Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- At the conference of intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora underway here, an African scientist Thursday stressed at a plenary meeting that unalloyed commitment by governments was imperative in furthering science and technology in Africa. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade Thursday suggested to the African Union to draw up and agree on an investment code that all African countries must practice in order to avoid unfair competition on the continent. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Alpha Omar Konare, Thursday urged the conference of intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora to come up with a solidarity initiative in favour of troubled Haiti. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- African Union Commission Chairperson, Alpha Omar Konare Thursday called for the building of a new Africa, where democracy, peace, institutional stability and genuine citizenship based on a shared vision of the future would be daily realities. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- The first Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora opened here Thursday, with African Union Commission chairman, Alpha Omar Konare urging continental leaders to confide in intellectuals in the continent and abroad. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade charged here Thursday that corrupt, but more especially incompetent cadres in administration were largely to blame for the raw deals African governments often received in transactions with Western countries. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- Africa needs its intellectuals both on the continent and in the Diaspora to gain respect within the international community, the African Union (AU) Commission said in a report to the conference of intellectuals, that opened in the Senegalese capital Thursday. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda said Thursday at the conference of intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora underway here, that internal and external factors, most of them a carry-over from the colonial period had continued to undermine efforts to develop the continent. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa warned here Thursday that the renaissance and integration of Africa would be hard to attain without the mobilisation of progressive forces to bring about change on the continent. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- Five African presidents attended Wednesday night's gala in honour of African Nobel laureates ahead of the Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora, which opened in the Senegalese capital Thursday. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora should help guide the continent's integration process and rebirth after centuries of interference by outsiders, Nigerian President and African Union (AU) chair, Olusegun Obasanjo said in Dakar, Senegal Thursday. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- African Nobel Prize winners pledged to rally other laureates from the continent and the Diaspora to work at instituting peace in Africa at a gala evening held Wednesday night ahead of the first conference of intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora that opened Thursday in Dakar, the Senegalese capital. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- In an interview with PANA on the eve of the 2003 Sun City-held summit, Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said the interest attached to the Diaspora was "to turn it into a sixth natural, historic, political, affective, and intellectual region of the continent". Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- Nobel Prize winners Frederick de Klerk of South Africa and Wole Soyinka of Nigeria will represent the Nobel Prize winners from Africa at a gala Wednesday night in their honour ahead of the conference of intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora that opens here Thursday. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- It is the ardent desire of the African Union (AU) for participants to adduce an 'African intellectuals' thought' during the Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora that opens here Thursday, AU Commission Chairperson Alpha Omar Konare said here Wednesday. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- Delegates at the Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora opening here Thursday have a huge task to cover twelve themes whose introductory papers are assigned to selected authors heading six commissions. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- The first conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora, due to open here Thursday, is almost certain to end in success, President Abdoulaye Wade told a news conference here Wednesday where African Union Commission Chairperson, Alpha Omar Konare was present. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- On the eve of the conference of intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora scheduled here, an informed delegate insisted Wednesday that a shared African identity was conceivable inasmuch as meeting points can still be observed in cultural variations that resulted from the artificial boundaries of colonisation. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- The conference of African intellectuals and their brethren from the Diaspora opening in Dakar Thursday could not be more timely, coming against the backdrop of frantic moves to cut a new image for the continent in global politics and economics, according to delegates already in the Senegalese capital for the meeting. Full text...

Dakar- Senegal (PANA) -- A gala event Wednesday for Nobel Prize winners, who are expected to make a "Declaration of Peace in Africa," will precede Thursday's official opening of the Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora in Dakar, Senegal. Full text...

Bamako- Mali (PANA) -- Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure is among leaders who will take part in the Conference of Intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora which officially opens Thursday in Dakar, Senegal, a presidential communiqué said here. Full text...

Praia- Cape Verde (PANA) -- Cape Verdean President Pedro Pires will attend the first conference of intellectuals from Africa and the Diaspora billed for Dakar, Senegal from 7-9 October, presidential sources disclosed here Tuesday. Full text...

Accra- Ghana (PANA) -- Ghanaian financial company, Databank Financial Services Limited, said Friday it was in the process of establishing a Diaspora Fund to cater for the investment needs of citizens living outside the country. Full text...

Accra- Ghana (PANA) -- Ghanaians living abroad could be sending back home as much as a billion dollars annually, Dr Valentino Mazzucato, a researcher working on the Ghana Transnational Network Research Programme (Ghana Transnet) indicated here Wednesday. Full text...

New York- US (PANA) -- Barely two months after US-based Nigerian scientist Gabriel Oyibo called for support from African countries to help transform his discovery into development, his home government has invited him to head a new initiative, the Nigerian Experts and Academics in the Diaspora Scheme (NEADS). Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- At the initiative of Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, the African Union Commission will organise the first conference of African intellectuals, including those in the Diaspora from 7-9 October in Dakar, Senegal. Full text...

