried under rocks in the area being searched.
Police began investigating the claim after it was made public on Wednesday but have now begun a formal search.
Madeleine vanished from a holiday apartment in the Algarve on 3 May.
Police cordoned off a road in the village of Arao close to Praia da Luz - the resort from where Madeleine went missing - early on Friday.
Remote tracks
Officers from a section of the police called GNR arrived in vans and led sniffer dogs to the area.
The village where the search is taking place lies just north of the main road from Praia da Luz to Faro.
The road leads up to remote hillside tracks which span across farmland and wooded areas.
Details of the anonymous letter were published in The Telegraaf on Wednesday.

The Dutch newspaper received the letter and a map on Monday and passed it on to police, delaying publication of the information.
Madeleine's parents Gerry and Kate condemned the decision to publish the letter.
On his internet blog, Mr McCann said the letter and accompanying map should have been properly examined first.
He called the publication "irresponsible" and "cruel" journalism.
"We were extremely disappointed in the publication of the anonymous letter in The Telegraaf claiming to know where Madeleine is buried," he said.
"Although all information will be taken seriously, we were very upset that the credibility of this letter had not been examined and, more importantly, [it was] published before the Portuguese police had an opportunity to investigate the claim, and search the area if appropriate without massive media attention."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

AFRICA'S AIDS EPIDEMIC 'SLOWING' !

The spread of Aids is slowing down in some parts of Africa, a World Bank report has suggested.
Urban areas in Rwanda, Zambia and Ethiopia were singled out as places where infection rates were lowering.
The World Bank's Miriam Schneidman told the BBC that Rwanda had done an "exceptional job" in recognising the HIV problem and taking strong action.
Figures from the World Bank put the prevalence of Aids in Rwanda at about 3%, down from 11% seven years ago.
Aids stole into Africa like a thief in the night - World Bank's Joy Phumaphi.
"The mobilisation of empowered 'grassroots' communities, along with delivering condoms and life-saving treatments, are beginning to slow the pace of the ... epidemic," the report said, without giving detailed statistics.
But it says southern Africa remains the epicentre of the epidemic.
In Francistown, a city in Botswana bordering Zimbabwe, 70% of women in their early 30s were found to be HIV-positive, according to a 2004 household survey.
Last year, the epidemic killed more than 2m people in Africa.
Mixed picture
Rwanda's success is put down to understanding the seriousness of the problem early on and taking quick action.

RWANDA IN FIGURES
Population: 8.6m
2002: One of countries worst hit by HIV
2000: 11% of adults HIV-positive
2007: 3% of adults HIV-positive
2003-6: $30.5m grant to fight Aids:
12m condoms distributed
500,000 tests and counselling provided
5,000 patients received ARVs
School fees paid for 27,000 orphans or vulnerable children
Health insurance schemes subsidised for 52,000 homes
100,000 participated in income-generating activities

"Prevention messages, early testing, prevention of mother-to-child transmission - it's been this holistic approach that we think has really provided the strong results that we're seeing," Ms Schneidman told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
Treatment is seen as key to addressing stigma and fears and about the disease.
"The availability of lifesaving ARV drugs is providing hope to people who are desperately ill, and also is leading to greater acceptance of people living with HIV/Aids," a Rwandan nurse at Butare Hospital says in the report.
In Rwanda's case, education at a grassroots level has also helped.
"My son Oliver was born HIV-positive. My husband died in 1996 and I was not aware it was from Aids. I always feared to get tested," 34-year-old Gloriose Murebwayire said.
This changed in 2004 after encouragement from her church pastor - subsequent counselling has helped her deal with the disease and get help.
The epidemic shows signs of slowing in Uganda, Kenya, and Zimbabwe, and in urban Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, and Zambia, the report says.
In East Africa, the picture is mixed with significant numbers of new infections originating in the commercial sex trade, it says.
"Aids stole into Africa like a thief in the night, and all these years later, we still must stay vigilant against this terrible disease," Joy Phumaphi, of the World Bank's Human Development Network, a former health minister of Botswana.
"Even when it seems that infections are starting to fall and more and more people are being saved with treatment."
Global funding for HIV more than quadrupled between 2001 and 2005, from less than $2bn to more than $8bn, but falls short of what countries need, Ms Phumaphi says.
The reports says there is no single ideal Aids programme and each country must design their own, based on what drives the epidemic in that region.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ABBAS SACKS HAMAS-LED GOVERNMENT !

Hamas quickly rejected Abbas' plans, calling them "worthless". Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has dismissed the Hamas-led coalition government and declared a state of emergency.
Aides said the president would seek to call elections as soon as possible, after deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip.
However, a Hamas spokesman immediately dismissed the president's decision.
After a day of bitter fighting Hamas was said to be in total control of Gaza, having now also taken the presidential compound in Gaza City.
More than 100 people have died during a week of violent battles on the streets of Gaza.
Hamas fighters overran most of Gaza throughout Thursday, capturing the headquarters of Fatah's Preventative Security force and hailing Gaza's "liberation".
What is happening now is not only the collapse of the Palestinian national unity government but actually the collapse of the whole Palestinian Authority -Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian Information Minister.

Q&A: Gaza chaos

After nightfall militants entered Mr Abbas' presidential compound, which had been left undefended when Fatah men slipped away earlier.
Hamas celebrated the capture of the compound, describing it as the "last bastion" of Fatah's power in Gaza.
Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti said Hamas was in total control of Gaza, adding that the crisis had wider implications.
"What is happening now is not only the collapse of the Palestinian national unity government but actually the collapse of the whole Palestinian Authority," he told the BBC.
'Outlaws'
After dismissing the government, Mr Abbas will now rule by presidential decree until the conditions are right for elections, a senior aide announced.
The BBC's Matthew Price in Jerusalem says the West Bank and Gaza Strip will now effectively be split from one another - Gaza run by Hamas and the West Bank by Fatah.
An aide to Mr Abbas, Tayeb Abdel Rahim, announced the president's decision in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

In practical terms these decisions are worthless - Sami Abu Zuhri, Hamas spokesman.

Rivals: Fatah and Hamas
Voices: Life under Hamas

"I [Abbas] have issued the following decree: the sacking of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya," AFP news agency quoted him as saying.
"Second, the proclamation of the state of emergency in all the Palestinian territories because of the criminal war in the Gaza Strip, the taking over of the security services of the Palestinian Authority, the military coup and the armed rebellion by outlaws."
Mr Abbas was also open to the idea of an international peacekeeping force being deployed in the region, his aide said.
But Hamas swiftly rejected Mr Abbas' decision.
"In practical terms these decisions are worthless," said spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.
"Prime Minister Haniya remains the head of the government even if it was dissolved by the president," he told Reuters news agency.
Hamas won a surprise victory in Palestinian elections in early 2006, but has since been engaged in a violent power struggle with Mr Abbas' Fatah faction.
Hamas, an Islamic organisation, rose to prominence in Gaza during two Palestinian uprisings and refuses to recognise or negotiate with Israel.
Fatah, a secular political grouping headed by Mr Abbas, ran the Palestinian Authority until 2006 and officially recognises the Jewish state.
The two groups were nominally working together in a three-month-old government of national unity.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGERIAN COURT FREES OIL MILITANT !

Mujahid Dokubo-Asari says locals should benefit from the oil. A leader of Nigeria's oil militants has been released on bail on health grounds after being held on treason charges for almost two years.
The BBC's Alex Last in Lagos says Mujahid Dokubo-Asari is the best known of the militant leaders.
His release has been a key demand of armed groups who have staged numerous attacks on oil installations.
The move is seen as part of the new government's pledge to bring peace to the troubled Niger Delta region.
Last week, three state governors from the Niger Delta appealed to new President Umaru Yar'Adua to free Mr Dokubo-Asari because of his ill health, while the Supreme Court refused a request to free him, citing national security fears.
Asari is key to bringing peace to the delta -Emmanuel DiffaNiger Delta elder.

Profile of Dokubo-Asari
Pictures of Dokubo-Asari's campaign

"I'm convinced the accused is not playing to the gallery. The accused is ordered to be released on health grounds," said Justice Peter Olayiwola.
He ordered Mr Dokubo-Asari not to engage in any political activity and for his movements to be monitored.
Leaders from Mr Dokubo-Asari's Ijaw community have welcomed his release.
"This is good news for anyone with a business in the Niger Delta. It will pour cold water on the situation. Asari is key to bringing peace to the delta," said Emmanuel Diffa, an Ijaw elder who has been campaigning for his release.
Militants killed
In his inauguration speech last month, President Yar'Adua said that bringing peace to the region was one of his main priorities.
He has already made preliminary contacts with the militants, who have declared a one-month truce and freed a large number of the foreign oil workers they had seized.
But on Wednesday, at least eight militants were killed by the army, local sources have told the BBC.
This had raised fears of a resumption of hostilities.
Mr Dokubo-Asari was arrested in 2005 after saying in a newspaper interview that the Niger Delta, where most of Nigeria's oil is found, should secede.
The militants argue that local people should benefit from more of Nigeria's oil.
The attacks on hostage-taking in the Niger Delta have led to a 25% cut in Nigeria's oil production.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

EAST AFRICA BAN ON PLASTIC BAGS !

Kenya and Uganda have banned the use of thin plastic bags in an effort to curb environmental damage.
Ugandan Finance Minister Ezra Suruma banned the importation and use of the thinnest bags and imposed a 120% tax on thicker ones in his new budget.
The Kenyan finance minister imposed similar restrictions in his budget, following Rwanda and Tanzania.
The BBC's Juliet Njeri in Nairobi says discarded plastic bags are often seen by the roadside in residential areas.
She also says that there is a problem with bags blocking drains in the city.
Tanzania set the pace for the East African Community in 2006, when Vice-President Ali Mohamed Shein announced a total ban on plastic bags and ordered a switch to recyclable materials or biodegradable alternatives.
"These measures are expected to encourage the industry players to devise environmentally friendlier and hopefully recyclable bags," Kenyan Finance Minister Amos Kimunya announced in the capital, Nairobi.
Immediate effect
The Ugandan minister said the ban was being introduced because of "serious environmental concerns and difficulties in the disposal of plastic bags and plastic containers."
The ban will take effect in Kenya at the stroke of midnight on Thursday 14 June.
In Uganda, Mr Suruma said the ban would come into effect on 1 July but gave traders until 30 September this year to sell off products already in stock.
Rwanda, which was admitted into the East African Community this year, banned the importation and use of plastics less than 100 microns thick in 2005.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MASS WILDLIFE MIGRATION IN SUDAN !

A herd of tiang on the plains of Jonglei, southern Sudan.
Enlarge Image

Conservationists say they have discovered one of the largest migrations of land mammals on Earth in southern Sudan.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said it found 1.3m migratory animals, despite fears of damage to numbers after a civil war in the region.
The US-based group also found an 80km-long (50 miles) and 50km-wide (31 miles) column of migrating antelopes.
"I have never seen wildlife in such numbers," said the WCS's Michael Fay.
"This could represent the biggest migration of large mammals on Earth," bigger even than the mass migrations of the Serengeti, he said.
The last survey of southern Sudan was conducted in 1982, a year before the decades-long civil war erupted in the region.
Elephant decline
The WCS feared that the conflict, which ended in 2005, had taken its toll on the area's wildlife, as other conflicts did in parts of Mozambique and Angola.
But in their survey, field scientists said they found an estimated 800,000 white-eared kob (a medium-sized antelope), 250,000 Mongalla gazelles, 160,000 tiang and 13,000 reedbuck.
However, there has been a dramatic decline in the number of other animals, including elephants and zebras, and in some areas, buffalo.
The WCS said oil development along migration corridors and poaching were among the threats to wildlife in the region.
Plans are being formed to create an international conservation mission for south Sudan, part of which would involve retraining former rebel fighters to work as wildlife wardens.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ARMY 'KILLS' NIGERIAN MILITANTS !

Nigerian militants have been responsible for kidnappings. The Nigerian army has killed at least eight militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, sources say.
The militants were stopped as they travelled in a boat. Weapons and ammunition were found before the men were shot, they say.
The killings come at a sensitive time, after militants called a month-long truce to give the new government the chance to hold talks.
Attacks in the Niger Delta have led to a 25% cut in Nigeria's oil output.
The BBC's Abdullahi Kaura in the Niger Delta says it is not clear if those killed belonged to the main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend).
He says the killings in Bayelsa State could jeopardise the recent truce.
Mend has freed several foreign hostages it had seized as part of its campaign for more oil wealth to be used to help local people.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer but most of its people live in poverty.
President Umaru Yar'Adua has pledged to address chronic underdevelopment in the Niger Delta, which is home to Nigeria's multi-billion dollar oil industry, producing 90% of the country's export earnings.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE 'COLLAPSE IN SIX MONTHS' !

