U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Round-Up 316
4 - 10 February 2006


CONTENTS:

NIGERIA: Bird flu virus spreads through north
CHAD: With insecurity mounting in the east, are Deby's days numbered?
COTE D IVOIRE: UN sanctions Ivorian leaders for first time
MAURITANIA: Sahel nation poised to join club of oil exporters
NIGER: Thousands protest caricature of Prophet Muhammad
SENEGAL: Former prime minister freed after seven months behind bars

NIGERIA: Bird flu virus spreads through north

The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was confirmed in two more Nigerian states on
Thursday as authorities grappled to contain the disease with quarantine orders
and culling.

Nigeria reported Africa's first confirmed cases on Wednesday of the highly
pathogenic strain of avian influenza, which has forced the slaughter of more
than 100 million birds in Asia and jumped to humans in Asia, Europe and the
Middle East.

The bird flu outbreak was first reported at a poultry farm in northern Kaduna
State, affecting tens of thousands of birds, but by Thursday authorities had
reported new cases of fowls with H5N1 in neighbouring Kano State and Plateau
State.

"The federal government is doing everything to contain the disease within the
three centres that have been located," said a statement from Agriculture
Ministry spokesman Tope Ajakaiye.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51636&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGERIA

For related articles go to:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51635&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=WEST_AFRICA
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51648&SelectRegion=Africa&SelectCountry=AFRICA
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51617&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGERIA

Special IRIN map - Bird flu in Africa / country updates:
http://www.irinnews.org/Avianflu.asp


CHAD: With insecurity mounting in the east, are Deby's days numbered?

In the past, when Chadian President Idriss Deby moved around town everybody
knew about it. Roads were closed, parked cars were towed away. Now paranoia has
replaced the protocol and his convoy flies past unannounced in a cloud of dust.

"They go that fast now so there's no chance of being hit," muttered one
resident in the capital, N'djamena. "Before, police used to come along an hour
before and clear the roads but you knew exactly when the president was coming
so that's stopped now."

Deby is a man with fires to fight on many fronts.

A wave of army defections and a rebel attack on a strategic border town in the
east have given him security headaches at home.

Violence across the border in Darfur, western Sudan, has spilled over into Chad
and shows no sign of abating, and Deby has declared a 'state of belligerence'
with neighbouring Sudan.

And in a row over the use of oil revenues the president has now locked horns
with international donors, who by the finance minister's estimation supply
about 40 percent of the government's budget.

Everyone agrees that Deby is an increasingly isolated leader, but predictions
about his imminent demise may be premature.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51646&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=CHAD


COTE D'IVOIRE: UN sanctions Ivorian leaders for first time

The UN Security Council has slapped a 12-month travel ban and assets freeze on
three Cote d'Ivoire political figures it accuses of hampering efforts to bring
peace to the divided West African nation.

A Security Council sanctions committee on Tuesday called on member states to
"prevent the entry or transit" and "freeze immediately the funds" of the three
who it said constituted "a threat to the peace and reconciliation process in
Cote d'Ivoire."

Those listed, according to a statement by the committee, are: Charles Ble Goude
and Eugene Djue, leaders of the Young Patriots movement loyal to Cote
d'Ivoire's President Laurent Gbagbo. Last month, the Young Patriots called
supporters onto the streets to demand the departure of UN and French
peacekeepers.

The third person is Martin Kouakou Fofie, a commander of the rebel New Forces
movement, who was linked by the sanctions committee to human rights violations
in the northern city of Korhogo.

Cote d'Ivoire split in two after a failed coup to oust Gbagbo in September
2002. The UN maintains a force of 7,000 blue helmets working alongside 4,000
French peacekeepers.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51618&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE
Profiles of three facing sanctions:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51619&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE


MAURITANIA: Sahel nation poised to join club of oil exporters

Mauritania, a country in the throes of political change, is about to become
Africa's newest oil producer and government officials are pledging it will not
become Africa's newest victim of oil wealth woes.

On 17 February, oil is to be pumped for the first time from the Chinguetti
offshore oil field in the Atlantic Ocean, about 70 kilometres from the capital,
Nouakchott. The field is expected to produce 75,000 barrels per day over about
10 years, according to Australia's Woodside, the oil project's operator.

"Sound management of our natural resources is a national responsibility," the
head of Mauritania's transitional junta, Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, said in an
address to the nation last weekend.

"It is a moral imperative for every citizen," added Vall, leader of the
Military Council for Justice and Democracy (MCJD), which seized power in a
bloodless coup in August 2005.

But across Africa the exploitation of oil has engendered conflict, corruption,
environmental degradation and deepening poverty - the so-called "resource
curse." And some in this impoverished desert country worry that they are in for
the same.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51593&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=MAURITANIA


NIGER: Thousands protest caricature of Prophet Muhammad

Thousands of Muslims took to the streets of the capital of Niger this week as
protests against the publication of controversial cartoon images of the Prophet
Muhammad reached West Africa.

Organisers said 50,000 people had turned out Tuesday in the dusty streets of
Niamey after a call from religious leaders to press the government to cut
diplomatic relations with Denmark, where the caricatures were originally
published. An IRIN correspondent estimated the turnout at 10,000.

Muslim rage has swept Europe and the Middle East after the publication of the
caricatures, some showing the prophet wearing a turban resembling a bomb. And
Niger's Muslim leaders dubbed Denmark "an enemy of Islam."

"The amalgam knowingly maintained between Islam and terrorism is simply coarse
and unacceptable," said protester Elhaj Tahir Ousmane. "The provocation was too
much, it is necessary to put an end to it by all means."

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51616&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=NIGER


SENEGAL: Former prime minister freed after seven months behind bars

Former Senegalese prime minister, Idrissa Seck, was released from prison on
Tuesday after more than seven months in detention on charges of corruption and
threatening state security.

An investigating panel of the Senegalese high court ordered the release after
examining charges against the 46-year-old one-time top ally of President
Abdoulaye Wade. "This is a partial dismissal [of charges] with immediate
release," Seck lawyer Boucounta Diallo said on Tuesday in front of the Dakar
central prison where the former head of government had been detained.

Supporters gathered at Seck's home to cheer his return.

Seck, who served as Wade's prime minister from November 2002 until Wade sacked
him about 18 months later, was put in prison last year charged with
misappropriating funds designated for public works projects in the city of
Thies where he is now mayor.

His imprisonment emboldened opposition to Wade and led to splits in the ruling
Democratic Party of Senegal (PDS), with Seck supporters breaking off to form a
new party.

Full report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=51609&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=SENEGAL


IRIN-WA
Tel:+221 867.27.30
Fax: +221 867.25.85
Email: IRINWA@IRINnews.org


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Appropriate Donations for International Disaster/Humanitarian Needs
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International                  web: www.cidi.org
     Disaster Information             listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
                                    guidelines: www.cidi.org/donate.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
West Africa                      www.cidi.org/humanitarian/irin/wafrica