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Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state is in Africa for an 11 day tour. It follows last month’s visit to Ghana by Barack Obama, the US president.

The State Department says the trip is meant to highlight Africa as a priority for the US, but there may be more than just political ties at stake.

How will Washington shape its Africa policy? And how would it counter the growing influence China has throughout the continent.

Leaders from Europe, Africa and the Middle East will meet in Paris this weekend to launch the Mediterranean Union.

The new body aims to strengthen ties between Europe and its southern neighbours.

Many of those migrating to North Africa and Europe come from West and Central Africa.

Their pursuit of a better life takes them on a dangerous journey north across the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea.

They leave their home countries and travel to transit countries such as Mauritania, Mali and Niger.

There, they begin their journey across desert borders to North Africa and then on to Europe.

Al Jazeera’s Casey Kauffman traveled to the northeast of Mali and met up with a group of migrants on the first leg of their journey across the Sahara.

Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, is being tried at the International Criminial Court at the Hague for war crimes during the brutal 1991-2001 civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

Al Jazeera’s Yvonne Ndege went to Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, where she found that many people feel disconnected from the proceedings in the Netherlands.

Kenyans urged to give up weapons
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AFP – Mauritanian authorities have blamed a young Islamist extremist for a suicide bombing near French embassy in the capital as France Sunday condemned the attack and pledged support to fight terrorism.


Three people, two of them French paramilitary gendarmes, were slightly injured in the attack, the first suicide bombing seen in Mauritania, a former French colony.

Mauritanian police sources told AFP late Saturday that the suicide bomber was a local man born in 1987 who had been “formally identified as a member of the Jihadist movement.”

The bomber had a belt laden with explosives, police said, setting off the explosion a little before 7:00 pm local time near the wall of the French embassy complex.

Officials declined to comment when contacted by AFP on Sunday but there was little sign of extra security on the streets of Nouakchott.

Passers-by were nervous, however, suggesting that it was outsiders, not Mauritanians, who had put up the man to carry out the attack.

“We are tolerant Muslims,” said Aica Sy, a housekeeper, arguing that the attacker most likely had been “brain-washed” outside the country.

On June 23, a US national working in Mauritania was shot dead in Nouakchott. A suspect was charged last week with his murder and belonging to Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the extremist group’s north African branch, claimed responsibility for the killing.

Three men are also in jail awaiting trial for the December 2007 killings of four French tourists at Aleg, in the south of the country. The three are suspected of being members of AQIM.

In Paris, the foreign ministry said France condemned “with the greatest firmness the attack … in Nouakchott near the French embassy.” 

France assured Mauritania of its support in the continued fight against terrorism whilst also opening its own inquiry into the blast.

The attack came just three days after ex-coup leader Mohammed Ould Abdel Aziz took the oath as president following contested elections.

Alain Joyandet, secretary of state for cooperation with France’s former colonies, said he believed the attack was linked to the election of Ould Abdel Aziz “who has indicated that he is determined to attack Al-Qaeda.

“Obviously, France welcomes his position and so, to say that France is targetted, well you can’t really say otherwise,” Joyandet said.

Mauritanian journalist Isselmou Ould Moustapha, who writes on extremism for the weekly Tahalil Hebdo, said France was clearly in the firing line for its strong support for Mali against Al-Qaeda.

“In northern Mali, the army — which is supported by France — and Arab militias have put Al-Qaeda under heavy pressure since the killing there of a British hostage in June.

“As a result, young men in training camps in northern Mali have been returning home — to Algeria, Chad, Niger and Mauritania,” he said.

Mauritania’s new president has so far not made a statement on Saturday’s attack but warned of an emerging terrorist threat from disenchanted young people in an interview which took place before this weekend’s blast.

“There is an emerging terrorism at home,” he told the New African magazine to be published Monday.

“Like every country, we have young people who are sometimes led astray, who find themselves sometimes caught in a big net. They are then recruited, trained and sometimes turn against their own country. We must fight this phenomenon, in a joint effort with other partner countries,” he said.

REUTERS – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton encouraged Nigeria on Wednesday to take a firmer line on corruption and offered U.S. help to implement badly needed electoral reforms in Africa’s biggest energy producer.

Mismanagement and graft over decades have imperilled Nigeria’s development, deterred investment, undermined democracy and deepened conflicts such as the insurgency in the southern Niger Delta and bouts of religious violence in the north.

“We strongly support and encourage the government of Nigeria’s efforts to increase transparency, reduce corruption, provide support for democratic processes in preparation for the 2011 elections,” Clinton said at a news conference with Nigeria’s foreign minister.

“We talked specifically how the United States might be able to encourage the electoral reforms,” she said, adding that the two planned a “binational commission” to tackle a range of issues from Niger Delta violence to electoral reforms.

She gave no details.

Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe appeared sanguine over Clinton’s mild criticism, which U.S. officials had said would be tougher in private with Washington’s fifth biggest oil supplier.

