British U.N. Ambassador John Sawers says Sudan’s Darfur region will be on the agenda Saturday.

But Sawers says the Security Council has reached no decision on an international arrest warrant against Sudan’s president on charges of war crimes in Darfur. The AU has asked for a one-year deferral on the warrant.

This week has seen an upsurge in fighting in Somalia, with Islamic insurgents vowing to topple the weak, U.N.-backed government.

On Friday, the Security Council condemned the violence and strongly supported Somalia’s leadership.

Source: AFP

CNN) — Sri Lankan government soldiers seized the last remaining coastal stretch under the control of Tamil Tiger rebels, the Ministry of Defense said Saturday, marking a possible end to a quarter-century-long fight in the island nation.

A Sri Lankan soldier guards a military checkpoint in the capital Colombo.

The seizure marks the total capture of coastline territory previously controlled by the rebels, the government said, after army divisions advanced from the north and south to link up.

No formal declaration of victory is expected at least until the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa returns to the country from Amman, Jordan, where he is attending the World Economic Forum.

On Friday, the Navy arrested the wife of Soosai, a leader of Sea Tigers — the ocean-going arm of the rebel group. His daughter and son-in-law were also arrested.

Navy officials, quoting those who were arrested, said Tamil Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is believed to be inside the area of the latest fighting. Other sources have said he has escaped.

The rebels — formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) — have fought for an independent state for minority Tamils in Sri Lanka since 1983.

As many as 70,000 people have been killed since the civil war began.

In a rapid military push, Sri Lankan forces had squeezed Tamil Tiger fighters into approximately 1.5 square miles (four square kilometers) of coastal land. The United Nations estimates that more than 50,000 civilians are trapped there.

An Army source told CNN that about two square kilometers in the region remain to be captured and that military officials expect that to take a couple of days.

“The government is moving forward in extremely difficult circumstances. After all, the … Tamil Tigers are seeded amidst the middle of all these civilians. It’s very difficult to weed out and identify who is a fighter and who is not,” said Gordon Weiss, a U.N. spokesman.

“It makes it very very dangerous for civilians, and it explains the very large toll on civilian life that we’ve seen at this point.”

Weiss called the fighting a “bloodbath” at the beginning of the week.

Humanitarian aid groups have reported mass civilian casualties in the fighting.

The situation had worsened by Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. It suspended evacuation and medical rescue operations in the no-fire zone. Aid agencies had been stuck offshore, unable to deliver badly needed relief supplies and evacuate civilians.

“Our staff are witnessing an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe,” said Pierre Krahenbuhl, the ICRC’s director of operations. “No humanitarian organization can help them in the current circumstances. People are left to their own devices.”

The U.N. Security Council and U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for both sides to protect civilians and allow humanitarian aid into the conflict zone.

In a statement at the White House, Obama urged Sri Lankan government troops to halt the “indiscriminate” shelling of civilians trapped with the remnants of the country’s Tamil Tigers. He also prodded the rebels to stop using civilians as human shields. Security Council members issued a statement demanding “that all parties respect their obligations under international humanitarian law.”

A Red Cross worker was killed Wednesday during shelling in the conflict zone in Sri Lanka — the third aid worker killed in six weeks — the Red Cross said.

Source: CNN

Ahmed Gurey

The problem is straightforward: more than nine million children die each year in Africa. That is the
number of people in the entire state of New Jersey.

African kids die from infectious diseases such as HIV, TB, malaria, respiratory illnesses, diarrhea, worms, parasites, and vaccine-preventable diseases, malnutrition and — far too often – during childbirth itself.

In an exclusive interview with HuffPo, Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, M.D., M.P.H. spoke to me about Africa, child mortality, and an intelligent, charismatic women who has learned much about both: Madonna.

Millennium Villages help care for children in Africa.
Dr. Sonia Sachs is a public health specialist and serves as the health coordinator for the Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

She is also married to another brilliant thought leader and global citizen, Prof. Jeffry Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, and Special Advisor to the U.N. Secretary General on the Millennium Development Goals.

Sonia is the pediatrician who was with Madonna in Malawi when the singer met one-year old David Banda. Sonia explained to me that the evening David left the orphanage to spend his first night with Madonna in a hotel in Lilongwe, he was very ill and could have died, as did his other siblings before him. She credits the entertainer for saving the child’s life.

I had not realized that Madonna’s project, Raising Malawi, was helping to support one of Jeff’s Millennium Villages near Lilongwe. That was one of the reasons Sonia was with Madonna on the trip.

David Banda with his adoptive mother, Madonna.“David would have died that evening or the following day if it were it not for Madonna. I can tell you with certainty that he would have died had he stayed in the orphanage,” Sonia told me.

“The evening David was handed over to Madonna, he had a very high fever and was in acute respiratory distress — meaning he had difficulty breathing.”

“We took him to a private clinic, where a colleague and I examined him carefully, took a chest X-ray, diagnosed his respiratory infection, and treated him immediately with an inhaler, and intramuscular antibiotics. Lower respiratory infections like pneumonia are a common killer of so many children in Africa every year.”

As founder of Orphans International Worldwide, I have experienced the death of one of our children in Haiti. The pain of losing a child is indescribable.

