European Union election observers won't be sent to Nigeria's delta region during next month's landmark elections due to the ongoing attacks and kidnappings which have prompted thousands of foreigners to flee the oil heartland in the past year. "We are not going to deploy in Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa because in these states, the environment for international observers is not conducive," said Max van den Berg, leader of the EU Election Observation Mission. "It is painful that we cannot observe in these three states, but it is more important to stay alive." The EU will send 66 observers to Nigeria's other 33 states. The elections are to mark the first civilian-to-civilian transition in the world's eighth biggest oil exporter since Nigeria gained independence from Britain in 1960. (Reuters, March 21)

Muslim pupils at a secondary school in northeastern Nigeria's Gombe state beat a teacher to death March 21 after accusing her of desecrating the Koran, police and witnesses said. Oluwatoyin Olusase, a Christian, was apparently overseeing an "Islamic Religious Knowledge" when the incident occurred. "We have received information that a female teacher has been lynched by her students," Gombe state police commissioner Joseph Ibi said. "We are investigating the report."

Gunmen kidnapped two Chinese men and a Nigerian man working for a local company in the southeastern state of Anambra March 17. The Chinese were the first foreigners kidnapped outside of the country's oil heartland in the southern Niger Delta. The men were abducted from their workplace in the industrial town of Nnewi. Four men drove into the premises of the Innoson Group of Companies Ltd, a motorcycle assembly plant, shot in the air, hustled the three men into a four-wheel drive and sped off. Police say they suspect a separatist group operating in the southeastern region may have abducted the men. But the Movement for the Actualisation of a Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has denied any involvement. "We are asking for freedom for our people and have no reason to kidnap expatriates," MASSOB spokesman Nnamdi Ohiagu told Reuters.

It is endless, and it comes (tellingly) from the both the right and the left. The latest entry is from Columbia University scholar Mahmood Mamdani, writing in the March 8 London Review of Books—who probably fancies himself on the left. But like his counterparts on the right and even in the Bush administration, he has a lot invested in denying that there is genocide in Darfur. What's particularly maddening is that Mamdani's piece, "The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency," could be a good starting point for a sorely needed discussion—could, that is, if it were not guilty of exactly what he accuses his opponents of...

From Reuters, March 8:

More than a million Muslim pilgrims packed Senegal's remote northeastern city of Touba on Thursday as members of the powerful Mouride brotherhood flocked to "Africa's Mecca" from across the world.

In an obvious move to undercut the International Criminal Court, Sudan has announced that it will put three men on trial for atrocities in Darfur—including Ali Mohammed Abd-al-Rahman AKA Ali Kushayb, officially named as a suspect by the ICC. Sudanese authorities say the three are already in custody and their trials will start immediately in El Geneina. (NYT, March 7; AP, March 6) Meanwhile in a blow to the Darfur peace accord, gunmen kidnapped and killed two African Union troops, critically wounded a third, and stole their vehicle March 5 in Geraida, South Darfur. The AU said the assailants are believed to belong to the Minnawi faction of the Sudan Liberation Army, which signed the rather dubious "peace agreement" in May. (AP, March 7) In a sure sign of changing times, the US envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, has announced he will travel to Tripoli this week for talks on getting Libya involved in efforts to broker an end the Darfur conflict. Natsios made the announcement to the press after two hours of talks with President Omar al-Bashir. Said Natsios: "We believe that it should be one track of negotiations, the one of the UN and AU. I’m leaving tonight to Tripoli to see Qadaffi about the Libyan role." (AFP, March 7)

Increasing violence between guerillas and government forces in Central African Republic (CAR) has displaced an estimated 220,000 people, including 150,000 "internally displaced persons" (IDPs) and 66,000 refugees who have fled to Chad and Cameroon. In December, France sent special forces backed by helicopters and fighter jets to dislodge rebel fighters from Birao and others towns in the north of the country, and has maintained a contingent there since. Rebel forces were reported to have re-entered Birao March 3, but government soldiers and a detachment of French troops remained in the town, with the situation tense.

Authorities in Somalia's autonomous Puntland region arrested four men Feb. 27 in connection with the Feb. 25 hijacking of a ship delivering relief food. But four other hijackers are still holding the ship and 12-member crew. World Food Program (WFP) spokesperson Stephanie Savariaud says the men were arrested when they went ashore to get supplies. Gunmen seized the MV Rozen in the waters off the northern coast of Somalia shortly after the ship unloaded 1,800 tons of food aid at two ports. The Kenyan-owned ship, contracted by the WFP to deliver food aid, was sailing back to Kenya when the incident occurred. The pirates anchored the MV Rozen in the waters near the town of Bargal. Media reports indicate that Puntland authorities are negotiating with the pirates.