George and Laura's African Safari

George Bush touched down for the briefest of stops in the tiny west African country of Benin yesterday before reboarding Airforce One and crossing the continent to Tanzania for the second leg of a five-nation African tour.

The president, accompanied by his wife Laura, will be avoiding Africa's conflict hotspots and is visiting five states chosen to show a different face from the poverty-plagued and war-stricken continent normally seen and where his popularity is high.

The presidents of Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia are viewed by Washington as a new generation of democratic African leaders and it is backing them with health and education support and military cooperation.

Bush will not visit Kenya, presently embroiled in a political and humanitarian crisis that has left 1000 people dead and some 600,000 displaced, after its disputed presidential December elections, but he said the US is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice there on Monday to back the ongoing mediation efforts of former UN chief Kofi Annan.

Rice's mission was 'all aimed at having a clear message that there be no violence and that there ought to be a power-sharing agreement', Bush told reporters after talks with Benin's President Thomas Yayi Boni.

Officials said the US was ready to sanction any individuals who sought to obstruct Kenyan peace moves.

Annan is working to bring President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to agreement over the disputed polls and said last week that considerable progress has been made. Kibaki, Odinga and Annan are due to meet tomorrow before talks resume on Tuesday.

The crisis in Darfur looms large over Bush's visit too but he simply reiterated US backing for the African Union/UN peacekeeping force being deployed in the western Sudanese region, where conflict since 2003 has killed around 200,000 people.

'Sudan is a real difficult situation which we have labeled a genocide. We are sanctioning some, rallying others to provide aid in the hopes there will be a robust UN force in Darfur to help relieve the suffering,' Bush said.