Libya urges Niger to extradite Gaddafi son: report

By Taha Zargoun and Marie-Louise Gumuchian

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya has demanded that Niger extradite Muammar Gaddafi's son Saadi, warning that his call for Libyans to prepare for a "coming uprising" threatened ties between the two countries, Libyan News Agency LANA said on Saturday.

As Libyan rebels gained the upper hand over Gaddafi's regime last September, Saadi and a group of senior loyalists fled across the border to Niger, where they remain under house surveillance in the capital Niamey.

In a telephone call to Al Arabiya television late on Friday, Saadi said that he was in regular contact with people in Libya who were unhappy with the authorities put in place after the ousting and killing of his father.

LANA cited a telephone call between Niger's Foreign Minister Bazoum Mohamed and his Libyan counterpart Ashour Bin Hayal on Saturday, quoting the Libyan minister as expressing "strong resentment" towards Saadi's "aggressive statements."

"Mr Ashour Bin Hayal reiterated to the foreign minister of Niger that these statements threaten the bilateral relationship between the two countries and that the government of Niger should adopt strict measures against him (Saadi) including extraditing him to Libya to be prosecuted for the crimes he committed against the Libyan people," LANA said.

Niger has said Saadi would remain in the West African nation until a United Nations travel ban on him was lifted, despite Tripoli's request for his return.

Interpol last year issued a "red notice" requesting member states to arrest Saadi with a view to extradition if they find him on their territory.

"The foreign minister of Niger ... expressed his regret and apologies to the government and Libyan people for what has happened and confirmed that he will contact the Niger president who is on a foreign visit to France," LANA said.

"He wants to assure the Libyan side that the demands made forth will be responded to in accordance to the laws and approved customs. He added that the communication between the parties will be open in this regard," LANA added.

Libyan government officials were not immediately available for comment.

BAD FOR THE NEIGHBOURS

In an interview broadcast by France 24 on Saturday but recorded before Saadi's interview was aired, Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou stated that Niger had not received any formal extradition request from Tripoli but would study any future one.

"If we receive an official request we will study it. We are a state based on the rule of law. We will study that question according to our laws and our international commitments, because Niger signed the treaty that created the International Criminal Court," Issoufou told France 24.

"We took them in on humanitarian grounds ... and we were very clear with them at the time: we took them in on condition they do not carry out any subversive activities against the Libyan authorities."

The ICC in the Hague issued a warrant for Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam - who is in a Libyan jail awaiting trial on rape and murder charges - but not for Saadi, who before the war was chiefly known abroad for his obsession with soccer.

The Libyan conflict has created new problems for the fragile region to its south. Heavily armed former fighters from Gaddafi's army have joined a new rebellion in northern Mali that has forced tens of thousands to flee from their homes.

As many as 200,000 migrant workers once employed in Libya have headed back into Niger, which along with the rest of the Sahel region is facing the latest of its recurrent food crises.

Aid agencies say their arrival has stretched scarce food resources even more thinly.

(Additional reporting by Mark John in Dakar; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Editing by Rosalind Russell)

Read More

4:35 PM | 0 comments

Greece warns bailout rebels of unknown, dangerous path

 

1 of 10. Riot policemen walk in front of the parliament during an anti-austerity rally in Athens February 11, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Yiorgos Karahalis

By Harry Papachristou and Lefteris Papadimas

ATHENS (Reuters) - The Greek government told rebellious lawmakers on Saturday to back a deeply unpopular EU/IMF rescue in parliament or send the nation down "an unknown, dangerous path" to default and international economic isolation.

Conservative leader Antonis Samaras, who has attacked austerity policies for driving Greece ever deeper into recession, still told his party to back the 130 billion euro deal or be dropped as candidates in the next general election.

With voters deeply hostile to the bailout's tough conditions, former socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou admitted that backing austerity had cost him the premiership and even some of his friends, but the alternative was a collapse in living standards and further "unforeseeable consequences."

