African countries adopted Wednesday a united front on climate change, as efforts get underway to negotiate a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, an Algerian official said.

A would-be immigrant died Wednesday after reaching Spain`s Canary Islands in a wooden fishing boat from Africa with 135 others, hospital sources said.

The man had been taken to hospital after suffering a heart attack after arriving on the island of Tenerife late on Tuesday.

African nations met in Algiers Wednesday to agree a common position on climate change ahead of the next major international conference on the subject set to take place in December 2009.

Environment ministers from some 40 countries participated in the `African Conference on Climate after 2012,` when the Kyoto environment treaty expires.

Rwanda is one of the sub-Saharan African nations most affected by the dreaded HIV/AIDS epidemic that is killing millions of African citizens. Of the eight million people in Rwanda, approximately 400,000 are affected with the virus. President Paul Kagame has made strides since his election in 2000 to helping those within his nation who have AIDS as well as working to prevent HIV infections. Kagame has been lauded by many in the international community for the strides he is taking in trying to combat this world-wide epidemic.

The Southern African nation of Botswana has the fastest growing economy in the world for more than 30 years. After attaining independence in 1966, the country went from being one of the poorest countries in the world to an upper income country. During the period from 1966 to 1999, the economic growth was about nine percent per year. Through the years, the government of Botswana has good financial policies and incurred low foreign debt. Most of the revenue in Botswana is derived from the diamond mines.

Africa can help Africa more than all of the other nations and organizations in the world. Although many international organizations have stepped in to assist the continent in recent years and have put in effort in trying to reduce poverty, funding school systems, instituting vaccination programs to combat various illnesses and providing food and clean water to those in blighted areas, Africa can help Africa simply by banding together as one nation to conquer all of the problems facing the continent today.

LONDON, Oct 22, 2007 (AFP) - Former Mozambique president Joachim Chissano was awarded a new 5.0-million-dollar (3.5-million-euro) prize for good governance in Africa on Monday, hailed as 'a powerful voice for Africa on the international stage.'

The inaugural award by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation was announced by former UN chief Kofi Annan, who trumpeted Chissano's role in bringing reconciliation to his homeland.

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - China's push into Africa is prompting growing interest over Beijing's motives in the world's poorest continent with opinion divided over who stands to benefit most.

Speaking at the launch this week of a new China research programme run by the Johannesburg-based South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), its chief academic said China had 'changed the game of development' after years of domination by Western governments and donors.

GRAYAN-ET-L'HOPITAL, France, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - France's best-known mercenary Bob Denard, who died last week aged 78, was laid to rest on Saturday in the village of his birth in southwestern France.

Around 200 people including his older sister who still lives in the small village of Grayan-et-L'Hopital, friends, neighbours and old 'work colleagues' in dark glasses with short hair attended as Denard was buried in the same graveyard as his father.

His coffin was draped with the French flag.

NEW YORK, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - A US Nobel Prize-winning scientist who triggered a storm with reportedly racist comments canceled his British book tour Friday to return home, where his lab has suspended him from duty.

'The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Board of Trustees decided to suspend the administrative responsibilities of Chancellor James D. Watson, PhD, pending further deliberation by the board,' the lab said in a statement.

NEW YORK, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - A US Nobel Prize winning scientist has been suspended from his administratives duties as chancellor of a New York lab after reportedly saying black people were less intelligent than whites.

'The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Board of Trustees decided to suspend the administrative responsibilities of Chancellor James D. Watson, PhD, pending further deliberation by the board,' the lab said in a statement.

LONDON, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - A Nobel Prize-winning scientist who reportedly claimed black people are less intelligent than whites, has pulled out of a British book tour and gone home, his publicist said Friday.

James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962 for his part in discovering the structure of DNA, told the Sunday Times newspaper that he was 'inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa' because 'all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really.'

LONDON, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - A Nobel Prize-winning scientist from the United States who reportedly claimed black people are less intelligent than whites said Friday he was 'mortified' at the comments, and suggested he was misquoted.

WASHINGTON, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - A leading scientific organization Thursday condemned as 'racist' and 'vicious' remarks by a Nobel Prize-winning US scientist who reportedly said black people are less intelligent than whites.

The Washington-based Federation of American Scientists (FAS) said it was 'outraged' by the remarks attributed to James Watson that appeared in Britain's Sunday Times Magazine at the weekend.

'It is tragic that one of the icons of modern science has cast such dishonor on the profession,' said FAS president Henry Kelly.

