THE MOTHERLAND: The Latest News Out Of Africa - May 31, 2013!

May 31, 2013 - AFRICA - Zimbabwe's highest court has ruled that presidential and parliamentary elections must be held by 31 July.  The Constitutional Court said President Robert Mugabe should set a date "as soon as possible".

Zimbabwe Elections "Must Be Held By July 31"

Robert Mugabe (L) and Morgan Tsvangirai (R) both
backed the new constitution

Mr Mugabe, of the Zanu-PF party, is likely to face MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the presidential poll.  Mr Tsvangirai has been serving as Mr Mugabe's prime minister in a fractious coalition government since disputed elections in 2008.  Last week, a new constitution, backed by the main parties and approved in a referendum in March, was signed into law. 

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had called for the elections to be held later this year, so that changes in the new constitution could be implemented.  Mr Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980, had argued for an early vote.  The coalition government has helped end the hyperinflation that saw Zimbabwe's economy collapse.  But the administration has been fraught with squabbles over introducing reforms.  Five years ago, Mr Tsvangirai won the most votes in the first round of the presidential election but, according to official results, not enough to win outright.  He pulled out of the second round, saying his supporters were being targeted in a campaign of violence.  After Mr Mugabe went ahead with the election, winning with 85% of votes cast, regional mediators intervened to organise a power-sharing agreement. - BBC.

Bensouda To Engage Kenya Over Hague Cases.

International Criminal Court chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has said she is ready to engage the government in their request to move its cases to local courts if it proves it can handle the cases.

WATCH: ICC Ready to Engage Kenya.

UK Arrests Five Rwandans Over 1994 Genocide.

(File) Combo photo released 07 November 2006 by Kigali's prosecutor office shows pictures of three of the men arrested.

Five Rwandans accused of involvement in genocide in their native country were arrested in Britain on Thursday, London's Metropolitan Police Service said.  The men appeared in a London court under an extradition warrant alleging offenses that include genocide and murder between 1993-1994.  They were identified by police as Vincent Bajinya, Charles Munyaneza, Emmanuel Nteziryayo, Celestin Ugirashebuja and Celestin Mutabaruka.  At least 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. The victims were mostly from the Tutsi ethnic minority, who were targeted by Hutus over a rivalry that dates to colonial days. Some moderates from the Hutu majority who supported Tutsis also were killed.  The five men are expected to appear again in the same court on Wednesday. - CNN.

Nigeria Arrests Trio Over "Hezbollah Cell".

Nigerian authorities say a raid revealed a weapons stash
including landmines [Photo: Nigerian Joint Task Force]

Nigerian authorities have arrested three Lebanese men in northern Nigeria on suspicion of being members of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah. Soldiers uncovered a hidden arms cache that authorities believe belonged to members of the Shia political party and armed group, the military and secret police said on Thursday.  The three suspects were arrested between May 16 and May 28 in the north' biggest city Kano, said Captain Ikedichi Iweha, the city's military spokesman in a written statement.  All suspects reportedly admitted to being members of Hezbollah under questioning.  A raid on the home of one of the Lebanese had uncovered 60mm anti-tank weapons, four anti-tank landmines, two rounds of ammunition for a 122mm artillery gun, 21 rocket-propelled grenades, seventeen AK-47s with more than 11,000 bullets and some dynamite, Iweha said.  "The arms and ammunition were targeted at facilities of Israel and Western interest in Nigeria," Iweha said, but did not elaborate.  Separately, five fighters from Chad and two from Niger were arrested among fighters fleeing a two-week-old offensive against the Boko Haram armed group in the north-east, as they tried to cross the border into Chad, Nigeria's defence spokesman Brigadier General Chris Olukolade said in a written statement.

'Underground bunker' 
Authorities believe there has been a growing involvement of  foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda in Nigeria.  The secret service detained the first suspect, Mustapha Fawaz, on May 16 at his supermarket in Kano. His interrogation led to other suspects, including Abdullah Tahini, who was later arrested at Kano airport with $60,000 in undeclared cash.  The third, Talal Roda, a Nigerian and Lebanese citizen, was arrested on Sunday at the house where the weapons were found two days later.  "The search team uncovered an underground bunker in the master bedroom where a large quantity of assorted weapons of different types and calibre were recovered," Iweha said.  "All those arrested have confessed to have undergone Hezbollah terrorist training."  Bassey Etang, the Kano State director of State Security Service, said the discovery of a Hezbollah cell in Nigeria was a very serious matter for the West African nation.  "Even if it is targeted at Israeli and Western interests, we are also aware that where all those people are, Nigerians are also there," Etang said.