The coalition of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has a huge majority, which should ensure parliament approves on Sunday a package including a further 3.3 billion euros in budget cuts this year, needed to secure Greece's second bailout since 2010.

But six members of his cabinet have already resigned over the heavy pay, pension and job cuts which the European Union and International Monetary Fund are demanding as the price of the funds, which Greece needs by next month to avoid bankruptcy.

INCALCULABLE CONSEQUENCES

Officials hammered home the message that Greece's future in the euro was at stake.

"The consequences of disorderly default would be incalculable for the country - not just for the economy ... it will lead us onto an unknown, dangerous path," Deputy Finance Minister Filippos Sachinidis said.

In an interview with the newspaper Imerisia, he described the catastrophe he believes Greece would suffer if it failed to meet debt repayments of 14.5 billion euros due on March 20.

"Let's just ask ourselves what it would mean for the country to lose its banking system, to be cut off from imports of raw materials, pharmaceuticals, fuel, basic foodstuffs and technology," he said.

Late on Friday the cabinet approved the draft bailout bill and a plan to ease the state's huge debt burden which has deepened the nation's political and social crisis and brought thousands out on the streets in protest.

As a 48-hour protest strike went into its second day, about 50 Communist party activists draped two huge banners on the ramparts of the Acropolis on Saturday, reading: "Down with the dictatorship of the monopolies (and the) European Union."

About 7,000 demonstrators gathered in central Athens, police said, but there was no repeat of trouble on Friday when police fired teargas at protesters throwing petrol bombs and stones.

SAMARAS CRACKS THE WHIP

Members of the conservative New Democracy party, which has a big lead in opinion polls before elections expected as early as April, are likely to back the deal solidly.

Samaras still warned his party, the second biggest in parliament, against stepping out of line. "This is obviously an issue of party discipline," he told New Democracy lawmakers in parliament, warning anyone who opposed the bailout "will not be a candidate in the next election."

However, the smallest party in the coalition, the far-right LAOS, quit the government in protest at the package on Friday, ordering its four cabinet members to resign. Two members of the Socialist PASOK party have also left the cabinet.

Papandreou, who negotiated the first bailout before his government collapsed in November, acknowledged the huge pressure on any politician backing the second rescue.

"I've lost friends, my family suffered, I gave up my office, I was insulted, vilified, like no other politician ever was in this country," he told PASOK's parliamentary group.

"Still, all that is nothing compared with what our people will suffer if we fail to do the right thing... Despite all the anger we are feeling inside, we must persevere."

Party discipline is much weaker at PASOK, whose support has dived to eight percent in the latest opinion from the nearly 44 percent it commanded when Papandreou led it into power in 2009.

A WHIFF OF REBELLION

Despite the whiff of rebellion, analysts expect parliament to pass the package, which also includes a bond swap which will ease Greece's debt burden by cutting the value of private investors' bond holdings by 70 percent.

Some economists suggest that if Greece defaulted and left the euro zone, its new national currency would dive in value and allow the Greek economy to become internationally competitive.

But government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis dismissed this notion. "We'll have to reduce the deficit, regardless of whether we have the euro or not."

Euro zone finance ministers have told Greece that it must explain how 325 million euros ($430 million) out of this year's total budget cuts will be achieved before it agrees to bailout.

Bailout documents released on Friday left blank the amount of the rescue but even 130 billion euros may not be enough.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said on Saturday 15 billion euros more might be needed to rescue the country's banks, confirming estimates from EU officials.

The banks are up to their necks in Greek government debt, the value of which will be slashed under the bailout, and have suffered huge losses of deposits as Greeks have either shipped their savings abroad or stuffed them under the mattress.

EU EXASPERATION

The European Union and the IMF have been exasperated by a series of broken promises and weeks of disagreement over the bailout. They will not release the aid without clear commitments by the main party leaders that the reforms will be implemented, regardless of who wins the next elections.

The uncertainty has upset world financial markets, with stocks snapping a five-day winning streak on Friday and the euro tumbling.

