Mozambique ends assistance

Maputo : (Mozambique) Mozambique’s Relief Agency, the INGC, has announced the end of the emergency phase of the relief assistance to the twin flooding and cyclone disasters that hit the Zambezi valley, and the southern province of Inhambane respectively in February, APA learnt on Sunday.

INGC director Paulo Zucula, told APA in an interview on Sunday that the emergency activities are over and that reconstruction was now beginning.

He explained that INGC’s National Emergency Operations Centre, CENOE, has been turned into a logistics centre, and the accommodation centres created to house people displaced from their homes by the floods will be turned into resettlement centres to be managed by the provincial governments.

The accommodation centres house 107,000 people.

The floods displaced 285,000 people, killing 45 others while the Cyclone Favio killed 10, affected 140,000 and caused extensive damage to key economic infrastructures.

Published by Korir, African Press in Norway, apn, africanpress@chello.no tel +47 932 99 739 or +47 6300 2525 source.apa

Nigeria: Vice President allowed by the high court to contest presidential elections

Lagos (Nigeria) The Nigerian Supreme Court Monday authorised Vice-president Atiku Abubakar to run for the presidential poll billed for Saturday 21 April 2007, APA has learnt.

The Supreme Court settled the dispute which opposed Atiku to the independent national electoral commission (INEC) by ordering the electoral watchdog to register immediately the vice-president on the ballot papers for the upcoming poll.

Judge Katsina Ali announced the Court’s decision in favour of Atiku while denying the INEC the right to sideline a presidential candidate.

Hailing the verdict, Atiku told reporters that it was a victory of his country’s democracy and state of law.

“This decision kindles trust among people in the enforcement of laws in Nigeria”, said Bola Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos and leader of the Action Congress (AC, opposition).

Atiku is nominated the AC presidential candidate following his exclusion from the ruling Popular democratic party (PDP) in September 2006.

The Supreme Court’s verdict should also end the one-year conflict between the country’s two embattled leaders. Their relations deteriorated when Atiku thwarted President Olusegun Obasanjo’s prospect to run for a third tenure.

Many political observers said the decision of the federal government to declare Thursday and Friday as official holidays was an umpteenth manoeuvre by President Obasanjo to prevent the Supreme Court from deciding in time Atiku’s case.

Published by Korir, African Press in Norway, apn, africanpress@chello.no tel +47 932 99 739 or +47 6300 2525 source.apa