Gunmen assassinate prominent Somali journalist

From Mohammed Amiin Adow

A prominent Somali journalist was shot and killed by suspected Islamist gunmen in broad daylight on Wednesday, as one of his colleagues watched in horror. Journalist Said Tahlil Ahmed was killed by gunmen in Somalia, according to a colleague who was with him. Journalist Said Tahlil Ahmed was killed by gunmen in Somalia, according to a colleague who was with him.

The journalist who witnessed the assassination of Said Tahlil Ahmed in Mogadishu said the two gunmen also intended to kill others. “First, they shot him in the back and then one of the armed men came over him and fired more shots into his head to finish him off,” he said. “One of the gunmen was shouting, ‘Kill the other one,’ which they meant another one of us.” The journalist did not want his name released for security reasons. Tahlil, the director of independent HornAfrik Radio and host of a popular radio talk show, was on his way to a meeting that had been called by the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab, when gunmen from the group attacked him, his colleague said.

The National Union of Somali Journalists issued a statement strongly condemning Tahlil’s assassination, which it blamed on Al-Shabaab — a radical Islamist militia that controls parts of Mogadishu and four regions in southern Somalia. “This is an outrageous and appalling assassination,” said NUSOJ Secretary-General Omar Faruk Osman, in a prepared statement. “Said Tahlil Ahmed was assassinated because of his strong and professional commitment for independent journalism.” The surviving journalist — who suffered injuries to his legs after he fell down while fleeing the attack — said Al-Shabaab had called for a meeting with Mogadishu radio station directors, but the group would not say what the meeting was about, according to the witness and NUSOJ.

“This is absolutely shocking and the journalists in Mogadishu are in a state of fear,” the journalist said. “We are extremely worried about our safety.” Local radio and television stations in the Somali capital had been broadcasting live coverage of last week’s Somali presidential election held in Djibouti, which many Islamist groups — including Al-Shabaab — have rejected. Al-Shabaab has imposed harsh Islamic law, or sharia, in the areas of Somalia that it controls. It seized the city of Baidoa, where the transitional government is based, preventing the newly elected government from returning to Somalia. Last year, the United States put Al-Shabaab on its list of terrorist organizations because of its ties to al Qaeda.

Tahlil is the second journalist to be murdered in Somalia this year. Militias shot and killed Hassan Mayow Hassan, a reporter for Shabelle Radio, on January 1 in the agricultural town of Afgoye. The Committee to Protect Journalists lists Somalia as the seventh most deadly nation in the world for journalists. Members of the news media work under duress there amid a war between a weak transitional government and insurgents, the committee said, and 10 Somali journalists have been killed in the last two years. Tahlil’s predecessor, HornAfrik chairman Ali Iman Sharke, was killed by a roadside bomb in Mogadishu in 2007, after he had returned from the funeral of another radio director who was killed on the same day by unknown gunmen in Mogadishu. Shabelle radio’s acting director, Bashir Nor Gedi, was also killed in 2007 near his home in Mogadishu by unknown gunmen.

Africa celebrates Obama victory with pride, hope

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NAIROBI, Kenya — For many across Africa and the world, Barack Obama’s election seals America’s reputation as a land of staggering opportunity.

“If it were possible for me to get to the United States on my bicycle, I would,” said Joseph Ochieng, a 36-year-old carpenter who lives in Kenya’s sprawling Kibera shantytown, a maze of tin-roofed shacks and dirt roads.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki declared a public holiday Thursday in the country of Obama’s late father, allowing celebrations to continue through the night and into a second day. From Europe and Asia to the Middle East, many expressed amazement that the U.S. could overcome centuries of racial strife and elect an African-American president.

Scenes of jubilation broke out in the western Kenya village of Kogelo, where many of Obama’s Kenyan relatives still live. People sang, danced in the streets and wrapped themselves in U.S. flags. A group of exuberant residents picked up the president-elect’s half brother Malik and carried him through the village.

“Unbelievable!” Malik Obama shouted, leading the family in chanting, “Obama’s coming, make way!”

“He’s in!” said Rachel Ndimu, 23, a Kenyan business student who joined hundreds of others for an election party that began at 5 a.m. Wednesday at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger.

Obama was born in Hawaii, where he spent most of his childhood raised by his white mother. He barely knew his father. But for the world’s poorest continent, the ascent of a man of African heritage to America’s highest office was a source of immeasurable pride and hope.