Many Zimbabweans now use firewood instead of electricity. Zimbabwe will collapse within six months, possibly leading to a state of emergency, says a leaked briefing report for aid workers in the country.
Rampant inflation will mean shops and services can no longer function and people would resort to barter, it said.
"The memorandum is talking about a situation where there is no functioning government or a total breakdown," an unnamed aid worker told the UK Times.
Zimbabwe's inflation is already 3,714% - the highest rate in the world.
Business quotes were now valid for just one day or even one hour, said the report written by consultants and sent to workers at the United Nations and other aid agencies.
Some firms were already partly paying their workers in food, rather than money, it said.

ZIMBABWE CRISIS
Inflation: 3,714%
Unemployment: 80%
4m need food aid
Life expectancy: 37 (men), 34 (women)

Mobiles to beat fuel queues

Shops were doubling their prices twice a month, so they could purchase replacement goods.
If this continues, "doubling the current inflation for each of the seven remaining months of 2007 gives 512,000% thus the economic collapse is expected before the end of 2007," said the report, according to the AP news agency.
The security forces who have remained loyal to President Robert Mugabe were also feeling the effects.
The report said an ordinary police officer earned less than aid workers paid their domestic staff.
It said power and water suppliers were already near collapse. Electricity was last month rationed to just four hours a day to save power for farmers.
Just one adult in five is believed to have a regular job.
Some 4m Zimbabweans - a third of the population - will need food aid this year, according to the UN World Food Programme.
Mr Mugabe denies responsibility for Zimbabwe's economic problems, blaming a western plot to bring down his government because of his policy of seizing white-owned land.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

APOLOGY OVER 'DRUNK' SARKOZY CLIP !

The clip is one of the most popular on YouTube.
Belgian TV broadcast

A Belgian newscaster has apologised for suggesting French President Nicolas Sarkozy was drunk during a news conference at last week's G8 summit.
A clip of the incident, posted on the YouTube video website, has been watched hundreds of thousands of times.
It shows Mr Sarkozy, who insists he is a teetotaller, appearing short of breath and euphoric before reporters.
Belgian broadcaster RTBF said presenter Eric Boever asked the French embassy to convey his apologies to the president.
Boever presented footage from the opening moments of Mr Sarkozy's news conference following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the comment that "apparently he had more than just water to drink".
In the clip, Mr Sarkozy offers apologies to journalists for being late and then pauses, as if on the verge of laughter, before inviting questions.
'Bad taste'
Boever said the remark was made in jest, and that he apologised "for the proportions that this is taking".

If it happened to Blair, it would be the only source of discussion - BBC Europe editor Mark Mardell.
Read Mark's thoughts in full

"I obviously did not want to offend French national sensitivities, especially since I am also French through my mother," he added.
A spokesman for the president declined to comment, saying "it is not common practice... to comment on bad taste jokes".
Mr Sarkozy, who was making his international debut at the summit, says he does not drink alcohol and is a long-distance runner.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NET GIANTS 'STILL FAILING CHINA' !

Net giants 'still failing China'.
By Thembi Mutch

Google has faced tough criticism of its China policy. Earlier this year net giants Google and Yahoo came under fire from Human Rights Watch and Reporters Sans Frontieres, for their activities in China. But is the criticism warranted?
In 2003 the Chinese police who had been monitoring message boards, blogs and personal emails, asked for the sign up account details of two anonymous bloggers.
These were handed over by Yahoo China to the Chinese Government.
More than 57 Chinese people have been arrested as result of discussing democracy on the internet, say Amnesty International.
Human Rights Watch, a New York based campaign group, says a line has been crossed.
"Google, Yahoo and Microsoft no longer carry out the censorship for the Chinese government," says Asia Director, Brad Adams, "they are the censor."
This comment stems from the lack of clarity over what is being censored, who has initiated it, and why.
There are two types of censoring at work. Firstly, whole websites are eliminated from Yahoo and Google in China.
De-listed sites
De-listed sites are skipped over when the search engine trawls the web for results. Neither Yahoo nor any other company has released a list of websites that have been de-listed for their political and religious content.
As Judy Lin, a former Reuters reporter in Beijing, says: "I found it very difficult to do my job.
I couldn't access the New York Times, The Washington Times, BBC News or any websites about Tiananmen square - Judy Lin, former Reuters reporter.

Inside the great firewall of China
Free speech online 'under threat'

"I couldn't access the New York Times, The Washington Times, BBC News or any websites about Tiananmen square."
Additionally, typing in certain words, such as democracy, human rights, and the Chinese opposition group Falungong will produce error pages.
In an official statement, Yahoo said: "It is our understanding that every internet and media company doing business in China receives a list of prohibited words.
"It's important to distinguish that as of October 2005, Ali baba now operates the combined entity including the Yahoo China business.
"We no longer manage day to day operations in China, so we do not have a copy of this list of prohibited words."
'Government's bidding'
That is not true, according to Brad Adams.
"There was talk of a list that the Chinese government drew up and handed to the internet companies. There is no list, and Yahoo in particular is doing the Chinese Government's bidding by predicting which words will be problematic, testing them against the firewall and then implementing them."

Certain results are omitted from Google searches in China.
Human Rights Watch has repeatedly asked for copies of this list, and has never been given it.
These firewalls are maintained because the whole of China is served by only nine servers, through which all internet traffic is directed.
In addition, both Reporters Sans Frontiers and Human Rights Watch maintain that Chinese censorship is some of the most elaborate and comprehensive in the world.
Julian Pain from RSF challenges the legal basis for these lists , saying: "These are not actually legal: nowhere in the Chinese constitution does it say that certain words are illegal on internet sites."
Despite this China is viewed by the internet companies as a very lucrative market, with more than 100 million users online at any one time.
Yahoo, Google and other internet firms maintain they are interested in pursuing the utopian ideals on which they were founded.
Yahoo says the internet is a "positive force in China and a growing Chinese middle class is benefiting greatly from more education, communication, and technology".
'Giant market'
Judy Lin however, is sceptical, saying: "Of course all the companies are going after this giant market: the internet has become such an important part of Chinese life, with the average college student spending at least six hours a week online"
Brad Adams understands why there is such a furore over this issue because "in the future everything will be done on the internet: shopping, information retrieval and voting".
Chinese citizens are not interested in overthrowing the government - Shou Ming, academic.

Media explosion tests China's control
Web firms criticised over China

Chinese journalist Bu Hua, and Media Academic Shou Ming say there are more than 30,000 people involved in maintaining censorship within the Chinese government, monitoring information and discussions on message boards.
However both emphasise that the effects of this censorship are relatively small.
"Chinese citizens are not interested in overthrowing the government, or this Western concept of the public sphere" says Shou, "they want to talk about day to day concerns.

Yahoo says it bans words on an official list from the Chinese government
"Whilst each case is very sad for the people involved, fifty seven people arrested in a country of 1.4 billion is not very much."
Firewalls
Both feel disappointed by the restrictions posed by the Chinese government, but claim that in practice, the firewalls do not have much effect.
Both her and Shou Ming use tactics like breaking up words or underscoring them to find ways around the censors.
Others in China use proxy servers - computers in another country which act as the gateway to the net outside of China.
Critics of internet companies like Google and Yahoo argue that despite the assurances they are still treading too softly. There is talk of an ethical code to be launched soon.
"There is no chance that China will throw out Yahoo, Microsoft or Google" says Brad Adams.
"Dissidents use their sites, which makes them 'honeypots' that the Chinese government can monitor. And the Chinese need the new technology and software these companies bring in, if only to copy it.
"If Google, Yahoo and Microsoft stand together and are divided and ruled by the Chinese, they will be able to uphold an ethical code."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SERB LEADER JAILED FOR WAR CRIMES !

Milan Martic was found guilty of persecuting non-Serbs. The international war crimes tribunal in The Hague has sentenced a former Serb rebel leader to 35 years in jail for atrocities carried out in Croatia.
Milan Martic, 52, was found guilty of murder and persecution during his leadership of the self-declared Krajina Serb republic in the early 1990s.
He was guilty of ethnic cleansing targeting non-Serbs, the judges said. Martic had denied the charges.
He was also convicted for a 1995 rocket attack on the Croatian capital, Zagreb.
The Krajina Serb republic lasted from 1991 to 1995, when a Croat offensive brought it under Zagreb's control.
'Greater Serbia' plan
The tribunal said Martic had deliberately fuelled the atmosphere of fear by publicly stating that he could not guarantee the safety of non-Serbs in areas under Serbian control.
Croat and non-Serb property was destroyed so they would never have a home to return to
Alex WhitingProsecutor
Martic had committed crimes against "elderly people, persons held in detention and civilians" - victims whose "special vulnerability" added to the gravity of the offences, Judge Bakone Moloto said.
Martic surrendered to the tribunal in The Hague in 2002.
The court heard how Serbian leaders allegedly planned to create a so-called "Greater Serbia", annexing ethnic Serb territory within Bosnia and Croatia.

Plans to expel Croats and other non-Serbs were at the root of the establishment of the Krajina Serb republic, prosecutor Alex Whiting said.
"Croats and other non-Serbs were targeted by discriminatory measures, forced removal, imprisonment and murder in an effort to drive them away.
"Their property was looted and destroyed so they would never have a home to return to," he added.
'Key figure'
As a former police chief, he is alleged to have helped train and equip police and special forces in the rebel Serb republic.
Prosecutors said Martic was a key figure in a "joint criminal enterprise" masterminded by the former Serb leader in Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic.
Martic was the first Krajina leader to go on trial.
His predecessor as leader of the rebel republic, Milan Babic, avoided a trial by pleading guilty to ethnic cleansing and persecution and was sentenced to 13 years in jail in 2004.
The wartime leaders of the Bosnian Serbs, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, are currently on the run.

BBC NEWS REPORT

STRIKE ESCALATES IN SOUTH AFRICA !

Most schools and hospitals have already been closed for 13 days. Thousands of public sector workers have taken part in peaceful marches across major South African cities as unions stepped up strike action over pay.
Protesters in red T-shirts chanted slogans denouncing the government's handling of the 13-day strike which has seen most schools and hospitals closed.
President Thabo Mbeki has called for an end to intimidation by some strikers.
Negotiations between the unions and the government are in deadlock, complicated by the sacking of 600 health workers.
The unions have refused the government's revised offer of a 7.25% pay rise.
You can't negotiate by the barrel of a gun. A conducive environment needs to be created for progressive talks -Noluthando Mayende Sibiya, Health worker.

Strike in pictures
SA strike voices
Press worry over strike

Workers, who had wanted a 12% increase, say they will not go below 10%.
Cosatu predicted as many as two million people could stay away from work.
The BBC's Mpho Lakaje in Johannesburg says thousands of workers in red and yellow T-shirts danced and sang liberation songs through the streets of the South Africa's economic capital.
Police were out in full force and curious onlookers lined the streets, he says.
In Pretoria, an estimated 10,000 people marched to the union buildings, the official home of the president, and in Cape Town workers picketed parliament.
In the port city of Durban, protesters were also out in big numbers and those businesses that had opened, shut down fearing violence, local journalist Ncumisa Vandesi told the BBC.
The nearby city of Pietermaritzburg was as empty as a Sunday, she said.

Why unions are flexing their muscles

Most taxis, buses and trains services countrywide supported the strike, making it difficult for many private sector workers to get to their offices.
The 43 marches countrywide were reportedly peaceful.
Private schools in Johannesburg have also shut their doors.
There have been reports that some workers are being intimidated into striking. The home of a teacher has been petrol-bombed and pupils have been kicked out of class.
Political battleground
President Mbeki condemned such actions.
"All of us should ask ourselves, what kind of society we are building and what moral lessons we are imparting when insults, violence against fellow workers and damage to property become the stock-in-trade during protests of this kind?" Mr Mbeki said.
The government says it is ready to deploy troops to protect those who still want to work.
The sacking of more than 600 striking nurses has not helped negotiations, our Johannesburg reporter says.
The unions say they will not agree to anything until the nurses are reinstated.
Striking workers will have their pay docked, and the threats of sackings have been dismissed by some strikers.
"You can't negotiate by the barrel of a gun," health worker Noluthando Mayende Sibiya told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
Cosatu is officially a partner in government, but it has criticised the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for not doing enough to raise living standards of the poor.
The ANC is due to choose a new leader later in the year to succeed President Mbeki, with deputy ANC leader Jacob Zuma as a candidate.
Some analysts feel the strike is really a battleground for the various camps within the ANC ahead the election.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IRAQ ON ALERT AFTER SHRINE ATTACK !

Iraq on alert after shrine attack
By Jim Muir BBC News, Baghdad

A curfew was imposed soon after the attacks. The latest attack on the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, one of the most revered sites in Shia Islam, has sent Iraq into an instant state of national alert.
Iraqi police reinforcements and US troops were rushed to Samarra itself, where a curfew was imposed almost as soon as the dust had settled over the battered shrine.
In Baghdad, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki held emergency meetings with his top security chiefs and conferred with the US ambassador and multinational forces commander.
The prime minister's office then announced that an open-ended curfew was also being ordered in the capital from 1500 local time.
A state of emergency was also reported at another major Shia centre, Najaf, to the south of Baghdad.
Calls for restraint
Shia militiamen, blamed for a wave of sectarian reprisals after the 22 February attack at Samarra in 2006, were reported to be out on the streets in force in many parts of Baghdad.

