Deal brings hope that Kenya's dark chapter is over

NAIROBI, Feb 29: Kenyans moved to put one of their country's darkest chapters behind them today after the president and opposition leader agreed to power-sharing aimed at ending a bloody post-election political crisis.

President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga signed the deal setting up a coalition government yesterday after a month of often bitter negotiations punctuated by riots and ethnic violence around the east African nation.

The two men had come under huge pressure from world powers and Kenya's 36 million people to find a solution to forestall more bloodshed and help repair the country's reputation as the region's business, tourism and transport hub.

As word of the deal spread, overjoyed residents danced, sang and ululated in the streets, while messages of praise and offers of help flooded in from overseas.

''The signing of the agreement is a shining example of how Africans themselves can find peaceful resolution to their political challenges,'' said South African President Thabo Mbeki.

South Sudan's leader Salva Kiir said more unrest and uncertainty could have destabilised the entire region.

''Now we again can recognise our neighbour Kenya,'' he said.

A US State Department spokesman applauded the deal, adding: ''We want to see this agreement implemented.''

He said Washington would be watching carefully and Kenyans who promoted bloodshed still faced potential US visa bans.

The deal was a major breakthrough for mediator Kofi Annan, who had suspended stalled negotiations on Tuesday in frustration and demanded the two leaders end the standoff themselves.

1,000 DEATHS

Kibaki's disputed re-election after the December 27 poll triggered protests and tribal clashes that killed at least 1,000 people and forced 300,000 more to flee their homes. It also badly dented east Africa's biggest economy.

Under the deal, a new prime minister's position will be created for Odinga, who has sought that role since he first helped elect Kibaki in 2002. He claims the president reneged on an agreement to give him the job after that vote.

It will also allocate cabinet posts based on each party's strength in parliament and create two deputy prime ministers' jobs, one for each side of the coalition. Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement has the largest number of seats.

Later, there will be a full review of the country's constitution, a 45-year-old document which many Kenyans have pushed to change since the 1990s because it awards the president almost unchecked authority over the affairs of state.

Many Kenyans want a new charter to help resolve deep rifts over land, ethnicity and wealth that have plagued the nation since before its independence from Britain in 1963.

Kibaki has ordered parliament to meet next Thursday to pass a constitutional amendment to push through the changes.

The crisis erupted after Kibaki was sworn in on Dec. 30 and Odinga claimed the election was rigged. Kibaki said he won fairly and blamed his rival for instigating violence and unrest instead of going to court to challenge the result. (AGENCIES)

Chavez seeks international mediation for Colombia

CARACAS, Feb 29: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed creating an international mediating group to negotiate the release of hostages held by Colombian rebels, a day after he brokered the freeing of four captives.

Chavez, who is in a diplomatic dispute with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe over his mediation with the rebels, said France and the leftist governments of Brazil, Argentina and Ecuador backed his idea to include more nations in the talks.

''Everybody is in agreement except for Uribe,'' Chavez told state television yesterday.

Despite the leftist Venezuelan's success this year in persuading Marxist FARC guerrillas to allow two operations that have freed a total of six hostages, political analysts doubt the rebels will continue to free captives without concessions.

But Chavez's suggestion could create new impetus in talks, which aim to free dozens of high-profile hostages held for years in dire conditions, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans.

After initially working closely with Chavez over the hostages, the conservative Uribe ended his neighbor's formal role late last year, accusing him of using the mediation to meddle in Colombian affairs.

But international pressure remains intense over the dozens of hostages still in jungle camps, especially after those who have been freed described how the captives are often ill and sometimes chained to trees or made to walk barefoot.

Uribe, who is popular in Colombia for his US-backed offensive that has forced the guerrillas from large parts of the South American country, has so far refused to meet FARC demands that could lead to wider release.

Chavez -- and some of the freed hostages -- criticized Uribe as inflexible.

''Uribe is going to have to change his position because we are going to make him change it,'' Chavez said. (AGENCIES)

Australia's Rudd publishes book to mark 100 days

CANBERRA, Feb 29: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd celebrated his first 100 days in office by publishing a booklet on his achievements today, and dismissed critics who said nothing much has changed since he took office.

Rudd's centre-left Labor Party won elections 97 days ago on November 24, 2007, ending almost 12 years of conservative rule. Rudd officially took power on December 3.

But newspapers have begun rolling out stories about Rudd's first 100 days, with some critical that Rudd's government has set up dozens of committees, reviews and inquiries, but has made few hard decisions.

''If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, then Australia is at risk of growing humps,'' Sydney Morning Herald Political Correspondent Phillip Coorey wrote today, in a swipe at Rudd's fondness for setting up committees.

