EVENING REPORT 13/11/02

IRAQ ACCEPTS NEW U.N. RESOLUTION ON DISARMAMENT.

WASHINGTON: Iraq has unconditionally accepted a new United Nations Security Council resolution which orders Baghdad to disarm and co-operate with weapons inspectors. The Security Council gave Iraq until Friday to accept the resolution. Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Al-Douri has told a media briefing that he has delivered a letter in this regard to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office.

Meanwhile, American officials say Iraq has ordered one-million-250-thousand doses of an antidote to nerve gas from Turkey. The U.S. says the Iraqi government may want large supplies of the drug, atropine, for its troops, in case Baghdad decides to use nerve gas in a possible war. American State Department spokesman Richard Boucher says the issue is being discussed with the Turkish government.

BURUNDI'S ARMY ACCUSED OF ATTACKING HUTU MOVEMENT FRONTS.

BUJUMBURA: Rebels of Burundi's main armed Hutu movement, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy, say the army has attacked its forces on two fronts, in the central Muramvya Province and in Kayanza Province in the north. There was no independent confirmation of the rebel claim. They threatened reprisal raids on the Burundian capital of Bujumbura. Meanwhile, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has announced that the warring parties in Burundi have been granted two more weeks to finalise a ceasefire, after they failed to do so last week. This comes after South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who is chief mediator in the ceasefire talks, had reported progress towards agreement on several other fronts.

KENYA'S PRESIDENT SLAMS AFRICAN LEADERS PROMOTING VIOLENCE.

NAIROBI: Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi says it is deplorable that some African leaders are promoting violence in the name of politics. Moi asked in a speech to the Tanzanian parliament at Dodoma in central Tanzania how a true leader could kill his own people or promote activities that led to suffering of the people he was supposed to lead. Moi added that multi-party politics was good for Africa since it promoted competition and good governance. Moi urged continued efforts in resolution of conflicts in Africa to facilitate speedy realisation of a pan-African development agenda under programmes like the New Partnership for Africa's Development.

ANGOLAN POLICE SEARCH FOR GUNMEN WHO KILLED 17 TRAVELLERS.

LISBON: Angolan police say they are searching for gunmen who bound and killed 17 travellers on a highway in northern Angola. Reports say police found the bodies of the victims, most of them refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, on a road near the city of Malange, about 400 kilometres east of the capital Luanda. A survivor, Alberto Joaquim, says a group of armed men stopped a truck carrying passengers on the highway near Malange on Monday. Joaquim, who escaped the attackers, said the gang handcuffed the travellers and led them away.

NEPAD'S ROLE IN COMBATING AIDS IS SCRUTINISED.

GABORONE: A Southern African Development Community conference on HIV/AIDS in the region is expected look at the role that the New Partnership for Africa's Development should play in combating the disease. One of the delegates, Professor Allan Whiteside of the University of Natal in South Africa, has presented his findings on responding to HIV/AIDS in crisis situations. Whiteside says it is a serious omission that the epidemic is not a priority in the New Partnership for Africa's Development.

SWEDEN'S AID AGENCY EARMARKS MILLIONS FOR FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA.

STOCKHOLM: Sweden's government aid agency SIDA says it has earmarked more than three million dollars to help fight famine in Ethiopia. The United Nations World Food Programme, which has launched an emergency appeal for aid, says about six million Ethiopians are currently at risk due to drought in the country. SIDA says most of the money will be used to purchase grain and cereals for people in the hardest hit by the drought. The remainder will go towards preventive medicines and emergency health care in Ethiopia.

S.A. POLICE SUBDUE PROTESTER BELIEVED TO BE FROM D.R.C.

PRETORIA: A lone protester believed to be from the Democratic Republic of Congo has been subdued by South African police after he climbed a high building in central Pretoria and threatened to set himself alight. The man has been identified by members of a refugee assistance centre as Silvano Mtobwa. Hundreds of onlookers gathered as Mtobwa doused himself with petrol and occasionally drank from a fuel canister on top of the eight-storey building. An official of a refugee service, which has offices in the building, said Mtobwa came to the centre a week ago, looking for medical assistance.

S.A. NATIONAL PARKS PREPARES TO SELL ITS IVORY STOCK.

