United States Africa Command

Public Affairs Office

15 February 2011

USAFRICOM - related news stories

TOP NEWS RELATED TO U.S. AFRICA COMMAND AND AFRICA

US roots for stable governance in EAC (East African Business Week)

(East Africa) Director of the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies (ACSS) at the National
Defense University in Washington DC in the USA, Ambassador (Rtd) William M.
Bellamy has said that the United States government will continue to provide support to
the East African Community (EAC) member states if they maintain strong and stable
democracies.

Highway Project Will Connect Southern Sudan to Outside World (Voice of America)
(Sudan) On Thursday, the first stretch of pavement was laid down on what will soon
be the south's first paved highway, linking the southern capital, Juba, to the world
outside the new nation's borders.

U.S. anti-terror outpost tackles rat-borne virus (Reuters)

(Sierra Leone) American researcher Matt Boisen's laboratory in southeastern Sierra
Leone is an outpost of the U.S. government's "war on terror," funded by a surge in bio-
defense spending since the airplane and anthrax attacks on New York and Washington
a decade ago.

Critics: Chocolate financing Ivory Coast's Gbagbo (Associated Press)

(Ivory Coast) This year human rights advocates are harnessing the political crisis in
Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, to add momentum to an ongoing
campaign to force the world's chocolate makers to improve their labor practices.

Violence raises concern for Southern Sudan (McClatchy Newspapers)

(Sudan) An alarming wave of violence has racked Southern Sudan in the two weeks
since its upcoming independence was announced, raising worries about the long-term
prospects for the world's newest nation.

Tunisia to receive 17 mln Euros in immediate EU aid (Arabiya News)

(Tunisia) The European Union will extend 258 million euros ($348 million) in aid to
Tunisia by 2013 and 17 million euros immediately, its top diplomat said here Monday.
Tunisian Influx Taxes Italy (Wall Street Journal)
(Tunisia) Boats carrying more than 3,700 migrants from Tunisian ports arrived in Italy
over the weekend, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The landings have overwhelmed Italian officials, prompting the government of Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi to declare a state of emergency.

Problems surface for voter roll check in Nigeria (Associated Press)

(Nigeria) As Nigeria began verifying information on its new voter roll Monday, it
appeared that new problems confronted the West African nation's election commission.

Madagascar's Rajoelina to make third gov't reshuffle: senior official (Xinhua)

(Madagascar) The head of Madagascar's Highest Transitional Authority (HAT), Andry
Rajoelina, is planning to reshuffle his government for the third time with an objective of
resolving the country's political crisis that broke out in December 2008.

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website
 Use of child soldiers in Chad an ongoing problem – UN chief
 Côte d’Ivoire: UN troops prevent possible resumption of civil war, says envoy
 New pneumonia vaccine targets leading cause of child deaths worldwide – UN
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UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

WHEN/WHERE: Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 10:00 am; US Institute of Peace

WHAT: Can Nigeria Hold Credible Elections?
WHO: Peter M. Lewis, Director, African Studies Program, School of Advanced
International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University; Dave Peterson, Director of
Africa Programs, National Endowment for Democracy; Ambassador Robin Sanders,
Co-Moderator, International Affairs Advisor, Africare; David Smock, Co-Moderator,
Senior Vice President, U. S. Institute of Peace
Info: http://www.usip.org/events/will-nigerias-elections-be-credible
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FULL ARTICLE TEXT

US roots for stable governance in EAC (East African Business Week)

