President Robert Mugabe stepped up his violent crackdown on political opponents today as heavily armed police stormed opposition headquarters and the offices of independent election observers on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Sarah Ngewerume was driven to the river by despair.

She said she had seen gangs loyal to Zimbabwe's longtime president, Robert Mugabe, beating people -- some to death -- in the dusty roads of her village. She said Mugabe loyalists were sweeping the countryside with chunks of wood in their hands, demanding to see party identification cards and methodically hunting down opposition supporters.

Somali Islamist insurgents and government troops exchanged mortar fire on Sunday and a prominent human rights group said 81 people had been killed in the past 24 hours in some of the heaviest clashes in months.

Chinese troops have been seen on the streets of Zimbabwe's third largest city, Mutare, according to local witnesses. They were seen patrolling with Zimbabwean soldiers before and during Tuesday's ill-fated general strike called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

South African dockers are refusing to unload a Chinese cargo ship carrying 77 tonnes of small arms destined for Zimbabwe.

Copies of the documentation for the Chinese ship, the An Yue Jiang, show that the weapons were sent from Beijing to the ministry of defence in Harare. Headed "Dangerous goods description and container packing certificate", the document was issued on April 1, three days after Zimbabwe's election. It lists the consignment as including 3.5m rounds of ammunition for AK47 assault rifles and for small arms, 1,500 40mm rockets, 2,500 mortar shells of 60mm and 81mm calibre, as well as 93 cases of mortar tubes.

The brutality of Robert Mugabe's crackdown on the Movement for Democratic Change was described yesterday by the victims of his thugs as they recovered from their injuries in a clinic in Harare.

Zimbabwe's burgeoning political crisis has claimed its first victim, an opposition activist stabbed at his homestead by members of Robert Mugabe's party.

Police said that the killing did not appear to be political.

I received a call early one morning this week from a friend in a small country town. Speaking quickly and quietly for fear of being overheard, he told me of the frightening events that were going on all around him. Eight double cab vehicles had arrived in the town. Armed men in civilian clothes alighted. They had lists of names of people who had been involved in the election campaign for the opposition MDC in the area.

"They are hunting us down," he said. "Each and every one of us is being sought out, beaten and punished for supporting the MDC."

Rocketing global commodity prices and failing domestic supplies have made this staple food unaffordable for 20 percent of the country's 76 million inhabitants.

"There is no crisis in Zimbabwe," Mbeki said after talks with President Robert Mugabe during a brief stopover in Harare on his way to join southern African leaders meeting in Zambia.

The opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has claimed victory in the poll, but full results have still not been announced amid evidence of vote-rigging.

Tendai Biti, the secretary-general of the MDC, said the party had evidence of nine million ballot papers being printed before the election, despite Zimbabwe's registered electorate of only 5.9 million.

A bill has been introduced in the US Congress to remove from databases any reference to South Africa's governing party and its leaders as terrorists.

Zimbabwe's opposition today called for a general strike until the results of the presidential vote, held two weeks ago, are declared.

In his long and bloody career as first and only President of Zimbabwe, the 84-year-old Mugabe has engaged in a systematic campaign of murder, racist demagoguery, and wholesale looting to maintain himself and his cronies in power. Not since Idi Amin has such a bloody-minded sociopath and mass murderer arisen out of the dark heart of Africa. The United States, which doesn't mind supporting the continent's worst dictators, from Hosni Mubarak in Egypt to Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, won't touch Mugabe with a ten-foot pole. Indeed, listening to the Voice of America in Mugabe-land can get you in trouble with the secret police. The US, the EU, the UN, leaders of neighboring countries - all have expressed varying levels of disapproval as Mugabe's international stock has plummeted to new lows.

Yet he has always managed to retain at least one ally, through thick and thin, one that remains loyal even now, and that is the government of Israel. They have been a steady supplier of military equipment, including riot control tanks and water cannon, which has been used to suppress the democratic opposition and keep the country under his iron grip. Links between Mugabe and Mossad, Israeli's intelligence agency, go back years.

