By Shout-Africa – Uganda has backtracked on an earlier decision not to invite Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir to the African Union summit. “President Bashir of Sudan was actually invited for the AU summit scheduled to take place in Kampala from the 19-29 July 2010,” read a statement from Uganda’s ministry of Foreign Affairs that appeared in the press Tuesday. Sam Kutesa, the Ugandan foreign minister, told RFI that the government was misquoted. “We invited Sudan, we invited all African countries,” he said in an interview on Tuesday. But the government was quoted last week saying that President Bashir was not... Continue Reading
By Shout-Africa – International News – A former CIA station chief in Algeria pleaded guilty on Monday to sex abuse stemming from a 2008 incident in Algiers and to cocaine use, the U.S. Justice Department said. It said Andrew Warren, 42, admitted he committed illegal sexual contact with a female after rendering her unconscious on February 17, 2008, while on U.S. Embassy property in Algiers. Warren was charged a year ago with sexually assaulting the woman, who was not named. He was fired from the CIA last year before being charged. The State Department last year said the United States... Continue Reading
BY NOVELL ZWANGENDABA – JOHANNESBURG – A new study shows that South Africa’s international reputation declined significantly between December 2009 and June 2010. Perceptions of SA immigrants living in the UK and the SA government took a knock along with intentions to visit the country in future. Confidence in the ability of the country to host the World Cup is also low. Only 14% of the public in the United Kingdom agree that South Africa has a good-overall reputation, relative to other developing countries. This is according to a survey by South African marketing research consultancy Acentric, conducted between the... Continue Reading
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports from Mogadishu where presence of US drones reveals western anxiety over country’s conflict. On a side street off Mogadishu’s Wadnaha Road frontline a young officer is explaining the unwritten rules of the city’s intractable civil war as his men exchange fire with an unseen enemy. The fighters shooting at him are from the Hizb al-Islam, he explains. He knows this because they fight longer than al-Shabab, the other main Islamist group besieging Somalia’s tiny government-held enclave, but also because they told him. “We have friends there. They tell us before they leave their base that they are... Continue Reading
By Shout-Africa News – The civil rights initiative AfriForum today demanded in a lawyer’s letter sent to the Department of Trade and Industry, that the South African Government should intervene urgently to protect the lives and property of South African citizens in Zimbabwe. This follows after South Africans farming in Zimbabwe, are once again being subjected to a renewed and intensified onslaught, starting this past weekend. AfriForum is also currently obtaining legal advice regarding possible action against the Government, if such protection were not to materialise. The demand is based, amongst other reasons, on the settlement reached between AfriForum and... Continue Reading