WATCH: Civilians among dead in Nigeria offensive.

Boko Haram probe 
The possibility of a link with Nigerian group Boko Haram was being investigated, Iweha said at a news conference.  There has never previously been evidence of an alliance between Salafist Sunni Muslim Boko Haram and Shia Hezbollah.  Most Nigerian Muslims are Sunni, but there are several thousand Shia Nigerians, a legacy of Muslim Ibrahim Zakzaky's preachings since the 1980s.  Zakzaky still leads Nigeria's main Shia movement, seen as largely peaceful, and has campaigned for a government with stricter adherence to sharia law.  Iweha declined to say if any link to Zakzaky was being investigated.   Nigeria has a large Lebanese community, but this was the first time Nigerian authorities had said that Hezbollah had an operational interest in the country.  Iran, which backs Hezbollah, has recently been implicated in two incidents in Nigeria. An Iranian and his Nigerian accomplice were sentenced to five years in prison this month for trying to smuggle a weapons shipment heading to Gambia.  In February, Nigerian authorities broke up what they described as an Iranian-backed group gathering intelligence about locations. - Aljazeera.

Libya Becomes "The New Mali" As Islamists Shift In Sahara.

A member of the Libyan Army's ''Thunderbolt'' special forces is deployed in
the streets of Benghazi to secure the city after a series of explosions by
unknown assailants in recent weeks, May 19, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Esam Al-Fetori

Suicide attacks on a French-run mine and a military base in northern Niger have shown how an Islamist threat is spreading across the weak nations of the Sahara, meaning France may be tied down there for years to come.  Regional rivalries are aggravating the problem for Paris and its Western allies, with a lack of cooperation between Saharan countries helping militants to melt away when they come under pressure and regroup in quieter parts of the vast desert.  Security officials say lawless southern Libya has become the latest haven for al Qaeda-linked fighters after French-led forces drove them from strongholds in northern Mali this year, killing hundreds.  "The south of Libya is what the north of Mali was like before," said a senior adviser to Mali's interim President Diouncounda Traore, asking not to be named.  Niger has said last week's suicide raids, which killed 25 people at the army base and desert uranium mine run by France's Areva, were launched from Libya. Amid growing tensions between the two countries, Libya has denied this.  Chad, which played a leading role in the Mali campaign, said a man was shot dead in an attack on its consulate in the Libyan desert town of Sabha at the weekend.  Smugglers have long used Libya's poorly patrolled south - a crossroads of routes to Chad, Niger and Algeria - for trafficking drugs, contraband cigarettes and people to Europe.  But the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 flooded the Sahara with pillaged weapons and ammunition. Tuareg separatists used them to seize power in northern Mali, only to be ousted by even better-armed Islamists who set up training camps and imposed harsh Islamic law until the French forces arrived.  The Islamists have also exploited Libya's weakness. Veteran al Qaeda commander Moktar Belmokhtar bought weapons there after Gaddafi's fall and his fighters passed through southern Libya to carry out a mass hostage-taking at an Algerian gas plant in January, in which 37 foreigners died.  A spokesman for the MUJWA, an al Qaeda-linked group which controlled parts of Mali last year, told Mauritania's al Akhbar news site that the Niger attack was not prepared in southern Libya. But Belmokhtar's group said it also took part.  With no effective national army, Libya relies on local brigades to police its southern border region where at least 100 people died in ethnic violence last year. Tripoli's failure to restore security there may be encouraging permanent Islamist camps and weapons stores, security officials say.  France, which relies on neighbouring Niger for one fifth of the uranium powering its nuclear reactors, has urged regional powers to cooperate to tackle the threat from Libya.  "We're extremely concerned that what's happening in southern Libya could replicate what happened in Mali," a French diplomatic source said, adding that the defence minister had raised the issue on a recent visit to Washington and London. "Dealing with that problem needs to be fast-tracked."  Paris is keen to cut its troop numbers in the region. But, amid persistent bickering and mistrust among regional powers, President Francois Hollande admitted last week that French forces may have be used elsewhere in the Sahel.  Alarmed European governments also approved a 110-man mission this week to improve border security by training Libyan police and security forces. [ID:nL6N0E34Q0] But Paris feels this is being deployed too slowly, given the urgency of the situation.  "As much as the West may wish to leave the problem to Africans, it cannot," said Vicki Huddleston, a former U.S. ambassador to Mali. "Islamists will continue to fight until defeated by the region working together and supported by Western governments." - Reuters.