Reports flooding into farmers' unions in Harare yesterday told of the wilful destruction of farm equipment, produce and buildings as part of an alleged "popular uprising" by government-backed mobs in the name of getting the land back for the black population. Agriculturalists fear that the country could run out of food within weeks as the farm invasions stop the maize harvest in mid-flow and threaten the future of wheat crops with only four weeks left for planting.

Big Oil consultants' homes bombarded with rocket fire in Yemen....

A SMALL Israeli company has refuted claims by the opposition party in Zimbabwe that it was hired by President Robert Mugabe to provide software to rig the elections.

Mugabe: I will quit, as long I do not face prosecution...

ROBERT MUGABE was desperately clinging to power last night, despite his looming defeat in Zimbabwe's presidential election, by blocking the electoral commission from releasing results and threatening to treat an opposition claim of victory as a coup.

Forty humanitarian agencies have warned of an impending catastrophe in Somalia unless urgent action is taken.

They say 20,000 people continue to flee violence in the capital every month.

The government has failed to pay farmers the foreign currency component for wheat deliveries to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) because of the critical hard currency shortage.

Farmers this week complained that, in addition to the delays by the GMB and the Reserve Bank to process their payments, the producer price of the crop, pegged at $72 million last year, is now almost worthless because of high inflation of more than 100 000 percent.

With each passing week, anguish and atrocity are deepening in Somalia, the third "regime change" target of George Bush's Terror War. Thousands of innocent people have been killed and a million have been driven from their homes by an Ethiopian invasion backed, funded and armed by the Bush Administration, which has also intervened directly with air strikes, naval shelling, renditions of fleeing refugees (including U.S. citizens) to Ethiopia's notorious prisons and, on at least one occasion, with a U.S. death squad sent in after an airstrike with orders to "kill anyone left alive."

President Robert Mugabe, campaigning for upcoming elections, has signed a new law requiring foreign- and white-owned businesses to hand over 51% control of their operations to blacks, state media reported Sunday.

A US missile strike in Somalia, aimed at a man described by the Pentagon as a "known al-Qa'ida terrorist", succeeded only in hurting six civilians and killing three cows and a calf, the IoS has learned.

South Africa's cabinet has approved a bill that would speed up its land reform programme aimed at transferring 30 percent of farmland to black ownership by 2014, a government spokesman said on Thursday.

MORE than 1500 people have died in Kenyan unrest since the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki in December, police said, a sharp rise on the previous toll of at least 1000.

The White House scramble for Africa came to an end this week - symbolically, at least. During his tour of the continent, President Bush seized every opportunity to boast of his innovative approaches to African health and development issues. But he kept strangely silent about what may be his administration's most enduring legacy for Africa: AFRICOM, the most significant U.S. foreign and military policy innovation you've probably never heard of.

Bush Explains Focus of Africa Military Command...

A heavy fighting, which is believed to be one of the deadliest in Somalia's capital, stunned the forces of the fledging government forcing them to run away from key junctions in Mogadishu after they were overpowered by insurgents opposing the government.

One of the lessons of the genocide, he (Bush) said, was that when the world intervened it should do so not with observers but with forces which had a mandate to deal with the situation.

Enter stage left, the leaking news that Bush has made secret agreements with Kikwete to build a huge American military base just north of Dar.

Ahh, it all makes sense now. $700 million 'to fight AIDS and malaria' ... and build a new strategic US military base. Why hasn't that part made the news?

Some 80 per cent of Zimbabweans live below the poverty line. Food shortages are worsening. Up to four million people will need food aid by elections on 29 March, agencies say.

Oil, a heightened US military presence on the continent with AFRICOM and ever-tougher competition from China are all issues that will not be far from the surface during George W. Bush's latest Africa tour.

Washington also hopes to better its image by highlighting its Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which has since 2000 enabled some 40 countries to have access to the US market until 2015 without paying customs duties.

However in 2007, more than 90 per cent of exports from sub-Saharan Africa to the US were petroleum products.

