CONAKRY (AFP) – Guinea on Sunday set June 27 as the date for its first democratic election since independence in 1958 under a plan to put an end to military rule in the resource-rich west African nation.
"The transition president, interim president of the republic, sets the date of the first round of the presidential election for June 27," said a decree signed by the country's current leader General Sekouba Konate.
The main electoral commission proposed the date last month and said a second round should be held on July 18 if no candidate gets an absolute majority.
CAIRO (AFP) – The 19th-century synagogue of Maimonides in Cairo's ancient Jewish quarter reopened Sunday after a nearly two-year restoration by Egyptian authorities, participants at the opening told AFP.
They said some 150 people attended the opening, including Yitzhak Levanon and Margaret Scobey, the ambassadors of Israel and the United States respectively.
About a dozen rabbis from Israel and abroad also were at the ceremony.
CHITUNGWIZA, Zimbabwe (AFP) – Zimbabwe?s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday called for an African Union and regional peacekeeping force to ensure that general elections in the country will be peaceful.
"Let?s bring foreign observers for the (next) elections", Tsvangirai told party supporters at a rally in Chitungwiza, 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of the capital.
"We want a peacekeeping force, so that we can have a free and fair environment for the election to keep our people free so that they can vote.
Read more: Zimbabwe 'needs peacekeeping force' for election:
KHARTOUM (AFP) – Clashes between rival Arab tribes in the Darfur region of western Sudan have killed at least 21 people since March 3, a local official said on Sunday.
Eleven people died in fighting between the Misseriya and Nuwayba tribes that broke out on Wednesday and 10 others were killed in renewed clashes on Saturday, said West Darfur province's governor, Abu al-Qassim Amam al-Hajj.
UBA, Sudan (AFP) – Southern Sudanese journalists are facing increasing intimidation as the security services clamp down on reporters ahead of landmark elections in April, a media rights watchdog warned on Friday.
The southern-based Agency for Independent Media (AIM) said it recorded several "disturbing reports" of the harassment of journalists across the autonomous south in 2010, including arrests and violence.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – Twenty-five African states agreed Friday to step up efforts to regulate mercenary activity on the continent amid an explosion of private security companies on the continent.
The nations decided at the end of a two-day meeting with a UN working group in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to propose regulations at the September meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, participants said.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – The United States on Friday urged Ethiopia to ensure its parliamentary elections set for May are free and fair.
Opposition groups have accused Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's ruling party of repeated harassment in the run-up to the May 23 polls.
KIGALI (AFP) – Rwanda reeled Friday from grenade blasts in Kigali, heightening security fears ahead of upcoming elections after a fugitive former army chief was accused of trying to destabilise the government.
Two near-simultaneous grenade explosions injured 16 people in the Rwandan capital Kigali, police said Friday.
Read more: Grenade blast wounds 16 in Rwandan capital: police
TRIPOLI (AFP
) – The global oil market is oversupplied and OPEC will not change production quotas when its members next meet in Vienna on March 17, the head of Libya's National Oil Company said on Friday.
"There is an excess of supply in the market," Shukri Ghanem said. "We do not foresee a change in OPEC (production) quotas."
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States called Thursday for all Darfur rebel groups to play a role in talks on a peace agreement and said that people in the war-torn region needed to see concrete improvements in security.
Sudan's government and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the main rebel group in the parched western region, signed a cease-fire last month and are holding talks in Doha toward a full peace agreement.
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