Nike suspends contract with Pistorius

The Olympic athlete has been charged with murdering his girlfriend.

Nike has suspended its endorsement deal with Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic athlete charged with murdering his girlfriend at his home in South Africa.

"Nike has suspended its contract with Oscar Pistorius. We believe Oscar Pistorius should be afforded due process and we will continue to monitor the situation closely," Nike said in a statement posted on its website late Wednesday.

Pistorius competed in the 2012 Olympics despite having both his legs amputated as a child. He is known as the "Blade Runner" because he walks and runs on carbon fiber prosthetic legs shaped like blades.

He has maintained his innocence since the Feb. 14 shooting that killed Reeva Steenkamp, his model girlfriend, saying he mistook her for an intruder. But he was charged with murder the day after the shooting.

Pistorius had been getting about $2 million annually in endorsement deals, according to published reports. Eyewear maker Oakley, his other major sponsor, has already suspended its deal with him, according to reports.

Nike's campaign with Pistorius, which started soon after his 2012 Olympic appearance, is particularly bad public relations for the company as it refers to him as "the bullet in the chamber."

He first appeared in a 2008 Nike commercial, a spot that also included cyclist Lance Armstrong. Nike ended ties with Armstrong after evidence emerged that he had used performance-enhancing drugs to win seven Tour de France titles.

But Nike has been slow to cut ties with disgraced athletes. The day of the shooting it issued a statement extending its sympathy but saying it wouldn't comment because it was a police matter. It initially stood by Armstrong, even as the anti-doping authorities accused him of cheating and moved to strip him of his titles.

It also kept its endorsement deal with Kobe Bryant while he faced sexual assault charges. It was the first major company to strike a sponsorship deal with Michael Vick after the football star got out of prison for staging dog fights. And it has stood by golfer Tiger Woods during his sexual infidelity scandal that chased away other major sponsors including PepsiCo's (PEP, Fortune 500) Gatorade, General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) , Procter & Gamble's (PG, Fortune 500) Gillette razors and AT&T (T, Fortune 500).

Nike (NKE, Fortune 500) spends far more than any other company on sponsorship deals. Its most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show it is committed to $3.8 billion in future endorsement deals. 

African leaders sign Congo peace deal

CNN) -- African leaders signed a U.N.-backed deal on Sunday meant to bring stability to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Government forces are battling the M23 rebel group in the eastern part of that country.
"It is my earnest hope that the framework will lead to an era of peace and stability for the peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes region," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement.
The agreement calls for cooperation among nations to "preserve and protect the territorial sovereignty" of the Democratic Republic of Congo, he said.
 Life in Goma amid crisis
Ban praised the framework but stressed that it marks just the beginning of a "comprehensive approach that will require sustained engagement."
 Rwanda's president discusses DR Congo
The deal was signed in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa by envoys of several African nations, including Uganda and Rwanda. Representatives from the rebel group were not involved.
Ban said that a U.N. special envoy would be appointed to support the deal's implementation.
South African President Jacob Zuma said the agreement represents an opportunity.
"This framework in itself does not provide all the answers, it is an instrument that points the Government of the DRC, its immediate neighbors and the international community in a direction that will take this country out of the current morass," Zuma said at the signing ceremony. The possible deployment of an intervention brigade of U.N. troops has been mentioned as a way of stabilizing the nation's restive eastern region.
The agreement had been expected to be signed last month, but was delayed because of what Ban described as "procedural issues."
The M23 group was named for a peace deal of March 23, 2009, which it accuses the government of violating. The soldiers, mostly Tutsis, became part of the national army through that accord.
However, they broke away from the Congolese army in April, complaining they weren't being promoted as promised and because of a lack of pay and poor conditions.
Fighting between the M23 and the army has displaced close to a million people in North Kivu province and more than 300,000 in the southeastern province of Katanga, according to the United Nations.
The unrest continues a cycle of misery in eastern Congo, a mineral-rich region at the epicenter of political and ethnic conflict involving its neighbors to the east, Uganda and Rwanda.
The area has been embroiled in violence since 1994, when Hutu forces crossed the border from Rwanda fearing reprisals after the genocide in that country

French military joins search for abducted family in Cameroon

Yaounde, Cameroon (CNN) -- French military and intelligence officers have entered northern Cameroon in search of a family of seven French tourists kidnapped Tuesday from a national park, a CNN affiliate reported Wednesday.

The Paris-based private network BFMTV did not cite its source; it posted a team of journalists Wednesday in Paris at the French Foreign Ministry Crisis Center, which is handling the country's response to the crisis.