Sudan Clashes Over Gum Arabic In Darfur.

There have been many violent clashes over land in Darfur this year.

More than 60 people have been killed in ethnic clashes in Sudan's arid Darfur region, over land producing gum arabic, the police have said.  The gum is a food additive, used in soft drinks, and an adhesive.  The deaths are the result of an ongoing dispute between two ethnic groups in South Darfur, over pasture and acacia trees, from which the gum is cut.  The Gemir group accuses the Beni-Halba community of trying to take away land it has owned for more than 300 years.  State police said there were 64 deaths and scores of wounded in fighting in Katila, on Tuesday, involving four-wheel drives, horses and guns.  Gum arabic is one of Sudan's most important export products. For years, Sudan has had a virtual monopoly on it.  But part of the output is now being smuggled over the border into Chad to be sold for cash.  Some Arab groups were armed by Khartoum from 2003, in a bid to end an insurgency by mainly non-Arab rebels.  But they have since turned their weapons on each other to try to seize resources such as gold and the gum arabic, which is bought by international companies, including Coca Cola.  The UN said there were similar clashes in the area last week, Reuters news agency reports.  "An estimated 6,500 people fled Katila and sought refuge in Tulus [in South Darfur]," it quotes the UN statement as saying.  Around 300,000 people have been displaced since the start of this year across Darfur.  More than 500 were killed in clashes between two tribes fighting for control of a gold mine in North Darfur in January and February.  Events in Darfur are difficult to verify because Sudan restricts travel by journalists, aid workers and diplomats. - BBC.

Senegal Looking More Vulnerable To Extremism, Instability.

Dakar, Senegal.  Photo: UN-HABITAT

As violence rages in northern Nigeria, and international peacekeepers gear up to keep the peace in northern Mali, fears abound that Islamist movements will spread across borders, stoking instability elsewhere in the region, including Senegal which is not immune to the spread of extremist rhetoric, argues a just-published report by the Institute of Security Studies (ISS).  Four Islamic brotherhoods dominate religious and political life in Senegal: the Qadiri, the Tijani, the Mouride, and the Layenne, each of them made up of leaders (or shaykhs) and followers (murids).  In general, they are perceived as providing a barrier against the spread of fundamentalist dogma in the country, but the report says growing radical rhetoric is creeping in.  In the past, fundamentalists seeking to wield power in Senegal's mosques pitted themselves against the brotherhoods, saying they needed to reform their form of Islam, said report author Bakary Sambe of the Centre of Religious Studies at the Université Gaston Berger de Saint Louis. 

But they soon realized this strategy would not work, and instead went for a strategic truce, he said, focusing on common causes such as a call to stamp out what they call "bad values" such as homosexulaity and the secular state.  Brotherhood imams are increasingly asserting how "clean" and pure the form of Islam that they preach is, and thus they have taken on this reformist discourse, said Sambe.  According to the report/study, which involved researchers interviewing 400 Senegalese in the capital Dakar, its suburbs, and the towns and surrounding areas of Thiès, Mbour and Saint Louis, some 30 percent of interviewees said they had encountered the argument that they were not practising a true form of Islam.  Wahhabists (a conservative form of Sunni Islam) have allegedly criticized the brotherhoods for promoting the worship of individual imams - known in Senegal as marabouts - over worship of the Prophet Mohammed, said Sambe.  In Thiès, for instance, many interviewees spoke of a mosque that did not support the right kind of Islam, and that worshipped men, over the faith.  "More and more, fundamentalist groups, such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM], are tapping into national causes and giving them a religious spin, to create national ideologies - that is part of their new strategy," said an imam in the Dakar neighbourhood of SICAP Baobab, who preferred anonymity.  While the majority of mosques shy away from fundamentalist preaching, the rhetoric has become more extreme in a significant minority, he said. - All Africa.

Malians In Gao Protest Against French "Bias".

