"For the first time, crystal clear programming will be heard in areas that until now have been underserved by traditional radio sources," said WorldSpace CEO Noah Samara.

Radio may sound extremely low-tech in the Internet Age, but this radio service incorporates satellite and digital technology and computers. The digital radio service is not an ISP because it is a one-way service. But it can aggregate a lot of information for multimedia programming that users can access by connecting their computer to WorldSpace's radio receiver, which has a 128-bit data port, Samara said.

The digital radio service will roll out in South Africa, then Nigeria, Kenya, and continue throughout the continent. It will offer programming from international networks CNN and Bloomberg, and also regional broadcasters, such as Kenya Broadcasting, Egyptian Radio and Television, South Africa's Kosmos Digital, and Beirut's Radio One.

"What people in downtown Johannesburg hear will be heard by people in the remotest areas," Samara said.

Africa is a market where people now have limited choice.

"Information is a valuable commodity in people's lives there," he said.

A digital radio service that blankets Africa could bring about massive change, "bringing information affluence in parts of the world with information scarcity, which has condemned people to poverty," said Samara, who was born in Ethiopia and raised in Tanzania.

Purchasing a WorldStar digital receiver manufactured by Hitachi, JVC, Panasonic, and Sanyo may be beyond the purse strings of many to whom the service is targeted. Receivers will range from $200 to $400, with the price anticipated to fall in about five to seven years to $20 to $40 as a result of competition among manufacturers, Samara said.

Reports from Sudan say the authorities have asked Eritrea to hand over two men in connection with the bombing of an oil pipeline last month.

A Sudanese newspaper quoted the Justice Minister, Ali Mohammed Osman Yassin, as saying Khartoum had requested the extradition of the two opposition leaders -- Abdel-Aziz Khalid and Abdel-Rahman Saeed -- for trial.

He said his government would pursue them wherever they were.

The two, who are members of the opposition National Democratic Alliance, were reported to have gone to Eritrea from Egypt.

There's been no word from the Eritrean authorities on the issue.

General Abdul Rahman Saeed, spokesman of the military command of the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA), and Brigadier Abdel Aziz Khalid, chief of the alliance forces, were banned from the country, an NDA official told AFP.

Ethiopia filed suit in a regional arbitration court established last month, the government-owned Addis Zemen and Ethiopia Herald newspapers reported Saturday. Ethiopia claims its neighbor confiscated goods worth $133 million at two Eritrean Red Sea ports, Massawa and Assab.

The goods were seized at the Eritrean ports shortly after fighting over contested borders began in May 1998. Ethiopia, which became landlocked after Eritrea gained independence in 1993, had been using the two ports under a bilateral agreement.

An Ethiopian Ministry of Transport and Communications statement said Eritrea seized the goods in violation of the 1993 bilateral agreement, a 1994 convention and international law, the newspapers reported. The arbitration court will send a copy of Ethiopia's complaint and a summons to the Eritrean government, which is expected to reply within one month, the statement said.

The suit was filed at new court set up by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the transport and telecommunications ministry said.

Ethiopia maintains that goods worth more than 133 million dollars have been seized in the Red Sea ports of Assab and Massawa.

The complaint calls on Eritrea "to immediately release the goods it seized illegally or replace lost properties without setting preconditions or requesting any payments."

Failing that, Eritrea should pay in cash the total value of goods, plus interest, Eritrea demanded.

These are the first formal legal charges to be brought against Eritrea from Ethiopia since the former province was granted independence in 1993, depriving Ethiopia of a sea port.

Ethiopia, which says the goods include pharmaceutical products and food aid, has given its neighbour a month to reply to the charges.

Lipnakov Valery, the newly-appointed Russian ambassador to Ethiopia, said the two nations had already agreed to take steps ``to ease Ethiopia's cumulative debt burden.''

Most of Ethiopia's roubles debt came from Soviet lending to former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam for arms purchases to fight a rebellion in the north of the country.

Mengistu was overthrown in 1991.

The government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has since implemented free market reforms.

Vladimir Volkov, Russia's former ambassador to Ethiopia, said last year that his country had agreed to write off up to 80 percent of Ethiopia's debt.

($1-25.73 Rouble)