The U.N. declared famine in two parts of southern Somalia last July and extended the famine warning in September to six out of eight regions in the anarchic Horn of Africa country.

The U.N. said initially 750,000 Somalis faced imminent starvation and lowered this to 250,000 by November. Six months after famine was declared, 4 million Somalis were in need of aid and the U.N. said the number now stood at 2.34 million.

“The gains are fragile and will be reversed without continued support,” said Mark Bowden, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.

“There are 1.7 million people in southern Somalia still in crisis. Millions of people still need food, clean water, shelter and other assistance to survive and the situation is expected to deteriorate in May,” he said in a statement.

While aid deliveries to some 180,000 people in camps in the capital Mogadishu have improved the situation there, fighting in southern and central Somalia is still hampering food deliveries to the worst-hit areas.

Government forces have been fighting Islamist rebels for the past five years, while Kenyan and Ethiopian forces both moved into the country last year to help fight the al Qaeda-linked militants al Shabaab.

The fighting, combined with attacks on aid workers and a history of aid being manipulated for political gain, means Somalia is one of the toughest countries for relief agencies to operate in.

The U.N. said the latest harvest in Somalia was double the average of the past 17 years, and this had lowered food prices, though mortality rates in southern Somalia were still among the highest in the world.

Al Shabaab expelled the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday, one of the few international aid agencies delivering food aid to areas under rebel control, accusing it of providing out-of-date food to women and children.

The ICRC said it regretted the decision as it halted a programme that had given food to more than 1.2 million people between June and December 2011. The ICRC said 6 percent of the food provided had deteriorated and was withdrawn, or destroyed by al Shabaab.

“The crisis is not over,” said Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. “It can only be resolved with a combination of rains and continued, coordinated, long-term actions that build up the resilience of the population and link relief with development.”

Reuters.

In separate clashes in the city of Suez, two protesters were killed as police used live rounds to hold back crowds trying to break into a police station, witnesses said.

Demonstrations erupted in Egypt this week following deaths at a soccer stadium in Port Said as the football incident turned quickly into a political crisis. Protesters hold the military-led authorities responsible for the bloodshed.

In Cairo, several thousand protesters remained in the streets around the ministry as night fell. The only vehicles in the usually congested downtown area were largely ambulances that ferried away casualties from clashes with police.

Underlining the tension, ambulances had to intervene to extract riot police whose truck took a wrong turn into a street full of protesters, a Reuters witness said.

Protesters surrounded the vehicle for at least 45 minutes, rocking it while the police were inside. Some of the demonstrators then formed a human corridor to help them escape.

Close to 400 people were wounded in confrontations that erupted late on Thursday, the health ministry said, many of them suffering the effects of inhaling tear gas fired by riot police who the Interior Ministry said were protecting the building.

Rocks thrown by protesters were strewn across streets that two months ago witnessed violent clashes between police and activists who see the Interior Ministry as an unreformed vestige of former president Hosni Mubarak’s rule.

“We are not going to leave this time,” said Sami Adel, a 23-year-old member of the “Ultras”, a group of football fans known for confronting police. They have regularly been on the front lines of clashes with security forces over the last year.

Security forces fired tear gas into the night to drive back protesters, who then regrouped ready for more. “The crimes committed against the revolutionary forces will not stop the revolution or scare the revolutionaries,” said a pamphlet printed in the name of the Ultras.

In Suez, witnesses said fighting broke out at a local police station in the early hours of Friday. “We received two corpses of protesters shot dead by live ammunition,” said a doctor at a morgue where the bodies were kept.

A witness said: “Protesters are trying to break into the Suez police station and police are now firing live ammunition.”

The soccer stadium deaths have heaped new criticism on the military council, which has governed Egypt since Mubarak stepped down a year ago in the face of mass protests. Critics regard them as part of his administration and an obstacle to change.

The army leadership, in turn, has presented itself as the guardian of the “January 25 revolution”. It has promised to hand power to an elected president by the end of June.