Thousands of people in Mali's northern city of Gao have staged a protest, accusing France of favouring their rivals from the ethnic Tuareg group.  The protesters said Paris was colluding in the continuing occupation by the Tuareg of the regional capital Kidal.  The separatist rebels say they will not allow the Malian authorities into Kidal ahead of elections planned for July.  France led a military operation that ousted Islamist insurgents from northern Mali earlier this year.  Paris began withdrawing some of its 4,000 troops from the country in April and plans to gradually hand over to the Malian army and a UN peacekeeping force before the elections. Organisers of Thursday's protest said that up to 3,000 took part in the rally - although officials said the number was significantly less.  The protest was staged by a coalition of the region's powerful civilian militia groups, who voiced their anger of being excluded from talks to bring peace to the north.  The coalition pointed out that the Tuareg, on the other hand, had been invited to the talks in Burkina Faso.  "We want France to tell us what they are up to," protester Moussa Boureima Yoro was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.  "We are confused when they say, on the one hand that Kidal is part of Mali, and - at the same time - they act as if it doesn't belong to Mali," he added.  Hamil Toure, one of the demonstrators, told the BBC that the local militias remained armed and would block the elections if their demands were not met.  Many Gao residents - alongside with most southern Malians - accuse the Tuareg, including the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (MNLA), of being responsible for the war in Mali.  Last year, the MNLA swept across the north, seizing town and proclaiming the birth of a new Tuareg nation.  But they were soon pushed out by their former Islamist militant allies before France intervened.  The MNLA later supported France in its offensive against the Islamists. - BBC.

Ten Found Dead After Boat Sinks At Chevron Nigeria Facility.

Ten bodies have been found during a rescue operation off the coast of Nigeria after a tugboat contracted by Chevron sank on Sunday in rough seas, the vessel's owner said on Friday.  The Jascon-4 capsized early on Sunday at a mooring point around 30 km (20 miles) off oil-producing Delta state. Of 12 people who had been on board, one was rescued alive and another is still missing.  "The search and rescue operation that has been under way since 26 May has had to be stopped for safety reasons," the ship's owner West African Ventures said in a statement.  "The vessel, which is located some 30 metres under water in an upside-down position, has become so unstable that the risk of injury to our rescue divers has become unacceptably high," said West African Ventures, which is owned by Sea Trucks Group.    Chevron operates offshore and onshore joint ventures with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp and says it spends around $3 billion a year on its Nigerian operations.  The U.S. energy firm's 2012 net daily production from Nigeria was 238,000 barrels of crude oil, 165 million cubic feet of natural gas and 4,000 barrels of liquefied petroleum gas. - Reuters.

Angolan Independents Make One Million.

Angola's private indigenous companies (homegrown independents) produced slightly over a million barrels of oil from mainly shallow water fields, in the first quarter of 2013. The companies hold equity in 13 acreages in Angola, of which six are producing, even though marginal. These six tracts produced a total of 5,861,516 Barrels of Oil in the first three months of 2013. The equity percentages of the Angolan companies in the producing blocks range from 9% to 30%. The companies netted equity production of 1,024,464 Barrels of oil (1.024MMBO), or 17.4% of the total production of these blocks, during the quarter. That figure comes to 0.065% of Angola’s overall production of 155, 889, 347Barrels for the period. Angola’s daily production itself was 1.732Million Barrels Of Oil Per Day (1.732MMBOPD). Sociedade Petrolífera Angolana (Somoil) is the most proficient of Angola’s independents. It’s the only one which operates a block. It is also the only private Angolan oil company with an acreage abroad. It is currently acquiring 3D seismic data on Blocks FS and FST, which it operates. Duncan Clarke’s Book, Crude Continent: : The Struggle for Africa’s Oil Prize, reports that Falcon Oil(owned by the Volkswagen dealer, Antonio Moquito Mbakassi), won 10% of Block 6 and 5% of Block 15, for which it paid large signature bonus as were levied. Banco Africano de investmentos lent Falcon Oil funds to meet the costs, using the blocks as collaterals. What’s misleading is not the source of funds, but the subject acreages. The book confuses Block 6 for Block 6/06 and Block 15 for Block 15/06. The company doesn’t have equity in either of Blocks 15 and 17, which are Angola’s largest producers. Instead, Falcon Oil has 5% equity each in Blocks 15/06, operated by ENI Block 17/06, which is operated by TOTAL and Block 18/06, operated by Petrobras. ENI, TOTAL and Petrobras have made quite a few significant discoveries in Blocks 15/6, 17/06 and 18/06, which will eventually translate to equity production for Falcon, but for now Falcon has no production. Seen from the potentials of these exploratory blocks, which were excised from the producing Blocks 15, 17 and 18 respectively, Falcon is looking to become a sizeable net equity holder of crude. The much vilified Nazaki Oil, reportedly owned by ranking principals of the Angolan government, holds equity in two deepwater blocks, which are still very much in the exploratory stages. Nazaki holds 30% each in Cobalt operated shallow water block 9/09 and Cobalt operated deepwater block 21/09. Cobalt is an American independent. ACREP has 20% in 17% in Cabinda North Block, in the onshore Cabinda enclave, in the north of the country. Force Petroleum holds 20% equity in Cabinda South Block in the same area. Neither of these blocks, operated by Sonangol P&P and Pluspetrol respectively, is a producer. But ACREP also has 15% in Block 4/05, which is a marginal producer. Block 4/05 produced 935,875Barrels of oil in the first quarter of 2013. Somoil is 15% operator of FS and FST, two small producing blocks located onshore Soyo, with partners including Sonangol EP (80%) and Sonangol P&P(5%) in FS and partners Sonangol EP(63.67%), Chevron(16.33%) and Sonangol P&P(5%) in FST. Both FS and FST delivered 172,801 Barrels throughout the first three months of 2013, according to Angola’s Ministry of Finance. Poliedro and Kotoil each holds 9.1% in producing Block 2/85, with Somoil holding 9.3% on the same lease. The entire production for this block in the first quarter of the year was 366,162 Barrels. - Africa News.