Images of the mosque before and after the explosions.
Enlarge Image
Loudspeakers at mosques in Sadr City, the teeming east Baghdad suburb where the Mehdi Army militia is strong, began broadcasting chants of "Allahu Akbar!" - "God is Great".
The movement's leader, the maverick young cleric Moqtada Sadr, called for three days of mourning and issued an appeal for calm and restraint.
So too did Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the religious eminence who is usually regarded as the most senior clerical figure among Iraq's Shia Muslims.
But similar appeals in the wake of the Samarra attack last year did not stop the wave of sectarian revenge killings against the Sunni community, for which the Mehdi Army has largely been blamed.
Watershed
The first Samarra bombing was a watershed moment in the Iraqi crisis, triggering a spiral of violence that has taken thousands of lives among both Sunnis and Shia, and has proven almost impossible to stifle.
There are many unresolved flashpoints between the Sunni and Shia communities in Baghdad and elsewhere Despite all the precautions and the calls for restraint, there were predictions that the latest attack might add further fuel to the flames.
"Even if Moqtada Sadr appears waving a copy of the Koran, it is 90% cent sure there will be violence," said one Baghdad Shia gloomily.
The fallout will clearly be a major challenge to the current security "surge" by thousands of US and Iraqi troops.
The level of US forces in Iraq is expected to reach its peak in the coming days, with the aim of stabilising the capital and other troubled areas in advance of an eventual coalition withdrawal.
In the hours after Wednesday's Samarra explosions there were unconfirmed reports that a Sunni mosque in east Baghdad had been burned, and a Sunni neighbourhood in the western part of the capital attacked by Shia militiamen.
There are many unresolved flashpoints between the Sunni and Shia communities in Baghdad and elsewhere, despite a process of sectarian separation that has seen hundreds of families from both sides displaced by campaigns of threats and violence.
Even if Moqtada Sadr is sincere in his calls for his Shia followers not to fall into the trap of launching sectarian reprisals, there has been a growing question over the extent to which he is really in control of the Mehdi Army.
It is widely reported to have split into several factions and fragments.
Whoever was responsible for the latest attack at Samarra - already blamed on radical Sunni insurgents - clearly knew exactly what they were doing and what the likely response would be.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

WOOLMER 'DIED OF NATURAL CAUSES' !

Bob Woolmer was found unconscious in his hotel room.
Police statement

Jamaican police have confirmed that Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer died of natural causes and was not murdered, as they stated earlier.
Mr Woolmer, 58, died after being found unconscious in his Kingston hotel room on 18 March, following his team's loss to Ireland in the cricket World Cup.
An initial pathologist's report concluded that he had been strangled.
Every member of the Pakistan team was fingerprinted before returning home, sparking anger among many in Pakistan.
'No poison'
Jamaican Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas told a news conference in Kingston that three expert opinions had concluded that the original pathologist report of death by manual asphyxiation was wrong.
We got [the bone] x-rayed and the fact is that the bone wasn't broken in the first place -Mark Shields,deputy police commissioner.

Bone behind the mystery
Shields interview: Excerpts

Mr Thomas also said that toxicology tests had now been received and that they showed there was no substance to indicate poisoning.
"The police have now closed the investigation into the death of Bob Woolmer," he said.
Mr Thomas launched a strong defence of the police investigation, saying it had been commended by both Scotland Yard and Pakistani police who had helped with the case.
The original pathologist's report had said a specific bone - the hyoid - was fractured.
But deputy police commissioner Mark Shields told the BBC a later x-ray showed the bone was not broken.
"I instructed my team... to go back and actually retrieve it from his body... We got it x-rayed and the fact is that the bone wasn't broken in the first place," he said.
Mr Woolmer's widow, Gill, welcomed the latest news, saying: "My sons and I are relieved to be officially informed that Bob died of natural causes and that no foul play is suspected in his death."
'Terrible days'
Mr Woolmer's death sparked speculation he had been murdered by an angry fan or by an illegal betting syndicate. There was also speculation members of the Pakistan team may have been involved.

They should have first ruled out natural causes before this whole drama about the murder -
Imran Khan.

Players rule out legal action
International reaction
Your reaction

Mr Thomas said the Jamaica Constabulary Force had found no evidence "of any impropriety by players, match officials nor management".
In response to the findings, the head of anti-corruption unit of the International Cricket Council said that "bizarre" theories of match-fixing had "unnecessarily tarnished" the game.
Paul Condon said: "To those who suggest that corruption is still widespread... we have one clear message: put up or shut up."
Mr Thomas said his force had carried out its investigation thoroughly and with respect to the Pakistan cricket team.
But Pakistan's former captain Imran Khan said he was shocked there was no apology to the national side.
He said Pakistan's cricket board should sue those responsible for the "humiliation that the Pakistan team went through".
"Bob Woolmer had diabetes, he had blood pressure, an enlarged heart, he had respiratory problems. On top of it, the depression of losing and then he drank a bottle of champagne. They should have first ruled out natural causes before this whole drama about the murder," Imran Khan said.
But Inzamam-ul-Haq, captain during the World Cup, said that although the days after Mr Woolmer's death were "the most terrible of our lives", legal action now would serve no purpose.
The Pakistan Cricket Board made no mention of legal action in its statement, saying only that it felt "great satisfaction over the fact that the truth has finally come out".
The BBC's Andy Gallacher in Kingston says this is an embarrassing U-turn for the Jamaican police.
He says the news conference was an attempt to shift the blame for the errors in the case onto the report of the original pathologist, Dr Ere Sheshiah.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'LAST CHANCE' FOR ELEPHANT DEAL !

'Last chance' for elephant deal
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website, The Hague.

Clues in the ivory jungle
Markets push illegal ivory

African nations are engaged in last-ditch negotiations on elephants and ivory as the end of a major wildlife trade meeting nears.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting closes on Friday and a compromise deal appears elusive.
Some African countries want to expand the ivory trade, others to shut it down for several years.
But some observers believe enforcement is the big missing issue.
The flurry of new proposals greeting delegates at the beginning of Tuesday, the conference's seventh working day, spoke of last-minute bids to find common ground.
Delegates from elephant range states had been meeting daily, but two conflicting views still prevailed.
"It's a difficult issue, and that's why there are two fundamentally different approaches," commented Michael Wamithi, international advisor for Africa to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw).
Regional divide
CITES has twice allowed southern African countries to sell limited quantities of ivory from stockpiles to Japan, as exceptions to the 1989 global trade moratorium.

CITES EXPLAINED
Threatened organisms listed on three appendices depending on level of risk
Appendix 1 - all international trade banned
Appendix 2 - international trade monitored and regulated
Appendix 3 - trade bans by individual governments, others asked to assist

"Uplisting" - moving organism to a more protective appendix, "downlisting" - the reverse
Conferences of the Parties (COPs) held every three years
CITES administered by UN Environment Programme (Unep)
At the beginning of this two-week meeting, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe had asked for annual export quotas of ivory from stockpiles.
"The Namibian elephant population has more than doubled in the last decade," said Namibia's environment and tourism minister Willem Konjore, "and illegal killing has been so low as to be insignificant".
The "willingness of the rural community to co-exist and share resources with elephants" would be maintained, he suggested, if elephant products brought a supply of money back to the communities.
Kenya and Mali, meanwhile, had submitted a proposal requesting a 20-year moratorium on any further sales.
Tuesday brought two new proposals on the issue from the Kenyan camp, another two from southern Africa and one from the EU.
Collectively the documents speak of a further one-off ivory sale rather than annual quotas, liberalisation of other commercial and non-commercial uses of elephant products, and a moratorium of six, nine or 12 years rather than 20 on further sales.
After a brief debate and a recognition that these proposals cut across each other, delegates disappeared into side-rooms for what one participant suggested might be an all-night sitting.
Missing the point?

Illegal ivory markets pose a major problem.
A further Kenyan document sought to plug what some saw as the big hole in all these discussions - the high levels of poaching and low levels of enforcement in many African countries.
Tom Milliken, director of the southern and eastern Africa office of the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic, presented the latest results from the Elephant Trade Information System (Etis) which collates data on illegal ivory seizures.
"We are now seeing a sharp upturn in seizures," he told delegates.
"The fact it's occurring now is a matter for concern because it occurs after the adoption of the African Action Plan at the last CITES meeting (in 2004), which was designed to close down the world's illegal ivory markets."
With the exception of Ethiopia, he said, few African countries had shown much improvement since then in their control of illegal markets. Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo he described as countries of particular concern.
Of importing countries, Mr Milliken named China as a nation which has "demonstrated progressive improvement", but which faces major challenges.
Several delegates commented that unless these illegal markets can be controlled and shut down, there is little point in spending endless hours finessing the regulations surrounding legal sales.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ARRESTS AFTER KENYAN BOMB BLAST !

The blast happened during the morning rush hour. Police in Kenya say they have made three arrests following Monday's blast in the capital, Nairobi.
At least one person was killed and about 30 injured in the explosion outside a city centre cafe.
The police have played down the incident, saying the blast was "extremely small".
The blast was close to the site of the 1998 US embassy bombing which killed 213 people and for which al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.
The explosion happened at about 0800 local time (0500 GMT) outside the City Gate Restaurant as people were travelling to work.
Bombers at large
The BBC's Karen Allen in Nairobi says speculation is rife is that the bomber - or team responsible for the explosion - may still be at large.
After the blast, people just started screaming and running all over -Johnson Nyaga, eyewitness.

'People were screaming'
'My brush with bomber'

Witnesses say two men left the parcel with the explosive next to a shoe shiner before running away from the scene.
A police statement released on Tuesday says the identity of the person killed during the blast has not been established, but he was an African in his mid-30s.
Torn pieces of the Koran were found near a body outside the cafe but at this stage it is not clear if they are linked to this attack.
Police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said they had discounted earlier reports that a group of Somali men near the scene of the blast - may have been involved.
"Three people of Somali origin, reported by eyewitness to have disembarked from a taxi near the scene moments before the explosion have been traced and interrogated by police. It has now been established that the three were Rwandese nationals, who were going about their private business in Nairobi."
Our reporter says that business has returned to normal in Nairobi but there is sense of nervousness - that at a time when Kenya is already on high alert because if past experiences of bombings - explosives can be detonated in the very heart of the capital.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TANZANIA VETERANS 'BITTER-SWEET MEMORIES' !

Tanzania veterans' bitter-sweet memories
By Daniel Dickinson BBC News, Dar es Salaam.

Eighty-five year old Iddi Abdallah Pengo retains fond memories of his time patrolling the coast of Somalia as a soldier in the British army in the 1940s.

Iddi Pengo talks fondly of "our queen. "But he is less happy at his treatment since he left the service 61 years ago. "I served under British officers who were fair but firm," he says. "I learnt a lot, how to fire a gun and how to be a good soldier."
He is one of the 70 surviving ex-servicemen who gather every Monday morning in Dar es Salaam, to swap old memories and receive an allowance from a British charity.
The comradeship makes the two-hour trip worthwhile, but sadly not the allowance.
He receives the equivalent of just $3 a week in recognition of the time he spent in the British army.
"I can't live on this allowance; I have no other sources of income as I am too old to work. When I get ill, somehow I have to find the money to go to the doctor," he complains.
Medal
Sergeant Pengo was one of the thousands of young men from across British colonial East Africa who joined the Kings African Rifles.
"I had heard of Adolf Hitler and that he was coming to conquer my country so I signed up to the army," he says as he rummages in a plastic bag to retrieve the last remaining evidence of his time spent as a serviceman.
We need to ask ourselves whether... as young men leaving the army, they should have been able to make a go of their own lives
Col Paul DavisRoyal Commonwealth Ex-Services LeagueHe shows off his Certificate of Service, a small discoloured booklet the pages of which are disintegrating due to the passage of time, but which documents his story as soldier number 194595 serving in the British army during World War II.
There is an Africa Star medal, which he received for serving in the British and Commonwealth forces in Somalia.
There is also a faded photograph of 20-year-old Sergeant Pengo, taken in a studio in Mogadishu in 1942.
Like many of the other ex-servicemen, he is fiercely patriotic, talking of "my country" and "our queen" - an acknowledgment of Queen Elizabeth II's role as the Kings African Rifles' last Colonel-in-Chief.
But they feel badly let down.
Legal responsibility
Ally Sykes, a veteran who served with the British army fighting the Japanese in the jungles of Burma, says they deserve more recognition - and money.