LISBON, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown renewed Thursday a warning that Britain will boycott a summit of European and African leaders if Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe attends.

Speaking shortly before the start of a European Union summit in Lisbon, he said Mugabe had overseen a 'tragedy' in the African country, a former British colony.

'We will not participate in a conference that President Mugabe is at. We cannot sit down at the same table as President Mugabe,' he said, referring to the planned December summit between EU and African leaders.

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed three new special representatives to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia and Ivory Coast respectively, the world body announced Thursday.

Alan Doss of Britain, currently the UN special representative to Liberia, is to take up the same post in DRC, succeeding William Swing of the United States, UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said in a statement.

LONDON, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - A leading British museum has cancelled a talk by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist from the United States who reportedly claimed that black people are less intelligent than whites, it said Thursday.

The Science Museum in London had been due to host a lecture on Friday by Doctor James Watson, who won the Nobel prize for medicine in 1962 for his part in discovering the structure of DNA.

OUAGADOUGOU, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - Brazil and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) have agreed to push for the development and use of biofuels, the regional bloc said on Wednesday after a visit to Burkina Faso Faso by President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva.

Brazil, the world's leading ethanol supplier and the eight-nation bloc agreed to work towards the generation of biofuels in the region, said a statement from UEMOA.

DAKAR, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - The worst flooding in 30 years that battered west Africa from July hyas caused more than 210 deaths and affected more than 785,000 people, a UN humanitarian regional coordinator in Dakar said Wednesday.

'We are now in the after-crisis, with the end of the rains,' UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) official Herve Ludovic de Lys said during a press conference.

WASHINGTON, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - Sub-Saharan Africa is enjoying its strongest economic momentum in more than four decades, with some countries at last recording 'substantial progress' in reducing poverty, the IMF said Wednesday.

The International Monetary Fund, in its biannual survey of the world economy, found that while African oil exporters are growing the fastest, 'most other countries are also growing strongly and outperforming historic trends.'

LAGOS, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left Nigeria Tuesday at the end of a three-day visit, the first by an Indian premier to the oil-rich west African country in 45 years, state media reported.

HARARE, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Zimbabwe's main opposition on Tuesday warned that talks with the ruling ZANU-PF party were under threat because of attacks on its followers.

"We have witnessed an increase in cases of violence and intimidations particularly in rural areas and also in urban areas," Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesman Nelson Chamisa told a news conference in Harare.

"This is worrisome especially in light of the on-going dialogue initiated by the Southern African Development Community," he said.

BRAZZAVILLE, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Congo and Brazil signed health and agricultural agreements Tuesday, during a one-day visit by Brazil's President Luiz Ignacio Lula Da Silva who is on a landmark Africa tour.

Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso said he would embrace Lula's call for a "biofuels revolution" in Africa, launched Monday in Burkina Faso.

Nguesso called the biofuels advance "a development opportunity" for Africa with its vast resources.

KINSHASA, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - At least 150 children, some as young as eight, escaped being forced into rebel general Laurent Nkunda's militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo, locals said Tuesday, amid a tense stand-off between rebels and the government army.

The incident happened in Jomba, a town in the eastern province of Nord-Kivu -- which has been the focus of new clashes between Nkunda's men and the army of President Joseph Kabila.

PARIS, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Eritrea has taken over from North Korea as the country in the world where press rights are least respected, the Paris-based campaigning group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Tuesday.

North Korea and Turkmenistan are runners-up in RSF's annual poll of shame of 169 countries.

"Eritrea deserves to be at the bottom. The privately-owned press has been banished by the authoritarian President Issaias Afeworki and the few journalists who dare to criticise the regime are thrown in prison," RSF said.

KHARTOUM, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Former southern Sudanese rebels met with President Omar al-Beshir on Tuesday for the first time since recalling their ministers from government over Khartoum's failure to implement a north-south peace deal.

At the same time, three rebel groups from Darfur have formed a bloc to pursue a common strategy on talks with Beshir and with other rebels over ending the deadly conflict in that western region.

LUBUMBASHI, DR Congo, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Three law enforcement agents and a prisoner were killed during a botched jailbreak from a high-security prison in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a police officer said Tuesday.

"These people were killed during gunfire exchanged between the prisoners ... and soldiers dispatched to restore order" at a prison in the Congolese province of Katanga, said the officer, speaking on background.

