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Yesterday around 594.000 registered voters were asked for their choice of president for the second time. The ballot boxes where open from 7 am to 5pm local time, and around 100 international observers, drawn from the European Union, the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union where invited to check, whether the process was handled appropriately.

The second voting, originally planned for August 2 had been brought forward to avoid it coinciding with the harvest season, since the majority of the population earn a living in farming. The second poll became necessary, because the first round failed to produce a clear winner among the two main competitors Malam Bacai Sanha of the ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIG), and Kumba Yala of the New Socialist Party.

The previous President João Bernardo Vieira was assassinated with his military chief of staff, General Tagme Na Waie, in March this year.

The Kenyan government will this year spend 33.4 Mill KSh (roughly 320.000 Euro/440.000 USD/270.000 GBP) for renovating the private residence of Kenya Prime Minister Raila Odinga. According to the further plans, the allocation of money for Odingas private residence is going to rise in 2010 to 55 Mill KSh (roughly 520.000 Euro/730.000 USD/450.000 GBP) and to 77 Mill. KSh (roughly 730.000 Euro/1.020.000 USD/630.000 GBP) in 2011. By the end of the current term of Parliament, 192.8 Mill. KSh  (roughly 1,84 Mill. Euro/2,56 Mill. USD/1,58 Mill. GBP) will have been spent in the rehabilitation of the PM's  private residence.

According to officials the money will go into staffing the PM's residences to enable him to host State functions and visitors, but does not include the cost for hospitality, for feeding and entertaining the visitors.

One day after the elections in Congo took place, it is expected that President Dennis Sassou Nguesso has made it to another term in office.

Around 13 candidates were competing for the presidency, including President Sassou Nguesso, leader of the Congolese Labour Party (PCT). Hardly any of the opposition candidates had faith in the election processs, since observers from the African Union, the 2007 parliamentary and the 2008 local government elections were riddled with fraud.

This year due to fear of civil unrest, around 17,000 security officers had been deployed to protect polling stations and election rallies as well as the candidates.Reports claim that the country's electoral commission is still as fraudulent as it was before. The African Union had sent about 30 observers, the European Commission has indicated that Congo's election is not a priority.
According to reports, the race has already been won by President Sassou Nguesso, given the huge resources, both human and material, at his disposal, including both state resources and his massive personal wealth.

According to the latest Transparency International Bribery Index Report, Kenya is the most corrupt county in the East African region followed by Uganda, Tanzania was the least corrupt.The Index measures the extent of bribery in the region of East Africa and is based on actual interactions of citizens with public institutions and resultant demand for bribery and payments.The level of corruption stood at 45% in Kenya, 34.6% in Uganda and 17% in Tanzania.

The Police was listed as the most corrupt institution, followed by the judiciary, the defence ministry and the public service. The Uganda Revenue Authority was the only tax authority in the region that appeared among the top five corrupt institutions. Further on the hitlist where the three power utility companies in the region, TENASCO of Tanzania, Kenya Power and Lighting Company and UMEME of Uganda, but also public services have extorted bribes from citizens include water, security, health, licencing, immigration and infrastructure.

New on the list of corrupt institutions in Uganda are The Aids support Organisation (TASO), Mulago Hospital, religious organisations, secondary schools and universities and international organisation.

The UN tribunal in Rwanda has sentenced the former governeur of the capital Kigali to a lifelong prison term. Fife judges found Tharcisse Renzaho guily of genocide and rape. The prosecution had accused Renzaho of playing a major role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when more than 800 000 Tusi and moderate Hutus were killed. Renzaho had been captured in 2002 in DR Congo.

According to a report from the UN, Africa shows the biggest growth bin mobile telecommunication systems. This is shown in the huge amount of transmission masts, where around 100.000 are added every year. But also from the number of mobile subscriptions, reaching 4.1 bn in 2008, up from 1 bn in 2002. In 2000, one out of 50 Africans was owing a cellphone number, today the percentage has reached 28%. This is related also to a huge extend to the bad infrastructure on fixed lines, so that the cellphone is regarded as a flexible alternative. The other reason for the huge growth are additional services like Vodafones money transfer service M-Pesa in Each Africa, that started in 2007, but has reached in Kenya only already 5 Mill. Users.

Since the price for Ivory went up from 15£ to 25£ per kg, more poachers seems to tempted since they would be able to earn 1.500£ for two tusks. Only in Kenya the number of death elephants without tusks has doubled from 2007 to 2008 to almost a 100. The reason is an international agreement to sell of stockpiled, which makes it easier to sell ivory under this agreement using fake labels.

Yesterday 23 million registered voters had been called to the ballot boxes in South Africa for provincial and national elections. Main candidates in the competition where

• the African National Congress ANC with its main candidate Jacob Zuma
• the Democratic Alliance DA with its main candidate Helen Zille
• the Congress of the people (COPE), a splinter group originating from the ANC, with its main candidate Bishop Mvume Dandala
• Inkartha Freedom Party (IFP) with its main candidate Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi

The turnout was enormous, first results of the IEC Independent Electoral Commission estimated that 77% of the registered votes actually participated. First results showed, that the ANC won around 66,5% of the votes, the DA 16%, COPE 8% and IFP around 3%.

This will lead for what many expected, Jacob Zuma is going to be next president of South Africa.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the $213 million pledged to help the emergent Government in Somalia funding its security forces and the peacekeeping forces of the African Union (AU).

Mr. Ban opened the donors' conference in Brussels hosted by the European Union (EU) and under the joint auspices of the UN, the AU, European Union (EU) and the League of Arab States. In January the Security Council had asked the Secretary-General to establish a Trust Fund to support the AU Assistance Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and to assist in the re-establishment, of national security forces.

The conference was attended beside representatives of more than 60 countries by Somalia's president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, along with Javier Solana, EU High Representative; Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States; and Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, UN Special Representative for Somalia.

In Algeria, more than 20 million registered voters had a chance to elect their president. The incumbent, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, ruling since 1999, was standing for a third term in office. His party amended the constitution prior to the election campaign to remove a two-term limit.

He was challenged by:

• Labour Party leader Louisa Hanoune, the only woman in the race
• the nationalist, Moussa Tauti of the Algerian National Front
• the moderate Islamist, Mohammed Said of the Party For Liberty and Justice
• nationalist and second-time contestant Fawzi Rebein of the AHD-54 (who won only 0.63 percent of the vote in 2004)
• Jahid Youmsi of El Islah.

The opposition parties had heavily criticised the inequitable allocation of campaign resources and the ruling party's use of the media, but a call for a boycott launched by El Islah leader Youmsi had been ignored.

There were a total of 47,150 polling stations, of which 46,577 were in fixed locations, 330 are in diplomatic missions outside the country, the others were mobile stations in rural areas to spare voters the trouble of commuting to towns.

The election was monitored by 200 international observers, including 85 from the Arab League and 100 from the African Union. Nearly 1,000 journalists, both local and international, had been accredited to cover the event.

Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni told the international media, according to the official results President Bouteflika won 90.24% of the votes in the election.Around 74% of the reistered voters participated in the presidential poll.

Louisa Hanoune of the Trotskyist Workers' Party won 4.22% of the votes, Moussa Touati of the Algerian National Front came third with 2.31%.