Mr Pengo won the Africa Star medal for his part in the war. "They won't get it from the Tanzanian government, because they never were part of the Tanzanian army. It is up to the British people to help the men who fought to defend their country," he told the BBC.
The ex-servicemen are calling for an increase in their allowance to 100,000 Tanzanian shillings a month, around $80.
That would cost the British government approximately $67,000 a year, a tiny fraction of the more than $200m it is providing in aid to Tanzania this year.
But it is not so straightforward.
Following the independence of its former colonies and protectorates, the British government no longer has a legal responsibility towards veterans.
It is a charitable foundation, the London-based Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League (RCEL) that looks after the 65,000 ex-servicemen registered in 47 Commonwealth countries, including Tanzania.
The objective is to pay each Tanzanian ex-serviceman in need £100 ($200) a year.
Those payments were stopped in 2000 after about £20,000 was sent to Tanzania, but "went missing" in the words of RCEL Secretary General Col Paul Davis.
Pride
In the meantime, the weekly payments are being sent via Mr Sykes.

Ally Sykes says the British government should payAfter the war, the Commonwealth veterans were treated in exactly the same way as British veterans, according to retired Col Davis and although there is a sense that Britain does have a moral obligation towards these men, he believes it has to be kept in perspective.
"We need to be balanced about the support we give. Some of the veterans only joined up for a year and after receiving payments after the war, we need to ask ourselves whether the UK government should be supporting them for the next 60 years or whether as young men leaving the army, they should have been able to make a go of their own lives.
"That said, RCEL endeavours to ensure that if an ex-service man or woman is in desperate need then financial assistance is given," he adds.
Most of the Tanzanian veterans are now well into their 80s.
One man proudly said he was 106 years old.
Their mementoes of the war are now faded, but the memories of fighting for Britain are still strong.
They are just hoping those positive memories will not be diminished by spending their old age in poverty.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOUTH AFRICA SACKS STRIKING HEALTH WORKERS !

More than 600 striking public health workers in South Africa have been sent letters of dismissal, the public services minister has told the BBC.
"Our recognition of the right to strike... does not cover essential service workers," Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said.
The unions, which called the strike 12 days ago, have refused the government's revised offer of a 7.25% pay rise.
Workers, who had wanted a 12% increase, say they will not go below 10%.
The strike has closed most of the country's schools and hospitals and more unions are due to join the industrial action on Wednesday, unless a deal is reached.
Salary deduction
Ms Fraser-Moleketi said that under the South African constitution, workers in essential services did not have the right to strike and 638 dismissal letters had been sent out on Monday.

The military has been helping out in South African hospitals
"For those protected workers who have been on strike, we are deducting salaries in line with the 'no work no pay'," she told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
She said the negotiations were continuing and she was hopeful they could bring the public sector pay dispute to an end.
"I would say that real negotiations have only taken place since about Friday of last week," she said.
"As is we've already increased our original offer by 44%."
The unions have said the industrial action will not end until all threats are withdrawn.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has said the general strike would lead to "complete strike" by Wednesday.
Cosatu is officially a partner in government but it has criticised the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for not doing enough to raise living standards of the poor.
The ANC is due to choose a new leader later in the year to succeed President Thabo Mbeki.
On Friday, troops were deployed outside schools and hospitals to help the police stop clashes between strikers and those who wanted to work, as the strike entered its second week.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOUTH AFRICA JOINS BRIBERY CRACKDOWN !

Bribery is still a problem in international business. South Africa has said it will sign up to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) convention banning bribery.
It will become the first African signatory of the group.
Those signing up to the pact must implement measures aimed at preventing, detecting and punishing the bribery of foreign officials.
The UK Serious Fraud Office is probing payments allegedly made by BAE Systems in South Africa.
Similar probes into BAE's activities in five other countries are also being investigated.
The probe relates to a deal in late 1999, when South Africa ordered an upgrade to its armed services.
BAE Systems has said that it is co-operating with the on-going investigation but will not comment on the issues concerned.
Powerful impact
South Africa's former deputy president, Joseph Zuma, is also facing a court case over allegations that he received payments from the French arms company, Thint.
Mr Zuma was sacked from the government two years ago when his financial adviser Schabir Shaik was found guilty of corruption in a case that arose from a government arms procurement deal in the 1990s.
The OECD said that since its anti-bribery convention was introduced, there had been a significant growth in the number of investigations and prosecutions for bribery.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ETHIOPIAN PROTEST LEADERS GUILTY !

The opposition leaders say the courts are not independent. A court in Ethiopia has found 38 senior opposition figures guilty of charges connected to mass protests after disputed elections two years ago.
The charges ranged from armed rebellion to "outrage against the constitution".
Sentencing is next month and they could face the death penalty, says the BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in Ethiopia.
Hundreds of thousands took part in demonstrations complaining of fraud and vote-rigging by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government in the 2005 polls.
The opposition leaders refuse to recognise the court and failed to present evidence in their defence.
The judge said that because they had failed to defend themselves he had no option but to find them guilty.
One leader of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy in London, found guilty in absentia, told the BBC it was "very sudden and tragic news".
Heavy criticism
Almost 200 people died in two waves of protests.
The CUD blamed the deaths on the security forces but Mr Meles accused the opposition of starting the violent protests.
His government also points out that it introduced multi-party elections to Ethiopia after years of military rule.
In the elections, the opposition made huge gains but says it was cheated out of victory.
An independent inquiry carried out by an Ethiopian judge concluded that the police had used excessive force.
He went on to accuse them of carrying out a massacre. The judge later fled Ethiopia, saying he had been put under pressure to change his findings and had received death threats.
Two months ago, a judge threw out controversial charges of attempted genocide and treason against 111 people arrested after the election protests.
The violence and the charges of election fraud have tarnished Mr Meles' image as a favourite of Western donors and one of a new wave of reforming African leaders.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

LAOS' CONTROVERSIAL EXILE !

Laos' controversial exile.
By Penny Spiller BBC News website.

When Vang Pao was arrested last week on charges of plotting a coup in Laos, it sent shockwaves through the Hmong community in the US.

Vang Pao in recent years advocated peace with Vientiane. General Pao is a revered figure for many of Laos' ethnic Hmong who fought with him in the CIA-backed army during the 1960s and fled with him to the US after Laos fell to the communists. The 77-year-old has for some been the Hmong leader-in-exile for the last 30 years, helping the refugees build large, successful communities in Minnesota, Wisconsin and California among others.
Such is his standing that there has been talk of naming schools and parks after him.
But his reputation took a severe blow last week when he and eight other respected members of the Hmong community were charged by the US government with plotting to overthrow the Laos government.
They were accused of conspiring to spend millions of dollars on weapons to carry out attacks that prosecutors said would have killed "thousands of people".
"It's taken us by surprise, we are shocked by the news," said Keo Chang of the Hmong-American Partnership in Wisconsin.
"It's hard to imagine that he is involved in any of this."
Touger Vang, a university counsellor who works with Hmong students in North Carolina and whose father once worked with Vang Pao, agrees.
"I think many people don't believe these allegations make any sense, and are hoping they turn out not to be true," he told the BBC News website.
This is a man who spent all his life fighting communism and for democracy, and now [he] could be punished for it
Touger VangHmong community worker
In the early years of their exile, in the 1980s, maybe there was talk of returning to Laos and overthrowing the government, Touger Vang said, - but not now.
"A lot of people who respect him don't believe in going back to Laos and fighting," he said.
"Vang Pao himself has talked about re-establishing ties with the Laos government and normalising trade."
Persecuted Hmong
Vang Pao made his name after leading a CIA-trained guerrilla army against the communists when the Vietnam War spread into neighbouring Laos during the 1960s.
When Laos fell to the communists, he and as much as a third of the country's ethnic Hmong population fled to neighbouring Thailand amid fears of retribution for siding with the Americans.
HMONG IN LAOS
Ethnic group that often complains of marginalisation in Lao society
Took the side of the US in the Vietnam War - and say they are persecuted because of it
Many still live in jungles
Small numbers say they are fighting a rebel insurgency
Thousands have fled to Thailand in recent years
US took in 14,000 Hmong recently, but has no plans for taking more

Laos' forgotten Hmong

While many Hmong settled in Thailand, or moved on to the US and elsewhere, thousands stayed behind in Laos.
Many retreated into the forests from where they were rumoured to be carrying out a low-level war against the Vientiane government.
Hmong activists and human rights activists say those in the jungle have long-since ceased to pose a threat, yet the government continues to wage a campaign of vengeance against them.
The few journalists who have managed to track down some of them say they have been isolated by government troops and are malnourished, wounded and in need of shelter.
Analysts have speculated that this - and the fact that Thailand recently agreed to forcibly return any new Hmong refugees to Laos - could have been a strong motivating factor behind any alleged coup plot.
Allegations
While Vang Pao is credited with doing much to help the Hmong refugees and keep the plight of those back home in the public eye, he is not popular in all quarters and some of claims against him in recent years have raised eyebrows.
One organisation he has been linked to, Neo Hom, was reported to have been set up in the 1980s with a view to funding a possible coup against the Laos government - a not unpopular idea among the newly-arrived Hmong in the US.

Many Hmong are still hiding out in the Lao jungles.
It came under investigation by the authorities in California in the 1990s amid rumours it had raised millions of dollars.
Some refugees alleged they were being strong-armed into handing over donations with the promise of receiving social service benefits or key jobs in a free Laos.
Vang Pao's son-in-law Kao Thao later pleaded guilty to embezzlement, but no charges were brought against the general, who had denied any involvement.
Speaking on Vang Pao's behalf in 2005, his son Cha Vang told a Minnesota newspaper that nobody gives money "unless they have some personal interest".
"Nobody is coerced. My father's not going around demanding money," he said.
Many in the Hmong community also leapt to Vang Pao's defence when, in 2002, old allegations that he trafficked drugs during the war resurfaced.
Vang Pao refuted as "completely untrue" the claims by respected US historian Alfred McCoy that he had traded in opium to help fund his army in the 1960s.
In recent years, there have also been reports of in-fighting as other community leaders sought to move on from the old talk of toppling the Laos government.
Vang Pao surprised many when he released a "peace doctrine" in 2003 in which he proposed seeking peace and normalising trade with the Laos government.
He called for the past to "stay in the history books... to let a new era of peace, prosperity and reconciliation return" to Laos.
Many of the 250,000 Hmong living in the US - particularly the older generation who fought alongside him - are angry, not with Vang Pao, but with Washington for last week's arrests, Touger Vang believes.
"This is a man who spent all his life fighting communism and for democracy, and now this democratic country, the US, could punish him for it."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOPHISTICATED BOMB FOUND IN KABUL !

Sophisticated bomb found in Kabul
By Alastair Leithead BBC News, Helmand.

The new type of bomb is an extra worry for Kabul security. A hi-tech bomb, similar to the ones used by militants in Iraq, has been found in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Afghan intelligence sources say the bomb can penetrate heavily armoured vehicles and was set up by a road to target a high-level government convoy.
There is increasing evidence that sophisticated explosives technology is crossing into Afghanistan from Iraq.
Police and government officials say they believe Iran is the source of these so-called "shaped charges".
'Shaped charges'
They have been used widely in Iraq and now it seems they are on the streets of Afghanistan.

These "shaped charges" are designed to explode in a specific direction, to concentrate the force into one point, and their discovery in Kabul is a worrying development for security forces.
A source from the Afghan intelligence agency said the bomb had been planted by a busy roadside in the centre of the capital but had been discovered before it was detonated.
He said the intended target was mostly likely a high-level government convoy.
Hi-tech charges have been found in Afghanistan close to the Iranian border before and senior police and government officials have told the BBC that Iran's security agencies are involved with supplying the Taleban insurgency with money, weapons and explosives.
In April, in the southern Helmand province, weapons of Iranian origin were found but there was no direct link to the government.
The Iranian ambassador to Kabul strongly denies any involvement.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HOPES FOR DARFUR PEACE FORCE DEAL !

AU soldiers are covering a huge area of western Sudan. Sudan says a deal may be done soon over the deployment of a 20,000-strong force in Darfur, at talks in Addis Ababa with the UN and African Union.
The AU and UN are presenting a revised peacekeeping plan in which the AU runs day-to-day operations, while the UN is expected to have overall control.
The current AU force of 7,000 has struggled to contain the violence.
More than 200,000 people have died in the four-year conflict and around two million have fled to refugee camps.
The new plan has been created to get round the objections of the Sudanese government, which does not want a solely UN force, which it says would be like a Western invasion of their country.

Mapping the crisis

Earlier Sudan's Foreign Minister Lam Akol said that the timing was not right for France to host an international meeting about the conflict in Darfur.
"I am happy to say that the three parties are currently discussing in Addis Ababa the details of a hybrid force and we hope to have an agreement in the coming hours," Mr Akol told reporters in Khartoum after meeting French counterpart Bernard Kouchner.
"We do not want any distraction," he said.
Mr Kouchner, who has pledged to make Darfur a priority, has also proposed a humanitarian corridor linking Chad and Darfur.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

ETHIOPIA CAPITAL'S HOME WRECKERS !

Ethiopian capital's home wreckers.
By Amber Henshaw BBC Focus On Africa magazine.

