The Yemenia Airbus A310 crash in the Indian Ocean near the Comoros follows an overhaul inspection of safety procedures, which took place at Yemenia Airline.

The inspection was carried out in a bid to avoid being blacklisted by the European Union.

According to Air Transport Intelligence the airline has been scrutinised in the past many times before, after concerns emerged two years ago during ramp inspections of its aircraft in Germany, France and Italy.

The last reported incident of Yemenia took place in August 2001 at Asmara Airport in Eritrea.

It is said that a Boeing 727 of Yemenia airline approached Asmara Airport during favourable weather conditions shortly after it encountered some rainfall.

The wet asphalt of the runway caused the airplane breaks to malfunction during touchdown causing the aircraft to overrun the runway, which made the aircraft slid 200 meters before coming to a rest.

The aircraft was damaged beyond repair, the main landing gear is said to have failed after colliding with a large block of concrete. The 107 passengers and 4 crew on board of the Boeing 727 have escaped the crash with minor injuries.

Meanwhile, the Yemeni authorities have identified the nationalities of 93 passengers who were onboard the jetliner, which crashed in the Indian Ocean early on Tuesday.

It is said that 26 of the identified bodies were Comorian, 54 French, a Palestinian, and a Canadian as well as a crew of 11 including six Yemenis, two Moroccans, an Indonesian, Ethiopian and a Filipino.

A Yemeni committee led by Minister of Transport has been set up to probe the crash, initially blamed on bad weather.

Rescuer teams, including foreign ships and planes, are searching for any survivors.

Preliminary information revealed that an oil spot was seen 16-17 nautical miles off the port of Moroni in the Islands of Comoros.

The plane was carrying 153 passengers including three infants and a crew of 11.

The Plane took off from the Sana’a International Airport at 9:45 pm local time and contact with it was lost at 1:51 am, Moroni local time. As search for any survivors from the Yemenia Airplane, IY 626 flight, continues, one survivor has been found so far.

African Journal correspondent, Linda Muriuki, is reporting on the economy of Eritrea. She is talking about the geological resources of Eritrea and the role they could play in developing Eritrea’s economy.

Further, she is mentioning that analysts are predicting a mining boom in the country.

The video shows that this view is shared by Eritrean authorities, who want to develop the sector in a sustainable manner.

The government wants to prevent the so called “Resources Curse”, which is a terminology for incidents where minerals and oil have fueled violence and corruption in Africa.

The report is also highlighting that many of the Eritrean Diaspora are avoiding Eritrea, because of reports about human right abuses within the country. Nevertheless, the Diaspora is supporting Eritrea in monetary terms and is contributing to rebuild the infrastructure.

Mrs Muriuki makes the remark, “Although Eritrea has not always let in the outside world, it is now starting to open up “.

A comment, which gives hope that things are moving into the right direction in Eritrea. The first step towards opening up Eritrea to the outside world can be seen in the coming Free Trade Zone, which is going to abolish many trade barriers as an incentive for foreign companies.

Eritrea is hoping to become a strong economy in the region and for future generations this might change the perception of Eritrea in the world. Watch the Video by Reuters (“Eritrea Opens Up”).

The BBC reports that news of pop star Michael Jackson’s death has been greeted with a mixture of disbelief and sadness across Africa.

In Nigeria, a presenter on Radio Continental broke down live on air and could not continue her programme.

A woman in Ghana burst into tears in the capital, Accra, when told by a BBC reporter about the musician’s death.

In 1999, he was presented with a lifetime achievement award by South African icon Nelson Mandela at the Kora All Africa Music Awards.

Michael Jackson first visited the continent at the age of 14 as the lead singer of the Jackson Five.

Emerging from the plane in Senegal, he responded to a welcome of drummers and dancers by screaming: ”This is where I come from.”

‘Spectacular disappointment’

He returned for an African tour 19 years later, when the king of pop was crowned chief of several African villages.

But the trip quickly turned into a public relations nightmare amid allegations that police had beaten the crowds who went to see him and complaints in the local media that the pop star had been seen holding his nose, as if to keep out a bad smell.

Ghanaian journalist Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, who says she was a huge Jackson Five fan as a girl, covered the visit.

She said he spent most of his time locked away in his plush hotel or hidden in his limousine when out.

When his car window wound down for a brief minute for him to greet fans, she asked him about his trip to Africa, and he replied limply: “Beautiful, I love it.”

It was “a spectacular disappointment in many ways”, Ms Quist-Arcton told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

But the crowds who lined Abidjan’s streets during his visit were testament to his huge popularity across the continent where fans have been expressing their shock at his death.

The BBC’s Tom Oladipo in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos said the Radio Continental presenter broke down sobbing live on air after hearing the news and her co-presenter had to take over.

One of Michael Jackson’s brothers, Marlon, is planning to develop a controversial luxury resort, a mixture of a slave history theme park and a museum dedicated to the Jackson Five in Nigeria.

He also had passionate fans in Ghana.

“It’s not true, no it’s not true,” a woman in Accra wailed as her companion accused our correspondent of lying about the news of Jackson’s death.

