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New York, US - UN agencies on Friday expressed alarm at the increasing rate of human rights violations in the Central African Republic (CAR), following reports of burnt and abandoned villages, massive displacement, as well as looting and torture. PANA in New York reported that members of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), along with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), travelled last week to the town of Paoua, 500 kilometres north of the capital, Bangui. They found seven villages burnt to the ground and deserted and the eighth partially burnt with...

The former rebels, who seized power in March, were trying to "disarm" residents who lived near the airport, the UN's Amy Martin told the BBC. Peacekeeping troops were now trying to move them from the airport so it can resume normal operations, she said. The UN Security Council recently said the CAR threatened regional stability. Aid agencies have recently warned that undisciplined fighters from the Seleka group which ousted President Francois Bozize had looted the healthcare system, leaving it in ruins. About a third of the country's 4.6 million people need assistance with food, shelter, health care or water, according...

South African soldiers have gathered in Uganda for a “new mission” to the Central African Republic (CAR), where 13 of their comrades were killed in a rebel coup at the weekend, South African media and a senior Ugandan officer have said. “The intention of the South Africans is to reorganise themselves and then redeploy massively in CAR and topple these rebels. They were humiliated and they want to avenge,” the ­officer said. The deaths were Pretoria’s heaviest military defeat since the end of apartheid in 1994 and president Jacob Zuma has drawn fierce criticism for reinforcing 26 military trainers in...

The president of the Central African Republic has fled the country's capital and rebels have seized control of the city, a government official said Sunday. President Francois Bozize crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo, said Jules Gautier Ngbapo, a spokesman for the government's territorial administration minister. He declined to disclose Bozize's location Sunday. "Central Africans are waiting for the new president to be named," Ngbapo said in a written statement. Word of Bozize's surprise departure came as violence erupted in the capital, Bangui. Witnesses reported hours of gunfire, and Ngbapo said at least seven civilians were killed as rebels...

Republic of Korea: For the record. Pak Ku'n-hye (Park Geun-hye) of the New Frontier Party won South Korea's presidential election on 19 December, media reported. She is the daughter of Park Chung-hee and the first woman elected to be president of the Republic of Korea. That should confound the North! North Korea-Iran: According to a Japanese news service, an Iranian lawmaker told the service that North Korea informed Iran in October of its plan to launch a satellite. The head of an Iranian parliamentary delegation to North Korea, Hamid Reza Taraghi, revealed talks took place mid-October with the North's delegates...