"Controversial land acquisitions were a key factor triggering the civil wars in Sudan, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and there is every reason to be concerned that conditions are ripe for new conflicts to occur in many other places," said Jeffrey Hatcher, director of global programs for the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), which sponsored an expert panel at the Royal Society on the trends shaping rural lands and rights worldwide.

In presenting the results of an analysis of tenure rights in 35 African countries, by international land rights specialist Liz Alden Wily, Hatcher noted that despite the clear potential for bloodshed, "local land rights are being repeatedly and tragically ignored during an astonishing buying spree across Africa."

Alden Wily's review found that the majority of 1.4 billion hectares of rural land, including forests, rangelands or marshlands, are claimed by states, but held in common by communities, affecting "a minimum" of 428 million of the rural poor in sub-Saharan Africa. "Every corner of every state has a customary owner," Alden Wily concluded.1

RRI brought together experts to release new findings on land tenure and investor risk worldwide, and to explore the land conflicts that have fractured Liberia and South Sudan. Aggravating the unrest in both countries were unilateral government decisions to sell off resources held on community lands.

Land rights experts note that indigenous and traditional communities are not generally opposed to economic development. Rather, they say the outrage stems from their total exclusion from a process that threatens to deprive them of land and resources essential to their survival. And, according to Alden Wily's analysis, two-thirds of all the lands and resources investors are acquiring in the latest global land rush are in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Liberian and South Sudanese experts said local communities in both countries are beginning to react to the impact land deals are having on traditional access to forests, rangelands and marshes. In Liberia, where 30 percent of the country is reported to be under timber, mining and agricultural concessions, local villagers have blocked the plans of a Malaysian company to plant oil palms on lands leased from the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

And now, two Liberian NGOs reported that their government is quietly issuing new "private use permits" to logging companies, violating national laws and the rights of local communities, and possibly undermining a recent pact signed in May 2011 with the European Union (EU) to ensure that timber exported to the EU is derived from legal sources and benefits the people of Liberia.2

"The world is at a turning point in the global land grab, with the addition of dozens of new players, including the BRICs, South Africa and the nations of the Middle East, who are combing the planet for the natural resources required to sustain their rapid development," said RRI's Andy White.

"The epic clash of this demand for land and resources-whether in the forests of Liberia, or in the quilombolas (former slave communities) in the Brazilian Amazon-is highly combustible, and must be resolved."

The Customary Rights to Forests, Rangelands and Marshlands
Of the 35 African nations covered in Alden Wily's analysis, only nine got high marks for being "broadly positive" for their treatment of local, customary rights. The others were graded either "mixed" or "negative."

The nations ranked "most positive" were Uganda, Tanzania, Burkina Faso and Southern Sudan. But even in those countries, Alden Wily said, the laws are not respected in practice, and local communities are rarely included in negotiating the terms of a purchase or lease, even in countries where laws recognize such lands as private property.

"With the speed and scale of this surge into Africa in the last five years, the chief concern should be that investors are cutting deals with governments for land that really belongs to individual rural communities," said Alden Wily, who was interviewed in advance of the RRI event in London.

"The new land rush increasingly looks like a final enclosure of the world's common lands," said panel moderator Fred Pearce, environment writer and author of the upcoming book, The Landgrabbers: The New Fight Over Who Owns the Earth. "Throughout the developing world, traditional rights to land and resources are being steamrollered in the name of a warped and outdated view of economic development."

White said that engaging investors will be key to protecting the land rights of local communities, and that, in turn, will be critical to achieving the goals of slowing climate change, ensuring food security, and reducing poverty embraced by negotiators and advocates at United Nations meetings such as December's COP-17 in Durban.

"Investors have much to lose if they fail to consider the customary rights of local communities," White said. "Civil unrest will be the outcome, and it will affect their bottom line. So respecting and strengthening tenure rights is a win-win for investors, and for the people who currently view the vast forests and pastures of the developing world as their own."

Experts said it's too early to predict whether the spate of land deals recently negotiated in sub-Saharan Africa will produce widespread and destabilizing conflicts. But relatively few large-scale enterprises are fully established, White noted, so the people who will be affected by the deals have yet to realize their forests, marshes and rangelands have been sold or leased.

"Communities often do not find out what is going on until the bulldozers arrive," White said.

Increasingly, however, local communities and the NGOs that support them are learning more about their rights and how to enforce them.

