Renamo leader believes elections were crooked

MOZAMBIQUE’S main opposition party says the ruling party stuffed ballot boxes and expelled opposition monitors from polling stations to help it win the country’s October 28 presidential election.

Opposition member Saimone Macuiana said yesterday his Renamo party did not accept that the Frelimo party won three-quarters of the vote.

He now wants the results annulled and a new election held.

He said he submitted a 500-page complaint to the National Elections Commission.

Preliminary results gave Frelimo candidate Armando Guebuza about 76 percent of the vote, and his party between 75 and 80 percent of Parliament’s 250 seats. — Sapa-AP

EU may train 2000 troops

THE European Union may launch its mission to train Somali forces as early as next month, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said .

EU foreign and defence ministers, holding a rare joint meeting yesterday, were expected to give the go-ahead for military planners to mobilise the mission, which is aimed at transforming Somali militia into the nucleus of a regular army.

The mission would send 200 European instructors to Uganda to train about 2000 Somali troops there.

France, Uganda and Djibouti are already training 4000 more Somali troops. — Sapa-AP

Climate challenge to aid work

A GLOBAL network of aid agencies says world powers consider climate change the most significant challenge to humanitarian work.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies say rich, middle- income and poor nations expect aid agencies to face more demands caused by climate change-related emergencies like floods.

The group’s conclusion is based on a survey the federation commissioned of the G-20 nations and Kenya.

Climate change got the most unprompted mentions . — Sapa-AP

Lack of access could kill

THE inability to access the Internet in one’s own language could be life-threatening .

“Lack of access to information is life-threatening, threatens your ability to stay healthy, to access government services,” Dwayne Bailey, of the African Network for Localisation , told an Internet governance forum in Egypt yesterday.

He gave the example of vital health guidelines that South African authorities post on their websites in English “in the hope that most people will understand”.

“There are 2000 languages spoken by a billion people in Africa.

“There are 15 languages in Africa that have about 10 million people each and almost none of those are present in any significant way in the information age,” Bailey said. — Sapa- AFP

Crash to be investigated

VENEZUELAN Minister of Interior Tareck El Aissami has announced his government will investigate the origin of an alleged drug- trafficking plane that United Nations officials said crashed in Mali.

An official from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said on Monday that the plane was being used to transport cocaine from Venezuela to West Africa.

On Monday, Alexandre Schmidt told journalists that the plane had come from the Latin American country.

In recent years West Africa has become an important transit point for South American cocaine being smuggled to European markets and according to Schmidt, there are also signs that the region is now moving into producing drugs. — Sapa-AFP

Gaddafi gets the girls

FLAMBOYANT Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has hired 200 Italian women for another evening of political and religious discussion on the margins of the United Nations food summit .

For the second evening running, Gaddafi used a local model agency to round up girls that were at least 1.70m tall, soberly but elegantly dressed, and with heels of 7cm or more, Italian papers said.

Paid à 60 (about R700) for the evening, they were put in buses and taken to the Libyan ambassador’s residence, where Gaddafi – in Rome for the Food and Agriculture Organisation summit – was waiting.

Gaddafi opened up for a question and answer session in which he was asked what he though of Italy being condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for displaying crucifixes in schools, La Repubblica newspaper and the Ansa news agency said.

He urged the girls to convert to Islam and offered to help them travel to Mecca on pilgrimage if they did so. — Sapa-AFP

Prisoner given some mates

TURKEY transferred five inmates to a high- security prison island yesterday to provide company for Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, the sole prisoner there since 1999 .

The move was aimed at addressing Council of Europe criticism that Ankara was violating Ocalan’s human rights by keeping him in solitary confinement on Imrali island in the Sea of Marmara, northwestern Turkey.

Under Turkish law, Ocalan, 61, will now be able to socialise with them in recreational facilities for up to 10 hours a week. — Sapa- AFP

Cruise ship stuck in ice

A RUSSIAN cruise ship carrying over 100 tourists, scientists and journalists is stuck in the ice around Antarctica.

German Kuzin of the Far Eastern Shipping Company said the Captain Khlebnikov icebreaker and the tourists onboard aren’t in any danger.

He told Russia’s Vesti 24 television yesterday that the ship was waiting for a stronger wind to try to begin moving again.

He said the icebreaker is about five miles (8km) from clear water.

Kuzin said the tourists are using the unplanned stop to tour the surrounding area.

Russian news agencies say a BBC camera crew is among the passengers. — Sapa-AP