The bill, approved by the cabinet along with hundreds of pages of accompanying documents, sets out reforms including a 22 percent cut in the minimum wage, pension cuts worth 300 million euros this year, as well as health and defense spending cuts.

"The government believes that sustained implementation of this policy program, complemented by debt restructuring, will put the public debt on a clear downward path," it says in a draft letter to EU and IMF chiefs, attached to the bill.

In the same letter, the government promises to speed up implementation of reforms in the labor, product and services markets, cut spending, and push through a privatization plan.

One of the attached documents, which spells out the reforms Greece will have to undertake in return for the aid, says the target of cutting the debt to "about" 120 percent of GDP by 2020 from about 160 percent now will be achieved.

(Writing by David Stamp)

Read More

9:10 AM | 0 comments

Syria forces shell Homs, Saudis push U.N. resolution

1 of 12. Demonstrators gather during a protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Homs February 10, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Handout

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Angus MacSwan

AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces unleashed new tank and rocket bombardments on opposition neighborhoods of Homs on Saturday while diplomats sought U.N. backing for an Arab plan to end 11 months of bloodshed in Syria.

Activists said seven people were killed in the latest attacks in a week-long government siege of Homs, a battered city at the heart of the uprising to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Mohammed Hassan, one opposition campaigner in Homs, told Reuters by satellite telephone that a 55-year-old woman was among those killed by shellfire on the Bab Amro district.

The bloodshed followed a day of violence across Syria on Friday, when bombings targeting security bases killed at least 28 people in Aleppo and rebel fighters battled troops in a Damascus suburb after dark.

Assad has ignored repeated international appeals, the latest from the European Union, to halt his crackdown.

"I am appalled by the reports of the brutal attacks by the Syrian armed forces in Homs. I condemn in the strongest terms these acts perpetrated by the Syrian regime against its own civilian," EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.

However, the world is deeply divided over how to end the Syria conflict. On Sunday Russia and China vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution sponsored by Western and Arab states that backed an Arab League call for Assad to step down.

HOMS SUFFERS

The government offensive on opposition-held, mostly Sunni Muslim areas of Homs has killed at least 300 people in the past week, according to activists. Food and medical supplies are running low in blockaded areas, where many people are trapped in their houses, fearful of coming under fire if they step out.

Accounts could not be independently confirmed as Syria restricts access by most foreign journalists.

Youtube footage provided by activists showed a doctor at a field hospital next to the body of the woman. "Shrapnel hit her in the head and completely drained her brain matter," he says.

Big guns also pounded other Sunni neighborhoods in Homs that have been at the forefront of the uprising.

The 46-year old president belongs to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has dominated the majority Sunni country since Assad's late father took control in a 1970 coup.

Security forces have also made house-to-house raids in Homs in the last two days. The bodies of three people shot by snipers were pulled from the streets on Saturday, activists said.

YouTube footage from Friday showed two tanks said to be on the edge of Bab Amro, one firing its main gun across a highway.

"The indiscriminate shelling is killing mostly civilians," Fawaz Tello, an Egyptian-based member of the opposition Syrian National Council, told Reuters.

"Assad cannot push his troops into street fighting...so he is content with shelling Homs to bits until civilian losses pressure the Free Syrian Army to withdraw and regime troops can enter these neighborhoods without taking any serious losses."

TROOPS AMBUSHED

Elsewhere in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 soldiers were killed in an ambush by army defectors on Friday in the rebellious Idlib region on the border with Turkey.

The defectors hit a patrol between two villages with hand grenades and roadside bombs, the British-based Observatory said.

In Damascus, Free Syrian Army rebels fought for four hours on Friday night against troops backed by armored vehicles who had entered al-Qaboun neighborhood, activists said.

The fighting between government and rebel soldiers showed how opposition to Assad has increasingly evolved from pro-democracy street protests to armed insurrection.

