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Sunday 25 December 2005


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IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 282 for 4-10 June 2005

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENTS:

EAST AFRICA: Kenya and Tanzania to start producing anti-malaria drug
BURUNDI-TANZANIA: Rebel FNL, government officials begin ceasefire talks
BURUNDI: Ex-rebel group wins absolute majority in communal poll
CAR: New parliament meets, elects speaker
CONGO: Ebola may be under control, official says
DRC: Mayi-Mayi attacks displace 1,700 in Katanga
DRC: Soldiers killed, hundreds of civilians displaced in North Kivu
DRC: Voter registration date set, university politics banned
KENYA: Budget allocation to health care raised
KENYA-UGANDA: Synchronised disarmament of border communities planned
UGANDA: Museveni extends olive branch to LRA leader

EAST AFRICA: Kenya and Tanzania to start producing anti-malaria drug

A company involved in the production of artemisinine, an anti-malaria drug, is due to set up extraction plants in Kenya and Tanzania to make the drug easily and cheaply available to patients, an official for the company said on Wednesday.

The factories would be established in East Africa because of the potential in the region for cultivating artemisia-annua, the plant from which the anti-malaria drug is extracted, the managing director of African Artemisia Limited, Geoff Burrell, said at a conference convened by the UN World Health Organization in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha.

He said a factory was already in operation in Uganda. The one planned for Kenya would be functioning this year while another would be operational in 2006 in the town of Moshi in northern Tanzania.

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BURUNDI-TANZANIA: Rebel FNL, government officials begin ceasefire talks

Delegates from the Burundian government and the rebel Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) began talks on Friday on how to implement a ceasefire agreement, after almost a week of delays.

"Both sides are blaming each other for violating the ceasefire agreement," Joram Biswalo, a senior official in Tanzania's ministry of foreign affairs, told IRIN in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.

FNL is Burundi's only rebel group to continue fighting. All other former rebel groups have signed peace agreements with the transitional government and have since joined transitional institutions.

Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and FNL leader Agathon Rwasa signed a ceasefire agreement on 15 May to end 12 years of civil war, which has resulted in the death of an estimated 300,000 civilians and the displacement of hundreds of thousands more.

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BURUNDI: Ex-rebel group wins absolute majority in communal poll

Burundi's former main rebel group, the Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-Forces nationales pour la défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD), won 55.3 percent of seats in communal elections held in the country on 3 June, according to provisional results announced on Thursday.

"The CNDD-FDD [now a political party] won 1,781 of the total 3,225 seats while FRODEBU [the party of Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye] gained 820 seats," Paul Ngarambe, the chairman of the National Independent Electoral commission, said at an official ceremony.

Political parties have four days to lodge official complaints to the electoral commission, Ngarambe said. Final results are expected on 19 June.

Full report

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CAR: New parliament meets, elects speaker

The newly-elected parliament of the Central African Republic held its first extraordinary session on Tuesday, and elected Celestin Leroy Gaombalet as Speaker of the National Assembly.

The coalition Convergence Kwa na Kwa, which backs newly-elected President Francois Bozize, supported Gaombalet's candidature for speaker.

Gaombalet, 63, is also the country's prime minister and a member of parliament for Bambari, a town in the east of the central African state.

Full report

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CONGO: Ebola may be under control, official says

An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the northern region of the Republic of Congo may be under control as there have been no deaths since 26 May, a health official said.

"To declare an end to the epidemic we will have to wait until 17 June, which is 21 days after the last death," Jean-Vivien Mombouli, an adviser to the Congolese Ministry of Health, told IRIN on Wednesday.

He said the ministry was optimistic that no more people would be infected.

Full report

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DRC: Mayi-Mayi attacks displace 1,700 in Katanga

At least 1,700 people have fled villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) Katanga Province following attacks by Mayi-Mayi militiamen, a UN official told IRIN on Tuesday.

"The Mayi-Mayi raped seven women, eight under 18-year-olds and burnt eleven houses," Rachel Scott, the spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said.

