U.S. is ready to airlift peacekeepers to Darfur

. The U.S. is ready to airlift as many as 4,000 peacekeepers, including Ethiopians and Egyptians who make up the U.N.-African Union mission to Darfur, the U.S. envoy for Africa said Monday.  The mission started deploying in Darfur in January but remains at less than half of the 26,000 authorized to go there. The mission has also complained of Sudanese government stonewalling and transport problems. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, who arrived in Khartoum from a trip to Congo Monday, said the Sudanese government has made “important progress” recently in speeding up the deployment of the peacekeepers, The Associated Press reports. “There has been important progress,” Frazer said. “But we are looking to get at least 3,000 to 4,000 (peacekeepers) in Darfur. We certainly have offered the U.N. to help do airlift if they need to bring in both troops and to move equipment.” Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor said the United States’ offer to help ferry more troops and equipment into Darfur was first made in September, during Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha’s visit to New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly. After Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was accused of genocide in Darfur in July, Sudanese authorities eased some procedures including issuing visas for promised troops. The move was an apparent response to Western demands for cooperation with the international community. Al-Bashir has dismissed the charges brought against him by the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. He says his country won’t recognize the tribunal, but his government is also lobbying supporters and others to freeze the international prosecution.

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South Africa’s president calls it quits; Ethiopia suffers through a hunger crisis; and hip hop comes to Peru. See pics.
 Somali militants attack peacekeepers. Somali Islamist militants unleashed an attack on peacekeepers sparking fighting that resulted in the deaths of 17 civilians Wednesday. According to witnesses the violence was ground shaking. “The fighting was so heavy it shook the ground under our feet. Both sides were using heavy artillery – including tanks used by the AU,” said a Somali cameraman, adding that it was the most violent fighting he’d seen between the two forces. The militia, Al-Shaabab, recently stepped up attacks against African Union peacekeepers. Fighting earlier this week killed at least 33 civilians. An AU spokesman accused the militia of trying to draw them into a war, when they are only there to keep peace. They were “intended to draw [AU] into direct armed confrontation with the opposition forces, and therefore appear to be involved directly in the conflict…We refuse to be drawn into this senseless war,” the spokesman, Maj. Barigye Ba-Hoku, said in a statement.  Al-Shaabab has also been launching attacks against Ethiopian troops who are in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu helping to stabilize the government. Ever since Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, the government has been unstable.

S.A. couple killed while having sex on a train track. In South Africa, a train ran over and killed two people having sex on the track, reports the BBC. The incident took place late last week at a train station in Kinross. The victims have not been identified yet. The couple apparently had ignored warnings from the train driver as he was getting closer, police spokesman Abie Khoabane told local media. “They continued with their business,” he said. The area was deserted at the time of the accident. The man passed away at the scene of the accident and the woman died at the hospital later. Police are asking for anyone who has relatives that might have recently gone missing to help with their investigation.

Keeping Kenyan girls in school helps reduce HIV.

Reducing the school dropout rate for girls in Kenya and providing adequate HIV/AIDS and sex education could reduce HIV incidence in the country, experts said recently. “Young people do not have the information they need, and the dropout rate, particularly for girls, is still too high,” Rosemarie Muganda-Onyando, executive director of the Centre for the Study of Adolescence in Nairobi, Kenya, told IRIN News. “Dropping out of school ensures a life of poverty for these girls, and many of them also wind up HIV-positive because the male-female power dynamics become even more slanted against them.” In 2003, Kenya introduced no-cost primary school education, but an estimated 1 million school-age children still are not attending school. In addition, up to 13,000 Kenyan girls drop out of school annually as a result of pregnancy, and about 17 percent of girls have had sex before age 15. HIV prevalence among Kenyan women between ages 15 and 24 is about 5 percent, compared with 1 percent for their male counterparts, IRIN News reports. According to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey of 2004, educated girls were less likely to marry early and more likely to practice family planning. In addition, their children had a higher survival rate. UNICEF also found that uneducated girls are more likely to contract HIV, compared with girls who have had some schooling.

The U.N. extended its Darfur peacekeeping mission. The Security Council on Thursday extended by one year the mandate of the joint United Nations-African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in the strife-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur. With 14 votes in favor and an abstention by the United States, a resolution was adopted to extend the mission known as UNAMID – which was authorized by the Council exactly one year ago – for another 12 months to 31 July 2009. The current mandate expired Thursday night. “The United States abstained because language added to the resolution would send the wrong signal to Sudanese President [Omar al-] Bashir” and undermine efforts to bring him to justice, U.S. Ambassador Alejandro D. Wolff told the 15-member panel after the vote. Earlier this month, Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Mr. Bashir for “criminal responsibility in relation to 10 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.” Since taking over from an AU peace-monitoring mission at the start of this year, UNAMID has just under 10,000 uniformed personnel in place, far short of the approximately 26,000 troops and police officers expected when the force reaches full deployment. A report by a group of non-governmental organizations this week found that the peacekeeping mission faces critical shortages in troops, other personnel, helicopters, equipment and logistics. The report indicates that there are not enough troops, helicopters or other equipment for the force to be effective.

Sudan attack kills seven peacekeepers
A militia attacked and killed seven United Nations-African Union peacekeepers working in northern Darfur, reports CNN. The assault, which occurred around 2:45 p.m. local time, also wounded 22 others. “The attackers used heavy weapons and engaged in UNAMID convoy in an exchange of fire for more than two hours,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a statement. “The secretary-general expresses his deepest condolences to the families of the peacekeepers who lost their lives. …” Peacekeepers are permitted to retaliate with force when they are fired on directly, reports CNN. Of the seven who died, five were from Rwanda, one was from Uganda and one was from Ghana. The peacekeepers, who are trying to protect civilians from government supported “Janjaweed” militias, are a hot target in Sudan. An ambush attack by a militia back in October killed 10 African Union (A.U.) peacekeepers. A U.N. commission concluded three years ago that the government and militias, “conducted indiscriminate attacks, including killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and forced displacement,” reports CNN. Last year, a joint U.N and A.U peacekeeping force agreed to keep order and protect civilians in the country, a job A.U. forces had been trying to do on its own. But since the government is against the U.N. being in the country, the peacekeeping force is understaffed with only 9,500 troops when tens of thousands are needed. More than 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been displaced from their homes since the conflict in Darfur started five years ago. But the Sudanese government contends that only 10,000 people have died, which they say is normal after five years of war.

The British Army is in the Caribbean looking for recruits
Officials of the British Army are touring the Caribbean in search of new recruits, reports the BBC. So far, they have been to Belize, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and St. Lucia and are on their way to Jamaica. About 600 people (between 17 and 24 years old) have signed up so far. According to British Colonel Paul Farrar, this first round of recruitment is more “like a pre-selection process.” Whoever is chosen is offered a job within the army and must pay for their trip to Britain on their own if they decide to take the position.