Rudd's 55-page book cites his decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate, the deployment of extra troops to East Timor, and preparing to pull Australian combat forces out of Iraq, as key achievements.

But Rudd told reporters the biggest change to Australia since his election win was his government's apology to Aborigines for historic mistreatment.

''When we undertook the apology to parliament ... We were doing something I believe was of long-term and enduring value to the nation,'' Rudd said.

The Sydney Morning Herald said Rudd had averaged one new committee or inquiry every four days since he won office, while the Herald Sun newspaper said Rudd had commissioned at least 47 committees, with 50 more promised during the election campaign.

Rudd defended his actions on Friday, saying the former conservative government set up 495 inquiries and reviews in 2005-06 alone.

''It is a responsible course of action for an incoming government to say, here are areas where you need to review the future direction,'' Rudd said.

Political analyst Nick Economou, from Melbourne's Monash University, said Rudd had made a good start to government, and had deliberately set out to find some kind of national consensus for his agenda.

''I think he is going quite well,'' Economou said.

''He handled the apology stuff with aplomb. He could be sacked tomorrow and he's already carved out a big place for himself in Australian political history -- a good place.''

He said Rudd's fascination with committees and reviews, including his plans for an ideas summit of 1,000 people in April, were all designed to help the government deliver its plans.

''He's got an agenda for what he wants to achieve, but he wants to bring people on board in doing it,'' he said.

''Rudd actually knows where he wants to go, but he wants to find the process to get there, the process that will lead to consensus.'' (AGENCIES)

Manila's Estrada in new role in politics of scandal

MANILA, Feb 29: Joseph Estrada, the Philippines' movie star former president and a convicted plunderer, has taken on the role of moral champion as a corruption scandal rattles the president who replaced him.

Estrada, ousted from office in 2001 by members of the middle class, Catholic Church and military aghast at allegations of widespread graft, has seized upon a brewing government kickbacks scandal to lecture Filipinos in interviews and rallies about the ''arrogance of corruption''.

''We have suffered through scandal after scandal, scam after scam,'' said the 70-year-old, wearing his trademark shades as the sun went down over a recent university rally in Manila.

''The Philippines has been branded as the number two most corrupt nation in the world and number one most corrupt country in Southeast Asia. When we go out of the country, it is a bit of a disgrace to admit that we are a Filipino.''

Despite being found guilty last year of diverting funds amounting to about 4 billion pesos), Estrada remains wildly popular among voters, particularly the poor of Manila, who enjoy his wisecracks and down-to-earth manner and identify him with the Robin Hood style movie heroes he used to play.

His calls against corruption have barely raised eyebrows in the Philippines, where many view graft as one of the perks of politics. Estrada has however maintained he is innocent of the charges for which he was convicted.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who faces renewed calls for her resignation over allegations of kickbacks in a government telecoms deal with a Chinese firm, pardoned Estrada around a month after his conviction in a move viewed as an olive branch to the opposition.

But Estrada, better known by his nickname ''Erap'', has become a thorn in the side of Arroyo, his former vice-president.

He has seized on the kickbacks scandal to call for her to go and is a major draw at anti-Government rallies where he charms the crowd with gags. His wristbands still bear the presidential seal.

''The convicted and pardoned former president is merely jumping on what he thinks is the right bandwagon, at the time he thinks it should be jumped on,'' the Manila Standard newspaper said in a comment this week.

Although renowned as a playboy president who was alleged to have made policy decisions after late night drinking bouts with his ''midnight cabinet'', Estrada is relishing his role as a proponent of virtue.

Arroyo pardoned him after he signalled he was not interested in running for office again but hopefuls in the 2010 presidential election will look for his endorsement and two of his sons are politicians.

(AGENCIES)

Pakistan army denies misuse of American aid

ISLAMABAD, Feb 29: Pakistan Army has denied the allegation

that American aid to cover the operational cost of the war on terror was being ''misspent''.

Media reports had suggested that the 5.4 billion dollars assistance package to Pakistan came under scrutiny after allegations that as much as 70 per cent of it was being ''misspent''.

''As far as the military is concerned, I can assure you we have full account of these things,'' chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said.

''Yes there are minor issues they keep raising, but at no stage have we received any formal complaint from any official channel,'' he said.

The Washington Post had reported last week that a ''claim for roads and tracks'' from the Pakistani navy had been rejected.

Gen Abbas said the navy was ''also involved in the war on terror because they have to guard against infiltration of arms and explosive from abroad.''

According to the Guardian, the US had paid the operating costs of Pakistan_s military operations in the Tribal Areas - averaging 80 million dollar a month - since 2002.

