Zimbabwe opposition leader threatens to quit govt
Machel Schools must act against trafficking
Congo names new prime minister
Hijackers of ship off Somalia issue ultimatum
Threat to blow up hijacked ship off Somalia
Zimbabwe leaders call for Mbeki to break deadlock
Ukraine against using force to free ship
WHO probing deaths from mystery disease in SAfrica
Ship carrying cement hijacked off Somalias coast
Libya halts oil shipments to Switzerland

By TSVANGIRAYI MUKWAZHI (AP)

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, locked in a standoff with the opposition in power-sharing talks, went ahead Saturday and laid claim to all key ministries as he tries to retain his iron grip on the struggling southern African nation.

Opposition leaders denounced the move, saying it jeopardized a September power-sharing deal that had deadlocked over Cabinet posts.

Aid agencies have raised concerns that delays in forming a unity government are exacerbating the country's humanitarian crisis. Inflation is now at 231 million percent and the country will have to rely on food aid...

By KAREL PRINSLOO (AP)

The text message from the elephant flashed across Richard Lesowapir's screen: Kimani was heading for neighboring farms.

The huge bull elephant had a long history of raiding villagers' crops during the harvest, sometimes wiping out six months of income at a time. But this time a mobile phone card inserted in his collar sent rangers a text message. Lesowapir, an armed guard and a driver arrived in a jeep bristling with spotlights to frighten Kimani back into the Ol Pejeta conservancy.

Kenya is the first country to try elephant texting as a way to protect both a growing human...

By Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason R. Zalasky (AP)

Armed pirates hijacked a massive tanker as world powers on Saturday headed toward the Somali coast to end a two-week standoff aboard a ship laden with tanks and weapons, officials said.

The latest ship to be seized, a Greek vessel flying a Panamanian flag, was traveling from Southeast Asia to Europe, said Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center in Kuala Lumpur. There were no further details on the ship, which was seized Friday.

Pirates who have been holding the Ukrainian MV Faina for two weeks have threatened to destroy the vessel...

By Seth Wenig (AP)

President Robert Mugabe has laid claim to all key Cabinet posts and Zimbabwe's powerful state security apparatus in a direct challenge to a power-sharing agreement that has deadlocked over allocation of ministries.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change called the action "unilateral, contemptuous and outrageous."

The state Herald newspaper on Saturday published a list from the official government gazette giving the ruling ZANU-PF party 14 ministries, including the key portfolios of defense, home and foreign affairs, justice, media, mines and land. This would allow 83-y...

By Petty Officer 2nd class Jason R. Zalasky (AP)

With U.S. warships lurking nearby, the pirates who hijacked an arms-laden Ukrainian tanker off Somalia threatened to destroy the vessel unless a ransom is paid, a spokesman for the bandits said.

Besides the U.S. ships, a Russian frigate was heading toward the scene, raising the stakes for a possible commando-style raid on the ship. Pirates have seized more than two dozen ships this year off the Horn of Africa, but the hijacking of the Faina has drawn the most international concern because of its dangerous cargo.

The vessel is carrying 33 tanks and other heavy...

By Seth Wenig (AP)

Zimbabwe's official Herald newspaper says President Robert Mugabe has chosen key ministries for his own party to control in a new government. The opposition says the action jeopardizes a power-sharing agreement.

The Herald on Saturday published a list of ministries to be controlled by the ruling party, including foreign and home affairs, defense and justice. That would ensure Mugabe could retain his grip over the security services.

According to the list, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change would get only relatively minor ministries.

Opposition spokesman Nelson...

By Petty Officer 2nd class Jason R. Zalasky (AP)

Dozens of bodies washed ashore Friday in Yemen after smugglers threw nearly 150 Somali migrants overboard in shark-infested waters, the latest such tragedy in one of the most lawless stretches of ocean in the world.

The Gulf of Aden between Yemen and the Horn of Africa already is notorious for Somali piracy. The hijacking of a freighter carrying a cargo of heavy weapons two weeks ago heightened concern over the chaos in a key shipping route _ and prompted NATO on Thursday to send warships to help U.S. Navy vessels already patrolling the region.