A broad coalition of Liberian organizations, including the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI, Liberia) and Green Advocates Liberia, have charged their government with issuing alternative "private use permits" on an estimated 700,000 hectares of forestland.

They argued in a press release and accompanying report that the new permits allow the companies to sidestep national laws and that it goes against the spirit of the country's pact with the EU, known as the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA).3 A legally-binding trade agreement between Liberia and the EU, the VPA will go into effect in 2013. It defines what constitutes legal timber and sets up an assurance system able to verify compliance and ensure that timber for export can be traced back to the source.

Also in Liberia, villagers in Grand Cape Mount and Bomi counties continue to battle a deal the government signed for a 63-year lease on 220,000 hectares with Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby.

The company froze its operations, following the villagers' appeal to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an international certification body. But, in an odd twist, talks are at a standstill, as the government has blocked the company's efforts to meet with villagers.

"You don't need guns to kill people," said Alfred Brownell, an attorney and director of Liberia's Green Advocates.

"When you take food from a village by destroying farm lands and cash crops, you are starving its people. If you destroy their grave sites, poison their drinking water, obliterate their cultural heritage, divert their rivers, streams and creeks, there is no doubt you are removing an ethnically defined population from their land. The international community must not ignore these massive human rights abuses. The time to act is now."

Sime Darby froze its operations following the villagers' appeal to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an international certification body. But, in an odd twist, talks are at a standstill, says Brownell. The government has apparently blocked the company's efforts to meet with villagers, arguing that such a meeting would constitute a violation of Liberia's sovereignty.

Law and Reality Diverge in South Sudan
South Sudan is one of the countries cited by Alden Wily for doing a good job with protecting customary rights under the law. But in practice, the government signed deals for control of nine percent of the new nation's lands even before announcing its independence.

With agreements signed since 2011, the percentage is expected to be even higher, said David Deng, research director, South Sudan Law Society, South Sudan. Deng is concerned that the new investors won't understand what it is to operate in such a fragile nation, so soon after the end of its terrible civil war.

"I would remind them that land was at the heart of the civil war in South Sudan," said Deng, who spoke at the RRI event. "And now, with independence, communities expect that the sacrifices that they made during the war will be repaid by recognizing the legitimacy of their customary land tenure. Anything less would undermine the nation's fragile peace."

The panel discussed the many ways, and leading examples, of avoiding these conflicts-including the example of Brazil-which has achieved both forest conservation and advanced development by recognizing local people's rights to forests.

"It's tragic, since these conflicts between people and their governments, and risks to investors and development, can so easily be avoided," said White. "We are hoping that the governments that gather in Rio de Janeiro for the UN conference on sustainability in June will respond to this potential, and quit handing out the peoples' land and forests to outsiders."

]]> Fri, 03 FEB 2012 13:13:09 AEST Bamako (AFP) Feb 2, 2012 - Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure Thursday swapped his defence and security ministers after a series of Tuareg rebel raids and warned against attacks on civilian members of the nomadic tribe.

General Sadio Gassama was shifted from the security portfolio to defence while Natie Plea became the the new security minister, according to a presidential decree read out on state television.

It did not give any reason for the swap.

Mali's Foreign Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga began talks with Tuareg rebels in Algeria on Thursday. No details were immediately available.

Toure, in a speech broadcast to the nation on Wednesday night, also urged citizens not to stage revenge attacks on Tuareg civilians as families of soldiers fighting in the north took to the streets in protest against the "weak" response to attacks by the rebels.

Homes and property of Tuareg have been vandalised in the towns of Segou, 240 kilometres (150 miles) from Bamako, and Kati, close to the capital.

In Kati, soldier's wives and children protested on Thursday, chanting slogans accusing Toure of backing rebels and demanding weapons for their husbands.

In a speech focusing on the country's troubled north, Toure said Malians should "avoid the trap of confusion and not play the game of those who have chosen to disturb the peace."

"Those who attacked some military barracks and towns in the north must not be confused with our fellow Tuaregs, Arabs, Songhoi, Fulani, who live with us," said Toure.

He said these communities "who share our difficulties", who chose Mali, have "the same rights and aspirations as us to live in peace in a country dedicated to its development."

The Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) and other Tuareg rebels launched a fresh offensive in northern Mali on January 17, attacking several towns and causing thousands to flee.

A Mauritanian administrative source said Thursday some 4,500 Malians fleeing fighting had entered the neighbouring country in recent days.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Niamey on Wednesday reported about 1,000 people had fled to Niger.