As we have often noted here before, there is a third major military front in the "War on Terror": Somalia, where the Bush Administration and its proxies have spawned yet another living hell of chaos, corruption, mass death and displacement – while greatly exacerbating the very extremism and terrorism that the invasion was ostensibly designed to quell.

"I assured the president that our commitment remains strong," said Bush, who leaves Friday on a five-country trip to Africa -- likely his last before leaving office in January 2001 -- to promote the kinder, gentler face of US foreign policy.

Somalia: The World's forgotten catastrophe...

One of the commercial goods ship workers told Shabelle English section that the ameican naval forces have been warily examining the boats including small fishing boats and ships to Somalia to foil the pirates habitually kidnap the commercial and aid ships arrive on Somalia's unsafe coasts although its unknown the real point behind the arrival of American marine forces docked at Somali coast.

Thousands of people are fleeing the Chad capital, N'Djamena, after two days of fierce fighting between government and rebel forces in the city.

Higher death toll in Rwanda, Congo quakes...

The economy is estimated to have declined by about 6 per cent in 2007. This contraction in economic activity has been mirrored in output decline in all sectors of the economy, with the exception of a marginal increase in agricultural output."

Zimbabweans have over the past eight years grappled with shortages of food, fuel, water and electricity in a crisis many say has its roots in Mr Mugabe's seizure of white-owned commercial farms.

Rebels in Chad seeking to overthrow President Idriss Deby battled their way into the capital N'Djamena on Saturday and said they were securing it, but a minister said government forces still controlled the city.

A year after President George W. Bush approved its creation, the new U.S. military command for Africa is finding its feet but has quietly dropped talk of basing itself on the African continent.

"The government and the police have turned this country into killing fields of the innocent, executing at will in an unprecedented bloodlust that began long before elections took place," Odinga said, after presenting journalists with a slide show of gruesome photos of men shot to death.

Odinga has vowed to continue the mass action until President Mwai Kibaki, who was swept to power last month in the allegedly flawed polls, step aside or recount the vote.

Kenya's violent crisis threatens to destabilise one of the United States' key counter-terrorism partners in Africa and could influence Washington's decision on where to site its new military command for the continent.

The official death toll stood at 486 on Monday from clashes that have rocked the East African nation since a disputed election last month.

A mob set fire to a church where dozens of people had sought refuge from violence in Kenya yesterday, killing at least 50 and raising new fears that one of Africa’s most stable countries would collapse into a bloody tribal war.

"Currently there is no suggestion of foul play," Lieutenant Patrick Foughty, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet, told Reuters by telephone from Naples, Italy.

The bill, which passed both houses of Congress unanimously, makes it easier for mutual funds and private pension fund managers to sell their investments and allows states to prohibit debt financing for companies that do business in Sudan. It also requires companies seeking contracts with the federal government to certify that they are not doing business in Sudan.

US Laments Kenya's Election Irregularities, Appeals for Calm...

NBC has learned that the slain diplomat was John Granville, from South Buffalo, N.Y. He worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on a program to bring radios to the population of South Sudan, according to USAID's website. Granville's family has been notified of his death.

For the Somali people, the Ethiopian invasion of December of 2006 could not have started at a worse time. Defeating the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and propping up the TFG; this was Ethiopia's immediate rationale for violating Somalia. The larger goal? Forging a partnership between Washington and Addis Ababa in order to execute the "war on terror".

A year later, this mission has not been accomplished. Instead, the "war on terror" has become the terror of war being visited on the Somali people.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group said last month that the threat of war is "very real" and "just weeks away." An estimated 225,000 troops have massed on either side of a tense buffer zone.

n a live TV broadcast, Dr Gono said he was introducing a Z$250,000 note, a Z$500,000 note and a Z$750,000 note. None of them is enough to buy a single loaf of bread.

"We need a Z$1 million note then we will not have to carry our money in big bags," complained a shopper in a Spar supermarket.

Ghana President Says Oil Reserves Discovered in Country's Waters Total 3 Billion Barrels...

s US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was recently visiting American forces in Djibouti, the Washington Post was reporting how the Pentagon has been spearheading a seemingly dicey initiative to pressure Washington into recognizing the secessionist northwestern region of Somalia, known as "Somaliland," as an independent state.