ARUSHA, TANZANIA - Director of the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies (ACSS) at
the National Defense University in Washington DC in the USA, Ambassador (Rtd)
William M. Bellamy has said that the United States government will continue to
provide support to the East African Community (EAC) member states if they maintain
strong and stable democracies.
"The US Policy towards Africa is mainly geared towards supporting strong and stable
democracies and good governance, fostering sustained economic growth and
development, strengthening public health, preventing, mitigating, and resolving armed
conflict, and helping to address transnational challenges," he said.
He said this last week when he visited the EAC Headquarters and met various EAC
officials led by the Secretary General, Amb. Juma Volter Mwapachu.
Bellamy reiterated that based on the US policy and in the overall context of forging
partnerships for Africa's future, the ACSS's mission is to support United States foreign
and security policies by strengthening the strategic capacity of African states to identify
and resolve security challenges in ways that promote civil-military cooperation, respect
democratic values, and safeguard human rights.
He also pledged to support EAC in developing its strategic plan and or vision once
called upon.
Amb. Mwapachu said ACSS was a huge resource partner for the EAC in terms of
capacity building, networking, developing programmes, information generation and
sharing especially for the Nyerere Centre for Peace Research.
He said that the Treaty for the establishment of EAC identifies peace and security as
prerequisites for the success of the EAC Region Integration process.
"The relevance of peace and stability to all the four stages of integration cannot be over
emphasized," he noted.
He said that in light of the evolution of conflicts, crises and other threats to peace and
security, there was need to constantly identify the strengths and weaknesses of,
opportunities for and threats to the Community, for which appropriate regional
responses need to be put in place and build internal capacity for action research to
regularly inform decision making.
"Our partnership with ACSS especially in supporting continuous training and capacity
development on peace and security issues within the Secretariat and Partner states will
be decisively explored", stated the Secretary General.
Mwapachu affirmed that EAC and ACSS partnership will strengthen the region's
strategic capacity to identify and resolve security challenges in the region.
---------------------
Highway Project Will Connect Southern Sudan to Outside World (Voice of America)

A military band welcomed Southern Sudan's president, Salva Kiir, the American consul
general in the south, Barrie Walkley, and local officials to a remote stretch of road near
the Sudan-Uganda border.

This is the southern end of a 192 kilometer, heavily mined, potholed dirt road that a
United States-funded project started work on five years ago. On Thursday, the first
stretch of pavement was laid down on what will soon be the south's first paved
highway, linking the southern capital, Juba, to the world outside the new nation's
borders.

Kiir was the guest of honor during the ceremony.

"It is development that we need and development starts with these roads," said Kiir.
By the time the pavement reaches Juba, the United States will have spent $225 million
on this road. U.S. Consul General Barrie Walkley said this is the United State's flagship
project in the south.

"Five years ago it would have taken you eight hours to drive this road," said Walkley.
"One year from now it will take you two-and-a-half hours to drive from Juba to the
Uganda border."

Southern Sudanese voted nearly unanimously last month to separate from the northern
part of the country. The vote was widely hailed as transparent, free and fair. Now that
countries have begun to recognize the south as an independent nation, the south is
starting to focus on transforming into a viable state.

President Kiir, a regular churchgoer who rarely speaks publicly outside of Sunday
mass, acknowledged the huge hurdles faced by the south.

"God created the world in six days. It will not be easy for us to build Southern Sudan in
two years. But we will have to make a change, so that after two years there is a
difference between now and then," added Kiir.

He described the building of roads as the first step to development. Other road projects
include improvements on routes into Kenya and Ethiopia.

Also in attendance on Thursday was Joseph Lagu, the leader of the south's first
rebellion, which ended in 1972. Lagu stressed the importance of links to Sudan's
southern and eastern neighbors over links with the north of the country.

"We now belong to East Africa, not North Africa," said Lagu.

The road should be finished by February, 2012 and will connect with the road to
Uganda's capital, Kampala. Beyond that, there are paved roads all the way to the
Kenyan port in Mombassa, the south's closest link for exports, and to Tanzania and
beyond.

Much of the south remains inaccessible because of poor roads, especially during the
rainy season. The security problems faced in areas closed off to authorities and aid
during the harsh dry season was highlighted earlier in the week when 105 soldiers and
civilians were killed in a remote area of southern Sudan's Jonglei state.
---------------------
U.S. anti-terror outpost tackles rat-borne virus (Reuters)
KENEMA, Sierra Leone – In a far-flung laboratory in West Africa, American researcher
Matt Boisen drops serum from a woman infected with Lassa fever onto a slim strip,
testing a new way of diagnosing the deadly virus.

Soon a tell-tale red horizontal bar appears.

Boisen's laboratory in southeastern Sierra Leone is an outpost of the U.S. government's

"war on terror," funded by a surge in bio-defense spending since the airplane and
anthrax attacks on New York and Washington a decade ago.

American research aims to limit the vulnerability of western interests to biological

agents. In the case of Lassa swift and simple diagnosis is seen as critical to doing that.

"There's been a renewed emphasis on those tropical diseases that (government health
officials) consider biothreats," explained Boisen of his work on Lassa, which, similar to
Ebola, can cause victims to bleed from multiple orifices.

Lassa fever, named after the Nigerian town where it was first identified in 1969, is
among a U.S. list of "category A" diseases -- deemed to have the potential for major
public health impact -- alongside anthrax and botulism.