Bissau- Guinea Bissau (PANA) -- The second forum of Guinea-Bissau nationals in the Diaspora, called Guineaspora, will convene here in December, organisers said in a statement Thursday. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Wednesday launched its first project to facilitate the transfer of Diaspora expertise to Somalia. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- Plastic artists from Martinique and Guadeloupe are holding an exhibition at the Congress Palace in Cotonou as part of the third edition of the Gospel and Roots Festival. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- Ivorian diva Aicha Kone has called for divine intervention for the urgent return of peace to her country, torn apart by civil war since September 2002. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- Beninese President Mathieu Kerekou has urged Africans on the continent and those of the Diaspora to "transcend the wrongs of history and rethink" the development of the continent. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- Four personalities from Africa and the Diaspora were conferred distinctions of the National Order of Benin on the sidelines of the third edition of the Gospel and Roots Festival, which opened here Monday. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- The third edition of the "Gospel and Roots" festival will hold 2-8 August in five Benin towns, organisers indicated here Wednesday, saying the event would this time around feature "Creole modes" capturing the West Indies through music, literature, plastic arts and gastronomy. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- With a few home-grown professionals left in Ethiopia, a government-run daily in Addis Ababa has reminded those living abroad of the moral debt they have to pay to their native country. Full text...

Bamako- Mali (PANA) -- President Amadou Toumani Toure opened the first ever forum of foreign-based Malians here Monday, with more than 200 delegates in attendance. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- The Organisation for Reconciliation and Development (RADCORP) is to organise in 2004, in Florida (US), the first American edition of the Gospel and Roots Festival, organisers announced here Thursday. Full text...

Moroni- Comoros (PANA) -- About 350,000 Comorans live abroad, 200,000 of them in France alone, according to a survey financed by the World Bank and carried out on behalf of the General Commission of Planning as part of the search for new means of combating poverty. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- Congolese residing in the United States were embarrassed by the ghastly images broadcast on major US television channels regarding the gun battle in Ituri, DR Congo, media reports said here Friday. Full text...

Praia- Cape Verde, (PANA) -- Cape Verde will be the first African country to benefit from the Migration for Development in Africa (MIDA) programme, an initiative launched by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to encourage the return of competence and bolster institutional capacity on the continent, sources here hinted Tuesday. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- The African Diaspora is willing to contribute to the development of new information and communication technologies (NICTs) in Africa, Dogad Dogui, chair of Africagora, a group of investors of African origin, said on Wednesday in Paris. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- Some 100 intellectuals from the African Diaspora are currently meeting in Ouidah, a former slave trading post located just outside Cotonou to discuss how the Diaspora could contribute to Africa's development. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- Some 150 participants from Africa, America, Europe and Asia are to take part in next week's international symposium in Benin focusing on the development of Africans in the diaspora, organisers said Saturday. Full text...

Saint Denis- Reunion (PANA) -- The Indian Ocean will be strongly represented at the first jamboree of the Indian Diaspora holding 9-11 January in New Delhi, Indian consul general in Saint Denis, Prabhati Lal affirmed Tuesday. Full text...

Port Louis- Mauritius (PANA) -- A Mauritian delegation led by Prime minister Sir Anerod Jugnaugth, and comprising twenty parliamentarians, ministers, as well as several Mauritian journalists and ordinary citizens, will participate in the first meeting of the world Indian Diaspora in New Delhi beginning next Thursday. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- Benin was ready to welcome all Blacks in the Diaspora wishing to return to the land of their ancestors, Benin Minister of Culture, Handicrafts and Tourism, Amos Elegbe, announced here Friday. Full text...

Port-Louis- Mauritius (PANA) -- The 10th world conference of the Chinese would be hosted 13-15 September by the Federation of Chinese Community Societies in Mauritius in Reduit, 20 km south of Port-Louis, organisers said Thursday in the Mauritian capital. Full text...

Saint Denis- the Reunion (PANA) -- The Reunion will celebrate its African heritage on 20 December to mark the end of slavery on the Indian Ocean island which is still under French rule. Full text...

Porto-Novo- Benin (PANA) -- More than a hundred researchers and policy makers are expected at an international conference on the Aguda or descendants of former slaves, billed for 20-26 November in Porto-Novo, Benin. Full text...

Kigali- Rwanda (PANA) -- About 2,000 Rwandans living outside the country are planning to hold an unprecedented convention towards the end of the year, official sources reported on Friday. Full text...

Durban- South Africa (PANA) -- The world conference against racism and discrimination Tuesday staged a trans-Atlantic solidarity rally in favour of reparations for the prejudices endured for centuries by black communities and those of African origin. Full text...