Police spokesperson Pedro Cossa on Thursday denied rumours that the army has been called on to restore public order. According to Cossa, “the army was called on to carry out the clean-up in the cities and not to restore order. Since last night it has helped Maputo City Municipal Council to clean the city”.

Cossa stated that the police have the responsibility to ensure the safe movement of people on the roads.

Commenting on the situation on Thursday morning, the spokesperson said that all is relatively calm. There were still points of disturbances on the outskirts of Maputo, with incidents along the Avenida Acordos de Lusaka, Avenida de Angola, the neighbourhood of Magoanine and the city of Matola.

Three people have died and dozens injured in the neighbourhood of Benfica, on the outskirts of Maputo, as a result of riots that have spread in the southern Mozambican cities of Maputo and Matola.

Because of this, Cossa called on the population to return to normal life, but for parents and carers to avoid abandoning children to make sure that they are not harmed in the disturbances.

Currently the police are patrolling all entrances to Maputo and are out in force in the city centre.

Read more here.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi continued to cause a stir during a Rome visit Monday by wheeling out another four busloads of young women to receive another lecture on the Koran.

Islam is “the last religion and if you want to believe in a single faith then it must be that of Mohammed,” the colonel reportedly told 200 women hired by a Rome hostess agency, some of them wearing headscarves and one sporting a picture of Gaddafi around her neck.

“He didn’t try to convert us,” said Elena Racoviciano, 21, from Naples, after emerging from a photography exhibit at the new Libyan Cultural Institute.

Gaddafi held a similar meeting with 500 women provided by the same agency on Sunday, three of whom reportedly converted to Islam.

“Women are more respected in Libya than in the West and the United States,” was another of Gaddafi’s remarks conveyed by Racoviciano.

In his first encounter with the hostesses, after an impromptu stroll around central Rome, the dictator urged them to marry Libyan men.

Gaddafi’s lectures to the women and his statement that Islam should be “Europe’s religion” have sparked opposition from Catholic and feminist groups as well as prompting accusations that Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi is pandering to him.

Read more here.

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The Press Council of South Africa (PCSA) is to undertake a complete review of its constitution in the wake of criticisms which have emerged in debate over the ANC’s planned media appeals tribunal, reports the Mail & Guardian.

“We are dealing with a system of self-regulation, not regulation from outside,” Thloloe said about the composition of the team which would undertake the review.

“It is self-regulation because … if any outside institution tells editors what to put [into the papers] or not, it is contrary to Section 16 of the constitution … it interferes with the freedom of the press.”

The team would report back to the council with its findings and recommendations in November.

It would review the PCSA’s constitution, the South African Press Code and complaints procedures, Thloloe said in a statement.

The review would be conducted by the council’s deputy chairperson Bewyn Petersen; the Star’s editor Moegsien Williams; University of the Witwatersrand journalism Professor Franz Kruger; and businessman and Press Appeals Panel (PAP) public representative Simon Mantel.

Also on the review team would be: businessman, former journalist and PAP press representative Peter Mann; and Sunday Times deputy managing editor and PAP press representative Susan Smuts.

Thloloe said any South African individual or organisation could contribute to the review by submitting suggestions on possible changes to the ombudsman’s office.

The constitution of the PCSA outlines its powers, jurisdiction, its aims and objectives and its membership.

Meanwhile, IPS writes that Reporters Without Borders ranks South Africa’s press as among the freest on the continent but its two proposed new measures are drawing unfavourable comparisons to repressive laws in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia.

Nigeria and Zimbabwe have their Official Secrets Acts. In Kenya, it’s called the Communications Bill.

And in South Africa, it would be called the Protection of Information Act (POI).

The POI gives broad powers to the government to classify almost any information involving an organ of state in the interests of national security. It prescribes penalties of up to 25 years in jail for those disclosing protected information, refusing to reveal their sources, or even attempting to uncover protected information.

A week after Robert Mugabe told the US and EU to “go to hell” at his sister’s funeral – a comment that prompted Western diplomats to stage a walk-out – the Zimbabwean President struck a more conciliatory note in a speech on Monday.

“We seek friendship not enmity, togetherness not apartness,” he told thousands of people gathered to celebrate National Heroes’ Day.

He inspected a guard of honour, and stood to attention as cannons boomed and jet fighters flew overhead.