INTERIOR MINISTER BLAMES FANS

At least 1,000 people were injured in the soccer violence when fans invaded the pitch after local team al-Masry beat Cairo-based Al Ahli, the most successful club in Africa.

Hundreds of al-Masry supporters surged across the pitch to the visitors’ end and panicked Ahli fans dashed for the exit. But the steel doors were bolted shut and dozens were crushed to death in the stampede, witnesses said.

The cause of the violence has been the focus of intense speculation. Some believe it was triggered by unknown provocateurs working for remnants of the Mubarak administration who are seeking to sabotage the transition to democracy.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said the fans started it.

“The events started with provocations between the Ahli and Masri crowds, then insults, until it ended up with those sorrowful events,” he told the Egyptian TV station CBC during a telephone interview.

Ibrahim was widely blamed for the deaths during an emergency parliamentary session on Thursday. MPs including the Islamists who control some 70 percent of the chamber called for him to be held to account and accused him of negligence.

Safwat Zayat, an analyst, said the incident had done further damage to the image of the ruling military council. “The current events push in the direction of speeding up the transfer of power to civilians,” Zayat told Reuters.

Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of the military council, responded to the deaths by vowing that Egypt would remain stable. “We have a roadmap to transfer power to elected civilians,” he said in broadcast remarks.

Reuters.

“The World Bank has received an official request from the Egyptian authorities to support their economic program,” Inger Andersen, World Bank vice president for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.

Egypt said last month it would seek a $500 million loan from the World Bank and another $500 million from the African Development Bank to help it plug a budget gap widened by a year of political and economic turmoil.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick announced last year that the development lender would make $4.5 billion available over 24 months for Egypt.

Egypt is also in talks with the International Monetary Fund on a possible $3.2 billion loan to help stabilize its economy. The fund has said any agreement would need broad political support as the country prepares for elections, in which Egypt’s ruling army would transfer power to civilians.

Reuters.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was captured disguised as a Bedouin in the Sahara desert in November, has also been indicted by the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity stemming from Libya’s civil war last year.

On Tuesday, Aisha Gaddafi had asked the court if she could give information about attempts she has made to contact Saif al-Islam, and submitted a document suggesting the Libyan authorities were unwilling to let any foreign lawyer act for him.

The court said on Thursday that it had rejected both Aisha’s request and a similar one by human rights activist Mishana Hosseinioun. Both requests were “misplaced and contrary” to court procedures, a panel of judges said ruled.

Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council says Saif al-Islam should be tried at home and would be given a fair hearing. The ICC has reserved the right to insist that he be sent to The Hague.

Saif al-Islam’s supporters say they doubt he will be given a fair trial in Libya and that he should be tried instead by the ICC in The Hague.

He faces the death penalty if found guilty by a Libyan court, but only a prison term if convicted by the ICC.

The ICC has jurisdiction over the case because it issued a warrant last year for the arrest of Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam, and the Libyan leader’s intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi.

Reuters.

Inflation is expected to decline in 2012 while risks to the economy stem from high global oil costs that could fuel imported inflation and bouts of insecurity, the government wrote in a letter to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“During 2012, reflecting an improved business climate that will be accompanied by increased private investment, economic growth should accelerate to 4.8 percent, with a slightly declining, albeit relatively high, inflation rate,” it said in the letter dated December 19 but made public late on Wednesday.

“Exports of coffee and other agricultural products should increase strongly and offset the expected increase in imports, in particular petroleum products.”

The government estimates Burundi’s economy grew 4.2 percent in 2011. Year-on-year inflation eased to 14.9 percent in December but the price of essential commodities threaten to add pressure to the rate.

Burundi is enjoying relative peace since emerging from a decade-long civil war, but attacks on civilians and security forces have risen, raising fears of a fresh rebellion.

Its economy is heavily dependent on agriculture revenues, in particular from tea and coffee.

“The government plans to limit the effects of the global crisis on the Burundian economy by adopting a more flexible exchange rate policy combined with prudent fiscal and monetary policies,” the letter said.