The attacks had been occurring since late May in the villages of Manono, Mpiana, Kayongu and Nkumbu in Kalemie Territory in the north of Katanga, Scott said. The most recent was at Manono on 29 May, where civilians there fled 100 km northwest to Mpiana.

OCHA and the UN Children's Fund are providing first aid to the rape victims, and other humanitarian groups are assisting the displaced.

Full report

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DRC: Soldiers killed, hundreds of civilians displaced in North Kivu

Three Congolese soldiers were killed, four were wounded and hundreds of civilians were displaced in the latest fighting on Sunday between government soldiers and Rwandan Hutu militiamen in the DRC's eastern province of North Kivu.

The commander of the army's 8th Military Region, Gen Gabriël Amisi, told IRIN on Monday that Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda rebels attacked a military position at the village of Miriki, about 180 km north of the provincial capital, Goma.

"They attacked at night, dislodging our company in Miriki," Amisi said. "We later retook the village with the help to reinforcements from Kanyabayonga [a town 32 km away]."

Full report

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DRC: Voter registration date set, university politics banned

Voter registration is due to start in the DRC on 20 June, a spokesman for the country's independent electoral commission announced on Monday.

The government also announced on Monday a ban on political activities at universities.

The main political opposition party, the Union pour la democratie et le progres social, is planning to hold demonstrations on 30 June to protest the current transitional government's inability to hold elections and hand over power by that date.

Full report

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KENYA: Budget allocation to health care raised

The Kenyan government is to raise its spending on health services by 30 percent during the 2005/2006 financial year in a bid to improve medical care and make it readily available to the poor, the finance minister, David Mwiraria, said on Wednesday.

The move is aimed at helping the country attain some of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), he said as he unveiled Kenya's 2005/2006 budget in parliament.

The MDGs, which were endorsed by world leaders at a summit at the UN headquarters in New York in 2000, represent commitments to reduce by half the number of people affected by poverty, hunger and ill-health by the year 2015.

"The government will raise spending on health care by 30 percent in finance year 2005/06. This will increase the sector's share in total government expenditure from the current 8.6 percent to 9.9 percent," Mwiraria said.

Full report

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KENYA-UGANDA: Synchronised disarmament of border communities planned

Uganda and Kenya are due to simultaneously disarm their border communities, which have perpetrated cross-border violence on each other for decades, Ugandan army spokesman Maj Shaban Bantariza said on Monday.

"The two defence ministers [from Kenya and Uganda] discussed over the weekend modalities of concurrent disarmament" he said. "It does not make sense for Uganda to disarm while Kenya has not disarmed."

The Karimojong, an ethnic group in Uganda's northeastern region, and Kenya's northwestern Turkana community, have for years traded bullets during cattle-raids on either side of the border, resulting in the murder of hundreds of people.

Full report

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UGANDA: Museveni extends olive branch to LRA leader

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni pledged on Tuesday to forgive the leader of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Joseph Kony, if he gave up fighting and came out of the bush.

"I will forgive Kony if he comes out - but if he refuses to come out, we shall sort it out with him," Museveni told parliament in his state of the nation address.

He assured Kony that he would receive the same fair treatment and immunity from prosecution as other former LRA commanders, such as former LRA spokesman Brig Sam Kolo, who had surrendered to the government.

Full report

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[ENDS]

Theme(s)	Other

Other recent CENTRAL & EASTERN AFRICA reports:

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 310 17-23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 309 10-16 December 2005, 16/Dec/05

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 308 3-9 December 2005, 9/Dec/05

UN appeal seeks $154.5 million for recovery efforts , 7/Dec/05

IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 307 26 November to 2 December 2005, 2/Dec/05

Other recent reports:

RWANDA: Body found in Brussels canal confirmed that of ex-minister's, 23/Dec/05

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap, 23/Dec/05

WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 309 covering 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

CENTRAL ASIA: IRIN-Asia Weekly Round-up 51 covering the period 17 - 23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 262 for 17-23 December 2005, 23/Dec/05

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