DAKAR, 2 March (IRIN) - SENEGAL: Incumbent wins presidential election SIERRA LEONE: Fighting gender bias ahead of elections NIGERIA: The poor the weakest link as bird flu bites GUINEA: Consensus prime minister's appointment ends strike

COTE D'IVOIRE: Ivorians feel economic impact of avian flu LIBERIA: Government takes aim at unemployment CHAD: Gov't wants police not troops AFRICA: Little help for sufferers of blood disorder

SENEGAL: Incumbent wins presidential election

Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade has been elected for a second five-year term, according to the country's electoral commission.

It said Wade won 55.86 percent of the votes cast in last Sunday's election. A majority over 50 percent eliminates the need for a runoff. The results must still be reviewed and confirmed by Senegal's Constitutional Council.

Opposition candidates among the 14 who challenged Wade have complained of voting irregularities and said they will challenge the results in court. The electoral commission said former prime minister Idrissa Seck had won 14.93 percent of the vote followed by opposition Socialist Party candidate Ousmane Tanor Dieng with 13.57 percent.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70496

SIERRA LEONE: Fighting gender bias ahead of elections

With general and presidential elections looming in July, women's rights groups in Sierra Leone are battling what they say is deep seated discrimination for more women to be included on the ballots.

Nematta Eshun-Baiden, founder of the Fifty-Fifty Group of Sierra Leone - a non-governmental advocacy organisation named after the 50-50 gender balance in the population - said her group is "vigorously campaigning" for women to run for and win at least 30 percent of all elected posts in the July general elections.

"Women in this country have been expected by men to be in the kitchen, but we are fighting hard to erase this notion", Eshun-Baiden said.

http://newsite.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70348

NIGERIA: The poor the weakest link as bird flu bites

For Sogbe Adekunle, a 14-year-old street boy in Nigeria's biggest city of Lagos, the recent surge of the avian flu virus through the country's poultry has provided a rare opportunity for chicken meals. Daily, as traders in his Onipanu district threw away dead birds at a dump near a popular chicken market, Sogbe waited with others to retrieve the carcasses.

"We knew the birds were sick but it was our first chance to eat chicken in a very long while," said Sogbe, whose main work is helping chicken buyers at the market kill and prepare their birds for cooking.

As the H5N1 bird flu virus continues to spread in Nigeria - it has turned up in at least 19 of the country's 36 states - the poor are not only more exposed to its risks but also suffer a nutritional toll.

http://newsite.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70435

GUINEA: Consensus prime minister's appointment ends strike

Guinea's union leaders on Tuesday once again suspended a nationwide strike after President Lansana Conte agreed to appoint a new prime minister approved by civil society.

Tuesday's suspension follows two months of unprecedented anti-Conte protests in the capital, Conakry, and towns and cities throughout the country that left over 100 people dead and hundreds more injured, raising fears that the country could follow its neighbours Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire and slip into civil war.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in January and early February. They first demanded that Conte relinquish some of his powers to an independent prime minister and then called for his resignation after he appointed a close ally instead.

http://newsite.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70434

COTE D'IVOIRE: Ivorians feel economic impact of avian flu

Although only two outbreaks of avian influenza among poultry have been reported in Côte d'Ivoire, and no human deaths, the illness has taken a significant financial and humanitarian toll.

The H5N1 virus has resulted in a loss of more US$20 million to traditional and industrial poultry producers as demand has dropped, according to a recent study on the impact of avian influenza on the country's economy.

Poultry processing plants have suffered the biggest losses, said the study requested by the government's Commission for the Fight Against Avian Influenza. A two-day workshop in Abidjan last week examined the impact of avian flu and discussed ways to offset losses, including compensation, to the country's poultry industry.

http://newsite.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70445

LIBERIA: Government takes aim at unemployment

The Liberian government has completed a short-term national poverty reduction plan to tackle the country's massive unemployment.

The plan, a copy of which was obtained by IRIN, outlines four key areas of poverty alleviation, but principally centres on job creation.

Other aspects of the plan include rehabilitation of basic infrastructures, revitalising the country's shattered economy, building a post-war security system to consolidate peace, and delivering basic social services such as healthcare, road systems, water and electricity.

http://newsite.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70456

CHAD: Gov't wants police not troops

Chad's foreign minister has said in a statement that his country will only accept civilian police, not a peacekeeping force.

Djidda Moussa Outman's statement released in Chad's capital, N'djamena, on Wednesday followed a meeting between the minister and representatives of the five United Nations Security Council members.

A UN report describing ways for the UN to protect civilians and refugees in Chad was presented to the Security Council last week and passed to Chad's government on 6 February. Referring to the report, which was released publicly on Monday, Outman said:

"The goal of the meeting was to reaffirm the position of Chad concerning sending an international peacekeeping force to our country, notably following information of a force of 6,000 to 11,000 men."

http://newsite.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=70480

AFRICA: Little help for sufferers of blood disorder

As 31-year-old Magueye Ndiaye describes it, when the pains caused by sickle cell disease come it is like being hit by a tornado.

"The pain is so difficult to describe. It's right in your bones and you can't move, you can't eat," he said. "You feel it in your back, your joints and in your kidneys."

Sickle cell disease is an incurable genetic disorder that is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and among descendents of Africans worldwide. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, up to two percent of children are born with the condition.

West Africa, one of the most underdeveloped regions in the world, is particularly hard hit. The prevalence rate in Nigeria is among the highest with about 150,000 children born each year with the disorder.

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