Mugabe did insist however that the EU and the US were still in the wrong, and that they want to continue to make Zimbabweans suffer by maintaining their targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe, including travel bans and asset freezes.

The president said he was appealing to the EU to think again.

Zimbabwe has been under Western sanctions since 2002, because of human rights abuses and alleged election rigging. Around 200 people, many of them opposition supporters, were killed in 2008.

Read more here.

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A new analysis of the declassified files of the Senate “Church” Committee (chaired by Democratic Senator Frank Church), CIA and State Department, along with memoirs and interviews of U.S. and Belgian covert operators, establishes that CIA Station Chief Larry Devlin was consulted by his Congolese government “cooperators” about the transfer of Lumumba to sworn enemies, had no objection to it and withheld knowledge from Washington of the impending move, forestalling the strong possibility that the State Department would have intervened to try to save Lumumba.

Devlin died in 2008 after consistently denying any knowledge of his Congolese associates’ “true plans” for Lumumba, and maintaining that he had “stalled” the earlier CIA assassination plot. Yet declassified CIA cables disprove his claims.

One horrible crime cannot, by itself, change history. But the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the most dynamic political leader the Congo has ever produced, was a critical step in the consolidation of an oppressive regime. At the same time, it crystallized an eventual 35-year U.S. commitment to the perpetuation of that regime, not just against Lumumba’s followers but against all comers. In the end, Mobutu’s kleptocracy would tear civil society apart, destroy the state and help pave the way for a regional war that would kill millions of people.

There can no longer be any doubt that the U.S., Belgian and Congolese governments shared major responsibility for the assassination of Lumumba in Katanga. The young prime minister was an imperfect leader during an unprecedented and overwhelming international crisis. But he continues to be honored around the world because he incarnated – if only for a moment – the nationalist and democratic struggle of the entire African continent against a recalcitrant West.

If the U.S. government at last publicly acknowledged – and apologized for – its role in this momentous assassination, it would also be communicating its support for the universal principles Lumumba embodied. What better person to take this step than the American president, himself a son of Africa?

Read the full analysis here.

Uganda’s East African neighbours have pledged soft support should the country choose to go on the offensive in Somalia as Kampala weighs its options in the wake of the twin bombing that left nearly 80 people dead late on July 11.

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A new regional centre to help develop the renewable energy potential for West Africa opened today in Cape Verde, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), which is supporting the facility, said.The Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE), a specialized agency of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), is based in Praia, the capital of Cape Verde. It is supported by UNIDO and the Governments of Austria, Cape Verde and Spain.

It will help develop renewable energy and energy efficiency markets in West Africa, formulate policy, build capacity and quality assurance mechanisms, as well design financing plans. The centre will also implement demonstration projects with potential for regional scaling up.

“The current energy systems in the ECOWAS region are failing to support the growth prospects of the over 262 million inhabitants, especially the needs of the poor. The creation of ECREEE is a central milestone in efforts to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies and services in the region,” said Yoshiteru Uramoto, Deputy to UNIDO’s Director-General.

“Investing in renewable energy systems and introducing energy efficient technologies will contribute to the region’s economic and social development without harming the environment,” he added.

It is estimated that a total of 23,000 megawatts of large and small hydroelectric potential is concentrated in five ECOWAS member States, of which only 16 per cent has been exploited.

Traditional biomass is already the main source of energy for the poor majority and accounts for 80 per cent of total energy consumed for domestic purposes. There are also considerable wind, tidal, ocean thermal and wave energy resources available. The region has vast solar energy potential.

Read more here.

Civil Society Organisations (CSO’s) have expressed concern about the spate of oil spillage in the country even when commercial production of the commodity had not commenced.

They therefore called on the government to halt the menace to safeguard the country’s ecosystems and livelihood support systems. “We deplore this gradual but systematic characteristics of ecosystem and livelihood misfortune heralding the country’s young oil sector. “If this goes unchecked it has a huge potential for negative ecosystem and environmental imbalance and its attendant ramifications for local socio-economic and livelihood support systems.”

This was contained in a statement issued by Noble Wadzah, a representative of Oilwatch-Ghana in Accra on Wednesday. Oilwatch-Ghana represents a plethora of environmentally-biased CSO’s in the country.

The statement said during the preparatory stages for securing the mandate for commercial offshore drilling, Kosmos Energy and Tullow Oil indicated that their production activities would not pose significant environmental damage, particularly in the marine environment. It said Kosmos Oil description of the first incident of oil spillage as “technical” did not mean that the occurrence had no effect on the environment.

