Reuters Africa Highlights / [Dec 9]

[Reuters]

BENI, Zaire - Rebel fighters, many of them child warriors,
were reported to have cut off the eastern Zairean town of Bunia
defended by up to 5,000 Zairean troops.
KASINDI, Zaire - Zaireans rebels have taken control of the
border town of Kasindi following the withdrawal of Ugandan
troops, officials said. Ugandan officers at Bwera, across the
border, said they had seized the town two weeks ago following
sniping and shelling from Ugandan rebels based there.
BENACO CAMP, Tanzania - About 15,000 Rwandan refugees have
abandoned two camps in northwestern Tanzania, possibly to avoid
being repatriated under a Tanzanian government campaign, a U.N.
official said.
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ACCRA - Ghana's populist president Jerry Rawlings, who twice
seized power in the West African nation, was on course to become
the first leader in its history to win re-election, partial
results suggested.
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BANGUI - The capital of the Central African Republic
remained divided by roadblocks into rival ethnic zones despite a
regionally brokered truce between army mutineers and loyalist
forces, residents said.
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GENEVA - The U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights said just
four Hutu refugees among 550,000 who returned to Rwanda from
eastern Zaire last month were killed since they got back and
another 162 had been arrested.
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NAIROBI - Mary Leakey, world famous fossil hunter who in
1978 discovered footprints that are the oldest evidence of
origins of man, died in Kenya's capital aged 83. Mary and her
husband anthropologist Louis Leakey, who died in 1972,
discovered the 1.75 million -year-old fossils at Tanzania's
Olduvai Gorge in 1964.
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LUSAKA - Germany has given Zambia $21 million but cut
intended aid by more than half because of the ``political
situation'' under President Frederick Chiluba, embassy officials
said.
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FREETOWN - Unknown gunmen killed about 150 people in attacks
on two communes in northern Sierra Leone less than a week after
the government and rebels signed a civil war accord, witnesses
said.
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LONDON - Media group Pearson, publisher of Britain's
Financial Times newspaper, said it had bought a stake in two
South African business publications. Pearson agreed to buy a 50
percent holding in Business Day and Financial Mail for $18.8
million.
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