Lagos (Nigeria) � Tension remained high in Togo yesterday as Togo lese President Faure Gnassingbe arrested another of his brothers, Essolizam, over alleged coup plot. Earlier, he had arrested his half-brother, Kpatcha.

Essolizam was arrested on Thursday on charges of joining the plot against the president but the news filtered to the public only yesterday.Kpatcha had been arrested earlier last week after failing to get refuge at the US Embassy.

Dozens of security forces launched a raid on the residence of Kpatcha between Sunday night and early Monday, sparking a shootout with Kpatcha’s body guards, killing three people and injuring two others. Several people including five military officers were also arrested on the same charges. Investigators have made public some of the materials they found at Kpatcha’s residence, which they cited as evidence of coup attempt against the president.

Meanwhile, a prosecutor has claimed that the president’s brothers are being held under humane conditions. The arrest outside the US embassy in Lome, where Kpatcha had sought asylum, followed raids on his house earlier in the week. It is not publicly known where he now is being held.

“We have taken all necessary measures to ensure his detention is acceptable, much more humane,” prosecutor Robert Bakai told AFP, while responding to rumours that Kpatcha was being ill-treated.

The former defence minister and lawmaker of the ruling Rally of the Togolese People “is a respectable citizen who has served the nation”, he added.

Bakai on Wednesday said investigations had unearthed “serious and corroborating evidence” that the president’s half-brother was the kingpin of a coup plot.
By way of evidence, police displayed to the news media an array of firearms, military fatigues, flak jackets and satellite phones as well as two all-terrain vehicles. Several officials close to Kpatcha have been taken in and questioned in recent days, according to police sources.

Communication Minister Oulegoh Keyewa condemned the plot as he thanked unnamed “friendly nations” that helped “thwart the destabilisation attempt”.

Elected to parliament in October 2007, Kpatcha is a ruling party heavyweight, but a rift has developed between him and the president since the death of their father Gnassingbe Eyadema in 2005.

The president has strongly condemned the alleged coup plot against his government describing it as “a crime against the constitution and the laws of the Republic” and “an insult to the Togolese people”. In a speech to the nation on Togolese National Television (TVT), President Gnassingbe gave the assurance that all arrangements had been made “so that justice is done strictly and impartially against the instigators of these criminal acts and their accomplices”. He said justice was taking its course and the interrogation of the indicted persons was going on supervised by an examining magistrate.

In his opening statement, the Togolese head of state recalled that he came to power in a country “abandoned by the international community and deprived of development aid because of lack of democracy”.

Now, democratic dialogue had been restored, which had led to the restoration of relations with donor agencies and the country’s credibility, President Gnassingbe said. According to him, those who wanted to launch the coup “are those who are nostalgic about the past and anxious to replace the power of the law by the law of power”.

The Togolese president thanked friendly countries that tipped off the government about the “the criminal act”, and paid tribute to the security forces “who carried out, under the authority of justice, the delicate mission to warn about the coup plot”. “Never ever must politics bring about violence in Togo,” said President President Gnassingbe who pledged to carry on “the mission of reform and modernisation of our dear country, Togo”.

Several soldiers as well as civilians have been arrested and are being interrogated for the alleged coup plot.

President Gnassingbe, 42, came to power in 2005 when his father, President Gnassingbe Eyadema, died. There was strong opposition about his constitutional legitimacy when he assumed power on 5 February on his father’s death and he resigned after 20 days. However, he legitimised his position through an election held on 24 April, 2005 in a vote the opposition claimed was rigged. President Gnassingbe is also the National President of his father’s ruling Rally of the Togolese People (RPT).

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source.This Day (Nigeria)

Dakar (Senegal) – Each year in Cameroon at least 45,000 children die due to malnutrition, according to the UN Children’s Fund. UNICEF says it has been difficult giving voice to Cameroon’s “silent emergency”, unfolding as it is in a relatively stable country in sub-Saharan Africa, overshadowed by conflicts and refugee crises elsewhere in the region.

“It is a silent emergency because we have children in the north, extreme north and east who are severely malnourished,” Ora Musu Clemens, UNICEF representative in Cameroon, told IRIN from the capital Yaound�.