Reuters.

The report is expected to be adopted as policy by the African National Congress and will be raised this weekend at a meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee, the newspaper said, without saying where it got the information.

The report warns against “asset grabs” by the state because such a policy would be unconstitutional and because the government could also not afford to buy mining stakes, the newspaper said.

But the government will also recommend higher royalties and taxes, as well as policies to encourage the processing of raw minerals to add value, the paper said.

Talk of nationalising mines and banks by radical elements in the ANC has unnerved investors.

The policy drive for mine nationalisation lost political momentum after an ANC disciplinary committee found its biggest advocate, ANC youth league leader Julius Malema, guilty of sowing discord in the party.

The committee handed down a five-year suspension which Malema has appealed.

The ANC study on mine nationalisation was first submitted to the party leadership last year but had been sent back for redrafting to improve its presentation.

Reuters.

Five Tunisian security forces were also wounded in the fighting near the industrial port city of Sfax, 237 kms (147 miles) southeast of Tunis, and police and military had cordoned off the area, security sources said.

The clashes were the first to take place in Tunisia since elections in October ushered in a government dominated by moderate Islamist group Ennahda and two secular partners.

Tunisia’s interior ministry forces were shaken by the revolt that ousted Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and brought down his police state a year ago and secularist groups have accused Ennahda of being too soft on armed militants and religious extremists.

Mohammed al-Tunsi, a National Guard official, had said the three gunmen appeared to be Salafis, ultra-conservative Islamists, but Interior Minister Ali Larayed, a senior member of Ennahda, told reporters on Wednesday night it was too early to identify them.

He described the incident as “dangerous” and promised more details on Thursday.

Larayed said a large stash of assault rifles and ammunition had been discovered in the vehicle the three men were travelling in. The gunmen abandoned their car and hid in the surrounding countryside where they exchanged fire with police and military for several hours while a helicopter buzzed overhead.

A spokesman for President Moncef al-Marzouki told state television he believed the gunmen were part of a 20-strong gang that smuggled weapons through Tunisia.

Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring protests that swept the region in 2011, has made a relatively smooth transition to an elected constituent assembly that will draft a new constitution for the country.

However, protests and strikes have continued in the centre of the country, where unemployment remains high, and security forces are under pressure to do more to rein in Salafis who have asserted themselves since the uprising and to secure the borders with Algeria and Libya.

Etisalat operates in about 10 African countries, including Egypt, Nigeria, Tanzania and Ivory Coast.

“Etisalat, like other telecom operators in Africa, is constantly evaluating good business opportunities which includes but (is) not limited to infrastructure sharing with other operators,” the statement said.

“No final decision has been reached at this point in time as (to) selling or sharing towers.”

On Wednesday, two sources told Reuters that Etisalat had invited bidders for its telephone tower operations in Africa.

The firm has about 4,500 towers in Africa, one source said, and wanted to sell them all in a single deal potentially worth around $500 million.

Reuters.

Le principal accusé est Kim Eun-seok, ancien ambassadeur pour les questions de ressources naturelles. C’est lui qui a rédigé en décembre 2010 le très controversé communiqué officiel, qui estimait la richesse de la mine de Mobilong à 420 millions de carats, soit dix-sept fois environ sa valeur réelle.

Cette annonce sensationnelle et frauduleuse avait provoqué une multiplication par cinq de la valeur des actions de CNK, l’entreprise coréenne qui a décroché les droits d’exploitation de la mine. Deux jeunes frères de Kim Eun-seok avaient acheté des titres de CNK avant l’annonce, réalisant ainsi des bénéfices substantiels.

D’autres officiels de l’entreprise sont accusés d’avoir tiré profit de cette surévaluation. La justice se penche désormais sur cinquente-neuf comptes bancaires suspects. Hier, en direct à la télévision, le ministre des Affaires étrangères a présenté ses excuses.

RFI.

in Le Jour.