Tributes rolled in from two of Africa’s groundbreaking leaders. Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, said Obama gave the world the courage to dream.

“Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place,” Mandela said in a letter of congratulations.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf — the first woman elected to head an African country — said she did not expect to see a black American president in her lifetime.

“All Africans now know that if you persevere, all things are possible,” she said.

In Britain, The Sun newspaper borrowed from Neil Armstrong’s 1969 moon landing in describing Obama’s election as “one giant leap for mankind.”

Yet celebrations were often tempered by sobering concerns that Obama faces momentous global challenges — wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the elusive hunt for peace in the Middle East and a financial crisis.

Europe, where Obama is overwhelmingly popular, is one region that looked eagerly to an Obama administration for a revival in warm relations after the Bush government’s chilly rift with the continent over the Iraq war.

“At a time when we have to confront immense challenges together, your election raises great hopes in France, in Europe and in the rest of the world,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a letter to Obama.

Obama’s victory also was greeted with cheers in Mexico, where former Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda wrote in the Reforma newspaper that the presidency represents a chance for Mexico to remake its relationship with the United States.

“Obama’s win … opens to Mexico an extraordinary opportunity to reposition itself in the world because it will be infinitely easier to be a neighbor, ally and friend of the United States with Obama,” he wrote.

Americans living abroad, too, basked in the glow of a victory hoped for by most of the world.

“I’m proud of being an American today,” said Jody Suden, a mother of two in London. “It’s such a shift from the way things have been.”

This report includes information from Cox News Service.

Sudan rebels wanted over peacekeepers’ deaths

(AP) — The prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at The Hague on Thursday requested arrest warrants for rebel leaders allegedly responsible for attacks last year on peacekeepers in Sudan’s Darfur region.

The ICC has already charged Sudan President Omar al-Bashir with war crimes in Darfur.

They are the first warrants ever requested for the killing of peacekeepers, an ICC spokeswoman said. Such an act constitutes a war crime.

“I will not let such attacks go unpunished,” ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Thursday.

The attacks happened in September 2007 when a thousand rebel-led soldiers surrounded and stormed an African Union peacekeeping base in Haskanita, in southern Darfur, the ICC said. Twelve peacekeepers were killed and eight were wounded in the overnight attack, the deadliest single attack on AU peacekeepers since they began their mission in late 2004.

Moreno-Ocampo determined there were reasonable grounds to believe that rebel commanders bore criminal responsibility for the attacks. The warrants cover three counts of alleged war crimes for murder, intentionally directing attacks on personnel and objects involved in a peacekeeping mission, and pillaging.

“They planned, led their troops and directed the attack which killed 12 peacekeepers, severely wounded eight others, and completely destroyed [African Union] facilities and property, directly affecting aid and security for millions of people of Darfur who are in need of protection,” the prosecutor said.

It was unclear when the judges might decide on the arrest warrant request. ICC spokeswoman Florence Olara said there was no set deadline for them to go through the evidence and make a ruling.

In July, Ocampo asked for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to be indicted on war crimes charges in Darfur. Sudan does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction nor does the United States.

Human Rights Watch praised the prosecutor’s request for the warrants, calling it “an important step toward protecting those who protect civilians.”

“Civilians rely on peacekeepers for protection, and any hope for restoring security for civilians in Darfur depends on peacekeepers being able to do their job,” said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. “These warrant requests send a strong message that such crimes will not be tolerated.”

The attack on the AU peacekeepers came months before the 7,000-strong force was replaced by a U.N. peacekeeping force of 26,000 troops.

The U.N. force, known as UNAMID, is a joint operation between the United Nations and the African Union. It took over formally at the end of 2007.

The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 after rebels in the western region of Sudan began attacking government positions. Sudan’s government responded with a fierce military campaign that has led to some 200,000 deaths and forced 2 million people to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.

McCain’s wife sells Sudan-related investments

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer 19 minutes ago

Cindy McCain, whose husband has been a critic of the violence in Sudan, sold off more than $2 million in mutual funds whose holdings include companies that do business in the African nation.

The sale on Wednesday came after The Associated Press questioned the investments in light of calls by John McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, for international financial sanctions against the Sudanese leadership.

Last year, at least four presidential candidates divested themselves of Sudan-related holdings.