Rebel Amnesty Reinstated In Uganda.

Civil society in northern Uganda has welcomed the reinstatement of legislation granting blanket amnesty to members of armed groups who surrender.  Key sections of Uganda's Amnesty Act were allowed to lapse in May 2012, meaning that members of armed groups, notably the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), no longer automatically escaped prosecution if they willingly abandoned their armed struggle.  Earlier this month, these sections of the act were reinstated and will remain in force for two years. Only top LRA commanders are ineligible for amnesty.  "We will endeavour to make known widely the decision of the government to restore the amnesty and will play our part to encourage any person still involved in armed rebellion to take advantage of the amnesty, which is a gesture of reconciliation and goodwill on the part of the people of Uganda," said of a press statement by a coalition of civil society organizations in northern Uganda.  The region has yet to recover from decades of conflict.  "Restoring the amnesty law in its totality is a big opportunity for the country to answer prayers for people, particularly in northern Uganda, crying for their person still held in captivity by the Lord's Resistance [Army] rebels," noted Stephen Oola, a transitional justice and governance advocate with Makerere University's Refugee Law Project.  "We hope that it [the amnesty law] will stay to achieve its main objectives of facilitating a peaceful end of conflict and reintegration of rebels back to their communities. This therefore demands for all actors to engage in credible solutions to peacefully end the LRA conflict," he said.  Janet Awor, who abandoned the LRA in 2012 and returned to her village of Awor, in northern Uganda, said: "I have been living in fear knowing that somebody from this village would take me to court because you know when you are in the LRA doing bad things is hard to avoid."  She continued, "Now I need to go and check if my certificate is ready at the amnesty office in Gulu, because I had applied for it at the office of the Amnesty Commission upon my arrival in Kampala." - All Africa.

President Jacob Zuma Takes A Drubbing For Run On South African Rand.

The next time South African President Jacob Zuma wants to talk up the economy, he might do better to hold his tongue.  On Friday, a day after convening a "special" news conference to try to stem this month's dramatic slide in the rand and in investor confidence in Africa's biggest economy, Zuma found himself being pilloried for doing the exact opposite.  Within minutes of him concluding his speech with a folksy exhortation to reporters to "just report nicely about South Africa", the rand fell 1.5 percent against the dollar.  The reason most cited by traders was the absence of any sort of coherent proposal to lift flagging growth or tackle the unrest in the mines that has been raging since last August when police shot dead 34 strikers at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine.  Two hours after Zuma's speech, South Africa's currency extended its earlier losses to nearly 3 percent when another mine reported a wildcat strike, compounding fears of a resurgence of labour militancy in a sector that accounts for half of the country's foreign exchange earnings.  "Zuma Sinks Rand", Johannesburg's Star newspaper screamed in a front page headline on Friday, while the Business Day broadsheet ran a cartoon of Zuma sprawled headlong as he grasps at the tail of a 'rand' springbok disappearing over a cliff.  The currency has lost 13 percent of its value against the dollar this month, and more than 20 percent this year. Of all the world's currencies, only Venezuela's Bolivar and Syria's pound are in worse shape.  The rand was volatile on Friday, with wider-than-expected trade deficit for April spurring some knee-jerk selling.  Editorials on Friday were no less scathing in their criticism of a president whose shaky grasp of economics - his formal schooling ended at primary level - has long been seen as inadequate for the leader of a sophisticated emerging market.  "What became apparent is that, at best, the president seemed rather uncomfortable. At worst, he seemed like he just wanted to get the briefing over and done with," the Business Report said in a front page editorial.  Zuma was on an official visit to Japan on Friday, leaving Gwede Mantashe, Secretary General of the ruling African National Congress, to leap to his defence by blaming a "sulking" private sector for not doing enough to boost growth and create jobs.  "The private sector is sulking. If the private sector is sulking, what can you do?" he told Talk Radio 702. - Reuters.

