AU and Ethiopia endorse Kenya’s bid to defer ICC case
Kenya has secured the support of the African Union Commission and Ethiopia in its bid to have the International Criminal Court defer the case against six Kenyans at the International Criminal Court and have them tried locally. The AU Commission chair, Jean Ping, endorsed Kenya’s request saying that it is within the realm of the rights of all ICC member states. The vice-President, Kalonzo Musyoka, has been on a tour of African states that the government wants to back the country’s request. Mr Ping said that it was right for Kenya to begin its request for a deferral at the AU even though the request is intended for the UN Security Council. He noted that the ICC cases were dealt with as a result of an AU-appointed and mediated process.
“The AU Commission will therefore support the request,” said Mr. Ping who added that the request would also be discussed during next week’s AU summit in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, has agreed to convene a meeting of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) on the sidelines of the summit.
Zimbabwe is not ready for elections
About 27 per cent of the names of Zimbabwean registered voters are dead and more than 2,000 of them are aged above 100 years, research by an election watchdog came up with on Friday, 21 January. The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), which has for years campaigned for an overhaul of the voters’ roll, said that many people appeared to be over 120 years old, which exceeds the country’s life expectancy of 44 by far. There are also names of children born two years ago, the computer-aided study revealed. The southern Africa country has 5.5 million registered voters, but opposition parties have consistently accused President Robert Mugabe of manipulating the register to rig elections. Civic groups said that the country is not ready for fresh polls because the unity government was yet to implement a number of reforms meant to level the playing field. They also cite the state of the voters’ roll and the new independent electoral commission’s lack of capacity. ZESN’s research also found that over 40 per cent of the voters had moved without updating their voting information.
“There is need to draw up a new voters' roll in Zimbabwe, which will go a long way in improving currency, accuracy and completeness of the voters' roll,” ZESN said and added, “The process should be transparent and inclusive to ensure that all eligible persons are registered,”
South African President Jacob Zuma’s negotiators early this week told Zimbabwe’s governing parties to fully implement their power sharing agreement before organising fresh elections.
West African bloc forces bank governor to resign
The Ivorian governor of the multi-billion dollar West Africa bank and a crony of the embattled Laurent Gbagbo, has been forced to resign from his post. A statement issued in Dakar on Saturday evening by the Banque Centrale des Etats d’Afrique de l’Ouest (Bceao), said that Philippe-Henry Dacoury-Tabley’s resignation resulted from pressure exerted by the region’s leaders. Dacoury-Tabley handed his resignation in during an emergency meeting of the heads of state of the member countries of the bank on Sunday, 23 January 2010, in Bamako, Mali. The leaders immediately requested the internationally recognised President, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, to nominate a candidate to head the Dakar-based institution. Cote d’Ivoire at the moment is the majority share-holder of the bank and has been awarded the right to permanently control the post of governor of the bank since its establishment.
Flood deaths rise to seventy people in South Africa
South Africa has declared eight of its nine provinces disaster areas after the death of seventy people and after more than 8,000 families have been forced to leave their homes because of floods. Five other countries in the region, from Mozambique to Namibia, are on alert for further floods. Some of the biggest rivers in the region, the Zambezi and the Okavango, are at about twice their normal levels. Meteorologists said that Southern Africa's floods are caused by a natural cycle called the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which has also been linked to recent flooding in Australia and the Philippines.