Monday January 31, 2011

From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Shannon de Ryhove

Making headlines:

More than 99% of voters in Sudan's south chose to separate from the north in a plebiscite intended to end decades of civil war, a referendum official said on Sunday while announcing preliminary results.

"The vote for separation was 99,57%," Chan Reek Madut, the deputy head of the commission organising the January 9 week-long referendum told cheering crowds in the first official announcement of results.

Those results didn’t include the votes in north Sudan and the eight countries where the southern diaspora voted, a small proportion of the electorate.

The commission's website reported on Sunday that the overall vote, including southerners living in north Sudan and other countries, was 98,83%, but added that this could change.

Final results are expected to be announced early next month.

The West African regional bloc ECOWAS said on Sunday that recognising Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo as president is out of the question for African leaders trying to resolve the country's post-election crisis.

Its statement was the strongest sign yet that Gbagbo had failed to convert African unease over possible military intervention into a reversal of UN-certified results showing that rival Alassane Ouattara had won a November 28 presidential poll.

On Friday, the AU's Peace and Security Council appointed five African leaders to end the crisis and gave them a one-month mandate. West African bloc ECOWAS had previously threatened to use force to oust Gbagbo if other measures fail.

Ouattara has been recognised as president-elect by most world leaders but he is confined to a UN-protected hotel while Gbagbo retains control of the armed forces and most institutions despite mounting pressure and international sanctions.

Chairperson of the African Union Commission Jean Ping said on Saturday that African countries support the International Criminal Court (or ICC), but its chief prosecutor is guilty of double standards.

Ping's comments came a day after Africa's foreign ministers threw support behind Kenya's bid to defer the trials of key suspects accused of masterminding the ethnic bloodshed that followed a disputed election in 2007.

That vote, although still to be rubber-stamped by heads of state, is expected to embolden the east African nation to ask the UN Security Council – which helped set up The Hague-based court – to invoke article 16 and defer or suspend the cases.

The ICC's active cases all target crimes against humanity committed in the African states of Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda and Kenya.

Also making headlines:

The Surgeon General of the South African Defence Force said on Sunday that former president Nelson Mandela was responding well to medication and treatment for an acute respiratory infection.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that Africa and the international community must stand firm against efforts by Ivory Coast's incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo to cling onto power.

And, a global forum on trade statistics will start this week in an effort to reduce global trade imbalances.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today.