BFMTV, citing the French Defense Ministry, said gendarmes had been sent to the site in northern Cameroon where the abduction occurred to investigate.

But a Cameroonian official said Wednesday that he believed the family had been taken across the border into neighboring Nigeria within hours of their abduction.

Joseph Dion Ngute, the Foreign Ministry official in charge of ties with Commonwealth nations, said Tuesday's incident marked the first time foreigners in Cameroon had been taken captive by suspected Islamic militants of Nigeria's Boko Haram movement.

"The intentions of the kidnappers are yet to be known," he said.

French officials blamed the incident on Boko Haram, which has taken advantage of Nigeria's porous borders with Chad and Cameroon in its three-year campaign.

Boko Haram has waged a war against Nigeria's government and its Christian population in an effort to establish a strict Islamic state in northern Nigeria.

The family was kidnapped from Waza National Park, a thickly forested area of northern Cameroon popular among tourists and located near the border with Nigeria. The incident has raised fears of Westerners being targeted by Islamist militant groups in Africa in the wake of France's military intervention in Mali.

But French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday that he didn't believe the seizure was linked to his government's intervention in Mali, where French troops have joined government forces to battle Islamic militants linked to al Qaeda.

"I am aware of the presence of Boko Haram in that part of Cameroon, and that's worrying enough," Hollande said.

Obasanjo: Boko Haram undermine security

The abductees include four children ages 5 to 12, their parents and an uncle, the Cameroon's state broadcaster CRTV reported.

Fonkam Azu, governor Cameroon's northern region of Maroua, told reporters that residents saw the hostages being driven into Nigeria on motorcycles.

The father works for the French company GDF Suez and is based in Yaounde, the capital in southern Cameroon. GDF Suez, which is developing a natural gas liquefaction project in Cameroon, said it was working closely with the French Foreign Ministry.

Concerns about border security in northern Cameroon grew early last year, when Sudanese poachers on horseback invaded the Bouba Ndjida Park and killed more than 300 elephants for their ivory. Afterward, the government temporarily replaced park guards with a special anti-terrorist squad of the military.

In a statement, Cameroon's Ministry of External Relations said Wednesday that security has been tightened to guarantee the safety of expatriates and tourists, especially in volatile regions.

Abductions are common in Cameroon, especially in natural resource-rich regions.

In January, kidnappers killed one Chinese national and abducted three others from the Betare Oya gold mine in the country's south. The military freed the surviving hostages. And several abductions targeting foreigners have occurred in the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula, on the country's Atlantic coast.

Oscar Pistorius' brother Carl accused in 2010 death

Johannesburg (CNN) -- As Olympic icon Oscar Pistorius faces a murder trial for shooting his girlfriend, his older brother is also charged in the death of a woman.

Carl Pistorius is accused in the 2010 death of a female motorcyclist, Pistorius family attorney Kenny Oldwage said.

Culpable homicide refers to "unlawful negligent killing," South African police say.

Prosecutors say Carl Pistorius was driving recklessly in Vanderbijlpark, South Africa, when he crashed with the motorcyclist in the daytime.

Oldwage disputes allegations that his client was driving recklessly and said the motorcyclist rode into Carl Pistorius' vehicle.

Mixed response to Pistorius bail

Oscar Pistorius granted bail

"Carl deeply regrets the accident. Blood tests conducted by the police at the time proved that he had not been under the influence of alcohol, confirming that it was a tragic road accident after the deceased collided with Carl's car," a statement from the Pistorius family said.

The motorcyclist died in a hospital a couple of days after the accident, Oldwage said.

Carl Pistorius was initially scheduled to go on trial Thursday -- during the middle of his brother's four-day bail hearing.

The trial has been rescheduled for the end of March. His case could be over before his brother's murder trial is scheduled to start in June.

Carl Pistorius was a fixture at his younger brother's bail hearing last week, handing Oscar tissues as the 26-year-old sobbed uncontrollably in court.

Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee sprinter known as the "Blade Runner," is charged with premeditated murder in the death of his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp. Prosecutors say the Olympian killed her after a heated argument in the early morning hours of Valentine's Day.

Pistorius says he thought Steenkamp, 29, was an intruder.

After a four-day, emotionally wrenching bail hearing, the track star was granted bail Friday.

As part of his conditions for release, Oscar Pistorius cannot return to his home, where the shooting happened; must surrender his passport; and can't go near an airport.

It's unknown whether Oscar Pistorius will be in court to support his brother during his trial.

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