The latest migrant deaths...

By FARAH ABDI WARSAMEH (AP)

Two foreign aid workers appealed for their freedom Friday in the Somali capital, surrounded by armed kidnappers who seized them last month in a restive region of Ethiopia, local media reported.

Somali journalists were blindfolded and brought to a house in Mogadishu to see the hostages, who identified themselves as a Dutch man and a Japanese woman who work for the French aid group Medicins du Monde (Doctors of the World).

"We need to be released from jail," the woman, who wore a loose, pink headscarf, said in comments broadcast over local radio and TV. "We need our liberty."<...

By FARAH ABDI WARSAMEH (AP)

Two aid workers kidnapped in Ethiopia appealed for their freedom Friday in the Somali capital, surrounded by their heavily armed captors, local media reported.

Somali journalists were blindfolded and brought to a house in Mogadishu to see the hostages, who identified themselves as a Dutch man and a Japanese woman from the French aid group Medicins du Monde (Doctors of the World).

"We need to be released from jail," the woman, who wore a loose, pink headscarf, said in comments broadcast over local radio. "We need our liberty."

Willem Sools, 27, and Keiko Akahane, 32, we...

By RICHARD LEE (AP)

Some rural Zimbabweans facing one of the hungriest years they could remember have been forced to live on a meal a day and in some cases only on wild fruits, the U.N. food aid agency said Thursday.

The World Food Program appealed for donations to help fight hunger in Zimbabwe, straining as an economic collapse, years of food scarcity, AIDS and poor weather have combined to put it in a category all its own in a region where most nations are poor.

"Zimbabwe is the only one that is facing a national crisis," agency spokesman Richard Lee said.

The economic collapse, with...

By TSVANGIRAYI MUKWAZHI (AP)

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says power-sharing talks with longtime ruler Robert Mugabe are deadlocked over the division of Cabinet posts.

He is calling for intervention from former South African President Thabo Mbeki, a mediator in some previous talks.

Tsvangirai told a news conference Thursday that, "There has been no progress made."

He says, "If you have a good deal and a bad guy, you always have to watch your back."

Both sides have accused each other of intransigence in deciding how to share out Cabinet posts to form a unity government.

...

By DENIS FARRELL (AP)

A leading South African politician says he and other members of the ruling African National Congress may break away to form a new opposition.

Mosiuoa Lekota's announcement given Wednesday on national TV reflects growing concern among South Africans about the future of the party that led the fight to end apartheid in 1994 and has governed the country since.

There have been rumors that an ANC faction was preparing to form a new party since a rival group led by party leader Jacob Zuma last month forced Thabo Mbeki to resign as the nation's president. Zuma is expected to win next...

By STR (AP)

The American author of a controversial book accusing Barack Obama of seething with "black rage" and of being unfit for the U.S. presidency was kicked out of Kenya on Tuesday.

The deportation of Jerome Corsi came just hours before he was to launch his book in a country where the U.S. Democratic candidate for president is wildly popular.

Corsi, who wrote "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," was detained at immigration headquarters in Nairobi for not having a work permit before being ordered to leave Kenya, said Joseph Mumira, head of criminal inves...

By STR (AP)

The American author of a best-selling book attacking Barack Obama as unfit for the presidency was being deported from Kenya on Tuesday, a criminal investigations official said.

Jerome Corsi, who wrote "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," was picked up by police Tuesday for not having a work permit, said Carlos Maluta, a senior immigration official in charge of investigations.

He was briefly detained at immigration headquarters before being brought to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for deportation, said Joseph Mumira, head of criminal...

By Petty Officer 1st Class Eric Beauregard (AP)

A Somali pirate on a hijacked cargo ship transporting tanks reduced the ransom Tuesday to $8 million (euro5.87 million), but it was unclear if he was speaking officially for the bandits holding the Ukrainian vessel.

A man who identified himself as Jama Aden and spoke by satellite phone Tuesday is not the usual spokesman for the pirates. He answered the telephone of the spokesman, Sugule Ali, and said Ali was not immediately available.

"There are high hopes we will release the ship within hours if they pay us $8 million," Aden told The Associated Press. "The negotiations with ...

