Close to 160 die at sea
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND = A boat carrying more than 800 persons between the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba has sunk off the coast of Zanzibar, with nearly 190 people dead, 20 missing and more than 520 rescued, according to the government of Tanzania.
Zanzibar is an autonomous region of Tanzania and a popular tourist destination.
The boat was registered with about 600 people aboard, but dozens scrambled on in addition to those listed, and the boat’s ballast was well over its limit. It was carrying sugar, rice and wheat, twice its legal load of 60 tons.
It sank in the Indian Ocean after it was hit by high winds and waves.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Rumours are rife that Muammar Qaddafi is hiding out with his old friend Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, but while they may be hard to prove, it’s clear that Africa has mixed feelings about who is or should be in charge in Libya, reports allAfrica. The African Union voted Friday 26 August against recognizing Libya’s National Transition Council (NTC) as the sole government power, calling for an inclusive government that would include Qaddafi supporters. Nigeria says it has nothing to apologize for, in recognizing the NTC, while Tanzania, among others, has refused to do so.
Zimbabwe has ordered Libya’s ambassador and his staff to leave the country following their defection last week to the NTC.
Though “Sub-Saharan Africa’s recovery from the crisis-induced slowdown is well underway, with growth in most countries now back fairly close to the high levels of the mid 2000s”, siginificant infrastructural limitations as well as rising food and fuel prices threaten smooth economic recovery and growth in the region.
Links to other sites: allAfrica, The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Rachel and Paul Chandler, a husband and wife team of sailors, are set to return home to Tunbridge Wells, Kent after being released by pirates in Somalia. “We’re fine, we’re rather skinny and bony but we’re fine,” Chandler said in Mogadishu 14 November. The couple were captured on their yacht in October 2009 off the Seychelles islands on their way to Tanzania. The pirates were paid a ransom that totalled almost $1 million, according to Skynews.
Links to other sites: BBC, Daily Telegraph
Hero Rats learn sociability at a young age (photo: ©2009 Apopo)
Hero Rat (photo: ©2009 Apopo)
Ed. note: GenevaLunch was on the ground this week in Cartagena, Colombia where the Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining joined the Colombian Government in welcoming heads of state for the Summit on a Mine-Free World
GenevaLunch background stories
by Jared Bloch
Cartagena, Colombia (GenevaLunch) - The Apopo organization was among the myriad governments and NGOs on hand to review progress made in the past four years in implementing the Ottawa Convention to ban use and stockpiling of anti-personnel mines. Apopo is notable for its innovative use of rats in the field of mine detection.
Bart Weetjens, Apopo founder and conference delegate, told GenevaLunch that rats are playing an increasingly important role in the effort to rid the world of the risks posed by anti-personnel land mines. Weetjens is a product design engineer by training, and a Buddhist monk. He founded Apopo 12 years ago in response to the need for accessible, low technology innovations for humanitarian demining.
A military raid on a car carrying suspected Islamist militants in southern Somalia has likely killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan-born man officials say was a senior member of al-Qaeda in Eastern Africa. Nabhan is believed to be responsible for a bomb attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya in 2002 which killed 15 people, and an attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger plane flying out of Mombasa later that year. He may also have been involved in the US embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania in 1998.
Witnesses say six helicopters flew into the Barawe district in southern Somalia, 250km south of the capital Mogadishu, which is controlled by Al-Shabaab rebels fighting for supremacy in Somalia. Two fired missiles on the car. At least four bodies were removed and two wounded people were taken away by the helicopters’ crew. Al-Jazeera, AllAfrica, BBC, GaroweOnline
Thirteen bodies have washed up on the Tanzanian island of Mafia (map), along with debris, and they are thought to be those of victims of the Comoros archipelago crash of a Yemeni airliner in 1 July. Officials say DNA tests will be needed to identify them. The island is south of Dar es Salaam, not far from the mainland. BBC
The trial has begun in Tanzania of 12 people accused of murdering albinos and selling their body parts for witchcraft purposes. More than 40 people have been killed in the last 18 months. BBC In a similar trial in Burundi that began in May, 11 people are on trial. Human rights groups have accused authorities of acting too slowly to stop the series of murders. Voxafrica
The Guantanamo Bay prison on the island of Cuba has been centre-stage this week in the US, with President Barack Obama and former Vice-President Dick Cheney appearing in what NPR describes as “dramatic, back-to-back televised speeches” on the future of Guantanamo and the release earlier in 2009 of classified documents on the use of torture.
Obama announced in January he wanted to close the prison facility on the island of Cuba, but Senate Democrats voted Tuesday 19 May to withold funding for the closure, asking the White House to provide a more detailed plan. Republicans have criticized Obama’s announcement to close the prison by January 2010, saying they want to know what will be done with the remaining 240 inmates at the facility. Twelve US states to date have passed laws banning inmates on their soil. CNN, Reuters and a series of commentaries on Obama’s plan for closing the prison, from the New York Times
In another development, Ahmed Ghailani, a Tanzanian held at Guantanamo since 2004 in connection with the US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, will be tried in a US federal court in New York. He becomes the first detainee from the prison camp to be accorded a civilian trial. BBC, The Standard (Kenya)