This is an excellent summary of the deteriorating situation in Somalia, where Bush's "Terror War" unleashed yet another "regime change" operation last year, using American bombers, special ops, death squads and security forces to aid an invasion of Somalia by undemocractic Ethiopia. Writing for McClatchy Newspapers – one of the very few mainstream American news organizations that still practices actual journalism – Shashank Bengali does what almost no corporate media story on Somalia I've seen has ever done: he notes the U.S. involvement in the very first line. In our degraded times, Bengali's straightforward, factual account – the kind of thing which should of course be as common as muck – stands as a bold act of truth-telling.

Amid such a blur of perfidy, major events that portend disaster in the future can slip by with barely a notice by the media, by Congress, or by the public at large. For example, does one voter in a hundred know that the Department of Defense has quietly activated a new regional military command? Just type in the acronym "AFRICOM" into a search box, and the reader will find a DOD website that presents the new United States Africa Command, in the same boosterish manner that Microsoft rolls out a new operating platform.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today that he was deeply concerned by the intense fighting engulfing North Kivu province in the far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), especially its impact on local civilians, many of whom have been forced to flee to escape the renewed violence.

President George W. Bush Thursday telephoned his Algerian counterpart Abdelaziz Bouteflika to express his condolences and offer support after deadly attacks in the north African country, the White House announced.

Spectre of civil war returns as al-Qaeda suicide bombings kill 67...

US gives blessing to France-Libya nuclear deal...

No one claimed responsibility for the near-simultaneous explosions in Algiers -- one in front of the Constitutional Council, the second near a U.N. compound. But the timing and targets suggest they were carried out by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, one of the region's most proficient terrorist organizations, according to security experts and Algeria's Interior Ministry.

The Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation added that it had verified 7,980 people wounded, and 717,784 displaced from their homes, in a turbulent two years that saw the rise and fall of an Islamist movment, followed by an insurgency.

US official Gates in Djibouti to discuss Africa operations...

THE Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, has stepped up the use of torture against political opponents, civil rights protesters and students in a bid to clamp down on dissent in the run-up to next year's elections.

Sarudzai’s is just one of the legion of horror stories that Mr Mugabe seeks to conceal from the world by banning foreign journalists from Zimbabwe. She is one of millions of victims of his pernicious regime who will be largely overlooked when the octogenarian autocrat enjoys the propaganda triumph of being greeted as a legitimate national leader at the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon next week.

Over nine days spent travelling clandestinely around this beautiful, once-bountiful country, The Times found a nation where millions now struggle to survive on barely a bowl of sadza (a mealie-meal porridge) a day, the most basic services have all but collapsed and thousands die every week in a perfect storm of poverty, hunger and disease. Aids, like corruption, is rampant.

United States of America has said its decision to situate an African Command in the West African region of the continent is not out of a desire to be close to the oil rich African states, but a desire to help Africa establish its own security and support its leadership efforts.

The Darfur region of Sudan possesses the third largest copper and the fourth largest uranium deposits on the planet, in addition to strategic location and significant oil resources of its own. Is the US-based “Save Darfur” movement snowing the US public on the fundamental nature of the conflict in Sudan? Are “Save Darfur” and the prevention of genocide the covers of convenience for the next round of US oil and resource wars on the African continent?

The U.S. efforts to seek a home for the Africa Command (AFRICOM) have suffered one more blow as the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA) stated strong opposition Tuesday to any foreign military establishments on the soil of African countries.

The star-studded hue and cry to "Save Darfur" and "stop the genocide" has gained enormous traction in U.S. media along with bipartisan support in Congress and the White House. But the Congo, with ten to twenty times as many African dead over the same period is not called a "genocide" and passes almost unnoticed. Sudan sits atop lakes of oil. It has large supplies of uranium, and other minerals, significant water resources, and a strategic location near still more African oil and resources.

The Chadian army says it has killed several hundreds of rebels during clashes near an area bordering Sudan's Darfur region - ending a lull in fighting.

