Nigeria Renews Pledge to Stop Stoning SentenceFiled at 8:00 a.m. ET ABUJA (Reuters) - In a desperate bid to save this year's Miss World beauty pageant, Nigeria renewed its pledge on Saturday to quash Islamic stoning sentences that have sparked boycotts of the contest. Nearly a dozen contestants have decided to stay away from the December 7 pageant in Abuja after a Nigerian court upheld a sentence of death by stoning on a Muslim woman convicted of adultery. ``We restate that no person shall be condemned to death by stoning in Nigeria,'' a government statement said. The Nigerian government will invoke ``its constitutional powers to thwart any negative ruling, which is deemed injurious to its people,'' it said. The statement signed by junior foreign minister Dubem Onyia, was unusually sent to international media on a weekend as organizers prepared to receive a planeload of Miss World contestants on Monday. Contestants from France, Canada, Belgium, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Norway are among those boycotting the pageant. Apart from the boycotts, fundamentalist Islamic groups in Nigeria have threatened to disrupt the event, which one labeled a ``parade of nudity'' likely to undermine the fight against AIDS. Organizers had to shift the event from November after Muslims complained it fell within their Ramadan fast. The Nigerian government, which has been careful not to intefer in the politically sensitive issue of Islamic sharia law, was forced to take a position last month following mounting international outrage against the stoning sentence. Nigeria also fears bad publicity over sharia could undermine its hope of boosting tourism with the staging of the pageant. In one the most dramatic protests against the stoning sentence, Britain's Prince Edward decided on Friday to pull out of a reception in London for the pageant. ``Following advice to the Earl of Wessex (Prince Edward), he decided he would no longer attend the reception,'' a Buckingham Palace statement said. The reception is scheduled for Sunday. Onyia first announced the federal government's decision to intervene against sharia sentence, passed under the laws of a state government, at a news conference on October 29. Saturday's statement cited the case of the convicted woman, 31-year-old Amina Lawal Kurami, and that of Safiya Hussaini Tungar-Tudu, who successfully appealed a similar sentence. ``Safiya and Amina Lawal will not be subjected to abuse of rights. The Nigerian government shall protect their rights,'' the statement said. President Olusegun Obasanjo initially said he would not intervene after states in the predominantly Islamic north started implementing sharia law in 2000. He said he had no powers to stop state assemblies passing laws under Nigeria's American-style constitution with clear separation of powers between the central and state authorities. But he has had to rethink his policy following relentless international pressure and clashes between Christians and Muslims in the north in which over 3,000 have died. The Mulindwas
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"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
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