World powers fear a slide into all-out civil war which could inflame a region already riven by revolts and rivalries from Bahrain and Yemen to Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Gulf Arab states, the United States, Europe and Turkey are leading diplomatic efforts to force Assad to end his 11-year rule. But they have ruled out a military intervention of the kind that helped bring down Libya's Muammar Gaddafi last year.

Assad can count on the support of Russia, Syria's main arms supplier and an ally stretching back to the Soviet era, as well as Iran. Moscow, which is keen to counter U.S. influence in the Middle East, insists foreign powers should not interfere.

Kamel Ayham, a Eurasia Group analyst, said Syria was also the nexus of a regional power struggle, with Assad's fate the focus of competition between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslim countries.

At the United Nations, Saudi Arabia circulated a draft resolution backing an Arab peace plan for Syria among members of the General Assembly on Friday, diplomats said. The text echoed the one vetoed by Russia and China in the Security Council.

Like the failed draft, the assembly text "fully supports" the Arab League plan floated last month. The assembly is due to discuss Syria on Monday and vote on the draft later in the week.

Russia and China blocked the Security Council draft, saying it was unbalanced and failed to blame Syria's opposition, along with the government, for violence in which thousands have died.

The United Nations, which says it can no longer tally casualties, estimated in mid-December that the security forces had killed more than 5,000. A week later, the government said armed "terrorists" had killed over 2,000 soldiers and police.

Eurasia's Ayham said the Russian and Chinese vetoes indicated that change was not imminent. As the rebel forces lacked structure and a unified command, Assad would keep the military edge, but would find it hard to stamp out the revolt.

"In the next few months, Syria will transition from civil conflict into civil war. Assad's power and control over the country will diminish and civilian casualties on both sides are expected to rise," Ayham said.

(Additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Read More

1:32 AM | 0 comments

Nigerian president's state votes amid tight security

By Austin Ekeinde and Tife Owalabi

YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerians voted amid tight security in a governorship election on Saturday in President Goodluck Jonathan's restive and oil-rich home state of Bayelsa, where last week militants attacked a major oil pipeline.

Nigeria's 36 state governors are some of the most powerful politicians in Africa's most populous nation, in some cases controlling budgets larger than other African countries and gubernatorial elections can stoke violence.

At least one person was killed and several injured at a pre-election rally on Tuesday in the southern Ijaw region in Bayelsa, witnesses said.

"Ten thousand to 15,000 policemen are deployed for the election, these include anti-bomb squads from Delta, Edo and Rivers states to ensure that all key points are saved," said Chris Olakpe, Bayelsa's police commissioner.

"We are going to effectively police all polling booths and normal patrols would go on to ensure miscreants do not hijack the process," added Olakpe, who took up his position this week.

Even with a huge police and military presence it will be difficult to guard all ballot boxes in Bayelsa, where thousands of kilometers (miles) of labyrinthine creeks weave through swamplands, sitting on top of billions of dollars of crude oil.

"Soldiers, police are all over so I'm hopeful there will be no problem of shooting, killing, burning of houses and all that," said John Masi, a 35-year old laborer.

"I want the new governor that will be elected today to quickly construct the new university so I can get work to do and make money to get out of this wooden shack and have a better life for my wife and two children."

Bayelsa is one of the three Nigerian states that make up the oil rich Niger Delta, where militant gangs held the government to ransom for years by sabotaging pipelines and stealing industrial amounts of oil until an amnesty in 2009.

Attacks have been rarer and less destructive since the amnesty but they still occur. Last week the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), formerly Nigeria's main militant threat, claimed a strike on a pipeline owned by Italian firm Eni, which confirmed 4,000 barrels per day of output had been cut by the attack.

MILITANTS

Under the amnesty thousands of militants gave up their weapons, joined training schemes and drew stipends. Security sources say remaining gangs in the Niger Delta do not have the capacity to do the damage seen in the past, which at its height cut more than a third of the OPEC-member's output.