The disease is carried by a species of rodent, Mastomys Natalensis, found across sub-
Saharan Africa and often eaten as a source of protein. It infects an estimated 300,000-
500,000 people each year, and kills about 5,000.

"There's a recognition that this is a higher level threat agent," said Dr. Thomas Geisbert,
an academic at the University of Texas and a former researcher at the United States
Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases.

"It would be naive not to think some terrorist group could use one of these things to
create terror."

In 2001 -- prior to the September 11 attacks -- the U.S. National Institutes of Health
budget for bioterrorism and related research was $53 million. But by the fiscal year 2007
the NIH was requesting more than $1.9 billion.

IT TASTES GOOD

In Sierra Leone the current Lassa research -- a $40 million project involving Tulane
University in New Orleans -- is run out of the government hospital in Kenema in the
southeast of the impoverished country.

The regular stream of Lassa fever patients, kept in an isolation ward, provide
researchers with access to the virus.
Staff hope their new diagnostic product will eventually be cheap, simple and robust
enough to take into the field - comparable to current tests for malaria or HIV - replacing
complicated laboratory procedures.

Such a test could quickly identify an outbreak in the United States, and also should
dramatically reduce the disease's impact in its home territory. A patient's chances of
survival increase if they receive early treatment.

In Kenema, 300km (200 miles) from the capital Freetown, it is impossible to create the
same levels of protection for researchers that they would experience a western lab.

In the United States, Lassa virus is handled in bio-safety level four facilities, where
researchers wear "space suits" - but in Kenema measures include goggles, gloves and
masks.

"Certainly we have less safety, less containment, but we do have the ability to do a lot
more in the same amount of time," said Boisen.

While expatriates predominantly work in the laboratory, a local outreach team tries to
persuade local people not to eat the Mastomys rodent -- a difficult task.

"It tastes good," said staffer Lansana Kanneh. "That is why it is very difficult for us to
take people off from eating rat."
---------------------
Critics: Chocolate financing Ivory Coast's Gbagbo (Associated Press)

JOHANNESBURG — Some of the cocoa in that Valentine's Day chocolate probably

came from a West African country where the man in power for a decade is still clinging
to office. And activists say consumers might also think twice if they knew unpaid 5-
year-olds helped produce it.

This year human rights advocates are harnessing the political crisis in Ivory Coast, the
world's largest cocoa producer, to add momentum to an ongoing campaign to force the
world's chocolate makers to improve their labor practices.

Supporters of the internationally recognized winner of Ivory Coast's election also have
pushed for a cocoa ban in an effort to financially strangle incumbent leader Laurent
Gbagbo, who the U.N. says lost the November election.

"It's clear that the taxes that come from cocoa go directly to keeping Gbagbo in power.
That's why we called for an export ban and it seems to be working," said Patrick Achi,
spokesman for internationally recognized winner Alassane Ouattara, who is now trying
to run the country from a hotel.
Years of campaigning by "fair trade" consumers already have forced chocolate makers
to sign onto to agreements to help clean up the cocoa supply chain. But little has
changed in the decade since the U.S. Congress passed the Harkin-Engel Protocol to
introduce a "no child slavery" label for chocolate marketed in the United States.

Some 1.8 million children aged 5 to 17 years work on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast and
Ghana, according to the fourth annual report produced by Tulane University under
contract to the U.S. Department of Labor to monitor progress in the protocol.

The report says 40 percent of the 820,000 children working in cocoa in Ivory Coast are
not enrolled in school, and only about 5 percent of the Ivorian children are paid for their
work.

"These companies are getting incredible profits while often the farmers are getting
really pennies," said Emira Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute
for Policy Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

Campaigns recently have begun targeting The Hershey Company because it is the only
major chocolate producer in the world that hasn't made a commitment to use certified
cocoa, activists say. Hershey's, though, says it is working to improve lives in local
communities.

"Our focus is on-the-ground programs that promote sustainable livelihoods in West

Africa," said Hershey's spokesman Kirk Saville. "Hershey's support for cocoa
communities goes back more than 50 years. We have helped to develop more
productive agriculture practices, to build educational and community resources and to
eliminate exploitative labor practices."

But the Tulane University report on child labor in cocoa farms in Ivory Coast and
Ghana found chocolate makers have reached less than 4 percent of cocoa-growing
communities in Ivory Coast and less than 14 percent of communities in Ghana.

"The industry has invested far more in programs in Ghana, where the worst abuses are
not quite as prevalent as in the Ivory Coast," said Timothy Newman, campaigns
director of the Washington D.C.-based International Labor Rights Forum.

