Tuesday April 26, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Jessica Hannah

Making headlines:

Sudan will hold a referendum on making Darfur a single region in July, state media said, pushing ahead with a vote which would derail any peace talks to resolve a conflict that Washington calls genocide. Returning Darfur to one region from its current three states is a key demand of Darfur rebels, who believe they would then comprise the majority of the population in Sudan's west and so hold sway at the ballot box in future elections. But they reject Khartoum's unilateral decision to hold the plebiscite before a peace deal has been signed, and the announcement of a date for the vote will likely end all hopes of a deal because the rebels say they will not accept any vote organized by Khartoum alone.

Zimbabwe's tourism industry earned about 13% of the impoverished state's gross domestic product in 2010 and should grow an average 6,9% annually over the next decade, a minister said on Monday. Zimbabwe, isolated and shunned by the West for suspected human rights abuses under President Robert Mugabe, has made steady gains in tourism ever since a unity government formed in 2009 brought a measure of stability.
Tourism earnings jumped 47% last year to $770-million while the number of visitors rose 15% to 2,3-million, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority says.

Libya's rebel-held city of Misrata won no respite from two months of bitter siege as Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces bombarded the city and battled rebel fighters, despite pulling out of the city centre. Gaddafi's forces were also pounding Berber towns in Libya's remote Western Mountains with artillery, far from the view of international media, rebels and refugees said. Italy said its warplanes would join the British and French bombing of Libyan targets for the first time and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation flattened a building inside Gaddafi's Tripoli compound, in what his officials said was a failed attempt on the Libyan leader's life.

Also making headlines:
After a parliamentary vote delayed by administrative chaos and a presidential election that triggered deadly rioting, Nigerians head to the polls today to elect state governors who exert more control on their lives.
Somalia's United Nations-backed government said that it planned to postpone elections to next year, saying it had to tackle insecurity first, further deepening its dispute with parliament.
And, Chadians voted on Monday in an election almost guaranteed to secure President Idriss Deby a fourth term in office, as his main rivals boycotted the race.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.