In northern Cameroon global acute malnutrition (GAM) – weight deficit for height – stands at 12.6 percent, striking 115,000 children under five, according to UNICEF. Nearly 40 percent of children – some 350,000 – suffer chronic malnutrition. The World Health Organization classifies a GAM between 10 percent and 14.9 percent as “serious”, warranting supplementary feeding; 15 percent and above constitutes an emergency.

UNICEF says new nutritional and health surveys in Cameroon are planned for later this year.

“Often when it comes to malnutrition in the region we think only of the ‘purely’ Sahel countries,” UNICEF-Cameroon nutrition specialist Denis Garnier told IRIN. “But Cameroon has high levels of malnutrition in its northern part equal to those in the Sahel; unfortunately this does not get the same attention.”

The population of the north and extreme north regions is about 4.9 million – more than the entire population of Liberia or Mauritania. The causes of malnutrition in Cameroon are many and varied, and similar to those in many Sahel countries, according to Garnier: lack of basic healthcare, food insecurity, poor access to essential child-survival services and poor infant feeding practices. Isolation of these zones is also a contributing factor. Exacerbating difficult living conditions in eastern and northern Cameroon are influxes of refugees from Central African Republic and Chad.

“To its great credit Cameroon has opened its borders to refugees from Chad and Central African Republic,” UNICEF’s Clemens told IRIN. “But refugees are putting a great deal of pressure on already scarce resources. The host communities are not rich, yet are sharing what little is there.”

Augustin Ndongmo Nanfack, head of nutritional monitoring and evaluation with Cameroon’s Health Promotion Department, told IRIN that for the first time the government is placing nutrition coordinators around the country. “We have had a deficit of nutritionists in the field,” he told IRIN. “Cameroon has not been seen as a country that has a problem of under-nutrition, but it clearly does.”

What is needed, UNICEF’s Garnier said, is for government, UN agencies and NGOs to collaborate on reducing malnutrition. “Part of the challenge in the north and far north regions is a lack of NGO partners, particularly to monitor nutrition activities and quality of health care.”

He said many NGOs have come in to deal with refugee influxes in Cameroon. “But they leave after those emergency operations. It is difficult to mobilise NGOs for these regions because the problems are structural and because they are not well-known – we do not hear of them.”

Garnier said there is an “urgent” need to reinforce communities’ capacity to deal with and prevent malnutrition. UNICEF and the government plan to scale up malnutrition treatment services in the north. A training on community-based management of malnutrition in three northern districts is planned for end of April, Garnier said.

In a recent paper UNICEF says large sectors of Cameroon’s population lack access to basic health services, safe water, sanitation facilities and basic education. But UNICEF has received no funding to date for its humanitarian operations in Cameroon for 2009, according to head of office Clemens. “This is very concerning to us. Donors are more focused on development issues here in Cameroon. But within that future-oriented, development context you have a humanitarian situation that must be addressed.” The agency is appealing for US$650,000 to prevent and combat nutrition in 2009 and $2.48 million for humanitarian operations in all.

source.UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

Kampala (Uganda) – The dispute over Migingo Island has escalated with the Ugandan government now petitioning Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki over the constant attacks by a section of Kenyan high ranking politicians.

Uganda, according to reliable sources, sent its protest to Mr Kibaki on Friday through State Minister for Regional Cooperation Isaac Musumba.
Mr Musumba, who was in Kenya for the international conference on the Great Lakes Region met President Kibaki in Nairobi on Friday to deliver the protest message, sources in Nairobi told Daily Monitor.

However, Mr Fred Opolot, the Executive Director of the Government Media Centre yesterday said Mr Musumba was in Nairobi for other duties.
I am not aware of his meeting with President Kibaki,� Mr Opolot said by telephone. Mr Musumba could not be reached for comment by press time as his phones were switched off.

Both Uganda and Kenya are claiming the ownership of the half-acre island, a situation that is threatening the diplomatic ties of the two countries.
Over three tons of fish are weighed and taken from Migingo Island daily. The island is also one of the only three pyramidal islands that are convenient for fishermen to dock their ships.

High ranking Kenyan politicians including Prime Minister Raila Odinga have been prominently quoted in the Kenyan media saying Uganda should give up claim to the island or be hit with trade sanction. Uganda is protesting that the Kenyan officials and politicians’ comments have been coming outside the forum of the joint technical team, headed by the Foreign Ministers – Sam Kutesa and Moses Wetangula  which is expected to resolve the matter.

