The camp of the Eagles in Calabar is in high spirit, as all the players are enthusiastically hoping to have a good start in their campaign for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations with the qualifier against Madagascar on Sunday.

Suspected rebels have raped at least 242 women within a few days in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Nord-Kivu province, according to an American medical charity. Rapes and beatings took place at the end of July and the beginning of August.

“Two hundred and forty two women have been taken into medical care,” said Cris Baguma, a local Congolese doctor with the International Medical Corps (IMC) at Walikale.

Most of the rapes were in Luvungi, a settlement of some 2,160 people, and in surrounding villages, the IMC said.

The IMC blames the attacks on Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and local militias.

“The most striking cases were those of two pregnant women and another who had given birth two weeks earlier,” said Baguma, adding that the eldest of the victims was 75 and the youngest 16.

“Women told us they were stripped and left naked, some had their breasts pulled, almost all were beaten, and some were bitten,” said Christophe Nyembo, an IMC psychologist.

Nyembo added that the territory around Walikale “is a crossroads for mining sites. The aggressors thought the women were hiding gold in their genitals and pushed in their fingers.”

Both doctors said that in the cases of some women raped in front of their husbands, the men told their wives to seek medical attention, which is rare in eastern DR Congo, where men tend to cast off raped spouses.

Nairobi — Participants from seven countries meet in Nairobi on Monday and Tuesday to find ways of addressing food security in the region.

Other participants will be drawn from the East African Community (EAC) secretariat, IGAD, research institutions, academia, government ministries, parastatals and agricultural committees of parliaments.

The private sector; farmer’s unions and civil society; trade unions and political parties, consumer unions, and international non-governmental organizations will also provide representatives.

According to Ms Maria Okong’o, the Project Manager at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Nairobi Office, the participants will be drawn from Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

The conference’s theme would be “Regional Dialogue on the Politics of Food Security in Eastern Africa”

Ms Okong’o said the conference will be officially opened by Agriculture Minister Sally Kosgey.

The two-day conference is being organized by The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Kenya Office, in partnership with the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) Committee on Agriculture, Ms Okong’o said.

The overall objective of the Conference is to create a regional forum for Eastern Africans to engage in critical dialogue and analysis over the ramifications of poor governance in the region on food security.

The issues, Ms Okong’o said, include failure to shield policy decision making and implementation from political interference and corruption networks, conflicting strategies; duplication by state institutions, and failure to mainstream food policies into national and sectoral plans.

Also to be discussed will be the effect on food security of existing land tenure systems and lease/sale of agricultural land to foreign investors

“It is hoped that the conference will lead to more informed discussions on food security concerns among important stakeholders, including national and regional parliaments, so that sustainable agricultural development is placed at the centre of investment decision making,” she said.

Nairobi — Food security in many parts of Southern Sudan is set to improve after good rains, according to recent crop and precipitation assessments.

Some 2.4 million people in Southern Sudan received aid from the UN World Food Programme in June, during the lean season between harvests.

Now, harvesting of early crops of maize and groundnuts has begun in Eastern and Central Equatoria, Lakes, Warrap, Unity, Northern and Western Bahr el-Gazal regions, according to the Food and Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net), a project of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

“In most parts of these areas, rainfall has been above average and better than in 2009, though dry spells of varying duration or localized flooding have occurred in some areas, with impacts ranging from minimal to moderate,” according to FEWS Net’s latest Food Security Outlook.

“Food security in these areas is expected to significantly improve at the end of September to mid-October, when the main short-cycle sorghum harvest will be at its peak or just concluded in the most food-insecure areas,” it said.

The report warned that while heavier rain improved pastureland and access to water for livestock, it also increased the risk of flooding in some areas. And for the improvement in the food situation to continue through 2011, security in Southern Sudan had to remain stable, notably around the time of a landmark referendum on self-determination, scheduled for 9 January.

Areas that would still remain food-insecure are Aweil West and South Twic East, Awerial and central parts of Jonglei state, Western Equatoria (because of the presence of the Lord’s Resistance Army) and Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, where floods have displaced almost 60,000 people.

Recurrent drought, civil insecurity, lack of infrastructure - together with price fluctuations attributed to heavy dependence on imported food products from neighbouring countries - are the major challenges undermining food security in Southern Sudan, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Cairo — As Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood gears up to contest November parliamentary elections, some analysts note the relatively few gains made by the Brotherhood- led opposition over the last five years in an assembly dominated by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).

“Despite its relatively large presence in the last parliament, the opposition was unable to realise many tangible achievements due to the ruling party’s stranglehold on the assembly,” Amr Hashem Rabie, expert in parliamentary affairs at the semi-official Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told IPS.