Last fall, Sonia presented to our Orphans International Worldwide Congress — held at N.Y.U. Medical School — on the grim story of African child mortality. She explained about preventable and treatable conditions such as extreme nutrient deficiencies, infectious diseases and unsafe childbirth.

The deaths of African children are all about food, water, and cooking stoves. Sonia explained that there is usually no public health system in place to address this tragic litany of otherwise very approachable issues.

Simple, non-clinical health interventions make a big difference in saving lives, Sonia believes. Improved nutrition through school meals, better cooking stoves to reduce open fire and indoor air pollution, clean water, mosquito bed nets, and de-worming are all essential, interventions needed but not affordable by people living in extreme poverty.

Through her work, Sonia has come to know Madonna a little bit. “I have found Madonna to be an impressively solid person dedicated to her children and to the welfare of thousands of neglected orphans in Malawi.”

A Millennium Village doctor examining a child.Sonia has personally witnessed Madonna’s compassion and motherly instincts more than once.

In Malawi some people practice witchcraft. On occasion, a boy’s entire genitalia are removed by villagers based on ancient superstition. One little boy Madonna met had been so mutilated he could not stop wetting himself. The physical and emotional suffering was unbearable.

Madonna held the boy and pledged to care for him, which she has done to this day by looking after his medical and educational needs. Thanks to Madonna, the boy continues to improve.

Children learning in a Millennium Village in Africa.Madonna somehow speaks to the children of the world. From Africa to Asia and the Americas. My own teenage son Mathew — adopted at the age of ten months from Indonesia — has informed me that if I ever meet Madonna without him, he will disown me.

AngloGold’s earnings came bang in line with market consensus – it reported adjusted headline earnings of US$150 million, or US$0.42 a share, in the period to end-March compared with a loss of US$17 million, or US$0.05 a share, in the quarter to end-December.

The gold price in the March quarter averaged US$908/oz, up 14% on the December quarter, while the rand/dollar exchange rate average was flat, sending the rand gold price up by 14% to a record high of R290,000/kg.

South African gold producers sell their gold in dollars and received earnings in rand. “The improved earnings are due to higher spot gold prices, a lower hedge discount and weaker local operating currencies,” chief financial officer Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan said.

“We remain committed to reducing the hedge book further and achieving the narrowest possible discount to spot gold prices.” AngloGold shares rose as much as 2%, and traded 1.21% up at R314.03, beating a 0.4% rise in the gold share index.

Mark Cutifani, AngloGold’s chief executive, told a media conference call he expected the gold price to rise, and forecast it would trade between US$850/oz and US$1,000/oz this year, which could boost earnings further if costs were contained. “The price should rise beyond the US$1,000 level next year, driven mainly by investment funds,” he said.

AngloGold, which has one of the biggest forward sales among its peers, cut its hedge book commitments by 154,000oz during the March quarter, and promised even further reductions.

Forward sales have been used by mining companies to fix selling prices for nuggets not yet mined to protect profits, but AngloGold’s hedge book has been limiting the company from benefiting from the strong spot price of gold.

Mr Cutifani said the company – Africa’s largest gold producer, with around 21 operations across four continents – would slash its hedge book by up to 150,000 ounces in the current quarter. Mr Cutifani, who has said before that he is not a fan of the gold hedge, said he wanted to cut the hedge book to below 4Moz by end-2010 from 5.84Moz by the end of March. The company has so far cut its forward sales by almost 50% over the past year.

“Our strategy of reducing the hedge book by almost half over the past year is yielding real results, giving a good kicker to our received gold price,” he said. Mr Cutifani said second-quarter production would be 1.14Moz. First-quarter output fell 13% to 1.103Moz partly due to safety-related closures in South Africa and operational woes at its Geita Gold Mine in Tanzania, although these had now been rectified and output should rise, Mr Cutifani said.

Total cash costs for the group would rise by up to US$485/oz in the second quarter, after rising 5% to $445/oz in the first quarter. Mr Cutifani said AngloGold had formally received a go-ahead from the Colombian government, which awarded the firm exploration permits covering a portion of AngloGold’s vast La Colosa concession, which requires some US$200 million over the next three to four years for initial exploratory work.

Qaramada Midoobay ayaa sheegtay in Soomaaliya ay soo wajahday abaartii ugu darneyd muddo toban sano ah.

Isu Duwaha Qaramada Midoobay dhinaca arrimaha bini’aadanimada u qaabilsan Soomaaliya, Mark Bowden ayaa sheegay in daraasad dhinaca satellite-ka oo la sameeyay ay muujinayo roob yari.

Daraasadda ayaa muujinaysa in abaar xun ay ka taagantahay deegaano badan ka oo ka tirsan Soomaaliya.

Waxa uu sheegay in lo’ badan ay dhimanayso biyo la’aan darteed, taasi oo sababtay in kala bar dadka Soomaaliyeed ay nafaqo la’aan soo wajahdo.

Mr Bowden ayaa muujiyay sida ay u sii kordheyso kaalmo degdeg ah oo bini’aadanimo oo la gaarsiiyo Soomaaliya.

Source: BBC Somali