MOGADISHU, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - A civilian was killed in heavy fighting that rocked the Somali capital on Tuesday, shattering a week-long lull in clashes between Ethiopia-backed government forces and Islamist-led insurgents.

Rival sides pounded each other with heavy artillery, mainly in southern Mogadishu, an AFP correspondent reported.

"A mortar landed in a house where it killed a civilian and wounded four others," said Ahmed Abdullahi, a resident of northern Sanaa neighbourhood.

DAKAR, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - A Senegalese journalist jailed for insulting the head of state is a "personal prisoner" of the president, the Reporters Without Frontiers (RSF) lobby group said Tuesday.

Moussa Gueye was detained Monday pending a trial for "publishing false information" in his newspaper L'Exclusif about President Abdoulaye Wade by printing details of his "nocturnal escapades."

In a statement the French-based RSF said it was "stunned" to hear of the imprisonment. "Senegal's president now has a personal prisoner accused of attacking his apparenty sacred status.

NAIROBI, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission on Tuesday cleared the country's human rights commission that was being investigated for alleged misuse state funds and graft, a report said.

The KACC had launched investigation into the state-funded Kenya National Commission for Human Rights (KNCHR) for allegedly misappropriating 33.7 million shillings (505,000 dollars).

RABAT, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Morocco's technocrat-heavy government, formed this week, will pursue a reform programme launched under King Mohammed VI, and sidelines Islamists who did well in elections to the main parliamentary opposition.

Prime Minister Abbas El Fassi, who presented his government on Monday, had already received marching orders several days earlier when the 44-year-old monarch sketched general guidelines on such policy areas as administration, education and justice.

ABUJA, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - An American woman charged with espionage in Nigeria claimed she was a victim of a plot by government officials after a court hearing Tuesday.

Judith Asuni, 60, appeared before the Nigerian High Federal Court requesting to be freed on bail.

She told AFP: "It's obvious I've stepped on someone's toes, someone important.

"I have information about government officials siphoning off oil pipelines and now they feel threatened and this is why there is this ridiculous case against me."

GENEVA, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - More than 400 people are dead or missing since September after trying to make the perilous journey across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia to Yemen, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.

"The rate of smuggling boats reaching the shores of Yemen after crossing the Gulf of Aden appears to have increased during the first half of October along with the appalling death toll," UN High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told journalists.

LAGOS, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Gunmen have abducted the five-year-old son of a Nigerian employee of Anglo-Dutch energy group Shell in the oil city of Port Harcourt, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

"The boy was kidnapped yesterday. The matter has been reported to the police," spokesman Precious Okolobo told AFP.

He said Divine Ifeanyi Emeruma was seized from his father's residence in Port Harcourt early Monday. No group has claimed responsibility.

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Business leaders from Brazil, India and South Africa on Tuesday urged the governments of the emerging economic powerhouses to help accelerate already burgeoning levels of bilateral trade.

Speaking at a seminar on the eve of a joint summit hosted by South Africa, captains of industry who are accompanying their heads of state said business had boomed in recent years but there was potential for more.

NAIROBI, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Struggling African airlines should cooperate to survive against fierce competition from international carriers, notably from Asia and the Middle East, the industry warned Tuesday.

African Airline Service chief Nick Fadugba said the airlines must explore mergers, acquisitions and takeovers to strengthen their standing in the market.

BANJUL, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - At least three Senegalese died and 25 are missing after their boat capsized late last week off Gambia's shores, fishermen and Gambian rescue officials said Tuesday.

"Fifteen people were saved by fishermen and coast guards and three bodies have been fished out by firemen," a firefighter in Bacau, outside Banjul, told AFP.

The victims were all Senegalese, most of them fishermen accompanied by their wives and children, the firemen said.

Their boat sank overnight Thursday due to bad weather conditions, they said.

PARIS, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - African countries are making vital headway in preventing child malaria, thanks to wider distribution of insecticide-treated bednets and procurement of new drugs, a UN-backed report on Wednesday said.

The toll from malaria remains unchanged, with around 800,000 deaths occurring among African children aged under five each year, but these efforts are a springboard for forcing the disease into retreat, it said.

Today, the African Finance Corporation (AFC) is no longer an idea, but has become a concrete reality, having received endorsements from major stakeholders and development partners. Professor Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank who conceived the idea two years ago and has been its chief motivator, gives a progress report. Excerpts:

What is the vision behind the African Finance Corporation (AFC)?