By Jason R. Zalasky (AP)

The crew on a hijacked Ukrainian cargo ship laden with tanks and heavy weaponry appear to be in good health, a U.S. Navy spokeswoman said Monday.

Lt. Stephanie Murdock, a 5th Fleet spokeswoman in Bahrain, said American officials are in regular contact with the master of the MV Faina, which was seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia late last month with 21 crew on board.

Officials in Moscow say the ship's Russian captain died of a heart condition soon after the hijacking nearly two weeks ago.

The remaining crew appeared fine in a photograph taken Friday, when the...

By (AP)

With a Russian frigate closing in and a half-dozen U.S. warships within shouting distance, the pirates holding a tanker off Somalia's coast might appear to have no other choice than to wave the white flag.

But that's not how it works in Somalia, a failed state where a quarter of children die before they turn 5, where anybody with a gun controls the streets and where every public institution has crumbled.

The 11-day standoff aboard the Ukrainian MV Faina begs the question: How can a bunch of criminals from one of the poorest and most wretched countries on Earth face off with...

By (AP)

Armed pirates aboard fast-moving skiffs have increasingly turned the shipping lanes off Somalia into a lucrative hunting grounds: commandeering vessels large and small and leaving the world's maritime powers frustrated about how to stop the seafaring bandits.

Now, however, momentum is growing for coordinated international action to back up the sharp response after the stunning seizure late last month of a Ukrainian cargo ship laden with tanks and heavy weaponry _ as the pirates quickly found themselves encircled by U.S. warships and receiving only silence to their demands for...

By Jerome Delay (AP)

When Richard Maponya did well as a clothes salesman, his white boss could not promote him under the rules of apartheid.

So the boss offered instead to sell Maponya damaged clothes for cheap. Maponya resold the clothes after work and on weekends, and earned enough to go into business himself.

Today, the 81-year-old owns supermarkets and car dealerships, as well as the biggest mall in Soweto.

Maponya is the most prominent in a small club of early black businesspeople who have proved what an important role black entrepreneurship can play in building South Africa. Yet his...

By (AP)

Zimbabwe's opposition leader threatened Sunday to pull out of a national unity government if President Robert Mugabe refuses to cede control of key ministries.

Morgan Tsvangirai slammed an official government list published Saturday that gave all the main ministries, including defense, home and foreign affairs, justice, mining and land to Mugabe's party. It allocated only lesser ministries to the Movement for Democratic Change, which won a slight parliamentary majority in elections earlier this year.

"An idiot wouldn't accept that," Tsvangirai told a rally of 15,000 support...

By (AP)

Graca Machel, a Mozambican human rights campaigner and the country's former first lady, appealed to schools Saturday to take more action to prevent children being kidnapped and sold into prostitution.

Machel, who is married to former South African President Nelson Mandela, said Mozambique was targeted by child traffickers because it did too little to protect the young.

"The vulnerability of many schools arises from the fact that they are not protected by walls or fences, and have no security guards. Anyone can enter," she told The Associated Press.

"Pupils, particularl...

By (AP)

Congo's President Joseph Kabila named a new prime minister following the resignation of 83-year-old Antoine Gizenga.

Gizenga resigned last month saying he was too old to continue serving. A decree read on state-run TV Friday announced that Kabila had named Adolphe Muzito in his place.

Muzito is from the same party as Gizenga, the Unified Lumumbist Party, or PALU. The party created a crucial alliance with Kabila during the country's 2006 presidential race, helping Kabila win the presidency.

In return, Kabila agreed the prime minister would be appointed from the ranks of...

By (AP)

The pirates who hijacked an arms-laden Ukrainian tanker off Somalia issued an ultimatum Friday and threatened to destroy the ship if no ransom is paid, a spokesman for the bandits said.

The MV Faina is surrounded by U.S. warships, and a Russian frigate is heading toward the scene, raising the stakes for a possible commando-style raid on the ship. Pirates have seized more than two dozen ships this year off the Horn of Africa, but the hijacking of the Faina has drawn the most international concern because of its dangerous cargo.

The vessel is carrying 33 tanks and other heavy...

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