Newman also said children from the neighboring countries of Mali and Burkina Faso
also continue to be trafficked to Ivorian farms, where 40 percent of the world's cocoa is
produced.

Ivorian government statistics indicate that more than 37,000 children are forced to work,
according to the U.N. International Labor Organization's Alexandre Soho, senior
program officer for Africa on the elimination of child labor.
The industry says it has spent more than $75 million to support implementation of a
cocoa certification system. However, the Tulane study found partners on the ground
received only $5.5 million between 2001 and 2009, and that those working in Ivory
Coast received only $1.2 million from the industry.

Activists argue that the answer is simple: pay farmers more and they will be able to
afford to send their kids to school instead of to work. Most children are put to work on
small family plots, often wielding dangerous tools like machetes and using hazardous
substances such as insecticides.

But critics say that a chocolate boycott only hurts the farmers and their families, who
are trying to make a living even if the wages are not "fair trade" ones.

"The essential problem from the very beginning, was that the large chocolate companies
were hiding behind the Harkin-Engel Protocol which is an entirely voluntary
agreement with no enforcement mechanism. As a result, they have been able to
continually drag their feet in taking responsibility for labor rights abuses in their own
cocoa supply chains," Newman said.

"Many of the initiatives developed under this process have never addressed the critical
underlying issues that lead to egregious labor rights abuses like the low prices paid to
cocoa farmers for their beans and the lack of negotiating power that small-scale farmers
have in the global chocolate supply chain. Problems like these continue to fuel abuse."
---------------------
Violence raises concern for Southern Sudan (McClatchy Newspapers)

JUBA, Sudan -- An alarming wave of violence has racked Southern Sudan in the two
weeks since its upcoming independence was announced, raising worries about the
long-term prospects for the world's newest nation.

The most recent fighting, in which a dozen people died, took place Saturday. It came
after a series of seemingly unrelated clashes that together have killed at least 175 people
since Feb 3.

The unrelated nature of the disputes heightens concern in a country where a culture of
violence has become deeply embedded during decades of civil war and where
centralized rule traditionally has been weak or nonexistent.

"I think what we are probably seeing now are pent-up issues that have been there all
along," said Andrew Natsios, a Georgetown University professor who was a special
envoy to Sudan during the George W. Bush administration.
Whether the new government will be able to overcome those divisions could be its most
important test when independence becomes official in July.

Southern Sudanese voted on independence in a referendum Jan. 9-15 that was the
centerpiece of a U.S.-backed 2005 peace deal to end decades of conflict between Sudan's
Arab-led north and its largely black African south. According to the referendum's result
announced Jan. 30, 99 percent of southern Sudanese had voted for independence.

But that near-nanimity started to crumble even before the results were certified and
accepted by Sudanese President Omar al Bashir a week later.

On Feb. 3, Sudan's northern army began to withdraw from the south in preparation for
the partition. Former southern militiamen who were aligned with the Sudanese
government in Khartoum during the war and had joined the northern army after the
2005 peace deal - and are now to be disarmed and discharged - mutinied after orders
came to pull up northward along with all their equipment.

The fighting broke out first in Malakal, the capital of the oil-rich Upper Nile state, and
spread across Upper Nile to at least three other army garrison towns, killing at least 60
people, according to the state government.

On Feb. 9, rebel forces loyal to a renegade general, George Athor, attacked two villages
in the south's Jonglei state, breaking a month-old cease-fire. One of the villages was
overrun before the Southern Sudanese military recaptured it. At least 105 died.

Saturday's fighting was between the Jur Bel tribe of farmers and the Dinka tribe of
nomadic cattle ranchers. The alleged killing Friday of a Jur Bel trader by Dinka
tribesmen triggered the fighting. It was fueled by long-standing tension between the Jur
Bel and the Dinka, who often send their cattle across Jur Bel land in search of greener
pastures in the dry season.

The violence also has its roots in the civil war, in which more than 2 million Sudanese
died.. During the war, the Sudanese government in Khartoum armed breakaway
southern militias to fight the main southern rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation
Army. As a result, southerners spent much of the war fighting one another instead of
the northern forces.

In 2009, more than 2,500 were killed in internal clashes and nearly 400,000 were
displaced, according to the United Nations. That number fell last year, partly because of
better harvests, higher prices for Sudan's oil exports and - perhaps most important -
political resolve in the south to keep a lid on internal strains in the run-up to the
referendum.
But disputes come from many directions. Athor, for example, took up arms after he lost
a governor's race in April 2010 elections that he described as rigged.