It said the Pakistani military submitted expense claims to the US embassy in Islamabad every month. ''No receipts are provided, and the money is paid directly into the Ministry of Finance.''

''American officials processing the payments at the US embassy in Islamabad have concluded that the Pakistani expense claims have been vastly inflated,'' the British newspaper quoted two western military officials as saying. It did not identify the officials.

''My back of envelope guesstimate is that 30 percent of the money they requested to be reimbursed was legitimate costs they expended,'' said one official.

He said the US did not know what happened to the remaining 70 per cent - approximately 3.8 million dollar. The newspaper also quoted him as saying that ''at least half the money was thought to have disappeared.''

''Poorly accounted claims caused the US to suspend payments for several months last spring,'' the second official told the Guardian.

(UNI)

Desperate Africans seek unlikely refuge in Yemen

KHARAZ, YEMEN, Feb 29: Yemen is a poor and often dysfunctional Arab country, but to thousands of Somalis and Ethiopians it is a notch better than misery and danger at home.

Obah Idli, a 19-year-old from Somalia's anarchic capital Mogadishu, made it to an isolated refugee camp in the desert, relieved to be alive after paying smugglers to sail her across the Red Sea from Djibouti with 30 of her compatriots.

''It was a very small boat. Everyone was fighting for space and water came in,'' she said, shifting her pink shawl as she waited for UNHCR refugee agency staff to register her at the Kharaz camp, 180 km from the port city Aden.

''I'd heard the smugglers put people in the sea. When we landed, the water came up to our mouths, but we made it,'' she said. ''Last night I slept well, before I was always scared. You can't stay in Mogadishu. I need a better future.''

Many Africans consider Yemen a gateway to other parts of the West Asia and the West. It shares a border with oil-producing Saudi Arabia, which hosts millions of foreign workers.

But some Africans find their odyssey ends here, in lives half-lived because Yemen is itself too poor to offer a better future.

The flow from Somalia began when warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Clan warfare, famine and chaos engulfed the Horn of Africa nation, where an interim government and its Ethiopian allies are now battling Islamist rebels.

Nearly 30,000 Somalis and Ethiopians came ashore in Yemen last year. About 700 bodies washed up, some gnawed by sharks, and another 700 people went missing, UN officials say.

''Smugglers stuff people onto small boats like sardines,'' said Samer Haddadin, a UNHCR protection officer. ''They spend two or three days like that and arrive with skin problems because they have to urinate where they sit. There is no way to move.''

Passengers can expect no mercy from the crew. Tales abound of beatings, rape and killings on the voyage. ''One group told me they had been with a woman whose baby was crying -- the smuggler took the baby and dropped it in the sea,'' Haddadin said.

Some, like Idli, arrive from Djibouti, a sea route that is much shorter and safer than the more commonly used one from the port of Bosasso in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

At least 37 Somalis were drowned off Yemen on Februay 20 when the captain of their vessel ordered them to swim ashore, the Yemeni news agency Saba reported. About 70 were rescued.

It's hard to tell refugees from economic migrants, but Yemen treats all Somali arrivals as refugees and the rest as illegal immigrants, unless they obtain refugee status from UNHCR.

SEARCH FOR OPPORTUNITY

In a dusty alleyway in Aden's Basateen slum, home to Somalis and Yemenis with links to Somalia, a young man who gave his name as Mahed said he was aiming for the Saudi border.

''It's hard to enter Saudi Arabia. We pay 50 dollars and it's dangerous, but we will try. We have no hope in Somalia.''

When Africans land in Yemen, half of them simply disperse on their own, UNHCR representative Adel Yasmin explained. The rest, mostly Somalis, pass through reception centres, with about a third of them seeking UNHCR assistance to get to Kharaz camp.

Many of these hop off the buses in Aden before ever reaching the camp and go to Basateen or elsewhere in Yemen. Even those who get to Kharaz rarely stay for more than three months.

Kharaz, on a desolate wind-scoured plain where summer heat soars near 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit), shelters 9,500 refugees in cinderblock huts. There are schools, clinics and food rations, but no jobs.

Mohammed Assanali, 35, an ethnic Oromo, reflected on his 10 years in the camp after fleeing his homeland in Ethiopia, where he was suspected of backing the outlawed Oromo Liberation Front.

''Look at me,'' he laughed bitterly in a courtyard where he has planted saplings in the dirt. ''Just I am playing with my children. It's a meaningless life. Sometimes it's darkness.''

''NO FUTURE''

Assanali, like many of the 650 Ethiopians in Kharaz, dares not leave the camp for fear he might be caught and deported.