Several false threats purporting to be from MEND have been sent in the past and recent damage caused to Nigeria's oil infrastructure has been done by gangs stealing oil for illicit refining and sale, rather than the result of militant strikes.

Diplomats and security sources have said violence in the Niger Delta is often stoked by rival politicians and the race for the Bayelsa governorship post has been fierce.

Nigeria's Supreme Court removed Governor Timipre Sylva from his post last month because it said his tenure should have expired, replacing him with Bayelsa's speaker of the house of assembly.

The dominant ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) didn't allow Sylva to run in its primary last November, the first time the PDP has stopped a sitting governor from seeking a second term. Thousands of soldiers were then deployed to Bayelsa, prompting outrage from Sylva's team.

The winner of that primary, Henry Dickson, is the clear favorite to win Saturday's vote. President Jonathan is backing Dickson and is traveling from the capital Abuja to his home state to cast his vote, the presidency said.

Western diplomats said Sylva was snubbed because he fell out with his former ally Jonathan. Sylva will not run in the election but is seeking to nullify the most recent PDP primary, hoping to revert back to the primary he won last year.

Bayelsa has a population of around 1.5 million, the least populous state in a country of more than 160 million but it is key to Nigeria's economy due to its substantial oil wealth.

(Additional reporting and writing by Joe Brock, editing by Rosalind Russell)

Read More

6:00 PM | 0 comments

Mexico cartels paid $4.5 million political bribes: court

By Isabella Cota

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican drug cartels paid $4.5 million in bribes to buy protection and political favors in a state run by the country's main opposition party, U.S. court documents said on Friday, as the party leads polls to win the presidency in July.

The money-laundering case in Texas charges Antonio Pena, arrested on Wednesday, with funneling cash from the feared Zetas cartel to officials in the state of Tamaulipas, according to documents from the U.S. District Court in San Antonio, Texas.

A sworn affidavit from an undercover agent at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration names former Tamaulipas Governor Tomas Yarrington of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), as having a direct personal relationship with Zeta leaders.

A DEA undercover source "described Antonio Pena as a conduit between Mexican politicians, in particular Tomas Yarrington, and Zeta members Miguel Trevino and Heriberto Lazcano," according to the documents, available on U.S. court database PACER.

Lazcano and Trevino are the leaders of the cartel, which is notorious for decapitations and kidnappings across Mexico.

Yarrington, in office from 1999 to 2005, is under investigation separately in Mexico along with two other ex-governors of the state, which the PRI has ruled since the party's foundation.

The centrist PRI has said the probe is politically motivated ahead of the hotly contested July 1 presidential vote.

The federal attorney-general's office confirmed the investigation but declined to give further details. Mexican media have reported authorities are searching for evidence the politicians are linked to money laundering.

The accusations have given President Felipe Calderon's ruling conservative National Action Party, or PAN, fresh ammunition against the PRI, which ruled Mexico for seven decades until it was ousted in 2000.

Yarrington did not immediately reply to requests for comment. He said via a Twitter account on January 30 that his name had appeared on an alert blocking his travel outside of Mexico.

"I hope that the authorities clarify the motive and scope of this action," his Twitter account said.

The PRI is hoping its youthful presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto, who has a big lead in opinion polls, will bring a new face to the party, still remembered by some Mexican voters for corruption and vote buying during 70 years in power.

HORRIFIC VIOLENCE

Members of Calderon's PAN have accused the PRI of negotiating in the past with organized crime, a charge the party vehemently denies.

PAN party chairman Gustavo Madero responded to the Yarrington report by urging a thorough investigation of alleged links between the PRI and organized crime.

"Our concern isn't political posturing, it's an appeal to the conscience of those governing to think again, because this is putting the lives and well-being of all Mexicans at risk," he said in a televised statement.

The PAN's popularity has suffered since the government launched a frontal attack on the cartels five years ago. Since then, more than 47,000 people have died in Mexico as turf wars between the gangs over lucrative smuggling routes intensified.