Poor residents say development is taking place at their expense. Twenty-four-year-old Osman Redwan woke up one morning to find his shack in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, sliced in two.
City planners had drawn a line through his neighbourhood to make way for a huge road expansion programme.
And stunned onlookers watched as diggers came in to demolish everything along that line - one person's front porch, another's back garden, the front third of a traditional wooden house, half a shop.
The work was quick and clinical. Demolition teams stripped away plaster and partitions, leaving a series of bizarre cross sections behind them.
Walls were torn down, exposing bedrooms and pink-tiled bathrooms to the outside world, while families retreated into what was left of their houses.
"No-one is against development," Redwan told the Addis Ababa business newspaper Fortune.
"But you get horrified when you realise that you end up losing your business and ruining your life. This is not war. Development should not be at the sacrifice of individuals."
Relentless transformation
Similar developments are under way across Addis Ababa, and it is not just roads.
Brand new hotels, bars and restaurants are popping up all over the city. Much of it is powered by diaspora Ethiopians, returning from their havens in the United States and Western Europe with piles of hard-earned hard currency to invest.
Another driving factor is preparations for Ethiopia's coming millennium celebrations.
Ethiopians are still living in 1999 thanks to their unique and ancient dating system - a variation on the archaic Julian calendar that started disappearing from the Western world in the 16th century.

Ethiopia's Millennium has inspired the massive push for growth. Ethiopia will not enter the 21st century until later this year - 12 September 2007, if you use the more mainstream Gregorian calendar.
There is no doubting the ambition to develop Addis Ababa. But what it less clear is exactly who is in the driving seat, directing the diggers in their relentless transformation of the city.
Politically, Addis Ababa has been floundering since controversial national elections in May 2005.
Much of the construction seems to be based on plans laid out before the election by the city's last mayor, Arkebe Oqubay, who was aligned to the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition.
Oqubay was voted out of office by a huge majority, but the man chosen to replace him had little chance to make his mark on the development blueprints.
About six months after the poll, Mayor-elect Berhanu Nega was one of scores of politicians from the opposition Coalition of Unity and Democracy (CUD) to be arrested and charged with a string of offences, including attempting to overthrow the government.
Critics
Following the arrests, the government appointed an interim administration, with a caretaker mayor, Berhane Deressa.
But the uncertainty since the election has had a knock-on effect across the city. Local government officials have been going to incredible lengths to avoid making decisions, say aid workers working on development projects.

We have economic development that does not benefit most people. That could be very explosive
Mehane Tadesse, Center for Policy Research and Dialogue"Suddenly all the kebele [local council] officials we had worked hard to build relations with disappeared," says a development worker, who asked not to be named. "We were back to square one trying to build new relations."
Others have raised fears about the impact of all the development on the city's poorest residents.
Again, few critics are prepared to be named, but off the record they point to the high rents being charged in the new residential tower blocks springing up around the capital.
Deposits of 350 birr (about US$40) and monthly rents of 150 Birr (US$17) are common - a pittance by Western standards, but way above the going rate for an old-fashioned city-centre shack.
"We have economic development that does not benefit most people. That could be very explosive," says Mehane Tadesse from the Center for Policy Research and Dialogue, a Horn of Africa think tank.
"And the growth is not sustainable. The whole agenda suffers from short-termism. Political transition is the key and that is just not happening."
Moving out
For now, at least, there is little sign of the diggers and demolition crews running out of steam.
A huge plot of shanty towns and shacks opposite the United Nations' main compound in Addis Ababa has been cleared to make way for the foundations of a cluster of tower blocks, alongside a new five-star hotel and a new headquarters for the UN's children's agency, Unicef.
And in Osman Redwan's neighbourhood, Kazanchis, the road crews are still busily carving out their line.
After the diggers moved in, he moved all his possessions back into what is left of his now one-room shack - shared with his nine siblings and bedridden father.
He, like so many others, refuses to give ground.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

EXPLOSION ROCKS CENTRAL NAIROBI !

The blast happened during the morning rush hour. At least one person has been killed and several others injured in a blast in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, police say.
Witnesses say the explosion happened outside a cafe near the Ambassador Hotel in the centre of the city.
Police are playing down reports of a suicide bomber whilst carrying out post mortem examinations and forensic tests.
The area has been sealed off by police and the military. The blast was close to the site of the US embassy bombing nine years ago which killed 213 people.
The al-Qaeda network claimed responsibity for the 1998 attack.

After the blast, people just started screaming and running all over -Johnson Nyaga, eyewitness.

'People were screaming'
'My brush with bomber'

The explosion happened at about 0800 local time (0500 GMT) outside the City Gate Restaurant as people were travelling to work.
It ripped through a café sending shards of glass flying and throwing people to the ground.
One eyewitness told the BBC from hospital that he was knocked to the floor by a man running away just before the explosion.
Robert Maritim said he had been having his shoes shined near the blast and believed the man killed was a street sweeper.
Another witness said a man detonated a bomb inside the cafe. Other reports said it was a grenade blast outside.
Shop windows nearby were shattered and the area has now been cordoned off as anti-terrorist police with sniffer dogs comb the scene for further explosives.
Police later said one person had been killed and 30 people hurt in the blast.
Torn pieces of the Koran were found near a body outside the cafe but at this stage it is not clear if they are linked to this attack, the BBC's Karen Allen in Nairobi says.
Last week, more than 30 people were killed in Nairobi during a three-day police crackdown on suspected members of the outlawed Mungiki sect.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

LOOKING FOR CLUES IN THE IVORY JUNGLE !

Looking for clues in the ivory jungle
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website, The Hague.

Opinions are divided over whether trading ivory puts elephants at risk "It's a statement that's very easy to make, but much more difficult to prove."
At the opening news conference for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting, Willem Wijnstekers gave more answers on ivory than anything else - in particular, on the question of whether even a very limited legal ivory trade would stimulate elephant poaching.
Some animal welfare groups believe there is a link.
"Whenever CITES even talks about ivory sales, poaching goes up," Peter Pueschel of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) had said at a pre-meeting briefing.
The argument is that poachers will spot an opportunity to introduce illegal ivory into the market if a network for legal trade is operating.
Others, including CITES secretary-general Mr Wijnstekers, are not so sure.
"The data we have from Etis [the Elephant Trade Information System] is that there is no correlation between decisions made at CITES and the illegal trade," he said.
Any legal trade is an incentive to the illegal trade -Patrick Omondi, Kenya Wildlife Service.

Send us your comments

Two things had sparked this debate. Just before the meeting opened, a CITES technical committee had decided that a one-off sale of stockpiled ivory from Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, approved in principle in 2002, could go ahead.
And the same three countries plus Zimbabwe are asking for annual ivory export quotas, opposed by another African bloc under the informal leadership of Kenya and Mali.
Getting some firm answers would seem to be a key requirement for the conservation community.
No link seen
Etis is a database of all seizures of illegal ivory made by customs officers, police or anyone else in authority globally. It documents where, when, how much, who, and as much information as possible about the route involved, including countries of origin, transit and destination.
CITES formally established Etis under the management of Traffic, the wildlife monitoring network run by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and WWF, in 1997, eight years after Traffic began gathering data independently.
"We have something like 12,378 seizure records in the database now," says Tom Milliken, the organisation's director for eastern and southern Africa.
Seizures can only give an indication of the amount of poaching, because authorities vary widely in their competence and inclination to intercept valuable shipments.
Nevertheless, he maintains: "It captures the general trend, and if we see that the trend is going down for example, it really is going down."
A graph shows no apparent relationship between CITES meetings where ivory sales have regularly been discussed, and seizures. Even the only previous one-off sale, approved in 1997 and enacted in the years following, made no visible bump on the graph.
"After the one-off sale, we had six years of a decreasing trend," says Mr Milliken, "so the data does not support the hypothesis."
Local knowledge
But maybe Etis is the wrong database. Ideally, perhaps, you would use records of poaching, not of seizures.
That was the case which the Kenyan government made to CITES in 2002.
"There have been numerous reports by wildlife officials suggesting a rise in elephant poaching since CoP10 (the CITES meeting where the one-off sale was approved)," its submission read.

Hauls of illegal ivory continue to be seized around the world"Though many of these are of necessity anecdotal, they are nonetheless of concern not only because of the numbers involved, but because they indicate apparent resurgence of poaching in areas that had been relatively quiet."
It is an argument that the Kenyan authorities stand by today.
"Any legal trade is an incentive to the illegal trade," says Patrick Omondi, head of species conservation and management at Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).
"That's why we are pushing for a 20-year total moratorium on any legal sales."
Not convinced
The problem for Kenya's case lies in that word "anecdotal", which is to scientists what a rabbit is to a hungry dog.
Anecdotal evidence presents no problems for NGOs such as Ifaw whose positions are based largely on ethical conviction.
I think a lot of people act as they do because it's a vehicle for fundraising, and if you can stimulate a sense of urgency, you'll get people motivated and donating money
Tom Milliken, TrafficIt is a problem for CITES itself, and for organisations such WWF and Traffic, which all recognise that animal trade can bring money to needy communities, even generate funds for conservation, and demand hard evidence that trade is doing damage before they will back a ban.
In an attempt to get some firm numbers, CITES has set up another monitoring system called Mike - Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants - which does exactly what its name suggests.

'Hunting for solutions'

It is gathering data from more than 70 sources in Africa and Asia, and aims to provide a comprehensive picture of how many elephants are being poached, and where and when.
"There wasn't really any hard data before the year 2000, and that's why Mike was set up," says Mike's data analyst Julian Blanc.
"We're really concentrating on getting baseline data, and there haven't been any sales since Mike began. We're pretty confident that we will be able to pick up any upsurges in poaching."
But it will take Mike six years to build up an accurate picture. In the meantime, CITES has some decisions to make.
Precautionary principle
Ifaw urges a precautionary approach. "They (Etis) don't believe poaching is caused by the legal trade - we say it is," says the organisation's international advisor for Africa, Michael Wamithi, a former KWS officer.
"In 1997, we did not change our law enforcement procedures at all, so there could be no other reason for the upsurge we saw in poaching other than poachers were anticipating that the legal trade would be permitted."

CITES EXPLAINED
Threatened organisms listed on three appendices depending on level of risk
Appendix 1 - all international trade banned
Appendix 2 - international trade monitored and regulated
Appendix 3 - trade bans by individual governments, others asked to assist
"Uplisting" - moving organism to a more protective appendix, "downlisting" - the reverse

Conferences of the Parties (COPs) held every three years. CITES administered by UN Environment Programme (Unep)One of the ironies, Tom Milliken points out, is that many of the countries backing the 20-year moratorium bid have an appalling record on making illegal ivory seizures.
"Mali, for example, has reported one seizure in 18 years, but has been implicated in a further 42 [incidents of illegal trading]," he says.
And the welfare groups, he says, may not be helping.
"I think a lot of people act as they do because it's a vehicle for fundraising," he says, "and if you can stimulate a sense of urgency, you'll get people motivated and donating money.
"Some groups with lots of money have not contributed anything to closing down unregulated markets in Africa."
It is an argument which is likely to run through the second week of this CITES conference, as southern African states with abundant elephant populations, generally good records on poaching and a small but well-regulated usage of elephant products, seek further liberalisation, while others seek to shut the whole trade down.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SHOCK FOR LAWYERS IN ZIMBABWE !

Zimbabwe's government has been urged to end the harassment of lawyers, control the police and restore the rule of law.
An team from the International Commission of Jurists said it was shocked at the cavalier response of officials to police attacks on lawyers.
The Geneva-based group says it is also concerned about the role the police have been allowed to play in Zimbabwe.
The team visited Zimbabwe for five days to investigate the recent intimidation of lawyers representing the opposition.
"I was frankly personally shocked that lawyers could be beaten in police stations, said Kenyan ICJ delegate George Kegoro.
"The amount of repression and personal consequences for lawyers and for persons who are unpopular to the government is something I found very shocking."
Shaming
The International Commission of Jurists warns that if the current level of tension between the Zimbabwean government and the legal profession is not resolved soon, it will only deepen the damage to the rule of law.
"I've seen all kinds of things during my 30 year career on the bench, but the beating of lawyers, and the police not obeying court orders, I had never seen that to that extent. It really was shocking," said Canadian delegate Claire L'Heureux-Dube.
"The lawyers have an incredible strength. They have been threatened. They need a lot of security, and they work in conditions that are really threatening. It takes a lot of courage. These lawyers who put their life at stake, have got it."
"We can only hope our findings have an impact on the Zimbabwean authorities. I don't think any country likes to be shamed internationally," she added.
The BBC's Southern Africa correspondent, Peter Biles, says the Zimbabwean government allowed the ICJ fact-finding mission to go ahead, although a number of requests by the jurists for interviews were not answered.
The ICJ team was unable to meet the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the judge president of the High Court, the minister of justice or the minister of home affairs.
However, during the five days in Harare, the ICJ did meet the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Zimbabwe's attorney general.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MAURITANIA'S LEADER CUTS HIS PAY !