In 2005 elections, the Brotherhood managed to capture an unprecedented 88 seats in the 454-seat parliament, despite numerous instances of electoral fraud on the part of the NDP. An additional 28 seats were picked up by independent candidates and representatives of secular opposition parties, giving the combined opposition a total of 116 seats — roughly one quarter of the assembly.

Despite these unexpected victories, however, the number of seats held by non-NDP representatives still fell short of the more than one-third minority needed to affect legislation.

“We might have had the largest opposition bloc in parliamentary history in terms of numbers, but in practical terms, we faced an NDP majority that simply rubberstamped everything the party wanted — regardless of its value to the Egyptian public,” Saad al-Husseini, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Brotherhood’s bloc in parliament, told IPS.

Over the last five years, Brotherhood MPs tabled 17,500 requests for information from government ministers, 5,000 parliamentary recommendations and 975 draft laws. Virtually all of the latter were summarily rejected by the ruling party majority.

“It’s not the fault of the Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc, which tried very hard to affect legislation,” said Rabie. “Brotherhood parliamentarians, along with other opposition and independent MPs, simply lacked the one-third minority necessary to be effective.

“Nevertheless, the larger-than-usual opposition presence in the last parliament did manage to force heated discussions of NDP-proposed legislation, even if that legislation was inevitably approved by the ruling party majority,” added Rabie. “That in and of itself could be considered an achievement.”

Hamdi Hassan, official spokesman for the Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc, told IPS: “We would have had a much greater influence if Egypt was a functioning democracy instead of a dictatorship.”

Yet despite the opposition’s numerical disadvantage in the assembly, Brotherhood officials point to a handful of parliamentary accomplishments achieved within the last five years.

“When parliament renewed Egypt’s longstanding Emergency Law earlier this year, Brotherhood representatives demanded that the law be amended to limit its application to crimes of drug trafficking and terrorism,” al-Husseini said. “Brotherhood MPs also succeeded in thwarting the sale of several important state-owned assets to private investors under the rubric of Egypt’s privatisation drive.”

“What’s more, our opposition in parliament pre-empted the sale of state land to politically-connected businessmen and the sale of Egyptian natural gas to Israel at less than international prices,” he added. “And, perhaps most importantly, Brotherhood MPs succeeded in providing public services for their constituents by establishing hospitals and schools in most of their respective electoral districts.

“But we lost some major battles,” al-Husseini conceded. “We failed to stop the ruling party from altering the constitution in its favour in 2007, even though we launched a concerted campaign against the move.”

According to Hassan, the constitutional changes, which effectively did away with judicial oversight of elections, “were made expressly to prevent opposition candidates — especially Brotherhood candidates — from winning such a large number of seats in parliament ever again.”

Rabie did, however, have some criticisms of the Muslim Brotherhood’s overall parliamentary performance.

“Of the group’s 80-plus sitting MPs, only about 25 were very active,” he said. “This contrasts with the 1987-1990 parliament, in which the Brotherhood had only 30 MPs — including such prominent group members as Mehdi Akef, Ma’moun al-Hodeibi and Essam al-Arian — all of whom were much more active. In fact, that was the most active opposition bloc in the history of the People’s Assembly.”

As for the parliamentary achievements cited by al-Husseini, Rabie said these represented “victories for the entire opposition, both inside and outside parliament and across the political spectrum, all of which played a part — not just the Muslim Brotherhood.

Maputo — After two days of rioting over price rises, Maputo was mostly calm on Friday, but a few minor disturbances occurred in some outlying neighbourhoods.

AIM reporters who drove across the city reported attempts here and there to set up barricades on major roads. Thus in Maxaquene neighbourhood, on Joaquim Chissano, a group of rioters had placed a blazing tyre in the middle of the road.

In Xikeleni, home to the largest of Maputo’s vast informal markets, rioters tried to set up barricades on Julius Nyerere Avenue. An item of furniture had been set ablaze there, when AIM visited the area.

But the main road from Maputo to the north, the scene of dozens of impromptu barricades on Wednesday, was calm.

A strong police presence, including units of the riot police, is evident at flashpoints in the city. The police are patrolling on foot and in vehicles, and have been removing the obstacles placed by rioters in the streets.

But most banks and shops remain closed. Large crowds have gathered at all bus stops - but the small number of buses on the roads cannot transport them all. The publicly owned bus company, TPM, does not have enough vehicles to meet the demand, and most of the privately owned minibuses (known as chapas) are still off the roads, since their owners clearly believe that the riots could resume at any moment.

Meanwhile, the rail and port company, CFM, has announced the resumption of rail transport on its southern lines.

On Thursday CFM had suspended all rail services in or out of Maputo. This followed looting of a goods train in Matola, and fears that rioters had damaged the tracks. CFM brigades checked the Maputo and Matola stretches of track, and gave them a clean bill of health on Friday morning.