NAIROBI, 13 April 2007 (IRIN) - NAIROBI, 13 April 2007 (IRIN) - CONTENTS: 

UGANDA-SUDAN : Government, rebels meet over talks in bush clearing AFRICA: Climate change will impede development, warn experts AFRICA: UN's top humanitarian official calls for urgent aid for three states

SEE ALSO KENYA: Julius Mwelu, 22, 'We are proud of who we are despite where we live' [Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71561]

UGANDA-SUDAN : Government, rebels meet over talks in bush clearing

Ugandan government officials and local leaders from the northern Acholi region have held talks with commanders from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in a bush clearing near the Sudan-Democratic Republic of Congo border on Friday.

"It is my hope that we will not leave this place without signing a document which suspends hostilities," the chairman, Joachim Chissano, said after Ruhakana Rugunda and Joseph Kony shook hands to demonstrate they want a peaceful end to conflict in northern Uganda.

Rugunda is Uganda's internal affairs minister and leader of the government delegation to the talks, while Kony has led the rebels since 1998. Chissano is the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the areas affected by the LRA insurgency and former president of Mozambique. The talks are expected to last two days, during which time both sides hope to agree to formally resume talks and also renew a ceasefire which expired in February.

The conflict started when Kony took charge of a two-year-old regional rebellion against the Ugandan government, sparking what aid groups have described as the world's most neglected conflict. [Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71593]

AFRICA: Climate change will impede development, warn experts

Africa needs urgent assistance to adapt to climate change if its people are to thrive in the 21st Century, a senior United Nations official said on Tuesday.

"Response to climate change is interdependent and Africa cannot cope on its own; this makes it the main test of people working together to adapt to the impacts of climate change," said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Speaking during the launch of a regional report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) titled: 'Climate Proofing Africa, Key Challenge for the Continent', Steiner said human activities were clearly influencing climate change.

The report predicts that an increase in greenhouse gas emissions will see up to 1.8 million more people in Africa without sufficient clean water, an increase in arid and semi-arid lands, poverty and an increase in pandemics like malaria, cholera and Rift Valley Fever (RVF).

This is the second report by the IPCC on climate change. The fist one was released in Paris in 2006 and dwelt on the science of climate change. [Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71245]

AFRICA: UN's top humanitarian official calls for urgent aid for three states

At the current rate, if the situation in Sudan's Darfur region continues, over half the population in the region could be displaced within the next 18 months, John Holmes, the Under-Secretary-General for the United Nation's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned.

During his briefing to the UN Security Council on his trip to Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR), Holmes spoke of his meetings with government leaders in all three countries, where he stressed the responsibility of each government to protect its population.

Humanitarian efforts on the part of the international community need to be accelerated in order to ease the burden of the refuges, displaced people and the local inhabitants whose resources are stretched, he said. [Full report at: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71241]

lo/eo

IRIN news