Refugees in Kharaz are marooned in futility, unable to go back to their insecure homelands or to find work in Yemen.

The Basateen slum -- which resembles a miniature Mogadishu minus the gunmen -- is more squalid, but Somalis there are less isolated and can at least seek casual work in Aden.

''I couldn't stand camp life,'' said a woman in a black scarf with orange flowers who gave her name as Fawzia. The 23-year-old has seven children and a runaway husband. She survives on casual domestic work, but has failed to pay her rent for six months.

''I hate myself, I hate my children, I have no future,'' she said vacantly. Beside her, a baby lay untended in its own vomit on the grubby blue carpet of her trash-filled shack.

UNHCR and its partner agencies working with Somali tribal elders do their best to combat social stresses in Basateen with micro-credits and self-reliance projects that help some women feed their children, even when their husbands have vanished.

But some are overwhelmed and even ask to return to Kharaz where they can get U.N. Assistance. All need relief from the penury that fuels domestic violence and sometimes prostitution.

''Sometimes young girls come to Yemen, dreaming of a better life or of going to Saudi Arabia,'' said Aisha Said, a UNHCR social worker. ''If they fail, maybe they do this prostitution or survival sex, but I can't tell you how many do it.'' (AGENCIES)

Flagship Mars project faces technical problems, cost overruns

LOS ANGELES, Feb 29: NASA's flagship mission to land a nuclear-powered, next-generation rover on Mars is facing development problems and ballooning costs that could threaten its scheduled launch next year.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told a congressional hearing this month that engineers had to redesign the heat shield on the Mars Science Laboratory after tests showed the protective layer would not survive entry through the Martian atmosphere.

The extra work is expected to add USD 20 million to USD 30 million to the USD 1.8 billion price tag, already USD 165 million over budget.

NASA is still aiming for a 2009 launch, but the space agency is also mulling alternative voyages in 2010 and 2011, Griffin told the House Science and Technology Committee on February 13.

Any delay of the Mars Science Lab would deal a major setback to NASA, which already had to push back a mission to send an atmospheric probe to the Red Planet because of an undisclosed conflict of interest in the purchasing process.

The Mars Science Lab will be the most advanced and expensive unmanned probe ever sent to the Martian surface. The 3-metre-long mobile robot is larger and can travel farther than the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, that are still alive four years after parachuting to opposite ends of Mars.

The goal of the Mars Science Lab is to determine whether the environment could once have been favourable for microbial life using sophisticated instruments to measure for the presence of life's chemical building blocks and beam the discoveries back to Earth. (AGENCIES)

Zardari invites MMA become part of coalition

ISLAMABAD, Feb 29: The Pakistan People_s Party, which has emerged as the largest parliamentary group in the National Assembly in the February 18 elections, has formally invited a fractured Islamist alliance, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal(MMA) to become part of the proposed national consensus national consensus.

The invitation was extended by PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari during a meeting with the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman here last evening.

Mr Zardari was accompanied by party vice-president Makhdoom Amin Fahim, and senior leaders Raza Rabbani, Yusuf Raza Gillani, Syed Khurshid Shah, Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Farhatullah Babar.

Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, former NWFP chief minister Akram Durrani and Senator Talha Mehmood assisted Maulana Fazl in the talks.

Dawn newspaper quoted PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar as saying that another round of talks between the PPP and the MMA would be held soon. The Jamaat-i-Islami-less MMA won only seven seats in the National Assembly.

Talking briefly to reporters after the meeting, a visibly-happy Maulana Fazl said the two sides had agreed that the country needed political unity and a government of national consensus.

He said the MMA had presented to the PPP leaders its list of priorities and the two sides would hold further negotiations in the next few days.

He said the MMA wanted to see parliament’s sovereignty, rule of the Constitution, end of dictatorship and elimination of army’s role in politics.

Mr Zardari said his party had previously worked with Maulana Fazl and expressed the hope that they would be able to work together in future as well. He said the nation would soon hear good news about the formation of a national consensus Government.

The PPP leadership had in the past called the MMA a ''Mullah Military Alliance'' and held them responsible for the breaking away of a joint opposition in the previous assembly.

They had also accused the MMA of strengthening President Musharraf_s hold on power by providing indemnity to his unconstitutional acts through the controversial 17th Amendment. (UNI)

Conception rate for over-40s at record level

LONDON, Feb 29: The conception rate for women over 40 has reached record levels in England and Wales, while the rate for under-18s has fallen, statistics show.

The rate for over-40s increased fastest, by more than six perc ent to 12.2 per 1,000 women aged 40 to 44 between 2005 and 2006, the Office for National Statistics said.