JOHANNESBURG: The United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species or CITES, has agreed in Chile to allow Botswana, Namibia and South Africa to each stage a once-off sale of ivory stockpiles. The move eases a 13-year-old ban on the ivory trade and has been greatly opposed by environmentalists around the world, who believe it will encourage poaching. The chief executive of South African National Parks, Mavuso Msimang, says terms and conditions will apply to these once-off sales.

MALAWI RESUMES USE OF MOZAMBIQUE'S PORT AND RAILWAY.

BLANTYRE: Land-locked Malawi has resumed the use of Mozambique's northern Nacala port and railway to import about eight-thousand tonnes of oil monthly. The country suspended the oil imports through Nacala seven months ago, citing security reasons. Most traffic on the Nacala corridor belongs to Malawi and earns the Mozambique Ports and Railway company between 200 and 250-thousand dollars a month.

DONORS TO DISCUSS DEPLOYMENT OF ECOWAS IN IVORY COAST.

PARIS: Donor nations will meet tomorrow in Paris to discuss the deployment of a west African force to monitor the fragile truce between government troops and rebels in Ivory Coast. The French foreign ministry says the meeting, organised by France, is aimed at co-ordinating contributions from donor nations for the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS force. Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States will be represented at the talks, as will the ECOWAS secretariat. The French foreign ministry says it has called for the talks within the framework of its support for African mediation efforts and a political, peaceful solution to the Ivorian crisis, and to ensure the deployment of ECOWAS forces in Ivory Coast.

NIGERIAN POLICE ON ALERT TO HALT FRESH FLARE-UP OF VIOLENCE.

LAGOS: Nigerian police say they are on alert to stop any fresh flare-up of violence in Lagos where more than 100 people died in ethnic clashes earlier this year. Officials say security has been beefed up in the Idi Araba district after incidents of violence yesterday threatened to snowball into a bloody confrontation between ethnic Hausas and the Yoruba ethnic militia Odua Peoples Congress, or OPC. Nigerian police say the clashes erupted as the Hausas tried to release eleven of their members arrested by the OPC for undisclosed reasons.

ALGERIA TO LAUNCH FIRST SATELLITE.

ALGIERS: Algeria is to launch its first satellite within the next three weeks from Russia's Pelsetsk Cosmodrome, about 600 kilometres northeast of Moscow. It will be one of a group of seven international satellites dedicated to monitoring natural and man-made disasters. Alsat One was designed and built by a team of eleven scientists from Algeria's National Space Technology Centre in co-operation with Britain's Surrey Satellite Technology.

GABON'S UNIVERSITIES TO REOPEN AFTER NINE-MONTH CLOSURE.

LIBREVILLE: The government of Gabon has announced that the country's universities will reopen on Friday after a nine-month closure prompted by a strike by professors. The decision to reopen the universities has been taken by the cabinet, which says the material conditions necessary to reopen the institutions have for the most part been met. The Gabon government ordered the closure of the universities in January after a lengthy strike by professors.

Prepared in Johannesburg, South Africa, by Mbulelo Dlamini Maqhubu and Micel Schnehage.

MIDDAY REPORT 13.11.2002.

BURUNDIAN REBELS VOW REVENGE.

BUJUMBURA: Rebels of Burundi's main armed Hutu movement, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy, say the army has attacked its forces on two fronts, in the central Muramvya Province and in Kayanza Province in the north. There was no independent confirmation of the rebel claim. The rebels threatened reprisal raids on the Burundian capital of Bujumbura. Meanwhile, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has announced that the warring parties in Burundi have been granted two more weeks to finalise a ceasefire, after they failed to do so last week. This comes after South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who is chief mediator in the ceasefire talks, had reported progress towards agreement on several other fronts.

KENYAN PRESIDENT CONDEMNS POLITICAL VIOLENCE.

NAIROBI: Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi says it is deplorable that some African leaders are promoting violence in the name of politics. Moi asked in a speech to the Tanzanian parliament at Dodoma in central Tanania how a true leader could kill his own people or promote activities that led to suffering of the people he was supposed to lead. Moi added that multi-party politics was good for Africa since it promoted competition and good governance. Moi urged continued efforts in resolution of conflicts in Africa to facilitate speedy realisation of a pan-African development agenda under programmes like the New Partnership for Africa's Development. He arrived in Tanzania on Monday for a two-day official visit, to bid farewell to Tanzania before stepping down after elections next month.

SOUTH AFRICAN POSITION ON ZIMBABWE INCORRECT: OPPOSITION.