According to McCain’s personal financial disclosure, Cindy McCain’s investments include two mutual funds — American Funds Europacific Growth fund and American Funds Capital World Growth and Income fund — that are listed by the Sudan Divestment Task Force as targets for divestment.

“Those have been sold as of today,” said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.

Both funds have holdings in Oil & Natural Gas Corp., an India-based company that does business in Sudan. The American Funds Capital World Growth & Income Fund also has holdings in Petrochina, a Chinese government-owned oil company with vast investments in Sudan.

Last year, in a speech on energy policy to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, McCain cited China’s investments in Sudan as an example of regimes that survive off free-flowing petro dollars.

“The politics of oil impede the global progress of our values, and restrains governments from acting on the most basic impulses of human decency,” he said. “There is only one reason China has opposed sanctions to pressure Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur: China needs Sudan’s oil.”

On Wednesday, Rogers said: “Senator and Mrs. McCain remain committed to doing everything possible to end the genocide in Darfur.”

For the McCains, the Sudan-related investments are among scores of different investments listed in his financial disclosure documents. Cindy McCain is heiress to a Phoenix-based beer distributing company whose fortune is in the $100 million range.

Sen. McCain is regularly ranked among the richest lawmakers in Congress, but under the terms of a prenuptial agreement, much of the family’s assets are in Cindy McCain’s name. While the disclosure reports provide the identity of income and assets held by candidates and their spouses, they only offer a range of the amount of the holding. Indeed, the report lists Cindy McCain’s investments in the two mutual funds as simply “over $1,000,0000.”

In tax returns he released last month, the Arizona senator reported a total income of $405,409 in 2007.

But Cindy McCain files separate tax returns which she has not made public. On Sunday, she stressed that she would not make her returns public even if her husband won the presidency.

The Sudan-related investments illustrate the hazards for wealthy candidates whose vast holdings undergo thorough scrutiny during a presidential campaign.

A year ago, several presidential candidates divested themselves of Sudan-related holdings. Among them were Democrats Barack Obama and John Edwards and Republicans Sam Brownback and Rudy Giuliani.

In 2006, Brownback was among members of Congress who wrote 44 governors to urge them to divest their employee pension funds from businesses linked to Sudan. He is now serving as a top adviser to McCain’s campaign.

At the time, Obama placed the total value of his divestitures at $180,000. The sales of the investments were recorded in their financial disclosures.

According to Giuliani’s financial disclosure, he invested between $500,000 and $1 million in a Vanguard Wellington Fund. Data compiled by the Sudan Divestment Task Force shows that Vanguard Wellington has a small percentage of stock in Schlumberger Ltd., a French oil field services company that does business in Sudan.

Edwards sold stock he and his wife owned in Schlumberger for between $40,000 and $100,000. He also invested $50,000 to $100,000 in Evergreen Equity Income Fund, another fund identified by the divestment task force as having stock in Sudan-related companies.

Zuma Supports Idea of Unity Government in Zimbabwe

By ALAN COWELL

LONDON — One of South Africa’s most senior political leaders lent support Wednesday to the idea of forming a national unity government in Zimbabwe to resolve its deepening crisis.

The politician, Jacob G. Zuma, the head of the ruling African National Congress and potentially a future president of South Africa, said both the United States and Britain had undermined their own ability to play a role in the Zimbabwe political crisis because of the vehemence of their criticism of the government.

Mr. Zuma was speaking in an interview here shortly before Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain urged the imposition of an arms embargo on Zimbabwe. In the interview, Mr. Zuma warned against any “forceful intervention” in Zimbabwe’s crisis.

Mr. Zuma was asked to comment on an article in Zimbabwe’s state-owned Herald newspaper on Wednesday proposing a government of national unity grouping President Robert G. Mugabe and his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai, but led by Mr. Mugabe.

The two bitter adversaries fought presidential and parliamentary elections on March 29 but the outcome of the presidential vote has not been announced while Mr. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF has challenged the results of 23 constituencies in the parliamentary ballot, which Mr. Tsvangirai initially seemed to have won.

The stalemate appears to have spilled into increasing bloodshed with widespread claims by opposition and church figures that Mr. Mugabe’s followers have begun beating and killing opposition supporters in advance of a mooted run-off in the presidential vote.

Mr. Zuma is visiting several European countries and has spoken out frequently in favor of renewed intervention by southern African leaders to restart some form of dialogue between Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai.