“For oil bearing communities, oil spills present an even more frightening experience particularly for us in Ghana where the extent to which legal frameworks to control, sanction and address compensations issues are not fully in place yet.”

The CSO’s called on government to, as a matter of urgency, institute full scale investigation into the recent oil spills in order to determine the underlying causes to avert such occurrences in future.

Read more here.

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The road to the 2010 World Cup hasn’t been easy for footballing favorites such as France or Italy. But most of all, it hasn’t been easy for the host country, South Africa, which has been plagued with doubts regarding its organizational abilities and its overall planning of the biggest sporting event in the world. Recent scandals regarding construction contracts, poor crowd control, and FIFA’s dirty dealings have tainted what is traditionally a joyous and highly anticipated event for the billions of football fans around the world.

Yet, despite the recent (and multiple) doubts raised regarding South Africa’s planning of the 2010 World Cup, some die-hard fans have not lost focus on what the event has long-signified for many across the globe: international unity, fun, and some good ol’ fashioned flag waving.

Bjorn Heidenstrom, 41, set out from his home in Oslo, Norway 10 months ago with a mission to bike from Scandinavia down to Cape Town, South Africa. His goal: to raise awareness for the 45 million refugees spread throughout the world. Documenting his painfully long journey across 35 countries on his blog, The Shirt 2010,  Heidenstrom has collected shirts from amateur and professional football teams with the ultimate goal of sewing them together to make the world’s biggest football shirt.

I often sleep in a tent in strange places…To save money and to come in touch with the real world…. A sofa or a Shower cold [sic] be nice now and then…If you open your door then I will open the world for you! This symbol (”the shirt 2010″) will get the biggest attention during the World Cup 2010.

Sasa Jovic, 39, has walked the distance across 3 continents with another goal: to make it to South Africa in time for Serbia’s opening match against Ghana on June 13th. He has crossed the 16,000 km distance carrying a Serbian flag and his city’s crest all the while receiving text messages from friends back home encouraging his progress: “They tell me to ‘run, Sasa, run, otherwise you’ll miss the game!’”

Another Scandinavian is also trekking down from Northern Europe. Swede Sven Borg, 60, departed Lapaja in Swedish Lapland pushing only a ragtag cart with his possessions along. He sleeps in the open, carries no maps or compass, and covers 20 km a day. He left home in April 2009 and plans to be back by October 2012.

Meanwhile, the 32 year old Andre Grady from Newcastle, England, is also aiming to reach South Africa in time for the England-Algeria match on June 18th. With no money to purchase a flight, he has publicized his long trek on his blog, mymagicthumb.com, always nourishing the hope that someone will give him a lift to his destination:

Wake up in Ouagadougou, the only city in Africa with a name like an 80s pop group.
The plan is to travel as quickly as possible to Accra, meet Merrick, then hit the docks to see whether The Thumb can blag a ride on a boat/ ship/ pedalo to Angola.
There are more cows about, fewer donkeys, and plenty of encouragement from the people I speak to about the chances of getting a lift.

The trek southwards to the World Cup hasn’t come without tragedy, though. Dutchman Henk Witjs, 60, didn’t make it across the waters of Lake Malawi with his expedition of oranjes. His adventurers-in-arms will wear a black armband during the World Cup to remember his passing.

More here.

Fighting in the north of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu killed at least 11 people today as government troops and Islamist fighters battled for control of the area, an ambulance official said.

Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab fighters are trying to hold on to the city’s north which puts the presidential palace, known as Villa Somalia, within easy range of their crude mortar rockets.

The government controls just a few blocks of the war-scarred coastal city and its security forces have been fighting to regain Mogadishu’s north.

“We have carried 11 dead civilians and 48 others injured this morning,” Ali Muse, the coordinator of ambulance services, said.

Most of the victims lived in Mogadishu’s Kaaran district, the scene of heavy exchanges of shellfire between the two sides. The fighting was continuing, he said, and the death toll was expected to rise.

Residents said the government soldiers were backed by African Union peacekeepers in armoured vehicles. Last month, al Shabaab claimed its forces would soon seize the palace.

Tensions also remained high in the Galgadud region of central Somalia where clashes between al Shabaab insurgents and the Sufi militia Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca killed 24 people on Wednesday.

Read more here.

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