The ongoing offensive is the largest since 2009 by Tuareg rebels, whose ranks have been boosted by the return of men who fought in Libya for Moamer Kadhafi.

Bamako accuses the recently formed MNLA of links with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, whose campaign of attacks and kidnappings has dealt a blow to foreign tourism and investment in the region.

]]> Fri, 03 FEB 2012 13:13:09 AEST Bamako (AFP) Feb 1, 2012 - Mali's Tuareg rebels took over the northern town of Menaka Wednesday after the government forces stationed there pulled out overnight, officials and witnesses said.

"The Malian army contingent that was in Menaka left the town overnight. Around 40 armed rebels entered it in the afternoon," a local official said on condition of anonymity.

He said no violence was reported but added that residents were leaving the town, located near the border with Niger.

"The town is emptying," one resident also told AFP by phone.

A military official in the northeastern city of Gao said the pullback was a tactical move while another army source said government forces were concentrating their efforts on larger towns.

"It appears that the strategy is to beef up larger urban areas and using them as launchpads for attacks and reprisals using helicopters or ground troops," a Bamako-based military expert explained.

Menaka was the first town attacked by rebels from the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) on January 17. The rebels have since attacked towns near the borders with Algeria and Mauritania.

The ongoing offensive is the largest since 2009 by Tuareg rebels, whose ranks have been boosted by the recent return of men who fought in Libya alongside Moamer Kadhafi.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Niamey said Wednesday that around 1,000 people, including 30 members of the military, had fled northern Mali in recent days and found refuge in neighbouring Niger.

]]> Fri, 03 FEB 2012 13:13:09 AEST Addis Ababa (AFP) Jan 28, 2012 - The African Union inaugurated Saturday its new high-rise headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, built and donated by China at a cost of $200 million.

"The towering complex speaks volumes about our friendship to the African people, and testifies to our strong resolve to support African development," said Jia Qinglin, chairman of China's political advisory body, the People's Political Consultative Conference.

The sleek edifice -- Addis Ababa's tallest -- will host the African Union summit which gathers African heads of state.

"This complex is a reflection of the new Africa," said the African Union chairman, Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, at the opening ceremony. "This is a highly significant event in the life of our organisation."

The building, which towers above the Ethiopian capital, was opened ahead of the start Sunday of the pan-African body's 18th ordinary summit, a bold symbol of China's rapidly changing role in Africa.

Construction was wholly funded by the Chinese government, with even the furnishings paid for by the Asian powerhouse, and most of the construction material was imported from China.

"China is Africa's largest trading partner with $150 billion ... which amounts to 10 percent of the total of our foreign trade," Jia said.

"We have an investment stock of $13 billion in Africa, with more than 2000 Chinese companies investing," he added.

China's investment in Africa has surged in the past 15 years. Until recently, it focused mainly on bilateral relations. The new building suggests a push to foment multilateral links.

Fluttering red flags emblazoned with the slogan "Peace, Development, Cooperation" were set up around the centre, a reference to Beijing's efforts to develop a strategic China-Africa partnership.

Around a dozen African leaders attended the inauguration ahead of the two-day African Union summit focusing on intra-African trade. African countries trade more with the West and China than with themselves.

Jia handed Obiang a giant golden key to symbolise the opening of the new building, standing on the grounds where Ethiopia's oldest and infamous prison once stood.

"China, its amazing re-emergence and its commitment to win partnership is one of the reasons for the beginning of the African renaissance," said Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi.

"Over the past decades, China-Africa cooperation has gone from strength to strength. The future prospects of our partnership are even brighter," Meles added.

Construction of the new headquarters kicked off in January 2009, and a team of up to 1,200 Chinese and Ethiopian workers laboured around the clock in two or three shifts to finish it on schedule.

The site boasts three conference centres, a helipad and office space for 700 people. Its main conference hall has a sitting capacity of 2,500.

Key dates in China-Africa ties
Addis Ababa (AFP) Jan 28, 2012 - The new Chinese-built African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa is a bold symbol of China's rapidly changing role on the African continent.

The following are a series of dates that explain the growing relationship between China and Africa over the past 15 years:

- March, 1997: The state-run China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signs a contract with Sudan to build a pipeline linking its oilfields with the Red Sea.

In 1996, the CNPC signed a production sharing agreement with Sudan, Malaysia and India to develop Sudan's oil fields, taking over from American and Canadian oil companies which left the country due to the war in the south.