Malawi Defends South Korea Labour Deal.

Job opportunities are few and far between in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi.

The government of Malawi has defended a controversial deal it struck with South Korea to export up to 100,000 of its young people as migrant workers.  Opposition MPs in Malawi have called the deal "slave labour".  But the labour minister, struggling to create new job employment opportunities in her own country, has denied that.  Eunice Makangala told the BBC she "just" wanted "to help the young people in Malawi" who are due to leave for Seoul to work. The BBC's Raphael Tenthani in Blantyre says Malawian President Joyce Banda made an agreement with the government of South Korea on a visit there in February this year.  It involves sending young Malawian men and women aged between 18 and 25 to jobs in factories and on farms on the Korean peninsula, he says.  Accurate unemployment figures in Malawi are hard to compute because of the lack of a national identification system to track those out of a job.  But recent research suggests that 80% of secondary school graduates in Malawi return to their villages every year because they can neither find jobs nor employ themselves.  Nevertheless, opposition MPs in the capital, Lilongwe, are furious about the plan to export labour.  "We always cry about brain-drain and encourage Malawians in the diaspora to come back home and yet here we are exporting the cream of our labour force abroad. It doesn't make sense at all," Stevyn Kamwendo, for the DPP, told parliament on Tuesday.  Ms Makangala told the BBC she and her government were acting "in good faith".  "It is not modern-day slavery", she said.  "There are people who are working here who are from Egypt, from Nigeria, India and England.  "Do you want to tell me that those people are slaves? And the unemployment rate for the youth here is very high."  But Henry Kachaje, who is an entrepreneurial consultant in Malawi, said the labour export deal could have been better negotiated.  "It would have been more attractive", he said.  "If the government had actually attracted more foreign direct investors here... so that the young people were able to contribute to the social development of this country".  - BBC.

Uganda's Daily Monitor Reopens After Police Closure.

Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper has reopened after being shut down by the authorities for more than a week. The privately owned paper was closed after publishing a letter alleging that President Yoweri Museveni was grooming his son to succeed him.  The letter, purporting to be from an army general, said those who opposed this risked assassination.  A government statement said the newspaper's owners "highly regretted the story".  Two radio stations linked to the Daily Monitor, KFM and Dembe Radio were also taken off air.  Staff at the newspaper have said the police, who had been occupying the premises in the capital, Kampala, for the last 11 days, have begun to open up the offices.  "Latest information indicates that some Monitor staff members have accessed the reception of the premises as police prepare to open other sections of the building," the newspaper published on its website.  The BBC's Ignatius Bahizi in Kampala says The Red Pepper newspaper, which was also shut down for reporting the allegations, remains closed.  Mr Museveni has been in power since 1986, and elections are due in 2016.  There has been long-standing speculation that his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, a brigadier in the army, is being groomed as his successor. The government has denied having any such plans. Search to continue  Earlier this week, police tear-gassed and beat journalists with batons as they protested outside the offices of the Daily Monitor.  The authorities said they wanted evidence of how the Daily Monitor got hold of the confidential letter, purportedly written by Gen David Sejusa, who is out of the country.  In the government statement, it said the raid on 20 May 2013 was ordered because "it was established that the director general, Internal Security Organisation, to whom the letter was addressed, as well as the officers to whom the letter was copied never received it. Evidently, it was only the Daily Monitor in possession of the letter."  President Museveni and the management of Nation Media Group, which owns the Monitor, met on Sunday 26 May, it said.  They had agreed to "only publish or air stories which are properly sourced, verified and factual", amongst other undertakings, the statement from the Minister of Internal Affairs, Hilary Onek, said.  They also "undertook to be sensitive to and not publish or air stories that can generate tensions, ethnic hatred, cause insecurity or disturb law and order", it said.  Thanks to these agreements, the minister had ordered that the police remove the cordon at the Daily Monitor's office to allow "normal business as police continue with the search". - Africa News.

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