Darfur rebels on Sunday said freshly deployed Chinese peacekeepers were not welcome and as Khartoum's "allies" in Sudan's war-ravaged western region threatened they were not immune from attack.

China, the biggest buyer of Sudan's oil and which sells the country weapons, has been accused of shielding Khartoum -- blamed for fanning the violence in Darfur -- from international sanctions.

Armed groups attacked bases of the Somali government troops and their ally the Ethiopians in the Somali capital Mogadishu and this combat had effect on the inhabitant in the surrounding areas.

"But the players, the private military companies, the arms dealers-and a handful of missing SRAM missiles armed with nuclear warheads dumped by an American B-52 before it crashed-are mostly unknown to the general public. These covert wars all involve different propaganda strategies to provide cover and deflect attention through "perception management"-managing the perceptions, stereotyping and creating false belief systems-of the North American and European public."

Almost 200,000 people who have fled the violence in Mogadishu now live in 70 makeshift camps that have sprung up along the side of the road.

Senior United Nations officials in the region consider Somalia to be the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa, surpassing even Darfur in its horror and hopelessness.

Nigeria won't host U.S. command for Africa...

Analysts say that hyperinflation in Zimbabwe will bring about a complete economic collapse within the next six months. Such a standstill could lead to civil unrest that can paralyze President Robert Mugabe's government, according to a warning international aid agencies gave their staff members.

Inflation in Zimbabwe soared to a record 4,530 percent in May and the cost of living for an average family in an urban area rose by 66 percent last month.

The respected Heads of Agencies Contact Group representing a 34 aid organizations that include the United Nations, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Oxfam issued the warning in an internal memorandum. It is the first sign that aid groups are preparing for the nation's collapse.

President Mugabe unleashed a devastating new blow to Zimbabwe’s mortally wounded economy yesterday, announcing a new law giving the state a controlling stake in mines operating in the country.

Under the Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill, the Government can take over 51 per cent of companies mining strategic fuels and minerals, taking 25 per cent without paying.

While America wages this proxy war in Somalia, the unrest seems likely to spill across Ethiopia’s borders, potentially escalating the already growing rebellion in the country’s easternmost province. Already, some have accused the Ethiopian army of pillaging villages in the East of the country, leaving trails of rape and destruction across the Ethiopian/Somali border as part of a terror campaign against domestic rebels and Somali Islamists.

The United States of course, is encouraging these unhinged actions with direct financial and ideological support to the Ethiopian regime, all perfectly in line with the Bush doctrine. It may also be useful to recall that it was the United States’ long support for Somalia’s warlords (among other factors) which aided the Islamists’ rise to power to begin with.

One million people are now living rough in Somalia, the UN refugee agency says.

The figure includes 60% of Mogadishu residents who have fled their homes - 200,000 in the past two weeks - leaving many districts empty, says UNHCR.

Zimbabwe's education system, once regarded as among the best in Africa, is in crisis because of the country's economic meltdown. Almost a quarter of the teachers have quit the country, absenteeism is high, buildings are crumbling and standards plummeting.

In one of the most shocking examples of the Dickensian conditions, a reporter witnessed hundreds of children at Hatcliffe Extension Primary School in Epworth, 12 miles west of Harare, writing in the dust on the floor because they had no exercise books or pencils.

Somalia: What the News Failed to Report...

The head of U.S. Africa Command assured congressional leaders yesterday that a new military command structure in Africa is necessary to consolidate the Department of Defense's work on the continent, which had been previously distributed among three different commands.

Gen. William "Kip" Ward said before the House Armed Services Committee that a military command presence would not disrupt ongoing peace processes or lead to militarization in the region.

n Zimbabwe, where hyperinflation has reached 7,900% and people have used up their entire savings just buying food, life has been reduced to this: the queue. Go to any Zimbabwean town these days and you'll find lines everywhere, like an invasion of giant pythons slithering into every supermarket door.

