Egypt moves more Eritreans slated for deportation

CAIRO (Reuters)

23/06/08

Egyptian police moved some 350 Eritrean migrants to Cairo from detention on the Red Sea coast on Friday in preparation to fly them home, police sources said.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR has objected to the mass deportations, which could violate the prohibition on sending people home who have a well-grounded fear of persecution.

Activists close to the migrant community say they think the Egyptians have deported at least 810 Eritrean asylum seekers since June 11, out of about 1,600 Eritreans who were in Egyptian detention. The government has not given any figure of its own.

The police sources in the Red Sea said the latest would leave for the Eritrean capital from Cairo airport overnight. Cairo airport sources said they were not aware of any preparations for handling the migrants.

The deportations are the largest forced returns of asylum seekers from Egypt in decades, and could mark a shift in Egypt’s policy toward tens of thousands of largely African migrants on its territory, activists say.

Some of the Eritreans are believed to be economic migrants who aim to slip across the border into Israel to seek work.

Amnesty International says thousands of migrants try to cross into Israel from Egypt each year, with numbers rising since 2007. But Eritreans arriving in Egypt in recent months include Pentecostal Christians fleeing religious persecution and others trying to avoid military conscription, activists say.

The Egyptian government has said it fulfils its commitments under international law on refugees but UNHCR said on Thursday that the Egyptian authorities were obstructing access to the asylum seekers, who could face torture in Eritrea.

A UNHCR spokeswoman said she had no information about the latest preparations. In some cases the Egyptians have moved Eritreans from one site to another and it was not possible to find out later if they had left Egypt, she added.

Eritrean Revolutionary Committees Movement Appeals to the Leader to Personally Intervene for settling Eritrea, Djibouti Crisis

Ljbc.net

22/06/08

Taking into consideration the giant efforts and the honorable struggle of the Leader in deporting the colonialism from the African Continent particularly, liberating the peoples from inequity and oppression in generally and achieving the peace and stability in Africa reaching for the African Union, the Eritrean Revolutionary Committees Movement has appealed to the Leader of the Revolution to Personally intervene for settling the Eritrea and Djibouti crisis.

The Eritrean Revolutionary Committees Movement has also appealed for the two brothers, President Omar Guelleh and President Isais Afwerk to wisely come into sort of an understating concord and don’t let another foreign parties to interfere

Somali gunmen kill peace activist, kidnap UN staffer: officials

MOGADISHU (AFP)

22/06/08

Gunmen killed a Somali peace activist and kidnapped a UN official, officials said Sunday, the latest in a string of attacks against aid and rights workers in the stricken African nation.

Mohamed Hassan Kulmiye, a senior official with the Mogadishu-based Centre For Research and Dialogue (CRD), was shot dead on Sunday in Beledweyne town, the capital of Hiraan region.

“He was killed an hour ago inside his office, but we do not know the motive of the murder,” said one of his colleagues who requested to remain unnamed. Several witnesses confirmed his death.

The CRD, a local charity that promotes social, economic and political development, was involved in the UN-mediated talks between the government and opposition groups in Djibouti, which ended in a truce agreement on June 9.

Kulmiye’s killing occurred a day after gunmen kidnapped Hasan Mohamed Ali, a Somali working with the UN refugees agency at his residence in Elashabiyaha, south of the capital Mogadishu.

“We don’t know where they took him after snatching him from his house at around 8:44 pm last evening,” another Somali UN official told AFP requesting anonymity.

“I saw four men armed with machine guns talking to him in front of his house and minutes later, they kidnapped him,” said Farah Abdi Mohamed, a neighbour.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres demanded his release, warning that actions could choke distribution of relief supplies to suffering Somalis.

“We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Hasan Mohamed Ali,” he said in a statement released in Nairobi.

“He and other Somali staff are absolutely crucial in the provision of life-saving humanitarian aid for tens of thousands of innocent civilian victims of the ongoing conflict in their country.”

“The abduction represented another blow to humanitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of an estimated one million uprooted people inside Somalia,” added Guterres, who left Kenya on Saturday after a three-day mission that focused on the dilemma facing Somali refugees.

Since April, gunmen have been holding five aid workers — two Italians, a Briton, a Kenyan and a Somali — who had been seized in southern Somalia and their whereabouts are yet to he known.

The same month, the United Nations and aid groups scaled down operations in Somalia owing to increased insecurity, largely blamed on Islamist militants who have waged a deadly guerrilla war since they were ousted by joint Somali-Ethiopian forces in early 2007.

In Nairobi, Somali leaders members of the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) — an umbrella group for the Somali opposition — urged gunmen to release the aid workers.

“The abduction of aid workers is a criminal act that will not help Somalia. This must stop and those kidnapped must be released,” said ARS chief Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

“Shortage of food is now the main killer in Somalia rather than the conflict. Many people in Somalia are starving,” added Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, another top ARS official.