It is not clear how much President Abdallahi earns. Mauritania's new President Sidi Ould Sheikh Abdallahi and his cabinet have decided to take a 25% pay cut.
Local journalist Hamdi Ould Nohamed el-Hacen told the BBC it has come into effect immediately.
It was prompted by "reduced petroleum revenues", AFP news agency quotes a cabinet statement as saying.
Mr Abdallahi won run-off elections in March to become Mauritania's first democratically elected leader since independence from France in 1960.
The country was under the autocratic rule of Maaouiya Ould Taya for 25 years until a military coup in 2005
One of the world's poorest countries, Mauritania has pinned hopes for future prosperity on the exploitation of its offshore reserves of oil and gas.
Correspondents says oil production in Mauritania is currently around 18,000 barrels a day, compared to the originally anticipated 75,000 bpd.
According to AFP news agency, until Thursday ministers earned a monthly salary of about $3,500, compared to an average civil servants' pay packet of $260.
The president's salary was not reported.
The austerity measure follows last week's government announcement of a $112m budget deficit, the agency reports.

BBC NEWS REPORT

MEET THE (WOULD BE) PRESIDENT !

Meet the (would-be) president
By Laura Smith-Spark BBC News, Manchester, New Hampshire.

Republicans, like the Democrats, have flocked to New Hampshire. Want to meet the next president of the United States? Move to New Hampshire and you stand a good chance.
In a country of some 300 million people, the state's 1.3 million residents are perhaps the most heavily-canvassed and targeted voters of any in the nation, bar Iowa.
Last week each party's candidates flocked to New Hampshire for the latest televised debates, as they seek the all-important nomination to run for president in 2008.
And over the coming months, the contenders will court the state like no other, descending on it for house parties, 4 July parades and rallies - each time seeking vital "face time" with potential voters, in a strategy known as "retail politics".
The reason for this love affair lies in the peculiar politics of New Hampshire.

State profile: New Hampshire

Despite its tiny size, it holds disproportionate sway over the electoral process because, since 1952, it has been first in the US to vote in primary elections to choose each party's presidential nominee.
And from 1952 to 1992, when Bill Clinton bucked the trend, no-one won the presidency without first winning their party's New Hampshire primary.
Its residents are fiercely proud of their first-in-the-nation status, and are currently opposing attempts by other states to move their primaries up the calendar ahead of it.
But such a history also breeds expectations - and there have been suggestions in US media that some potential voters are feeling neglected.
Big buzz
It's not for lack of attention on the part of the candidates, however.
Rather, such is the buzz surrounding some of the frontrunners that instead of meeting them at a cosy coffee morning, people have found themselves in a crowd of hundreds or even thousands.

Senators Clinton and Obama have attracted large crowds to events. Dean Spiliotes, director of research at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St Anselm College, says this has been particularly true of some events held by Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
"Early on some of Obama's advisers suggested in the media they would do something a bit differently from the traditional New Hampshire model," he says.
"They are still doing some of these larger events - but also the smaller ones. But it's difficult. Part of it is that they are popular candidates."
He warns it is important not to underestimate the power of retail, or face-to-face, politicking - especially in a state where the residents are very switched-on.
"Voters meet the candidates directly and in general, what we have found is that voters seek out candidates that they already have an affinity for," he says.
"Then they get more excited and so bring in their friends and their families and it has a multiplying effect. It helps the candidates mobilise networks of supporters."
Both the Clinton and Obama campaign teams have said they intend to organise more small-scale events.
'Alive and well'
The good news for the so-called second tier candidates is that their events - less over-subscribed than those of their "rock star" rivals - may be more likely to inspire undecided voters.

I will be able to ask the next president of the United States something that is important to me -
Student Matt St John.
Lou D'Allesandro, a Democratic New Hampshire state senator and chair of the state senate finance committee, points out that there are also advantages to pulling in bigger crowds.
"It's exciting, which is very important - and you bring in new people when you have big crowds," he says.
However, campaigners are not abandoning the tradition of intimate gatherings just yet, he adds, with house parties planned at his home for several candidates.
Professor Stephen Wayne, chair of American Politics at Georgetown University, points to figures showing that in the first five months of 2007, Republican and Democratic candidates between them made almost 80 visits to the state.
"Some of the rallies that Senator Obama and Senator Clinton have held because of their popularity have been large," Professor Wayne says.
"But I'm sure the amount of face-time and interaction with the lesser known candidates is much as it was in the past.
"I think retail politics remains live and well in the US political system."
Personal level
That should come as a relief to 19-year-old Matt St John, who moved to New Hampshire to study precisely because he wanted to meet the political movers and shakers.
"I realised it was a different world," he says. "I've seen every presidential candidate at least once or twice, I've seen Hillary Clinton, Karl Rove, President and Laura Bush.
"There are 18 candidates. If I go to 18 events and ask the same questions of them all, I will be able to ask the next president of the United States something that is important to me.
"It's an amazing opportunity to have as a 19-year-old."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

S. LEONE BANS CHILD BRIDES NOT FGM !

Female circumcision is common in many African countries. Sierra Leone's parliament has passed a child rights bill, which bans under-age weddings but controversially dropped a clause to outlaw female circumcision.
The BBC's Umaru Fofana in Sierra Leone says girls as young as 11 are often married off to wealthy men but this is now banned until they are 18 years old.
However, the press and public were asked to leave parliament during the debate on female genital mutilation.
When they were allowed back, the section on FGM had been removed.
The local representative of UN children's agency Unicef said the passing of the bill was the best day for Sierra Leone's children since the end of the civil war.
But campaigners are not happy that FGM was not banned.
Senior MP Alassan Fofana told the BBC that there was a general consensus in parliament not to outlaw FGM.
He said that measures had been introduced to control it and pointed out that this was more than previous parliaments had done.
"They were afraid to be tagged as calling for a ban on FGM. For a lot of people, this would have cost their political career," he said.
Last year, a woman from Sierra Leone successfully claimed asylum in the UK on the basis that she feared being forcibly circumcised - a decision condemned by the Sierra Leone government.
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.
FGM is practised in many West, North and East African countries.
One Sierra Leone girl nevertheless told the BBC that the new law would improve her life.
"I'm more privileged than my mum - she was forced into marriage at an early age. At least I can decide for myself how to live my life without my parents interfering," she said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'SLAVES' RESCUED FROM CHINA FIRM !

'Slaves' rescued from China firm
By Michael Bristow BBC News, Beijing

Many workers had extensive burns from the hot bricks. Thirty-one dirty and disorientated workers have been rescued from a brickwork factory in China, where they were being held as virtual slaves.
Eight workers were so traumatised by their experiences that they were only able to remember their names.
The labourers had to work unpaid for 20 hours at a time, and were only given bread and water in return.
The brickworks, in the poor inland province of Shanxi, is owned by the son of the local Communist Party secretary.
Local police told the BBC that the owner, Wang Binbin, had been arrested, and that his father, Wang Dongji, was under investigation.
Several other people have also been arrested, although the foreman is still on the run.
Harsh regime
According to a report in the Beijing News, citing the Shanxi Evening News, the rescued workers had been duped into working at the factory.
Once there, they faced a harsh regime. One man was even reported to have been beaten to death with a hammer, because he did not work fast enough.

The workers were only given bread and water. When police raided the brickworks they discovered foul-smelling workers who had been wearing the same clothes for a year.
They had no facilities to wash, and they had not had their hair cut or brushed their teeth.
"The grime on their bodies was so thick it could be scraped off with a knife," the Beijing News said.
They had burns over their bodies after being made to carry bricks that had not cooled down properly.
Police are now arranging for the workers to get the wages they should have been paid, and then they will send them home, although the eight disorientated workers cannot remember where that is.
Local people said the brickworks, near Linfen, would have been closed down a long time ago had it not been for the protection of the party secretary.
China has tens of millions of migrant workers.
They leave their rural homes in search of work, but often have to endure harsh conditions, bad treatment and low pay.
There is little they can do about their lot, particularly when, as in this case, factory owners are protected by powerful local officials.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HANNAH SUSPECT FACES EXTRADITION !

Hannah was killed after a night out in Southampton. An Indian court has ruled that the prime suspect in the rape and murder of a British teenager can be extradited to face trial in the UK.
Hannah Foster, 17, was murdered after a night out in Southampton in 2003. Maninder Pal Singh Kohli was arrested in India in 2004 over her death.
Hannah's parents Trevor and Hilary said they were "delighted" after three years of campaigning for his extradition.
Mr Kohli claims he is innocent and says the extradition order is unfair.
The process has involved more than 100 court appearances.
Judge Kamini Lau said she was satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to establish a strong case against Mr Kohli.
"It is hereby recommended that extradition is possible," she told the court.
Legal experts say the authorities have two months to complete the extradition formalities.
In an emotional outburst in court, Mr Kohli described the judge's order as "unfair".
"I am innocent. As an Asian I will not get a fair trial. They cannot take me away from India as long as I am alive," he said.
Indian support
Mr and Mrs Foster, who have flown to Delhi three times to try to speed up the extradition process, said the decision was a "huge relief".
"We are delighted," said Mrs Foster. "For the fist time, we haven't got to go to bed thinking about who we should write to tomorrow and who we should get to help us campaign."
She praised the Indian people for their support.
"They are very caring people and as a nation, families are very important to them so I think our case just touched their hearts, knowing it could have been one of their children," she said.
Mr Foster told the BBC: "We've had three years of bad news and delays all the time so this is quite a fillip to get this and hopefully it'll keep us going for as long as it takes to get the UK trial sorted."

Maninder Pal Singh Kohli was arrested in July 2004.
The British High Commission in the Indian capital Delhi issued a statement welcoming the court order.
"We are pleased at this positive development and grateful to the Indian authorities for the effort they have put into considering our extradition request," the statement said.
"We hope that Mr Kohli will soon be back in the UK to face trial for Hannah's murder."
Hannah was abducted near her home in Portswood on 14 March, 2003.
Her body was found two days later and a post-mortem examination revealed she had been raped and strangled.
Mr Kohli is alleged to have fled to India after he was identified as the prime suspect.
More than a year later, he was arrested in the eastern state of West Bengal near the border with Nepal.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

JORDAN'S REFUGEES LONG TO RETURN !

Jordan's refugees long to return
By Paul Moss The World Tonight, BBC News.

The 1967 Middle East war left the West Bank occupied by Israel, and prompted tens of thousands of Palestinians to flee the West Bank for what was left of neighbouring Jordan. Forty years on, many are still there:
There is an odd sense of exuberance at the Baqaa refugee camp. Arab pop music blares from music shops, and from the windows of peoples' homes.
The market is as bustling as any you would find in a small Middle Eastern town but then that is what this camp has become.
Forty years on, the Camp is a permanent fixture, a rather tumble-down residential area like any other on the outskirts of the Jordanian capital, Amman.
But any suggestion that Baqaa might become their permanent home is fiercely rejected by its occupants.
'Still foreigners here'
"Every day, I pray to God that I will return to Jerusalem," a shopkeeper told me.
There are some who go crazy dreaming of Palestine. If you go the mental hospitals, you can see them
Rula QawwasBaqaa volunteer worker
"I come from there, my family is there - it is my city."
Another was equally adamant:
"I am a foreigner in this country. Even if I stay here another 40 years, I will still try to return to the West Bank. And if I do not go there, my children will do so."
This defiant optimism may be impressive. Yet at the same time, it undoubtedly takes a psychological toll.
Rula Qawwas is a volunteer who has been working with refugees here.
"They dream about their homes," she says, "they dream about their gardens. But this means they do not live in the present."
She worries that because of the conviction that their stay in Jordan is only temporary, many refugees refuse to put down roots, or develop their lives.
"At its worst, there are some who go crazy dreaming of Palestine. If you go to the mental hospitals, you can see them."
Nice but not home
And yet even those Palestinian refugees who have made a good life for themselves in Jordan express this same insistence that they will return to their homeland.

I like Jordan... but home is different
Samia ZaruPalestinian sculptor
Samia Zaru fled Ramallah after the Israeli occupation made life difficult for her and her husband.
Now she lives in a huge house, with a garden filled with the sculptures she produced while living in exile.
These have earned Ms Zaru an international reputation in the art world and, it would seem, a fair amount of money as well.
But she rejects any suggestion that she might want to continue this life forever.
"I like Jordan," she says, "and I have many friends here. But home is different. It feels different, it smells different - it's home."
Faith in return
Assad Abdul Rahman understands this sentiment all too well.
One of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation representatives in Amman, he says that waiting to return is not merely what a Palestinian refugee does.
It has become, he says, part of the very nature of what it means to be a Palestinian.
"The whole psychology is built on the idea of return," he argues.
"To stop believing this is impossible. It's like negating oneself."
But Mr Rahman's insight is not tempered by any sense that such a wait might be unrealistic.
Showing off his familiarity with Western culture, he insists:
"We are not waiting for Godot. Return to Palestine is legal, it is practical, it is a sacred duty. It is something that will happen - one day."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

10 THINGS !

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. It's 1999 in Ethiopia.More details

2. The Spanish national anthem has no words.More details

3. There are 1,200 exhumations every year in the UK, but not all of those are part of criminal cases.More details

4. There are 14 different spellings of Mohammed in the top 3,000 baby boy names in the UK, propelling it to number two just behind Jack. More details

5. Nearly seven out of 10 (69%) of adults are still in touch with at least one childhood friend.More details

6. Seb Coe is partially colour-blind.
7. Twenty-three billion jars and bottles have been recycled in the UK since the first bottle bank opened in 1977.More details

8. Unemployment is back up to 1979 levels.More details

9. Footage can be checked to see if it is harmful to people with epilepsy by a gadget called the Harding Flash and Pattern Analyser.More details

10. Tre Azam, fired this week from The Apprentice, had a near-fatal car crash 10 years ago. He still has steel plates in his back and pins in both legs.More details

BBC MAGAZINE

MASS CIRCUMCISION TO FIGHT AIDS !