The southern political equation could face additional conflicts as oil money flows into
the new nation. Most of Sudan's oil is in the south.

Natsios, however, hopes that rather than spurring greedy conflicts over access to
national resources, the prospect of improved services could draw people to the new
government in Juba. He said he expected the violence to abate.

"The south has resources, money. If people want to be supported, they will have to
behave," he said.
---------------------
Tunisia to receive 17 mln Euros in immediate EU aid (Arabiya News)
(Tunisia) The European Union will extend 258 million euros ($348 million) in aid to
Tunisia by 2013 and 17 million euros immediately, its top diplomat said here Monday.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton told a press conference that the EU would
immediately unblock 17 million euros to help Tunisia's interim government and would
extend 258 million euros by 2013.

She did not specify whether the larger sum included the emergency aid.

"We want to both help deliver and underpin political openness, help with the
democratic transition and also support economic and social development," Ashton said,
according to pre-released remarks.

"I should be very clear with you that our commitment is both short-term and long-
term," she said.

The aid aims to help Tunis cope with mounting social and economic tensions in the
wake of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's ouster last month.
Beyond the financial aid, Ashton said the EU would help Tunisian Prime Minister
Mohamed Ghannouchi host an international conference on political and economic
reforms in Carthage in March.

She also said Brussels would begin talks with the country's interim government on
granting Tunisia "advanced status" for improved trade and cooperation ties, which it
hopes a new parliament can ratify in six months.

The EU had begun talks with Ben Ali's regime on the advanced status last May but the
negotiations had made little progress.
---------------------
Tunisian Influx Taxes Italy (Wall Street Journal)
Boats carrying more than 3,700 migrants from Tunisian ports arrived in Italy over the
weekend, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The
landings have overwhelmed Italian officials, prompting the government of Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi to declare a state of emergency. On Saturday, one migrant
drowned when a boat carrying him and other migrants sank.

The exodus stems from the political vacuum that has followed the toppling of former
Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. For years, Italy has relied on regimes in
Tunisia, Libya and other North African countries to contain the flow of migrants to
Europe, providing the regimes with financial and military aid.

That approach is now coming apart at the seams. The unraveling also underscores the
European Union's overall failure to forge a comprehensive policy for dealing with
migrants who, though arriving in southern European countries like Italy and Spain, are
bound for richer economies such as France and Germany. Italian officials are concerned
that unrest in Egypt and other countries in the region could add to the flow.

"There's a political and institutional earthquake that risks having a devastating impact
on Europe through Italy," Interior Minister Roberto Maroni told Italian TV on Sunday.

Tunisian authorities that once policed the country's coastline for human traffickers and
boats bound for European shores have melted away in recent weeks, according to
Federico Fossi, a Rome-based official for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
"Many people are taking advantage of the scarce presence of Tunisian police to
abandon the country."

Since Friday, scores of small boats brimming with migrants have taken to the sea,
encouraged by a recent spate of mild weather along the Mediterranean coasts. Most
have been intercepted by the Italian Coast Guard in international waters and taken to
the tiny Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, about 150 miles off the coast of Tunisia.

Italy usually returned undocumented migrants to Tunisia when the country was under
Mr. Ben Ali's regime. Now, however, it is unclear if Tunisia will accept expelled
migrants or whether Tunisian migrants who have fled the unrest at home are eligible
for refugee status under Italian law.

The crisis has been exacerbated by Italy's apparent lack of infrastructure for handling
large waves of migrants. An immigration center on Lampedusa, capable of holding 800
people, was shut down last year, because the flow of migrants had seemingly stemmed.

On Sunday, however, the government was scrambling to reopen the center. In the
meantime, a fleet of military cargo planes has been ferrying migrants from Lampedusa
to immigration centers on the Italian peninsula. Most of the migrants, however, remain
on the tiny island, camping on football fields.

The flood of migrants has overwhelmed the island's food and sanitary facilities. Many
migrants have refused the government's attempts to transfer them to immigration
centers, fearing the move will pave the way for expulsion from Italy.
---------------------
Problems surface for voter roll check in Nigeria (Associated Press)

LAGOS, Nigeria – As Nigeria began verifying information on its new voter roll
Monday, it appeared that new problems confronted the West African nation's election
commission.

In Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, an Associated Press reporter found that

several polling stations had no election staff, no waiting voters, nor any registration
lists. Voters have until Friday to verify their information ahead of April elections, which
include a crucial presidential poll in the oil-rich nation.

Teachers at Hope Primary School, which was shut down for a couple of weeks to serve
as a polling station, didn't seem to be aware that a verification exercise was supposed to
take place.

The problem appeared to be occurring in other states across the country as well, the
latest trouble to strike a voter registration effort marred by technical problems and a
lack of equipment. Kayode Idowu, a spokesman for the Independent National Electoral
Commission, said the lists should be available soon across the country.

"In some places the lists are up, and in some other places they are not up yet," Idowu
told the AP. "It's not been postponed, but we've had logistic issues all over the country."

Voter registration lists in Nigeria, a democracy for just over a decade, included the
names of Mike Tyson, Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali during a 2007 election
roundly rejected by international observers for being rigged. Nigerian President
Goodluck Jonathan, who is contesting the poll, has promised a free and fair election this
year.

To that end, Jonathan appointed Attahiru Jega, an academic with popular appeal, to
head the nation's electoral commission. The electoral body has spent more than $230
million to purchase laptop computers, digital cameras and fingerprint scanners to
register voters across the country. However, many complained about the equipment as
the registration drive took place.
Election officials say they've registered more than 63.9 million Nigerians for the coming
vote, out of an estimated eligible voter pool of about 70 million. The election, staggered
over three weeks, also includes polls for state governors and the National Assembly.
---------------------
Madagascar's Rajoelina to make third gov't reshuffle: senior official (Xinhua)

ANTANANARIVO - The head of Madagascar's Highest Transitional Authority (HAT),

Andry Rajoelina, is planning to reshuffle his government for the third time with an
objective of resolving the country's political crisis that broke out in December 2008.

A senior official at the prime minister's office who did not want to be named told
Xinhua that the reshuffle might be announced this week, although the authorities are
still waiting for the arrival of the mediator of the Southern Africa Development
Community (SADC).

The naming of this new government which will have members from the protagonist
groups is expected to happen once the HAT has agreed to the SADC proposals.

The transitional government was set up on April 17, 2009 by Rajoelina. The government
was composed of 22 ministers, out of which, 12 had been named by Rajoelina before the
resignation of former president Marc Ravalomanana in March.

The first transitional government was announced by Prime Minister Monja Roindefo on
Sept. 8, 2009, but the latter was replaced by Mangalaza Eugene on Oct. 10, 2009.

Mangalaza was a consensus candidate designated by Rajoelina and the three

protagonist camps of ex-presidents Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy.

But owing to disagreements with the protagonists on how to resolve the crisis, Rajoelina
sacked Mangalaza on Dec. 18, 2009 and replaced him with the deputy interior minister,
Cecile Manorohanta. Two days later, Rajoelina appointed army chief Camille Vital to
head the transitional government.

On Feb. 11, 2010, the deputy prime minister and the foreign minister, Ny Hasina
Andriamanjato, resigned, saying other government members "did not want to work
with the international community" to resolve the crisis.

On April 7, 2010, Vital sacked his defence minister Noel Rakotonandrasana for "having
convened a secret meeting without getting the permission of the head of government."

Rajoelina reshuffled his government for the second time on May 24, 2010 by naming 10
new ministers including five military officers.
Since then, two ministers have resigned from the government under unclear
circumstances. On Aug. 17, 2010, the posts and telecommunication minister, Iharizaka
Rahaingoson, quit to be followed by the public works minister, Noelson William, on
Feb. 9, 2011.
---------------------
UN News Service Africa Briefs
Full Articles on UN Website

Use of child soldiers in Chad an ongoing problem – UN chief

14 February – The recruitment and use of children by armed forces and other armed
groups in Chad persists, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report, while
noting that reduced tensions last year enabled many children to leave such groups.

Côte d’Ivoire: UN troops prevent possible resumption of civil war, says envoy
14 February – United Nations peacekeepers in Côte d’Ivoire, where former president
Laurent Gbagbo refuses to step down despite his electoral defeat, are crucial to
preventing a possible resumption of civil war, and they will respond with force if
attacked, the top UN envoy in the country said today.

New pneumonia vaccine targets leading cause of child deaths worldwide – UN

14 February – Hundreds of infants in Kenya received their first shots against
pneumococcal disease today at a special United Nations-backed event to celebrate the
global roll-out of vaccines targeting the world’s leading cause of child deaths –
pneumonia.