- January-February, 1999: Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan and vice president Hu Jintao make visits to Africa marked by numerous cooperation accords in what is the start of China's charm offensive in the continent.

- January-February, 2004: President Hu Jintao makes a three-nation tour of Africa, visiting Egypt, Gabon and Algeria.

- October, 2005: Senegal announces the resumption of diplomatic relations with China, which had been severed in 1996 after Dakar recognised Taiwan. In 2006, Chad decides to break diplomatic ties with Taiwan and reestablish links with Beijing.

- November, 2006: Some 48 African nations attend a summit with China in Beijing in an illustration of China's growing clout.

- February, 2007: Hu Jintao makes a tour of Africa, visiting Cameroon, Liberia, Sudan, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and Seychelles. Before the tour China promises to write off debts owed by 33 African countries and on each stop Hu hands out generous loans and grants and promises to boost trade.

- June, 2007: China launches a fund to encourage Chinese firms to invest in Africa, claiming its aim is not to make profit but to boost a new type of strategic partnership with the continent.

- February, 2008: The presidents of resource-hungry China and oil-rich Nigeria meet and sign energy deals in Beijing's latest overture to an African nation.

- December: Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos pays a state visit to China.

- November, 2009: China pledges 10 billion dollars (7.6 billion euros) in concessional loans to Africa's states and offers full assistance to the continent in agriculture and infrastructure at the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

- May, 2010: Nigeria, the world's eighth biggest crude oil exporter, and a Chinese state firm sign a 23-billion-dollar deal to build three refineries and a petrochemical complex in one of Africa's biggest tie ups with China.

- November 30-December 2, 2011: China's Defence Minister Liang Guanglie visits Uganda and the Seychelles.

- January 5, 2012: Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi hails Africa as a "golden ground" for foreign investment, and vows to work with Chinese firms to ensure they comply with local labour laws.

- January 28: Inauguration of the Chinese-built African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa.

]]> Fri, 03 FEB 2012 13:13:09 AEST Khartoum (AFP) Jan 30, 2012 - The Sudanese military has freed 14 Chinese workers "kidnapped" by rebels in the country's South Kordofan state, the official SUNA news agency reported on Monday.

"SAF troops succeeded in freeing 14 of the Chinese workers," SUNA quoted state governor Ahmad Harun as saying.

Harun said the Chinese were in good condition and had been taken to nearby El Obeid in neighbouring North Kordofan.

The fate of other Chinese reported captured with the group was not immediately clear.

China confirmed on Sunday that some of its nationals had "gone missing" after rebels on Saturday attacked the camp of a Chinese company, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

It quoted an embassy official as saying more than 20 Chinese were missing, a figure also given by a senior executive at Power Construction Corp of China, their employer.

Rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) told AFP they had captured 29 Chinese.

Neither the rebels nor Chinese embassy officials could be reached on Monday.

SPLM-N spokesman Arnu Ngutulu Lodi earlier told AFP the Chinese were "in safe hands".

He said they were captured along with nine members of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) on Saturday when the rebels destroyed a Sudanese military convoy between Rashad town and Al-Abbasiya in the northeast of the province, which has been at war since June.

Lodi denied the Chinese had been kidnapped.

Al-Abbasiya has now been secured, SUNA quoted governor Harun as saying.

The Chinese were involved in a road-building project, the executive from Power Construction Corp told Xinhua.

China is Sudan's major trading partner, the largest buyer of Sudanese oil, and a key military supplier to the regime in Khartoum.

There is growing international concern over the situation in South Kordofan and nearby Blue Nile state, where a similar conflict broke out in September.

The government is fighting ethnic minority insurgents once allied to the former rebels who now rule South Sudan.

The South gained independence from Khartoum last July after decades of civil war.

Food shortages would become critical without substantial aid deliveries into South Kordofan and Blue Nile by March, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has said.

Khartoum has severely restricted the work of foreign relief agencies in the war zones.

It cited security concerns and also accused aid workers of using United Nations flights to deliver arms and ammunition to the rebels -- a claim for which the UN's top humanitarian official said there was "no evidence".

Princeton Lyman, the US administration's special envoy for Sudan, told reporters last week the situation is so dire Washington has warned Khartoum it would consider ways for aid to be sent in without Sudanese government approval.

Sudan rebels say they captured 29 Chinese workers
Khartoum (AFP) Jan 29, 2012 - Rebels in Sudan's South Kordofan state captured 29 Chinese workers after a battle with government forces, a spokesman for the insurgents said on Sunday.