Some fear that circumcision could lead to more risky behaviour. South African Aids experts have called for a mass circumcision programme after studies showed it reduced the rate of HIV infection by up to 60%.
Professor Alan Whiteside said all boys born in public hospitals should be offered the operation.
"It is so blindingly obvious that there are real reasons for circumcision," he said at a national Aids conference.
Some 5.5m South Africans have HIV - second only to India - and one person in nine is infected.
Some, but not all, of South Africa's ethnic groups practise circumcision.
"In South Africa, high proportions of men and women find it acceptable to be circumcised," said Neil Martinson of the Perinatal HIV/Aids Research Unit.

Some critics have, however, warned against mass circumcision, pointing out that it did not help women and could encourage men to feel they were immune and take part in risky behaviour.
But Mr Martinson said these fears were not borne out by studies.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is known as 'Dr Beetroot'
"People weren't going around and sleeping around more because they didn't have a foreskin," he said.
Last year, studies into the link between male circumcision and HIV infection in Africa were stopped because the evidence was so striking.
Meanwhile, organisers of the conference have denied reports that they snubbed controversial Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
"The committee confirmed that Dr Tshabalala-Msimang had been invited repeatedly to take part officially at the opening of the conference on Tuesday evening," said a statement from organisers Dira Sengwe.
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka had told the conference that Dr Tshabalala-Msimang had missed a session on Wednesday because she was unhappy with her allocated slot.
Dr Tshabalala-Msimang has often told people with HIV to eat garlic, lemons and beetroot, while casting doubt on anti-retroviral drugs.
Anti-Aids activists have long demanded her dismissal.
She has just returned to official duties this week after having a liver transplant.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

UN 'MUST ARREST DARFUR SUSPECTS' !

Ahmed Haroun was responsible for Darfur in 2003 and 2004. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has urged the UN Security Council to help in the arrest of two Sudanese men suspected of war crimes in Darfur.
Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman, also called Ali Kushayb, are wanted on 51 counts.
The ICC prosecutor told the council they worked together systematically to attack civilians in Darfur.
The Sudanese government has rejected the international court's jurisdiction.
More than 200,000 people have died in the four-year conflict and some 2m are in camps after fleeing their homes.
A UN Security Council team is due in Khartoum on 17 June to discuss the issue with Sudan's president.
Outgoing UN head of humanitarian affairs in Sudan Manuel da Silva says he believes rebels in Darfur are ready to go back to the negotiating table for peace talks and are tired of fighting.
The US has warned Sudan to accept the deployment of a joint UN-African Union in Darfur or face sanctions such as a no-fly zone. Mr Haroun was a minister responsible for the Darfur portfolio in 2003 and 2004.
"No crime was committed there without Harun's intervention. He was the one who recruited the Janjaweed militia," Reuters news agency quotes the ICC prosecutor as saying.

SUSPECTS' PROFILES
Ahmed Haroun- In charge of Darfur in 2003 and 2004 as deputy interior minister- ICC says his work included recruiting, funding and personally arming Janjaweed militia- Quoted as saying that he had been given the authority to either kill or forgive in Darfur for the sake of peace and security- As humanitarian affairs minister he oversees Darfur's 2m refugees- Aid agencies accuse of him of hindering their efforts to access the displaced
Ali Kushayb- Known as "colonel of colonels"- Commanded thousands of Janjaweed in mid-2003- Allegedly promoted and witnessed rape and torture as part of the war strategy- The government say he has been in detention since November for Darfur attacks- But witnesses told AP that he has been travelling in Darfur under police protection.

Q&A: Sudan's Darfur conflict
Q&A: The ICC
Sudan under fresh pressure

"I have eyewitnesses who saw Ahmad Harun delivering weapons in his own helicopter to the militia in three different states in Darfur," Luis Moreno-Ocampo said.
"I have eyewitnesses watching Kushayb involved in the execution of prisoners, in the rape of women," he said.
In February, the two men were named by the ICC as suspects on a total of 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Correspondents say it is unclear whether Mr Kushayb is already in the custody of the Sudanese government for attacks committed in Darfur.
Earlier, Mr Haroun said the move against him was political and that he had a clear conscience.
In the past, Sudan has complained that the ICC has not indicted any Darfur rebels who it says are also guilty of murderous attacks.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

G8 LEADERS REACH $60 bn AIDS DEAL !

Aids charities say the pledge does not go far enough. G8 leaders meeting in Germany have vowed to deliver on pledges to Africa, and agreed a $60bn (£30bn) package for fighting Aids, malaria and TB.
Officials said half of that amount would come from the United States.
On the final day of their summit, they repeated a commitment made at the 2005 Gleneagles summit to double aid for Africa by the end of the decade.
But anti-poverty campaigners expressed disappointment, with Bob Geldof saying the outcome was a "total farce".
This wasn't serious, this was a total farce - Bob Geldof.

Modest progress for the G8
Excerpts of summit agreements

The pledge followed a deal to seek "substantial" cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to tackle climate change.
US President George Bush missed the first few hours of business on Friday, suffering from a stomach complaint.
At the close of the summit, the G8 issued a number of statements on other topics, saying:
It supported "further measures" against Iran if Tehran failed to stop its uranium enrichment programme
It would back further action against Sudan if Khartoum failed to support international efforts to end the conflict in Darfur
North Korea should stop testing nuclear-capable missiles and abandon all nuclear programmes
It had failed to find a common position on the future status of Kosovo
Limited progress
Mr Bush announced last month that the US would dedicate $30bn to the fight against Aids, and diplomats confirmed that would make up half of the funding announced on Friday.

GLENEAGLES SUMMIT 2005

G8 nations agreed to wipe the debts of 18 African countries
Announced $50bn boost to aid for Africa
Pledged universal access to HIV drugs in Africa by 2010
Committed to training 20,000 peacekeepers for Africa
Vowed to work towards a new trade deal
In return, African leaders committed to democracy and good governance.

One year on: Progress report
Diary: On tour with Bush

The BBC's James Robbins, who is at the summit, says the pledge follows acknowledgement that the G8 members had not met their 2005 commitments.
They have now agreed to a declaration stressing their firm resolve to implement those commitments, and to keep Africa at the top of the agenda in Japan next year.
Specifically, after much wrangling, the eight agreed to make up the $500m shortfall in this year's spending for education in Africa, our correspondent says.
But anti-poverty campaigners were unimpressed by the moves.
"This wasn't serious, this was a total farce... I won't have it spun as anything else except a farce," Bob Geldof said.
He added that instead of re-committing to the promises made two years ago, the G8 leaders had to get serious and deliver.
But he praised UK Prime Minister Tony Blair for pursuing the anti-poverty campaign "to the point of exhaustion".
Oxfam said only $3bn of the money was new.
UK development agency Tearfund said there was nothing in the G8 communique which could benefit trade in Africa, and the key issues of water and sanitation were not mentioned at all.
The Aids package was also criticised as inadequate.
"While lives will be saved with more money for Aids, this represents a cap on ambition that will ultimately cost millions more lives," said Steve Cockburn of the Stop Aids Campaign.

HAVE YOUR SAY
We should be looking at why the G8 haven't fulfilled previous commitments rather than allowing them off the hook to make more empty promises
John Brooks, Manchester, UK
Send us your comments

Mr Blair said "immense progress" had been made in Germany. He said the G8 had reasserted the Gleneagles goals, "but the important thing is we have set out how we are going to do them".
Most campaigners acknowledge that some progress has been made since Gleneagles.
Writing off the debt of 18 African nations has allowed Zambia, for instance, to expand free healthcare in rural areas.
But other commitments - like a sustained boost to aid, and the pledge to work towards a free trade deal that would remove tariffs on African exports to developed countries - have still not materialised.
Global greenhouse gas emissions must stop rising, followed by substantial global emission reductions.

G8 statement

Reaction to climate deal
In pictures: Anti-G8 protests

Nigeria's newly elected President Umaru Yar'Adua, one of six African leaders attending the summit on Friday, told BBC News he would be seeking better trade deals for Africa and increased efforts to resolve the crisis in Darfur.
Thursday saw leaders agree a climate change deal. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the G8 would negotiate within a UN framework to seek a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol by the end of 2009.
No mandatory target was set for the emissions cuts, but Mrs Merkel's preference for a 50% cut by 2050 was included in the statement.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYA POLICE SHOOT SECT SUSPECTS !

Police forced local people to lie on the ground as they made arrests. Police in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, have shot 12 Mungiki suspects during a major crackdown on followers of the banned sect, a commander says.
The police and paramilitaries have sealed off Mathare slum for a third day in a search for guns and sect members.
The BBC's Karen Allen at the scene says she saw several dead bodies being brought out of slum dwellings.
Twenty-one people were killed by police in a shoot-out on Tuesday following the killing of two policemen on patrol.
"When we were arresting, some of them came out shooting. As we fired back, 12 were killed," police commander Paul Ruto told AP news agency.
The police operation comes a day after Security Minister John Michuki vowed to intensify operations against the sect.
Our reporter says she also saw about 40 people - including women and children - being forced by police to lie down in the mud as the operation continues.

KENYA'S SECRETIVE MUNGIKI

Banned in 2002
Thought to be ethnic Kikuyu militants
Mungiki means multitude in Kikuyu
Inspired by the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s
Claim to have more than 1m followers
Promote female circumcision and oath-taking
Believed to be linked to high-profile politicians
Control public transport routes, demanding levies
Blamed for revenge murders in the central region

In pictures: Mungiki clashes
Profile: Mungiki sect
Child kidnap ordeal

Many residents have fled the Mathare slum, which is home to some 500,000 people and believed to be a Mungiki stronghold.
A reporter for Reuters news agency said he saw an officer club a woman in the throat as she clutched a baby.
Earlier, Mungiki members threatened to behead more people.
Albert Kimanthi, the police chief in Muranga district north of Nairobi, confirmed that threatening leaflets authored by the sect members were circulating in the area.
The Mungiki warn that unless residents and traders pay protection fees, they will behead 20 people.
The sect is accused of beheading more than a dozen people in the capital and parts of the central province, in the past three months.
"We assure the residents that we have beefed up security in the area and will counter the sect effectively," Mr Kimanthi told reporters in Muranga.
The leaflets ask transport operators, small businesses and homesteads to pay between $1 and $3 as a daily protection fee.

A beheaded corpse was discovered in Mathere on Wednesday. Mr Michuki, who chaired a meeting with leaders from the most affected areas, said they all support a merciless campaign against the Mungiki.
Last week, the president warned that Mungiki activities would no longer be tolerated and ordered a shoot-to-kill policy.
The Mungiki are thought to be militants from Kenya's biggest ethnic group, the Kikuyu.
Some commentators have linked them to politicians wanting to cause unrest and fear ahead of December elections.
The sect promotes female circumcision and oath-taking and was outlawed in 2002.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

Speaker and Spectator !

Saturday 2nd June 2007


Dear Family and Friends,

As ridiculous as it may sound, little lights of hope are flickering on all the time now in Zimbabwe. They are not practical everyday lights of decreasing prices, increasing food and medical supplies or improved services - quite the contrary in fact. The lights of hope that I am talking about are those that are beginning to illuminate the future direction. Some are from events across the border where it seems there are actually things going on - although no one is saying what!
Other signs of hope are coming from within. One is the blatantly obvious declining interest and support by people in rural areas for overweight politicians in smart clothes and fancy cars who come only at election time - and then shout and threaten people in their bid to garner votes. A prime example is underway at the moment in the run up to a by election about to be held in Zaka East. At last both sides of the MDC have managed to stand together and say they will not contest the seat - what is the point if conditions are not free and fair. This leaves Zanu PF standing against two virtually unknown parties, the UPP (United People's Party) and the UPDP (United People's Democratic Party). Some of the earlier ZANU PF rallies were shown on ZBC television and it was embarrassing to watch great obese men, shouting and waving their fists at the painfully thin people, sitting barefoot in the dust staring blankly ahead. The contrast between speaker and spectators was so extreme it was a wonder it was shown on national TV at all.
A few days later, arriving to whip up support for the ruling party candidate , a former soldier, disappointment was immediate and the rally cancelled. Zanu PF Chairman, John Nkomo, said: "We have to postpone this rally to Thursday next week because we cannot address these few people." The days of Zanu PF being able to take support for granted - even in remote dusty villages - are gone.
Other reasons for hope are coming from people in positions of responsibility who are making courageous decisions and are standing up to do the right thing - politics and propaganda aside. This week High Court Judge Tedious Karwi granted bail to Ian Makone - one of 32 leading opposition officials and activists arrested in late March who have been held without trial for the past 2 months and 2 days. In making the bail ruling Judge Karwi stated a fact which of late is not guaranteed and has been very elusive in Zimbabwe. The Judge said:" Our law presumes people to be innocent until proven guilty."

