Such pledges have been met with skepticism before, but Muhammad Sayyed Said, deputy director of the Cairo-based Ahram Center for Strategic Studies says constant repetition of them is a good sign.

CAIRO, 10 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Hosni Mubarak has won 88.6 percent of votes cast in Egypt’s first contested presidential polls, the Presidential Elections Committee (PEC) announced on Friday.

Mubarak has been in power for 24 years. The result of Wednesday’s elections gives him another six-year term as president of Egypt.

The elections were, however, marked by a low turnout with only 23 percent of the 32 million registered voters casting their ballots.

The main opposition candidate Ayman Nour won 7 percent of the votes cast. His demand for a re-run of the elections was rejected, PEC spokesperson Osama Attawiya told a news conference.

In several press statements, Nour, the leader of the al-Ghad (Tomorrow) Party, had said he intended to call for a repetition of elections in light of the irregularities that took place in polling stations.

ABIDJAN, 9 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - In a new blow to hopes for an imminent peace in Cote d'Ivoire, UN chief Kofi Annan has said that key elections slated to heal the nation's strife cannot technically take place as scheduled on 30 October.

Annan blamed all sides for the latest hitch in the three year stand-off sparked by a failed coup in September 2002, in an interview with Radio France International on Thursday which is to be aired this weekend.

"It's not going to be possible [to hold the election] because the political leaders and parties have not cooperated," said Annan.

"There are certain things that must be done before the elections in October. We haven't even been able to constitute the electoral commission. Practically, on a technical level, it is not possible," he said.

With seven weeks left before ballots were to be cast, voters' lists have not been updated, many voters are yet to be identified and the electoral commission due to spearhead the vote is not even up and running.

NAIROBI, 9 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - The UN Secretary-General's special envoy for Somalia urged members of the split transitional government to exercise restraint on Thursday amid reports of militia movement in the town of Jowhar, where the president and the prime minister are based.

"I am concerned at the escalation of tensions in Jowhar and Mogadishu, and appeal for restraint from all parties whatever their differences," Francois Lonseny Fall, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Somalia, said in a statement.

President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi and their supporters decided to set up Transitional Federal Institutions (TFI) in the town of Jowhar, 90 km north of the capital, Mogadishu, in June. They said Mogadishu was not secure enough to be the seat of government.

MBABANE, 9 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Diminishing economic resources led to the suspension of scholarships at the University of Swaziland and a rise in student activism at start of the academic year this week.

Late on Thursday afternoon, 10 students were injured when police broke up a march by 1,000 undergraduates seeking an audience with Prime Minister Themba Dlamini to demand the restoration of government scholarships that had always been available to tertiary students.

"There is a forum to use if you want to make appointments - you don't just come in such numbers, because that is when you become chaotic," Police Commissioner Edgar Hillary told members of the Student Representative Council after police fired teargas at the marchers.