“We recognise that when we get criticisms, even from our own people, not all those criticisms are intended to annoy or provoke malevolence. Many of them are based on a genuine concern that Nigeria should do better,” Maduekwe said.

Corruption has been a theme of Clinton’s seven-nation, 11-day trip to Africa, echoing U.S. President Barack Obama when he visited Ghana last month.

MILITARY ASSISTANCE

She was given an update on a 60-day amnesty period in the Niger Delta, an effort to end years of militant attacks on the oil industry which have prevented Nigeria from pumping much above two thirds of its capacity.

Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi said on Tuesday the crisis was costing Nigeria $1 billion a month in lost revenues.

Maduekwe said Nigeria’s president was very optimistic that peace would be restored by the end of the year, adding that oil production levels were already going up. He gave no figures.

“It is improving — just the mere perception that peace is coming back. Amnesty is working, the oil levels are gradually coming up again,” he said.

Clinton said Nigerian defence officials made “very specific” suggestions over how the U.S. military could assist in bringing peace and stability in the Delta.

“We will be following up on those (suggestions). There is nothing that has been decided but we have a very good working relationship between our two militaries,” she added.

President Umaru Yar’Adua took office more than two years ago in Africa’s most populous nation pledging respect for the rule of law but diplomats and analysts say the fight against corruption has faltered under his leadership.

Diplomats in Nigeria, who share concerns about the country’s governance, said they would be watching to see how much of a tough message Clinton was prepared to convey.

But her criticism appeared mild, in line with a wish to push behind the scenes while at the same time improving ties.

In the decade since the end of military rule, elections have been far from exemplary in a country that considers itself the biggest democracy in the black world.

The April 2007 polls that brought Yar’Adua to power were so marred by ballot-stuffing and voter intimidation that observers said they were not credible. A reform bill before parliament is meant to avoid a repeat performance in 2011 polls.

“Nigeria is at something of a political crossroads. Its last elections approximately two years ago were deeply flawed,” said a senior U.S. official travelling with Clinton.

Clinton’s trip to Nigeria comes a month after Obama visited Ghana on his first official Africa trip, seen by some Nigerians as an indictment of their nation’s record on governance.

But Clinton sought to dispel such scepticism, saying Nigeria was a very important trading partner and close friend.

It has been three months since Winnie Waitherero Maina last saw her husband. Kidnappers asked her for a 20,000 euro ransom. Unemployed and with six grandchildren to look after, she was only able to send 200 euros. Not enough, replied the kidnappers.

Winnie now trembles with fright every time she sees the kidnappers’ number come up on her phone. With no money nor any help from the police, she wonders whether she will ever see her husband again.

“I feel really bad, because I don’t even know whether he is dead or still alive,” she says. “Now I can’t even talk to him. Before, I was still in contact with him; at least I had a hope. But now they are saying that I won’t talk to him unless I send the money.”

Hillary Kimutai Koin was luckier. The businessman was driving home when he was kidnapped, but he was released two days later because the kidnappers had in fact been targeting another, wealthier businessman.

“It’s a really nasty experience,” he said. “Everybody in the group had a firearm, or one or two. It is scary. They are pointing a gun at your head, at your back. You can expect anything.”


The Mungiki: kidnapping ring or scapegoats?

Eleven kidnappings have been officially reported to the Kenyan police, but according to several sources, there have been more than 200 kidnappings since the beginning of the year.

“The illegal group Mungiki is responsible for the kidnappings,” said Eric Kiraithe, a spokesman for the Kenyan police. “This is the worst type of aggression which has ever been mounted on innocent citizens in Kenya, I think since independence.”

The Mungiki was declared illegal in 2002. The Mungiki emerged in the 1980s as an anti-Western religious group that espoused the traditions of the Kikuyu ethnic group but now are seen as being involved in political violence and mafia-like criminal activities, particularly protection rackets in Nairobi slums.

Njuguna Gitau Njuguna, spokesman of the Kenya National Youth Alliance, the political arm of the Mungiki, rarely gives interviews to the media. Wanted by the police and flanked by armed bodyguards, he denies any implication in the wave of kidnappings.

“So many crimes have been attributed to Mungiki. But the police have never been able, even once, to prosecute anyone,” said Gitau Njuguna.

In an interview with France 24, François Grignon, director of the Africa programme for the International Crisis Group, said that Kenyan authorities found it “convenient” to blame the kidnappings on the Mungiki.

“You do have criminal gangs within, I would say, the Mungiki family. You have people who are specialised in racketeering, in harassment and indeed in kidnapping,” said Grignon. “But to allege that the Mungiki are responsible for the rise of criminality in the country, I think, is very convenient because you have an easy scapegoat. But it is not reality.”

Grignon said that there are many ethnic-based militias and youth-dominated movements that are involved in such activities, but the government lumps them all together under the label of Mungiki.

“Every gang of young men which has organised itself to fill the gap left by the collapse of state authority is usually identified as Mungiki,” he said.