NEW REFUGEE POLICY

Ethiopia

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees has welcomed a policy change from Ethiopia, which will now allow Eritrean refugees to live outside designated camps. The policy applies to refugees who have the financial means to support themselves or have friends or relatives to support them outside the camps. More than 60,000 Eritrean refugees have crossed the border into Ethiopia since a border dispute began in the 1990s.

SHARK FIN FRENZY

Egypt 

Experts fear that commercial shark fishing in the Red Sea is slashing shark populations to dangerously low levels. In June, Egyptian Authorities seized six Yemeni boats carrying several km of long lines and 20 tons of dead sharks. "What's alarming is to see boats coming all the way from Yemen to fish in our waters. These boats don't have normal gear for catching fish - they're only after sharks," said Amr Ali, Managing Director of the Hurghada Environmental Protection and Conservation Association in Egypt. 

DUMPING GROUND?

Cameroon

Cameroonian Environment Minister Pierre Hélé accused a Dutch ship, NV Nashville, of dumping waste off the coast of West Africa. "Our friends in the West are very dangerous people," another ministry official told AFP news agency. "They treat Africa like a dustbin."

DIAMOND SALE

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe went ahead with its controversial diamond auction on August 11. 893,000 carats of rough diamonds were auctioned off for a total of $71 million. Further sales of the diamonds, from the Marange mines, are largely dependent on the findings of an audit by the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme, which is investigating allegations of human rights abuses at the mine. The government said the country has a stockpile of rough diamonds worth an estimated 1.3 billion euros ($1.67 billion). Some observers have used the term "blood diamonds" to describe the stockpile, a reference to alleged conflicts at the Marange mines. But the Zimbabwean Government insists the nation's diamond supply is in line with the Kimberly Process.