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

JACKSON SALE NEARS THE 42m MARK !

In pictures: Jackson memorabilia sale

Memorabilia from the Jackson family pop dynasty has sold for between $1.5m (£750,000) and $2m (£1m) during a two-day auction in Las Vegas.
Among the items snapped up was a black military-style coat belonging to Michael Jackson, which sold for $24,000 (£12,131) according to the auctioneers.
Jackson's MTV music award for song We Are The World fetched $16,000 (£8,087).
The Guernsey's Auction House sale at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino had over 1,100 items on offer.
It billed the two-day auction as the biggest-ever sale of Jackson family memorabilia, including clothes, music sheets and gold disc awards belonging to Michael, Janet, Jermaine, Tito and La Toya.
The final sales tally is still being calculated but the figure is expected to be between $1.5m (£750,000) and $2m (£1m). Some of the proceeds will go to charity.
The Jackson collection was sold by Universal Express Inc, a luggage company, which acquired the items last March.

The collection includes signed pictures, music sheets and awards
"We are thrilled with the results of this initial auction," said Richard Altomare, Chairman and CEO of Universal Express.
"But most importantly, I am excited for the children's charities that will be benefiting from the outcome, and feel proud that we could help these vital organisations," he added.
A 1960s ID card belonging to Michael Jackson, identifying him as a Motown Records artist, was sold for $9,000 (£4,550).
A glittery jacket owned by the pop star went for $19,000 (£9,600), while a 1984 telegram from the late actor Marlon Brando to Jackson sold for $1,600 (£800).

Artwork inspired by Jackson's Thriller and Off the Wall albums was up for grabs
The company's collection includes other Jackson items, such as master tapes of hundreds of songs, some never released - Mr Altomare said they will be sold at a later date.
"We have two times the number of items here still in our warehouse," he added.
The company bought the entire collection for $5m (£2.5m) and spent $2m (£1m) transporting them.
The date and location of the second auction will be announced shortly.
"We still have many items that fans and collectors will be very interested in purchasing," Mr Altomare said.
Jackson initially opposed the auction but the matter was then resolved amicably.
Other items that were sold include gold discs for Jackson's Off the Wall album and the Jackson 5 single I want You Back - they fetched $11,000 (£5,560) each.
But a copy of the contract for Michael Jackson's purchase of his Californian ranch Neverland in 1987 was bought for just $100 (£50).
A platinum record for his hit song Billie-Jean also sold for $100 (£50).

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HARD LIFE FOR AFRICAN STREET CHILDREN !

Hard life for African street children
By Catherine Lyst BBC Scotland news website.

Unicef estimates that more than 200 million children are living on the streets globally. In Uganda, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that rebel groups are snatching homeless youngsters and forcing them to become child soldiers.

The former street children learn to build up trust.

In Pictures: African street children

Marsali Campbell, a nurse from Portree in the Isle of Skye, has been working for a mission in Kampala, the country's capital, where she helps to turn around the lives of these vulnerable children.
The 38-year-old, who has worked as a nurse for 20 years, spent time at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and has a diploma in child health, specialising in children with cancer and HIV.
She first went to Uganda in 2001, having already spent a year working with poor children in India.
A missionary with the African Inland Mission, she has most recently been working with Dwelling Places, which helps street children, abandoned babies and high risk slum families.
Many of them have HIV or have lost parents to Aids.
"The heart of what we do is to try to rescue children from the street," Marsali said.
"Many suffer from depravity, disease, hunger and abuse. We see newborns to teenagers and families headed by children."
Marsali has witnessed five-year-olds living alone on the street and has even seen teenage girls who have spent their whole life on the streets having their own babies while homeless.
These are broken, troubled children who have only ever known suffering.
She has also come across numerous abandoned babies. They have been found on the street, in dustbins, tied up in plastic bags and found in pit latrines and swamps.
A particular threat in Uganda is the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group which has committed numerous abuses and atrocities, including the abduction, rape, maiming, and killing of civilians, including children.
Many of the children are trained as guerrillas. The LRA has also abducted young girls as sex and labour slaves.
Other children, mainly girls, have been reported to have been sold, traded, or given as gifts by the LRA to arms dealers in Sudan.
In addition to being beaten, raped, and forced to march until exhausted, abducted children are forced to participate in the killing of other children who attempt to escape.
HIV pandemic
Amnesty International reported that without child abductions, the LRA would have few combatants.
More than 6,000 children were abducted during 1998, although many of those abducted later escaped or were released.
There are currently estimated to be about 3,000 children still held captive by the LRA.
"We see lots of children who have been abducted by the rebels and escaped," Marsali said. "They often carry a lifetime of guilt.

Many of the children have lived their whole lives on the streets.
"We also have children whose whole village has been massacred and they have managed to hide.
"Others are on the streets because of abuse within their own families. They come with wounds, burns and scars.
"These are broken, troubled children who have only ever known suffering."
Apart from using her nursing skills to help the children, Marsali has to build up the youngsters' trust.
"I go and talk to them on the streets about hygiene and sexually transmitted diseases," she said.
Many of the children have HIV or Aids or have lost parents to the virus and have been rejected by their communities.
Latest figures show there are 15 million orphans due to HIV - 12.5 million of those are in Sub Saharan Africa.
"The pandemic of HIV is a major contribution for the number of children ending up on the streets," Marsali said.
Dwelling Places rehabilitates and educates the children they have rescued from the streets.
It's great to see kids grow up that wouldn't have survived otherwise
"A lot of these children have never known a home, having a kitchen, and bathroom, or even just to feel protected," Marsali said.
"Some of them may have HIV but receive no medication while others have the virus unknowingly. Others have seizures or are almost blind and need glasses. Most have never had any dental care."
The youngsters, many of whom have only the rags they were found in, go through a two-year rehabilitation programme.
There are three rehab homes, one for the boys, one for the girls and another for the babies.
Here, the children are encouraged to sleep in a bed, learn to bathe and how to clean their teeth.
"Street children have a reputation for being dirty but they have had no access to soap and have just never been taught the basics," Marsali said.
"They don't know the boundaries of hygiene and violence.
"The word holistic is very important. We need to get to the heart of these kids so they have a future and some hope."
Vocational training
Most children initially go to an interim school where they learn the basics of reading and writing before moving onto a mainstream school.
However, some of the teenage boys who feel they are too old for school receive vocational training.
If it is not possible for them to return to their own communities they go into independent living where a few of them live together.

Marsali welcomes some of the teenagers into her home.
Marsali said: "The ones that have done well go back to the streets to talk to the other kids. They're the best advocates."
All the Dwelling Places staff are allocated a group of teenagers who they welcome into their own homes.
"This is so we can really get to know the kids," Marsali said. "At my place they can just be like normal teenagers, listening to music and watching movies.
"I also have teenage girls around with their babies. This allows them to bath their babies and bond with them. And its just good for them to hear they're doing a great job."
Some of the situations Marsali finds herself in can be dangerous but she finds that she is often given protection from the children themselves.
"They will tell others who I am so not to steal from me and they'll protect my car when I'm out," she said.
"Some of them are high on drugs and can seem aggressive but they are never aggressive towards me."
She has also worked in volatile areas such as Karamoja in the north east of the country where there are a lot of problems with drought and cattle rustling warriors who kill many of the men.
"There are a lot of guns out there and you never lose the sense of danger," Marsali said.
She said the most rewarding part of her work is seeing the children change.
'Proud and happy'
"Just to see them putting on shoes for the first time, sleeping in a bed, going to school and having the freedom to play," she said.
"They are proud and happy and just shine.
"It's also great to see kids grow up that wouldn't have survived otherwise.
"To see an abandoned baby grow up and become adopted, turning into a happy, healthy child or to see a child dying from HIV on drug therapy and doing well at school.
"Or just to see a teenager opening up after being full of anger and frustration. To see them learn to trust again and have relationships.
"Or to tell a girl who has been raped or abused with no self esteem that she is important and beautiful. To be able to hug them with normal love. That is amazing."
Marsali is currently giving a number of talks to churches and community groups in Scotland about her work and is hoping to help get Dwelling Places registered as a charity in the UK.
After six years in Uganda, she will be returning to the country next year and plans to open a mobile clinic, providing free health care.
She also hopes her work will be expanded into more remote areas and into other African countries such as the Congo and Central African Republic.
"We need to give these kids a safe place," she said. "We owe it to them."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYA PRESIDENT WARNS ON KILLINGS !

Kenya's secretive sect

Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki has angrily attacked a spate of grisly murders and beheadings blamed on the banned Mungiki sect.
"There is no-one who has the right to take a life and if you choose to do that and try to hide we will get you," Mr Kibaki said.
"Now there is nobody who will think that person has a right to live."
Mr Kibaki gave the warning during celebrations marking self-rule as six more killings were blamed on the sect.
Among them was an assistant chief from the president's home area of Othaya.
Mungiki followers are said to have brutally murdered six people in the country's central region last month, in what is said to be a revenge attack on people who had leaked information about their activities to the police.
They are thought to be militants from Kenya's biggest ethnic group, the Kikuyu.
Some commentators have linked them to politicians wanting to cause unrest and fear ahead of December elections.
Execution-style shootings
Without mentioning the Mungiki by name, President Kibaki said the criminals "must be dealt with firmly by our security agencies".

Mr Kibaki urged people to come forward with information.
He urged people to come forward with information and promised them protection if they did so, Reuters news agency reports.
The BBC's Wazir Hamsin travelled to Kangema, 105km north of the capital, Nairobi, where five of the six killings happened on Thursday night.
He says the victims in Kangema - an assistant chief and his family - were shot execution style.
Residents in the area are blaming the deaths on the Mungiki, he says.
Assistant chiefs are appointed country-wide by the office of the president.
Kangema is the area where Security Minister John Michuki, who has spearheaded a crackdown on the sect, comes from.
Police say they have arrested seven people in connection with Thursday's murders in Othaya and Kangema, both in central Kenya.
The Mungiki, which means multitude in Kikuyu, claim to have more than one million followers across the country.
The sect promotes female circumcision and oath taking and was outlawed in 2002.
In recent years they have been battling with public transport operators who refuse to pay them protection fees.
President Kibaki is seeking a second term in office and faces a strong opposition.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE CRISIS 'BEING ADDRESSED' !

South Africa's leader has assured the visiting UK prime minister that he is addressing problems in Zimbabwe.
"There are political problems in Zimbabwe that need to be solved... we are indeed engaged in that process," Thabo Mbeki said at a press conference.
The South African president is often criticised for his approach to dealing with the political crisis in Zimbabwe.
Mr Mbeki also thanked Tony Blair, who leaves office soon, for making Africa a priority during his premiership.
Up to three million Zimbabweans are thought to have fled to South Africa, amid a worsening economic and political crisis.
Mr Mbeki has been appointed by leaders of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) to mediate between Zimbabwe's governing Zanu-PF party, and the opposition in the hope that free and fair elections can be held next year.
'Two-pronged approach'
Mr Mbeki refuses to criticise Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe in public, preferring "quiet diplomacy".
In the end the solutions to Africa's problems come from within Africa - UK PM Tony Blair.

Blair's African legacy

But he admitted after talks with Mr Blair that the country had "political problems".
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change often accuses the police of harassing its members and in March its leader was badly beaten.
As well as organising political talks in Zimbabwe, Mr Mbeki said work was also taking place to find ways of improving Zimbabwe's economy.
"It's that two-pronged approach which seeks a solution to these two political matters. Indeed I did brief the prime minister about this and that's the way we are going," he said.
"And I must add to that that the Sadc region - southern Africa - will of course report regularly to the African Union about the matter, as to how far we're progressing."
Mr Blair, who is ending his farewell tour of Africa, said he supported Mr Mbeki's efforts.
"In the end the solutions to Africa's problems come from within Africa.... In the end, Africa wants to take responsibility for its own destiny and future," he said.
Mr Mbeki commended his British counterpart for his support for peace processes on the continent.
"Funds that you've put into the capacity of the African Union, to address the peace and security challenges on the continent, support for the African mission in Sudan with regards to Darfur and so on. It really has helped," he said.
Mr Blair has hit back at accusations of a "vanity tour", calling UK critics "cynical".
BBC NEWS REPORT.