Nine members of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) were also being held, Arnu Ngutulu Lodi of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), told AFP.

"Yes, we have captured them," he said. "I want to assure you right now they are in safe hands."

China confirmed some of its nationals "have gone missing" after rebels on Saturday attacked the camp of a Chinese company, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

"The Chinese Foreign Ministry and the Chinese embassy to Sudan have initiated an emergency response to the incident," Beijing's foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said, according to Xinhua.

Liu did not give a figure for the number of missing, but said the ministry had summoned Sudan's charge d'affaires in Beijing and urged Khartoum to search for them.

"Currently, the Sudanese government is doing their utmost to locate and rescue the missing Chinese nationals," he said.

Lodi, of the rebels, said the Chinese have not been kidnapped and none was wounded.

He said they, along with the Sudanese, were captured on Saturday when the rebels destroyed a Sudanese military convoy between Rashad town and Al-Abbasiya in the northeast of the province, which has been at war since June.

Officials from the Chinese embassy in Khartoum could not be reached for comment by AFP.

Xinhua said the workers were employed by Power Construction Corp of China.

Wang Zhiping, a senior executive of the firm, told the news agency that more than 20 Chinese on a road-building project were missing after rebels attacked.

China is Sudan's major trading partner, the largest buyer of Sudanese oil, and a key military supplier to the regime in Khartoum.

Sudan's official SUNA news agency quoted Sawarmi Khaled Saad, the army spokesman, as saying rebels had attacked the site of a Chinese firm building roads in the Rashad area.

Troops were pursuing the rebels and there was no information about casualties, SUNA said in the report late Saturday.

Saad could not be reached by AFP.

Lodi said the Chinese were working mainly on road construction in the area.

They are being held in the Nuba mountains "until further notice" and cannot be released because of the security situation.

"Today is a little bit calm but we are expecting at any time SAF may launch an attack on us," he said.

]]> Fri, 03 FEB 2012 13:13:09 AEST Addis Ababa (AFP) Jan 27, 2012 - Towering above the Ethiopian capital, cloaked in urban smog, the new Chinese-built African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa is a bold symbol of China's rapidly changing role in Africa.

Once seen as strictly interested in extracting raw resources and investing in infrastructure, China has interests on the continent that are increasingly shifting to investing in institutions and governments, experts say.

"China has always been seen as less good at dealing with regions and continental bodies," said Alex Vines, Africa director of Britain's international affairs think-tank Chatham House.

"The building of the AU secretariat offsets that in a very dramatic fashion," he added.

Construction of the 99.9 metre-tall building was wholly funded by the Chinese government at a cost of $200 million. Even the furnishings were paid for by the Asian powerhouse, and most of the construction material was imported from China.

The sleek edifice -- Addis Ababa's tallest -- will host the African Union summit which gathers African heads of state this week.

The centre is set to be inaugurated on Saturday by Jia Qinglin, chairman of China's political advisory body the People's Political Consultative Conference.

The building symbolizes China's major stake in Africa -- bilateral trade between the Asian nation and the continent reached over $120 billion in 2011, a jump from less than $20 billion a decade earlier.

Beijing's involvement in Africa dates back 60 years, when Chinese workers arrived to lay railways tracks and roads.

But there has been a surge in investment in the past 15 years. Until recently, it focused mainly on bilateral relations. The new building suggests a push to foment multilateral links.

According to Vines, it is in China's best business interest to push for stability, especially in the wake of the Arab Spring which saw a collapse of governments across North Africa.

"It's a recalibration of how China sees Africa. I think the Arab Spring, in particular Libya, wasn't anticipated by China," he told AFP from London.

It is also a strategic move on the part of the AU to look outside of Africa and Europe for partnerships.

The death of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi has meant the loss of major funding for the often short-staffed pan-African bloc.

And China's investment in the AU stretches beyond the construction of the glimmering new AU building. Last December, China pledged $4.5 million to the AU's mission in Somalia (AMISOM) to fight Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents.

China is also a major contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Burundi and Sudan according to UK-based civil society group Saferworld.

China's ambassador to Ethiopia and the AU, Xie Xiaoyan, recently said his government's relationship with the AU serves as a central part of the China-Africa strategic partnership.

That partnership was formalized in 2001 with the launch of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which convenes every three years. At the last gathering in 2009, China pledged $10 billion in loans to Africa.