The rate among teenagers aged 15 to 17 fell from 41.1 to 40.7 conceptions per 1,000 girls during the same period.

The underage rate fell by 1 per cent to 7.7 per 1,000 of girls aged between 13 and 15.

The overall conception rate rose by nearly 3 percent to 78 conceptions per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44, with an estimated 866,800 conceptions in 2006.

The highest rate of conceptions was among women aged between 25 and 29, at 129 per 1,000 women of that age.

More than half the total conceptions, 56 per cent, were outside marriage, but the births were registered by both parents.

Nearly four-fifths of all conceptions resulted in maternity. (AGENCIES)

China to install 405 MW power project in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Feb 29: China has conveyed to of Pakistan that it wanted to install 405 MW integrated coal mining-cum-power project at Sinda-Jerruk area at the cost of 600 million dollars.

A five-member delegation headed by Vice-President of China National Machinery Import & Export Corporation (CMC) Ms Qin Ruijan conveyed the desire to set up the power project in a meeting held with Secretary Water and Power Muhammad Ismail Qureshi here yesterday, The News reported today.

The CMC is the 10th largest state-owned corporation of China and is the largest foreign trade enterprise engaged in import and export of machinery products having an aggregate trade size of over 73 billion dollars and has a substantial experience in the development of coal-mines and coal-based power projects. (UNI)

Afghan peace efforts not succeeding :UK charity

KABUL, Feb 29: Efforts to promote peace in Afghanistan are not succeeding as they do not address local disputes which are exploited by Taliban insurgents to widen the conflict, a leading British charity said.

The Oxfam report is the latest voice in a chorus of recent criticism of international aid and military strategy which has failed to bring peace and development to Afghanistan more than six years after US-led and Afghan forces ousted the Taliban.

''Existing, high-level measures to promote peace in Afghanistan are not succeeding,'' Matt Waldman, Oxfam's policy director in Afghanistan, said in a statement yesterday.

''This is not only due to the revival of the Taliban, but because insecurity often has local causes such as disputes over land, water and family concerns. In many cases these local disputes can turn violent and escalate into factional conflict.''

An Oxfam survey found that while Afghans see the Taliban, warlords and criminals as their biggest threat, disputes over land and water are the biggest cause of insecurity in their daily lives.

''Whilst local disputes don't attract the same headlines as the Taliban, they cause insecurity, undermine quality of life and hinder development efforts,'' Waldman said. ''Militants and criminal groups also exploit local conflicts and rivalries.''

LOCAL DISPUTES

Decades of war and displacement have exacerbated local disputes across Afghanistan and have also weakened social cohesion which would normally limit the potential for conflict.

Oxfam called for more effort to promote local councils, or shuras, which most Afghans turn to in order to resolve disputes.

Two years after the Islamist Taliban relaunched its fight to oust the pro-Western Afghan government and eject foreign forces, NATO commanders insist they are making steady progress to defeat the insurgency and bring much-needed development.

But a nationwide Taliban campaign of suicide bombings has undermined Afghan faith in the government and its Western backers to deliver security and public opinion in some Western capitals is calling for a change in strategy or troop withdrawal.

Two independent US reports last month said Afghanistan risked reverting to a failed state and haven for international Islamists militants without urgent renewed international efforts to win the war and deliver on promises of development.

But US, British and Canadian leaders, whose troops have borne the brunt of the fighting in the traditional Taliban heartlands in southern and eastern Afghanistan, have so far failed to persuade European NATO powers to send more troops to join the fight in the south.

(AGENCIES)

UN experts ask US to halt public housing demolition

NEW YORK, Feb 29: In a sharp criticism of the US, the United Nations' experts have asked it to halt the demolition of public housing and protect human rights of African-Americans affected by hurricane Katrina, which battered New Orleans in 2005.

The experts on housing and minority rights warned that the US Government action could lead to many people, mainly African-Americans, becoming destitute.

"We are deeply concerned about information we continue to receive about the housing situation of people in New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region," Miloon Kothari, the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, and Gay McDougall, the Independent Expert on minority issues, said in a joint statement released yesterday.

At the United Nations headquarters, officials declined to comment on the criticism of the US by the experts, saying they were independent and report to the Geneva-based Human rights Council.

The demolition of the St. Bernard public housing development started nearly two weeks ago and the destruction of three other complexes is planned for the near future without meaningful consultation with the communities involved, they said.

Citing reports that there are more than 12,000 homeless people in the greater New Orleans metropolitan area, they said that the demolition of public housing, in combination with the spiralling costs of private housing and rental units, are only driving people, primarily African-Americans, into destitution. (PTI)