As we collect our thoughts and reflect about what a future war could possibly mean to the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia, dark rumors of war are rampant in the African Horn; whether these rumors of war are an indication of an impending war or simply a function of public posturing is something that only the near future can tell. If it happens, a fresh war now could spell disaster of tragic proportions for both countries, but especially for Eritrea. It appears that Ethiopia is determined to take advantage of the desperate internal Eritrean conditions. The recent assessment of the International Crisis Group (ICJ) is apt here: “It would not be surprising if Addis Ababa believes an effort in the near future to stage a coup in Asmara and use force against an Eritrean government that has few friends would also be tolerated in Washington.”

This feverish Ethiopian preparation for aggression on Eritrea has a crucial international dimension, supplied by none other than the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer. She has actively been on a personal crusade to orchestrate an international demonization of the Eritrean leader and his regime as part of a coordinated effort to facilitate aggression.

International aid agencies are warning of an "unfolding humanitarian catastrophe" in parts of Somalia after recent fierce fighting in the capital.

The UN says about 90,000 have fled Mogadishu since Saturday and the worsening security means relief cannot be given to them.

Congolese refugees continue to stream into Uganda following fighting in North Kivu between government forces and troops loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda.

By press time yesterday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) put the number at 18,000.

Thousands of civilians fled intense fighting Saturday in eastern DR Congo between local militias and rebels loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda, the UN and the Congolese army said.

Thousands of people are fleeing to Rutshuru (around 25 kilometres to the north west), terrified and completely destitute," Sylvie van den Wildenberg, spokeswoman for the UN mission in DR Congo (MONUC), told AFP by phone.

Why is the U.S. subsidizing and supporting murder, rape, and systematic ethnic cleansing in the Horn of Africa? The reason: it's all part of our strategy for "victory" in the "war on terrorism."

As the Ethiopian- and U.S.-backed Somalian "government" of warlords and criminal gangs rampages through the streets of Mogadishu, and throughout the country, murdering, looting, and raping, the U.S. signals its approval. Indeed, the U.S. has given its backing to Ethiopia.

African Union and United Nations officials are looking into reports of a new massacre in Darfur, in which witnesses said Sudanese government troops and their allied militias had killed more than 30 civilians, slitting the throats of several men praying at a mosque and shooting a 5-year-old boy in the back as he tried to run away.

Officials say the goal is to provide what they call a "persistent presence" in the Gulf of Guinea area, without needing to put large numbers of troops ashore. Officials say the ship, and another that will join the mission later, will train naval forces in 11 countries during a seven-month deployment.

The Gulf of Guinea has significant strategic importance because a large percentage of U.S. oil imports flow through it and U.S. officials are concerned about organized crime, and potentially terrorism, in the region.

I stared at the teller with his empty shop and filthy money and his eyes were filled with despair. 'Where will I go,' he said; 'what will I do?' I had no answers and could just say: I am so sorry, so very sorry. As I left and the trees dripped their purple flowers at my feet the tears were in my eyes. We are a nation traumatized, regardless of our age or sex, the colour of our skin or our profession and yes, it is all political.

Since August the fighting has displaced about 370,000 people and prevented the UN World Food Programme from delivering relief aid to nearly 19,000 people in need. Ocha called on both sides of the conflict to “respect fundamental humanitarian principles”, protect the civilian population and refrain from recruiting child fighters.

The rising demand for uranium has increased the nomads' longstanding grievances and could spark more fighting.

More than 100 fighters, including 85 rebels, have been killed in clashes in the Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a top army officer said on Wednesday.

Government forces have been fighting followers of renegade general, Laurent Nkunda, who claims that his aim is to defend the minority Congolese Tutsis of the east from other population groups and armed movements, around Karuba.

A South African recruitment drive for teachers, combined with an exodus of education professionals escaping Zimbabwe's seven-year recession, is creating staff shortages so severe that some schools are closing.

At least four schools have closed and several more are facing the same situation. The students are being transferred at a time when they are preparing to write their year-end examinations, placing even greater pressure on the recipient schools.

Teacher's salaries have not kept pace with Zimbabwe's official inflation rate of more than 6,000 percent, while neighbouring South Africa has embarked on a recruitment drive for teachers in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to bolster their own teacher numbers.