But China views the AU as relatively toothless, according to political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University Jean-Pierre Cabestan.

"China has very good relations with the African Union but ... it knows that the African Union is relatively powerless and finds it difficult to make decisions," he told AFP in Beijing.

Construction of the new headquarters kicked off in January 2009, and a team of up to 1,200 Chinese and Ethiopian workers laboured around the clock in two or three shifts to finish it on schedule.

The site boasts three conference centres, a helipad and office space for 700 people. A bronze statue of pan-African leader Kwame Nkrumah, former president of Ghana, is slated to be unveiled this week.

Project coordinator Fantalun Michael said the new building allows the AU to host major international events and represents Africa's modernizing image. It also signifies China's growing friendship with Africa, he said.

"It's a testimony that this relationship will continue in the future," he said.

But that bond will depend largely on diplomatic relations between China and Africa, not simply on Chinese-built infrastructure, according to Vines.

"In 10 year's time, will there be a fuzzy warm feeling that China built this building? I'm not sure. It will be more about up-to-date relationships and Chinese diplomacy in Addis," he said.

]]> Fri, 03 FEB 2012 13:13:09 AEST Washington (AFP) Jan 25, 2012 - First they took out Osama bin Laden. Now the US Navy SEALs have earned their "special forces" designation once again by conducting a daring, pinpoint rescue of two aid workers held hostage for three months in Somalia.

US officials confirmed it was a Navy SEAL team that carried out the pre-dawn raid, but the Pentagon, citing "operation security reasons," would not confirm US media reports that it was SEAL Team 6, the same unit which got Al-Qaeda leader bin Laden deep inside Pakistan last May.

American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Thisted, who both worked for the Danish Refugee Council Demining Group, were rescued unharmed after helicopter-borne US commandos swooped in on scrubland in central Somalia early Wednesday local time, according to a local Somali official.

They killed all nine of them, the US military said. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said no US troops had been wounded or killed in the operation, which was personally authorized by President Barack Obama.

The SEALs -- an acronym of "Sea, Air, Land" -- specialize in reconnaissance and sea-borne assaults, often on vessels. They count some 2,300 highly specialized operatives among their ranks, and their raids mostly involve participation of two teams totaling nearly 30 commandos.

For a decade, they have been putting their elite training to use on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, as have their US Army counterparts in Delta Force and the Green Berets.

Team 6 is the elite of the elite, and their missions are classified. While its shining moment was the spectacular bin Laden triumph, Team 6 is cloaked in secrecy, and its activities are almost never officially acknowledged.

According to the GlobalSecurity website, SEAL Team 6 is said to have been deployed for a possible -- but never attempted -- rescue of the Achille Lauro cruise ship from hijackers in 1985, and helped free the American captain of the container ship Maersk Alabama amid a 2009 standoff with pirates off Somalia.

According to US media, the elite fighters are also believed to have been involved in the mission to rescue Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove in Afghanistan after she was kidnapped by members of the Taliban in 2010. Norgrove died in the operation.

Despite the stellar successes of the past year, the SEALs have also known tragedy during the same period.

Seventeen US Navy SEALs, mostly from Team 6, were among 38 people killed last August when the Taliban shot down the Chinook helicopter that was transporting the US personnel, in the deadliest incident for US and NATO forces since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001.

The Team 6 moniker had been chosen by the unit's founder, Richard Marcinko, who wrote in his book "Rogue Warrior" that he wanted to trick other nations, notably the Soviet Union, into believing that the United States had more special operations teams than it actually had.

In the 1980s it had some 90 members, but its size swelled to nearly 300 after the 9/11 attacks of 2001.

While the name Team 6 continues to be used, it has not been the official designation since 1987. The unit was subsequently renamed DEVGRU, the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group.

]]> Fri, 03 FEB 2012 13:13:09 AEST Maputo (AFP) Jan 24, 2012 - Paulo Salazar served on a Portuguese warship during Mozambique's long liberation war, leaving him stranded on the wrong side of history.

Now, more than four decades later, he's among the colonial-era veterans waiting patiently outside the Portuguese embassy to apply for a military pension from Lisbon, which most will never receive.

"I'll be thankful for anything they give, because I worked for them," said 64-year-old Salazar, waiting among the scores of ex-combatants who arrive at the embassy every day from across Mozambique.

The father of 15 clutches his weathered service documents under one arm. A youthful face in a black beret stares out from the yellowed photo in his military identity book, that shows he worked on a colonial warship from 1964 to 1966.

