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BANJUL, July 2 (Reuters) - Africa's leaders agreed on Sunday to send troops to Somalia to support regional efforts at calming the chaotic east African state. A summit of the 53-member African Union (AU) called for dialogue between Somalia's weak interim government and powerful Islamic courts, which wrested control of the war-scarred capital Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords early last month. A resolution adopted unanimously at the meeting said an AU peace and stability mission would deploy in Somalia in the wake of peacekeepers from the east African regional body IGAD (the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development), delegates said. "We have decided...

BANJUL (Reuters) - Europe and the United States should apologize to Africa for the cruelties of slavery, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday, calling on African states to resist modern day U.S. colonialism. Attending a summit of African leaders in Gambia, Chavez said both Africa and Latin America had been blighted by slavery and colonialism for centuries, to the benefit of Europe and North America. "Africa is still weeping ... and Europe does not recognize it. Europe should apologize, get on its knees and apologize," Chavez, invited to attend the summit as a guest, told reporters. "They should lower...

BANJUL (Reuters) - Two of the world's most anti-American leaders, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended this weekend's Africa summit in Gambia to the consternation of Western diplomats. Both lived up to their billing with Chavez railing against U.S. "hegemony" and Ahmadinejad blaming Western greed for "poverty, backwardness, regional conflicts, corruption, illicit drugs." The role of West-baiting once fell at AU summits to Libya's colourful leader Muammar Gaddafi but he has now been welcomed into the Western fold and Libya is soon to be taken off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. So why were...

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said on Saturday African leaders had greater admiration for his country than ever before, as he returned from an African Union (AU) summit in Maputo, state television said. Mugabe said his election as regional vice chair of the AU was "an honour to us and it also serves paid to those in the hostile circles who think that Zimbabwe is being isolated." "There is greater admiration now for Zimbabwe than there ever was, and we are very happy about that," he added. The Zimbabwean leader has been in Maputo, in neighbouring Mozambique for the second AU...