The team has agreed to re-survey the boarder, as the final move to resolve the issue. On Thursday, police in Nairobi battled a section of rioting Kenyans who up-rooted a section of track on the Kenyan-Uganda railway, saying they would block Kampala bound traffic.
This would affect landlocked Uganda as more than 70 per cent of the country’s imports, including petroleum products, pass through the Kenyan port of Mombasa. Uganda could see a repeat of high fuel prices that was witnessed following the post election violence in December 2007.

Some Kenyan politicians have also demanded trade sanctions on Uganda. Uganda is also one the largest markets for Kenyan manufactured goods.
It’s feared that the dispute could lead to delay of the integration of the East African Community.

Mr Opolot yesterday said a joint technical team selected from both countries will resolve the contention after the survey of the borderline has been completed. The technical team which is soon getting colonial maps from the UK will soon resolve this issue. We want it solved as soon possible, he said
Mr� Musumba’s petition will be followed by a joint meeting between Ugandan and Kenyan ministers in Nairobi scheduled for this week.

The same Ugandan team which was referred to as hyenas by the Kenyan State minister for Lands, Mr James Orengo, will be led by Internal Affairs Minister Kirunda Kivejinja. State Minister for Fisheries, Fred Mukisa who is also part of the delegation told Daily Monitor yesterday that they were supposed to leave yesterday, but were held by the ongoing consultations with President Museveni on the issue. “The flight was supposed to be today, but we couldn’t leave because we have to consult the President before we go. But we shall go next week (this week) because we want to solve this issue as soon as possible, he said.

Despite diplomatic efforts pushed by Uganda, the Kenyan Prime Minister, Mr Raila Odinga and a section of Kenyan politicians have warned Uganda to stop claiming Migingo. Mr Odinga has said the available information and maps dating as far back as 1926 indicated that the Island was in Kenya adding the question of the island’s ownership should not therefore arise.

This has caused the high emotions especially in Nairobi and in the western part of the country where residents have threatened to block cargo transit vehicles to Uganda. However, Mr Mukisa said Ugandans and Kenyans are now living peacefully, but accused the media and politicians in Kenya of inciting violence.

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source.The Monitor (Uganda)

Nairobi (Kenya) – Police in Nyanza and Western provinces were on high alert on Saturday following reports that youths in the two regions were planning to block trucks carrying goods destined to and from Uganda over the Migingo island dispute.

In the morning, police dispersed youths who had attempted to block the Kisumu-Busia road to stop trucks heading to Uganda.

Our security personnel are monitoring any attempts to disrupt the smooth flow of cargo between Kenya and Uganda,” Nyanza police boss Anthony Kibuchi said.

The row over the ownership of the tiny Migingo island in Lake Victoria intensified as the Law Society of Kenya and a section of church leaders criticised the stand taken by the government in resolving the issue. Speaking separately, LSK vice-chairman James Mwamu and the National Council of Churches of Kenya Nyanza branch officials opposed government plans to use Sh140 million to survey the one-acre isle, calling for military intervention. The officials asked the government use the money to buy food for the hungry.

Mr Mwamu described Uganda’s stance on the controversial island as aggression and called on President Kibaki to deploy troops there.

It is needless talking to these people because they have defied diplomatic methods, he said.

It is disturbing that Migingo Island continues to be under foreign occupation. A Ugandan flag is flying on the island as Kenyan fishermen are compelled to pay taxes to the Ugandan authority under the barrel of the gun, NCCK Nyanza branch chairperson Bishop Joshua Koyo said.

They said the President’s silence on the matter was raising unnecessary tension.

Anglican Church Bishop of Southern Nyanza James Kenneth Ochiel, who read resolutions of a meeting held earlier, demanded that the Ugandan flag hoisted on the island be removed immediately and the government establish a naval base in Lake Victoria.

The chairman of Migingo Beach Management Unit Juma Ombori accused Government Spokesman Dr Alfred Mutua of misleading Kenyans on the issue.

“I want to state categorically that Kenyan fishermen in Migingo are a disappointed lot when a senior government official speaks on what he does not know, Mr Ombori said.

source.The Nation (Kenya)