Supported by younger children or leaning on canes, the ageing men have trickled from across the southern African country -- encouraged by stories in local media that some qualify for grants from Portugal.

But most won't get anything, due to complex rules and Portugal's debt crisis, which has seen Lisbon slash pensions for vets already receiving payments.

Portugal tried to suppress independence movements in its African colonies, especially Mozambique, Angola and Guinea Bissau, from 1961 until a 1974 coup in Lisbon brought the "Overseas War" and colonialism to an end.

"With or without reason the truth is we are ashamed of the war," Defence Minister Jose Pedro Aguiar-Branco said in Portugal in December at the 50th commemoration of the start of the colonial war.

"We live with unease about what happened there and consequently with those who went there."

Nearly 30 years after the colonial wars, Portugal paid some compensation to its African veterans.

Instead of a conventional monthly pension, the defence ministry gives a yearly stipend of around 150 euros ($190), provided the soldiers made social security payments beyond their service years.

-- 'I'll have to be patient' --

Veterans' associations in Portugal have branded the stipend a disgraceful amount, but in Mozambique, it goes a long way. Most Mozambicans make do with less than the minimum salary of around 2,000 meticals ($74, 58 euros) a month.

So when local media suddenly reported on the subsidies last year, the old soldiers came from afar thinking they would finally receive pensions.

Many veterans lost their jobs at independence, when the liberation movement Frelimo took power and sacked the colonial forces. Most colonial soldiers stopped payments to Portuguese social security.

"The Frelimo government said the colonial police had to go. I had to become a painter," said Salazar, one of the lucky few who did manage to keep up social security payments.

But another veteran, 62-year-old Assane Assane, who deactivated landmines in the extreme north from 1971 to 1974, is confused about the rules and can't remember ever having made payments.

"I can't understand it all," he told AFP in the embassy foyer after journeying over 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) from coastal Quelimane.

There were "always some, but never many" veterans who came to apply for subsidies, said the embassy's military attache Americo Prata Almeida.

In May, veterans in central Beira threatened to protest outside the consulate to demand compensation. Portugal sent more application forms.

The queues grew following media reports in October that inspired hopes for many.

"Now lots come because they believe they qualify for something they don't," Prata Almeida said.

The men are first briefed on the programme, then meet with an embassy official to determine whether they can receive the payment. Most did not make social security after demobilisation, as the rules require.

But in their hundreds they keep applying, always hoping, like Assane.

"If I don't get this I'll have to be patient. I can't do anything else."

]]> Fri, 03 FEB 2012 13:13:09 AEST Lagos (AFP) Jan 19, 2012 - Nigerian police fired tear gas Thursday in Lagos at hundreds of protestors marching against the authorities' security crackdown in the aftermath of a week-long strike over fuel prices.

According to an AFP correspondent, more than 200 protestors defied police warnings and marched towards a park in the economic capital that had become the epicentre of mass mobilisation against the removal of fuel subsidies.

One protester fainted from inhaling the tear gas.

Troops deployed heavily on Monday after President Goodluck Jonathan was forced into a partial climbdown over fuel prices by nationwide strikes that threatened to shut down the production of Africa's largest oil exporter.

Troops and tanks have since been stationed in parts of the country and sealed off the main protest ground in Lagos.

Thursday's protests were led by a former presidential hopeful, Tunji Braithwaite, alongside a host of other respected Nigerians, including a former finance minister, Muslim leaders and renowned lawyers.

"As elders we are totally against the military siege in Lagos. This is a democracy. They should be withdrawn immediately," Braithwaite told the protesters before the march.

After the march was dispersed, just about half a kilometre from the rally ground, the protesters regrouped and began moving back towards the Lagos state parliament.

"We don't want any human casualties. These enemies of democracy, these enemies of progress are bent on making any otherwise peaceful protest a violent one by indicriminately firing tear gas at a group defenceless people," said the 75-year-old Braithwaite.

Lagos state deputy speaker Kolawole Taiwo told the protesters earlier that "the occupation of Lagos by soldiers... is unconstitutional, it is unacceptable. Lagos is not at war."

The strike that had begun on January 9 had locked down Africa's most populous nation and brought tens of thousands into the streets in protest at a decision to scrap fuel subsidies that had more than doubled pump prices.

Jonathan eventually agreed to reduce the new hiked price.