“He’s a legend, he’s not supposed to die,” a woman in the Kenyan capital told the BBC.

But others expressed concern about his obsession with his appearance.

“He was not proud to a black American, he wasn’t, he wanted very much to be white,” a man in Nairobi said.

The BBC’s Jonah Fisher in Johannesburg says Michael Jackson’s most tangible contribution to Africa came at the peak of his career in the mid-1980s, when he co-wrote the charity song We are the World with Lionel Ritchie.

Sung by a group of leading artists, the single topped charts around the world raising awareness and more than $50m for famine relief in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

Cairo, - The Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit on Thursday met in Cairo with the Eritrean Foreign Minister, Osman Saleh, who is currently on a visit to Egypt.

The Assistant Foreign Minister for African Affairs Mona Omar told reporters in Cairo that the talks were friendly and she explained that it focused mainly on the situation in the Horn of Africa especially the Somali situation.

She added that the situation in Somalia was worrisome to all regional countries, noting that there should be collective efforts to resolve the crisis

(IRIN) - Locust swarms have migrated from northwestern Somalia and spread to seven regions of Ethiopia, but have so far caused minimal damage to crops, an official has said.

“About a dozen swarms have entered the country,” Kassahun Yitaferu, an entomologist at the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said. “These swarms can cover a small plot of 50 hectares to large areas of 26 square kilometers.”

Six regions - Somali, Afar, Harari, Oromia, Amhara, Tigray - and the Dire Dawa administrative council area are affected.

“The swarms are not breeding in Ethiopia,” Kassahun said. Instead, they matured in northern Somaliland before moving into Ethiopia, where they were first reported in the Somali Region, eastern Ethiopia, in April.

Since 10 June, no new swarms have been reported entering Ethiopia, and those in the country have broken up into smaller groups and spread to a number of areas.

“There is no strong locust survey and control operation in Somalia,” Kassahun added. “Those locusts which exist in solitary form in that part of the Horn of Africa breed without restraint when environmental conditions become favorable.”

Abdurahaman Abdullahi, senior research officer at the regional Desert Locust Control Organization for Eastern Africa (DLCO), said lack of systems in northwestern Somalia had allowed the locust infestation to spread undetected.

DLCO dispatches help

DLCO, he said, had dispatched experts and chemicals to the affected areas, together with a cropduster (from Nairobi) on 12 April. Since detecting the swarms in Ethiopia, it had deployed an aircraft in Dire Dawa to spray the affected areas.

“Right now the swarms moving to eastern Ethiopia are fully controlled,” Kassahun said. “But those which escaped into the South Gonder area and a few in the North Shewa area are not yet fully controlled.”

Locusts have three breeding seasons: spring, summer and winter. North Gonder and Western Tigray are areas that receive summer rains from July to September. It is feared that a locust spread in these areas during the summer season, could affect crop production.

“If the locusts breed in the summer, most of the crops, including sesame, will be attacked,” Kassahun said. “We are afraid a few groups may possibly go to summer breeding areas in northwestern Ethiopia, North Gonder and Western Tigray.”

The new U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs said the Obama administration plans to invest substantial amounts of money over the coming years in agricultural development to promote food security in Africa.

Ambassador Johnnnie Carson spoke Monday in Washington to a constituency of Africa advocacy groups.

He outlined what is likely to be the Obama administration’s Africa policies for the next four years.

Carson told the African American Unity Caucus that over the next four years the Obama administration will focus on four key issues as part of its Africa policy.

These, he said, include promoting and strengthening democratic institutions and the rule of law, preventing and resolving conflicts, encouraging sustained growth and working with African countries to address what he called the new and old global challenges.

Ambassador Carson praised Africa for the progress the continent has made over the last 15 years in strengthening democratic institutions. He referenced recent successful elections in Ghana, South Africa and Malawi.

But he said challenges still remain as evident by recent electoral problems in Zimbabwe and Kenya. He said Washington will do all it can to help strengthen democratic institutions.

“We constantly have to encourage those in civil society to be the voice and conscience of their countries, and we have to promote constitutional democratic governments, strong court systems, strong legislatures, regular elections, free media, and religious tolerance,” he said.

Carson praised the African Union for the role it played in resolving the conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Angola.

He said challenges also remain as evident by the continued conflicts in Somalia, eastern Congo, and Sudan.

“We have to do as much as we possibly can to help resolve those conflicts,” Carson said.

Carson said President Obama has taken a keen interest in resolving the conflict by his appointment of General Scott Gration as special envoy on Sudan.

He said the Obama administration plans to focus on food security and agricultural development in Africa.

“The administration plans over a number of years to put a substantial amount of money into agricultural development to do two things. One is to lift people out of poverty and the other one is to help grow…agriculture,” Carson said.

On what he called the new and old global challenges, Ambassador Carson said the Obama administration plans to work with African countries to address the issues of climate change and illicit drug trafficking

Carson said President Obama will elaborate on some of these topics when the president visits Ghana on July this year, the earliest visit to Africa by a sitting American president. (VOA 24.06.2009 )