At least 2.6 million Somalis are facing hunger due to acute food shortages spurred by a prolonged drought, insecurity and high inflation. UN famine monitors have warned that the figure could hit 3.5 million by year-end.

Aid workers have been constantly targeted — mostly for ransom — since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre paved the way for a breakdown in the state machinery and a rise in factional warfare.

A bloody power-struggle has defied numerous UN-backed bids to restore stability in this nation of about 10 million.

Zimbabwe opposition leader pulling out of election

By ANGUS SHAW

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)

22/06/08

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Sunday he is pulling out of this week’s presidential runoff because of mounting violence and intimidation against his supporters.

Tsvangirai announced his decision during a news conference in Zimbabwe’s capital after thousands of ruling party militants blockaded the site of the opposition’s main campaign rally.

“Conditions as of today do not permit the holding of a credible poll,” Tsvangirai said. “Given the totality of these circumstances, we believe a credible election is impossible. We can’t ask the people to cast their vote on June 27 when that vote will cost their lives. We will no longer participate in this violent sham of an election.”

Tsvangirai said he would put forward new proposals by Wednesday on how take the country forward. He did not provide any details about what the proposals would include.

“Our victory is certain, but it can only be delayed,” he said.

Tsvangirai had hoped to address his main campaign rally ahead of the runoff against 84-year-old President Robert Mugabe, who has held power since independence from Britain in 1980.

But the Movement for Democratic Change claimed the militants were beating opposition supporters who were trying to reach the venue Sunday and said at least two were seriously injured.

It said the militants attacked journalists and forced African election monitors near the rally site to flee. Election monitors could not immediately be reached for comment and there was no independent confirmation of the opposition claims.

Tsvangirai won the March 29 vote but not by an absolute majority. Campaigning for the first round election was generally peaceful, but the runoff has been overshadowed by violence and intimidation, especially in rural areas.

Independent human rights groups say 85 people have died and tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes, most of them opposition supporters.

Tsvangirai’s attempts to tour the country have been stymied by police at roadblocks, and the state-controlled media have banned opposition advertisements, claiming they “contain inappropriate language and information.” The media cited one ad that claimed that Tsvangirai won the election, “which is not the case, hence the runoff.”

Tendai Biti, the opposition party’s No. 2, was arrested within minutes of his return from South Africa last week and is being held on treason charges.

“It is evident that the Mugabe regime has disregarded regional and continental opinion that has been calling for an end to disruption of MDC election campaign programs, state sanctioned brutality, violence and harassment of the people of Zimbabwe,” the opposition said in a statement.

At a rally in the western city of Bulawayo on Friday, Mugabe said that the opposition was lying about the violence and said everywhere he visited was peaceful. His powerful police chief pinned the blame firmly on the opposition and said that police would clamp down.

Mugabe was lauded early in his rule for campaigning for racial reconciliation. But in recent years, he has been accused of ruining the economy and holding onto power through fraud and intimidation.

The economic slide of what was once the region’s breadbasket has been blamed on the collapse of the key agriculture sector after often-violent seizures of farmland from whites.

Mugabe claimed he ordered the seizures, begun in 2002, to benefit poor blacks. But many of the farms instead went to his loyalists.

World Population Approaches 7 Billion

Georgia ( web)

22/06/08

World population is projected to reach 7 billion in 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The world population hit 6 billion in 1999.

figures come from the updated world population estimates and projections released today through the Census Bureau’s International Data Base (IDB). The IDB provides information on population size and growth, age and sex composition, mortality, fertility and net migration. The data are available for 226 countries and other selected geographies.

This revision to the IDB includes updated projections for 34 countries. Compared to previous estimates, this revision indicates that the worldpopulation will be 146 million larger in 2050.

The Census Bureau’s latest projections show world population growing at a slower pace during the first half of the 21st century than the latter half of the 20th century. The world population doubled from 3 billion in 1959 to 6 billion in 1999, but is projected to increase by only 50 percent between 1999 and 2040.

Global population growth, about 1.2 percent per year, is projected to decline to 0.5 percent by 2050. However, this growth will be concentrated in less-developed countries.

About 1.5 percent of the current global population is 80 or older, with more than half living in developed countries. By 2050, about 5 percent of the world’s population is projected to be 80 or older, with about three in four likely to be living in less-developed countries. For developed countries, the percentage of the population 80 or older will grow to about 10 percent in 2050.

World population estimates and projections include the impact of HIV and AIDS. Of the 34 countries updated in this revision, nine are hard hit by this pandemic (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire [Ivory Coast], Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic). Data for other countries seriously affected by HIV and AIDS are also available from the International Data Base.