The Zetas, who began as the armed wing of the Gulf cartel but split off from their former employers, have been blamed for some of the most horrific acts of violence, including the massacre of 72 migrants in Tamaulipas in 2010.

In the Texas court case document, Yarrington is mentioned several times.

"This relationship started with the election of Governor Tomas Yarrington and continued with the placement of other PRI candidates in government positions throughout Tamaulipas who could ensure favorable protection for the cartels," the testimony said.

The DEA agent says Yarrington met with Pena on various occasions in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and the United States.

The testimony also cites another confidential source who said he delivered $500,000 in drug proceeds from the Gulf cartel to Pena when he was an associate of the mayor of Nuevo Laredo in 2002.

John Ackerman, a political analyst at the National

Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), said the government should have begun probes into the ex-governors much earlier.

It chose not to because the PAN needed opposition support in Congress due to its lack of a majority, he added.

"This is not a witch hunt, this is the reality: governors and government officials in this country are involved with drug dealers," he said. "They are not clean, neither those from PRI nor the PAN."

(Reporting by Isabella Cota; Editing by Mica Rosenberg, Krista Hughes and Philip Barbara)

Read More

11:59 AM | 0 comments

Iran to announce nuclear progress: Ahmadinejad

 

EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during a ceremony to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, in Tehran's Azadi square February 11, 2012. Ahmadinejad said on Saturday the Islamic Republic would soon announce ''very important'' achievements in the nuclear field, state TV reported.

Credit: Reuters/Raheb Homavandi

By Parisa Hafezi and Mitra Amiri

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that the Islamic Republic, targeted by tougher Western sanctions, would soon announce advances in its nuclear program.

He was speaking on the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah. Tens of thousands of Iranians joined state-organized rallies to mark the occasion.

"In the coming days the world will witness Iran's announcement of its very important and very major nuclear achievements," Ahmadinejad told a crowd at Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Square in a speech relayed live on state television.

Demonstrators carrying Iranian flags and pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." Ismail Haniya, who heads the Islamist Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, also attended the ceremony.

Ahmadinejad gave no details of how Iran's nuclear work, which Tehran says has only peaceful purposes, has progressed.

The United States and Israel, a country which Iran does not recognize, have not ruled out military action if sanctions fail.

Iran has warned of a "painful" answer, saying it would hit Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf as well as block the vital Gulf oil shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz.

"If attacked by the Zionist regime (Israel), we will turn it to dust," said a Revolutionary Guards commander, Mohammad Shirdel, semi-official Fars news agency reported Saturday.

"Thousands of our missiles will target Israel and the 40 bases of America in the region," he added.

The nuclear dispute has fuelled tension as the West tightens sanctions. The European Union has agreed to ban Iranian oil imports by July and to freeze the assets of Iran's central bank.

Its measures reinforce those imposed by the United States as the West tries to force Tehran to return to talks before it produces enough nuclear material for an atomic bomb.

Neither side has shown much appetite for compromise. Iran says it will fight EU sanctions with counter-measures and its parliament plans legislation to ban oil exports to the EU.

Iranian officials brush off the impact of sanctions, while also proclaiming that Iranians will endure any hardship in support of their country's right to nuclear technology.

"I am saying openly that if you (the West) continue to use the language of force and threat, our nation will never succumb to your pressure," Ahmadinejad said.

IMPACT OF SANCTIONS

Industry analysts say sanctions are hitting Iran's vital oil sector and say falls in crude output and exports will speed up.

Global oil flows are realigning even though the EU ban on imports from Iran only takes effect in July, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly Oil Market Report Friday.

Asia's two giants, China and India, want to head off new sanctions on Iran. China, Iran's biggest trade partner, is one of six major powers involved in nuclear talks with Tehran.

Ahmadinejad, echoing Iran's official stance, said fresh nuclear talks would be welcome. The last round collapsed a year ago over Iran's refusal to halt its uranium enrichment work.