After unions ended the strike on Monday, some groups however vowed to push ahead with their protest movement until fuel prices were brought back to their 2011 level of 65 naira ($0.40, 0.30 euros) a litre.

In a statement, the Citizens Advocacy Group, which was behind Thursday's march, said it was against the "unilateral imposition" of a pump price of 97 naira (about 60 US cents) per litre.

The authorities had warned that holdout protestors would be arrested and those calling for regime change charged with treason.

On Monday, soldiers occupied the main protest sites. In Lagos, troops drove armoured vehicles at protesters to disperse them and fired shots in the air. Police also fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters gathered on a major road.

]]> Fri, 03 FEB 2012 13:13:09 AEST Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (UPI) Jan 18, 2012 - Human rights activists say tens of thousands of people in western Ethiopia are being driven off fertile ancestral lands so the government can lease or sell large tracts of farmland for commercial agriculture to investors, including foreign governments.

Since the 2008 global food crisis wealthy Middle Eastern states, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and others, such as India and China, have been buying up vast areas of arable land across Africa to grow food to feed their burgeoning populations.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in 2011 that over the last decade global food prices have risen an average 83 percent.

Human Rights Watch said this month in a report titled "Waiting for Death," that the Addis Ababa regime of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is forcibly moving tens of thousands of villagers out of the remote Gambella region of western Ethiopia.

Human Rights Watch said the people received little compensation and were moved to villages elsewhere that have inadequate food and lack health and education facilities.

By 2013, Addis Ababa plans to resettle 1.5 million people from Gambella and the regions of Afar, Somali and Benishangul-Gumuz, Human Rights Watch said.

Gambella, the size of Belgium, has a population of 607,000. Its richly fertile soil has attracted foreign and domestic investors who have leased large tracts at "favorable prices."

Between 2008 and last January, Human Rights Watch said, Ethiopia had leased out at least 9.5 million acres of land.

The report says the government has repeatedly denied the clearances are linked to large-scale land-leasing for commercial agriculture. But Human Rights Watch said many villagers it interviewed claim they were told this was the reason.

These land grabs have been widely criticized as a new form of neo-colonialism that leaves large parts of Africa in the hands of foreign states and investors while displaced local populations are left to suffer and go hungry.

In 2010 up to 123.5 million acres of African land -- double the size of Britain -- have been snapped up or is being negotiated by governments or wealthy investors, various assessments conclude.

Ethiopia alone has approved 815 foreign-financed agricultural projects since 2007.

Last fall, Oxfam International reported that Asian and Middle East companies had bought up 560 million acres of farmland in developing countries, often at bargain prices, with some reportedly less than $1 a hectare.

Oxfam estimated Ethiopia now supports the export of fruit and vegetables worth $60 million annually, as well as flowers worth $160 million per year.

It noted that Ethiopia's per capita income is around $1,000 per year. That's less than Haiti, often listed as the world's poorest country at $1,200 per year.

Rich Arab states like Saudi Arabia have bought up huge tracts of land across Africa in recent years in a bid to combat global food shortages, water scarcity and desertification and to feed their swelling populations.

But now the scramble for Africa is intensifying, with investment banks, hedge funds, commodity traders, sovereign wealth funds, corporations and business tycoons out to grab some of the world's cheapest land -- for profit.

China has leased 6.91 million acres in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the world's largest oil palm plantation.

South Korea's Daewoo conglomerate planned to buy 2.9 million acres of Madagascar until the deal collapsed in 2009 when rioters toppled the Indian Ocean island's government.

"Foreign direct investment in agriculture is the boardroom euphemism for the new land grab and those promoting the grab spin it as a win-win situation," Le Monde Diplomatique reported recently.

As African leaders sign away their people's land to foreigners, the continent's people, among the poorest on the planet, face joining the estimated 1 billion people in the world who don't have enough food.

In the end, critics say the continent faces widespread conflict over resources in the not-too-distant future.

"Unchecked land-grabbing carries with it the seeds of conflict, environmental disaster, political and social change, and hunger on an unprecedented scale," Le Monde Diplomatique warned.

"There's a new scramble for land in Africa and it's growing at an incredible rate," says Alex Wijeratna of the U.K. development agency Action Aid.

"There's massive secrecy and poor communities can't get information and they're not being consulted."

]]> Fri, 03 FEB 2012 13:13:09 AEST Subscribe to our daily selection of space, military, environment and energy newsletters responseText http://visitor.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=0016gbbKsaiGSpQFojVO8ZoHw%3D%3D