CAPE TOWN: The leader the opposition Democratic Alliance party of South Africa, Tony Leon, has severely criticised President Thabo Mbeki and Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for their support of Zimbabwe. Leon says Mbeki and Dlamini-Zuma are systematically destroying South Africa's international credibility and showing a disregard for the people of Zimbabwe. He has labelled Dlamini-Zuma's suggestion that it's time to put Zimbabwe's mistakes in the past immoral. Leon says her support for Zimbabwe's demand that Britain compensate the victims of violent and illegal land-grab programmes is equally unconscionable.

SOUTH AFRICA SUPPORTS STANCE WITH IRAQ.

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa President Thabo Mbeki has rejected suggestions that recent contact between South Africa and Iraq will harm relations with the United States. Mbeki says he sent Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad to Baghdad to convey a message to President Sadam Hussein that he should co-operate with the United Nations Security Council's resolution regarding weapons inspections. He says he discussed the matter with the American government and that there was agreement on continuing the contacts.

AMERICAN TERROR SUSPECT IN SOUTH AFRICA HAS LEGAL AID FUND.

CAPE TOWN: American terror suspect James Kilgore's South African employer has established a legal aid fund to help pay for his defence. The International Labour Resource and Information Group says the John Pape Fund will help cover legal fees. Pape is the name Kilgore is known by in South Africa. His employer is associated with the University of Cape Town, where Kilgore worked as a senior researcher. Kilgore was once a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, S.L.A., and is wanted by American authorities for crimes committed by the S.L.A. in the 70s, including murder and armed robbery. Kilgore was arrested in Cape Town on Friday. His arrest came just one day after four other S.L.A. members pleaded guilty to murder.

NEW ANTI-AIDS DRUG OFFERS HOPE.

NEW YORK: Reports say a new, experimental drug is raising hopes for AIDS sufferers with strains of the H.I.Virus that are resistant to existing treatments. The new drug has been dubbed Fuzeon by its developers, Roche Group and Trimeris. The drug won a priority, six-month review from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The companies hope the drug will be approved and on the market by early next year. The drug is the first in a class known as fusion inhibitors, which are designed to block the H.I.Virus from entering blood cells. However, researchers note that Fuzeon is complicated to produce and will be expensive. The drug may cost up to 15-thousand dollars a year per patient. This is twice as expensive as the costliest anti-AIDS drugs now available.

MORNING REPORT 13.11.2002.

REBELS KILL 5 PEOPLE IN UGANDA.

KAMPALA: In Uganda, at least five people have been killed and 15 seriously injured when suspected Lord's Resistance Army, L.R.A., rebels ambushed a passenger bus in the north of the country. An army spokesperson says the bus was ambushed at Okinga, in Aru county Pader district, about 80 kilometres east of the main regional town of Gulu. The spokesperson says suspected L.R.A. rebels fired at the bus heading for Kitgum town from the capital, Kampala. The L.R.A. has since 1988 waged a campaign to overthrow President Yoweri Museveni's secular government, allegedly to replace it with one based on the biblical Ten Commandments.

SOMALI PEACE TALKS FLOUNDER.

NAIROBI: A Somali reconciliation forum in Kenya has failed to go into its second phase because of a dispute over how many representatives factions can have at the talks. Organisers and faction leaders say the new phase of the peace conference is aimed at hammering out a draft federal charter for war-torn Somalia. Somali warlords Osman Hassan Ali, Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, Omar Mohamud Mohamed, all of whom control parts of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, refused to attend the second phase of the talks, complaining that they had been given too few representatives by mediators from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, who make up the talks' technical committee.

POLICE QUELL CIVIL STRIFE IN NIGERIA.

LAGOS: Reports from this Nigerian city say armed soldiers and policemen have been deployed to the district of Idi Araba to stop fighting between Hausas and Yorubas. The police said dozens of people were injured in the fracas in the area, while many vehicles were damaged. The trouble erupted after some members of the banned Yoruba militia group, the Odua People's Congress, detained eleven members of the Hausa community, for undisclosed reasons. The police waded in and succeeded in effecting the release of the Hausas. The police insisted that the situation was calm as security agents had managed to bring it under control.

COURT RECORDS VANISH IN ZIMBABWE.

