NAIROBI, 1 December (IRIN) - CONTENTS:

ETHIOPIA: More food available, but millions still in need SOMALIA: Businessmen to hand over weapons SOMALIA: People flee as military movements create fear SUDAN: Calm after heavy fighting in southern town SUDAN: AU, Sudanese leaders meet on new Darfur peace force SUDAN: Southerners register to return home

Also see: SOMALIA: Battered by floods at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56573

ETHIOPIA: More food available, but millions still in need

The number of Ethiopians who will need food aid in 2007 is expected to be lower than the three million who have been dependent on emergency assistance this year because food production is expected to improve after good rainfall, an early warning network reported on Wednesday.

Those still in need of emergency assistance will be found mainly in the northeastern and southeastern lowlands and the few crop-dependent areas affected by the floods in July and August this year, according to the November report of the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net). [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56561]

SOMALIA: Businessmen to hand over weapons

As another sign of improved security in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, the powerful business community has agreed to hand over their weapons to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

"We have met and discussed this issue and they [the business community] have agreed," Sheikh Abdulkadir Ali Umar, the vice-chairman of the UIC, told IRIN on Tuesday. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56541]

SOMALIA: People flee as military movements create fear

Rising tension due to rivalry between feuding groups around Baidao, the seat of the country's interim government, has prompted residents to leave the town and nearby Buur Hakaba amid fears that armed forces massing in the area could soon clash, witnesses said on Monday.

Forces loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which controls much of the south and central Somalia, including the capital, Mogadishu, are massing at Buur Hakaba, 60 km south of Baidoa, in anticipation of a showdown with forces of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which is allegedly supported by Ethiopian troops. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56520]

SUDAN: Calm after heavy fighting in southern town

An uneasy calm returned to the southern Sudanese town of Malakal, Upper Nile State, on Thursday after two days of fighting between Sudanese government forces and soldiers of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), sources said.

The fighting started on Tuesday between the former rebel movement, which formed the administration in southern Sudan after signing a peace agreement in 2005, and the government. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56576]

SUDAN: AU, Sudanese leaders meet on new Darfur peace force

African heads of state and African Union and United Nations officials will sit down opposite Sudan's president in the Nigerian capital Abuja on Thursday afternoon to try to hammer out the specifics of an agreement earlier this month by Sudan to allow the UN to put boots on the ground in wartorn Darfur.

Nigeria's President and former AU chariman Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade, Ghana President John Kufuor and Libya President Muammar Ghaddafi will face off opposite Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, AU officials said. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56575]

SUDAN: Southerners register to return home

Peter Albino held his baby daughter on his lap, ignoring the bickering of his three other young children, as he concentrated on the interviewer registering him to return to Upper Nile State, southern Sudan.

One of four million southerners displaced by Sudan's 21-year civil war, Albino was an early candidate for return under a plan to repatriate 150,000 people to their villages in the south by the end of 2008. [Full story at: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56563]

IRIN news

Delicio.us  |   Digg  |   NewsVine  |   Reddit                                                                                  Permalink