His readiness to comment has been taken by some analysts as a departure from South Africa’s previous “quiet diplomacy” followed by South African President Thabo Mbeki, which seemed to favor Mr. Mugabe and shield his oppressive regime from criticism.

But Mr. Zuma denied that “quiet diplomacy” had failed, saying South Africa had decided “not to stand on rooftops and criticize Mugabe” in order to be able to talk to both sides in the dispute. “Quiet diplomacy has not failed,” he said. “Zimbabwe is our neighbor. We need to engage Zimbabweans on both sides. It would not have been prudent for us to stand there and criticize them. How could we have engaged with both sides if we did so?”

He added: “We decided to engage Zimbabweans quietly and it was dubbed quiet diplomacy. We can produce a better report than anyone else on what happened.”

Asked if the idea of a national unity government in Zimbabwe was premature, Mr. Zuma said: “I don’t think it is premature because you are dealing with a situation where we are almost three weeks after the election and there has been no announcement of the results.” Regional diplomacy had not resolved the crisis, he said, “so we have to say what do we do?”

“The natural thing is that there should be discussions,” he said. The call for a unity government “is not premature, it is actually appropriate at this time,” he said.

Mr. Zuma said the presidential election appeared to have produced a very narrow margin between Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai, meaning that both men commanded significant support among Zimbabweans.

But he was keen to avoid the impression that he was initiating the call for a unity government, which was a model used to resolve Kenya’s bloodstained post-election crisis earlier this year.

“I’m not necessarily making a call,” he said. “This is what should be looked at as one option.”

He was speaking shortly before a scheduled meeting with Mr. Brown, the British Prime Minister, who has accused Mr. Mugabe of stealing the Zimbabwean election.

Mr. Zuma said: “The unfortunate thing for Britain was the extreme position Britain took in relation to Zimbabwe. It then became difficult for Britain to play any role without people being suspicious.”

The British attitude, he said, “in a sense undermined the role it could play in Zimbabwe” and the United States authorities “also took the same position as Britain.”

“I’m not saying they are disqualified” from influencing events in Zimbabwe, Mr. Zuma continued, but “their action undermined the possibility of their playing a meaningful role in Zimbabwe.”

The interview with Mr. Zuma took place before Mr. Brown, the British prime minister, speaking in Parliament, referred to the saga of a Chinese vessel carrying an arms shipment bound for Zimbabwe, which South African port workers in Durban refused to unload.

“Because of what has happened in South Africa, where there is an arms shipment trying to get to Zimbabwe, we will promote proposals for an embargo on all arms to Zimbabwe,” Mr. Brown said, without giving further details.

In the interview, however, Mr. Zuma declined to characterize the actions of the South African port workers in Durban as a form of sanction and said it had been inspired by a sentiment among them that, if they unloaded the arms bound for Zimbabwe, they would exacerbate the crisis there.

“There is a situation in Zimbabwe which is not like a normal situation,” Mr. Zuma said. “If the situation was normal, the arms trade is a normal thing.” But he spoke out firmly against South African military action against Zimbabwe.

“I don’t think Mbeki must apply force in Zimbabwe,” he said. “This is what countries in the world are urging South Africa to do and it is wrong. I don’t think if you are a stronger country you must then use force. Negotiations and persuasions is a necessary thing to do rather than use force.”

“All that we should do from the outside is to help what the Zimbabweans do,” he said.

He took issue, however, with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, blaming it for the delays in publicizing the results of the March 29 election.

Mr. Zuma said: “The Electoral Commission has discredited the elections. It ought to remain as an independent body. By the manner in which it has operated, it has caused a lot of doubt in its independence.”

“It has not explained why it is not releasing the results,” he said.

He also suggested a role in mediating the Zimbabwe crisis for African elder statesmen such as former President Sam Nujoma of Namibia, former President Joaquin A. Chissano of Mozambique and others from Botswana and Tanzania.

And he acknowledged that Zimbabwe’s economic plight, which has forced hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans to flee across the razor wire frontier fence to South Africa, betokened a political failure.

“We need to govern a country in such a way as it does not lead people to cross under the barbed wire,” he said. “Once that happens it means politically things have gone wrong and we have got to correct them.”

Mr. Zuma is widely tipped to succeed Mr. Mbeki as South Africa’s leader if he is acquitted on corruption charges at a trial later this year. Asked if he believed the trial would exonerate him, he said: “Absolutely, I am innocent.”