HARARE: Reports from Zimbabwe say High Court records of Zimbabwe's main opposition party leader's challenge of a June 2000 constituency election result have disappeared. Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai had successfully challenged his election loss to the ruling ZANU-PF Kenneth Manyonda in the Buhera North constituency. Manyonda appealed to the Supreme Court against the nullification of the result and the case was supposed to be heard on a date still to be determined. Reports say that six of the 23 audio cassettes on which the court proceedings were recorded were missing. The remaining 17 were found to be inaudible and could not be transcribed. The trial judge's notes of the proceedings are also missing.

SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT CONDEMNS TERROR BLASTS.

JOHANNESBURG: South African President Thabo Mbeki has likened those who planted bombs in the city of Soweto in Gauteng Province to dinosaurs with a hangover from the past. Mbeki says no demand can be so urgent as to justify violence against ordinary South Africans. The President says South African law enforcement authorities will act very firmly against these elements. The instigators of the blasts are said to be members of the far rightwing in South Africa.

SOUTH AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST DIES.

CAPE TOWN: South African human rights activist and well-known academic, Frances Ames, has died of leukaemia. Ames, a former head and professor of neurology at the University of Cape Town, completed the first of her four medical degrees in 1942, and was the first woman to be awarded the University's degree in medicine. Ames earned international acclaim for her human rights activities during the 1980s in South Africa, specifically for getting the South African Medical and Dental Council to hold a disciplinary inquiry into the conduct of doctors involved in the medical care of Steve Biko. Former President Nelson Mandela awarded her the Star of South Africa in 1999.

BOTSWANA CALLS FOR UNITY IN FIGHT AGAINST AIDS.

GABORONE: Botswanan President Festus Mogae has urged closer co-operation between countries in the fight against what he calls sub-Saharan Africa's number one enemy - AIDS. Mogae says unless government and the private sector across the region work together, AIDS will have adverse consequences on the region's social and economic development. He was speaking at the official opening of a three day AIDS conference in the capital, Gaborone.

CALL FOR AFRICAN HEALTH FORUM.

ARUSHA IN NORTHERN TANZANIA: Tanzanian Vice President Ali Mohamed Sheni says Africa needs its own health forum to draw up research priorities to effectively combat disease on the continent. Sheni says without such a forum, Africa will find it difficult to influence global research priorities in its favour, because the continent lacks resources. Sheni was addressing more than 700 public health specialists from 100 countries attending a meeting to discuss global health. He cited the formation of the Asian and Pacific Health Research Forum and the Latin American Health Research Forum as steps in the right direction.

THREE SOUTHERN AFRICAN COUNTRIES EXCLUDED FROM ANTI-POVERTY DRIVE.

LONDON: Zimbabwe, Malawi and Angola have been excluded from a multi-million dollar poverty eradication programme sponsored by the British Department for International Development, or DFID. The organisation announced the programme will cost 70-million dollars a year. The Head of the DFID, Sam Sharpe, says the programme does not include the three countries as they are not members of Southern African Customs. Union. Observers say the exclusion of countries such as Zimbabwe from the poverty eradication programme comes in spite of the fact that of 14-million people in Southern Africa facing starvation, six-million of them are in Zimbabwe.

VICTIMS OF APARTHEID FILE LAWSUIT.

JOHANNESBURG: A non-governmental organisation in South Africa has filed a lawsuit against 21 multinational corporations and leading international banks for helping prop up the apartheid state. The Khulumani Support Group says it has filed the suit in its name as well as that of 85 of its 33-thousand members in the New York Eastern District Court in the United States. The lawsuit does not state how much is being sought by the plaintiffs from the defendants in damages. Professor Shadrack Gutto of the Wits Centre for Applied Legal Studies says the group has a strong case.

IVORY SALES PERMITTED IN SOUTH AFRICA.

SANTIAGO: South Africa, Namibia and Botswana will be allowed to sell their ivory stockpiles, but Zimbabwe and Zambia will not. This follows votes taken at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, in the Chilean capital. South Africa will sell its ivory stockpile in the Kruger National Park. The sales are expected to raise about two-million dollars. South African Environmental Affairs Minister Mohammed Valli Moosa has re-iterated that the proceeds will be used for elephant and wildlife management, as well as to expand the national parks system. Zambia and Zimbabwe were refused permission because of fears that ivory sales would not be properly monitored as a result political instability and corruption in the two countries.

Prepared in Johannesburg, South Africa.

While these stories may be freely used, the source Channel Africa must be credited