By Barry Moody | February 15, 2008

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's coming African tour will emphasise the caring side of U.S. policy but it is widely seen as being more about military interests, oil supplies and combating Chinese influence. Bush is scheduled to start a tour of five nations with a brief stop in Benin on Saturday, although he has threatened to delay the trip because of a legislative battle with Congress. The five countries -- Tanzania, Ghana, Liberia and Rwanda, as well as Benin -- have been chosen for what are viewed as strong democratic credentials and successful U.S. aid projects.

BBC Saturday, 16 February 2008

The United Nations has condemned Eritrea, accusing it of preventing hundreds of peacekeepers from crossing from Eritrea into Ethiopia. The UN ordered its regional force to withdraw to Ethiopia after the Eritrean government cut off its fuel supplies.

In an emergency session on Friday, the 15-member UN Security Council expressed "deep concern about the impediments and logistical constraints" faced by the force.  Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, told reporters: "It's a very serious situation. We're running out of fuel, we're running out of food."

 Losing patience

The UN peacekeepers were sent eight years ago to monitor a border security zone after the war which killed tens of thousands of people between Eritrea and Ethiopia in the late 1990s.

BBC | February 7, 2008

ADDIS ABABA -

A new conflict could break out between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the UN says, as it prepares to withdraw its troops. The UN gave a Wednesday deadline for Eritrea to restore fuel supplies to the peacekeepers on its side of the border, or it said they would have to withdraw. "Clearly the signs point towards a resumption of the conflict," UN spokesman Yves Sorokobi told the BBC.

Tens of thousands of people died in the two countries' 1998-2000 border war. "We know that troops are being amassed in the Temporary Security Zone between Eritrea and Ethiopia," said Mr Sorokobi, UN chief Ban Ki-moon's spokesman. "We know the rhetoric has been warlike and increasingly so.

All this bodes ill for peace in the region," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme. 'Regrettable' But the BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in the Ethiopia capital, Addis Ababa, says that senior UN officials there are convinced that neither side really wants war. Some 1,400 UN troops and 200 military observers are in the region to monitor a peace deal signed in 2000. continue here 

Reuters | February 5, 2008

NAIROBI (Reuters) -

Eritrea on Tuesday brushed aside U.N. demands that it lift its fuel blockade of peacekeepers, even though the head of the world body says the troops may have to start quitting the Ethiopia-Eritrea border on Wednesday.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned the Security Council last week he may be forced to begin the withdrawal of the peacekeepers along the volatile frontier unless Eritrea resumes fuel supplies. "That's not an issue as far as we're concerned," Information Minister Ali Abdu told Reuters by telephone. "The sole obligation of the U.N. is to take appropriate action against the occupier (Ethiopia)."

Eritrea accuses Ethiopia, which it fought in a 1998-2000 border war, of occupying sovereign territory -- a charge rejected by Addis Ababa. Last week, the world body renewed for another six months the mandate of a 1,700-strong mission charged with monitoring the 1,000-km (620-mile) frontier. ...for more...