"They say we want to negotiate. That is fine with us, we have been always ready to hold talks in the framework of justice and mutual respect," Ahmadinejad said. "The Iranian nation will not withdraw even one iota from its path."

Western nations say talking is pointless unless uranium enrichment is on the table, something Iran refuses to discuss.

Iran's economy is around 60 percent reliant on oil. The country is heavily dependent on food imports, buying 45 percent of its rice and most of its animal feed abroad.

Sanctions-linked trade snags risk fuelling already high inflation, which Iranian critics blame on Ahmadinejad's economic policies. The official inflation rate exceeds 20 percent.

But Ahmadinejad said the economy was "flourishing," reeling off figures to back his contention. Critics have in the past accused the government of falsifying economic statistics.

"We have saved over $30 billion for rainy days," he said. "Iran's non-oil exports will reach over $43 billion by March ... Iran's imports in the past 10 months dropped five percent."

Following reforms under which the government phased out hefty subsidies on staples like food and fuel since 2010, Ahmadinejad said billions were saved by not importing petrol.

"We were importers of fuel but ... now we are among main exporters of fuel and oil products," he said.

Fresh U.S. and EU financial sanctions are snarling Iranian payments for staple food and other imports, causing hardship for its 74 million people weeks before a parliamentary election.

The election will be Iran's first since a disputed presidential vote in 2009, which the opposition says was rigged to secure Ahmadinejad's re-election. That sparked eight months of street protests which the government forcibly suppressed.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

Read More

4:26 AM | 0 comments

Rock star welcome for Suu Kyi on Myanmar campaign trail

 

Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi delivers a speech to supporters as she stands on a vehicle en-route to Kawhmu township, the constituency where she will contest April by-elections, February 11, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/ Soe Zeya Tun

By Aung Hla Tun

WARTHINKHA, Myanmar (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to give a rapturous welcome on Saturday to Myanmar Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi as she hit the campaign trail for the first time in her bid to win a seat in the country's parliament.

Riding in a convoy of three dozen cars and flanked by hundreds of motorcycles, Suu Kyi received rock star treatment from crowds of cheering, flag-waving supporters chanting "long live mother Suu" throughout her seven-hour crawl to the rustic constituency where she will contest April by-elections.

The leader of Myanmar's pro-democracy struggle stood through a car sunroof, waving and smiling as dilapidated, overloaded trucks shuttled in the crowds, in an outpouring of excitement at a rare rally in a country tightly controlled for 49 years by an army that brutally suppressed activism.

"We need your strength, for the people," Suu Kyi shouted to the crowd, much of which held aloft her picture alongside that of her late father and independence hero, Aung San who was assassinated when his daughter was two years old.

The decision to contest the by-election represents a giant leap of faith for Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party after two decades being jailed, harassed and sidelined by the former junta, which made way to a nominally civilian government 11 months ago.

The NLD boycotted the widely flawed 2010 election but last year accepted an olive branch from president and former junta fourth-in-command, Thein Sein, who reached out to Suu Kyi. She regards the reform-minded ex-general as sincere and trustworthy.

The motorcade moved at a snail's pace on a 56-km (35-mile) venture south of the commercial capital Yangon, weaving through bamboo-hut villages on bumpy, dusty dirt-tracks as farmers and children jostled to catch a glimpse of "The Lady," as she is affectionately known.

Some 5,000 supporters in Warthinkha, a village of just 1,000 people, packed into a rice paddy to hear her rousing speech on a makeshift stage, her voice drowned out by bursts of applause.

'ALL-OUT EFFORT'

"I call on the people to have confidence in us. The NLD has no magic power, but we will get to our desires soon with an all-out concerted effort, with the courage and ability to get over the struggle," Suu Kyi told the crowd.

"There are so many struggles ahead, I recognize this not because I'm disappointed but just to say we need strength and reinforcement to overcome them.

"The journey we are on, with the people, is very rough but the destination we are headed for is peaceful."

Her bid for a parliamentary role is largely symbolic, with only 48 seats up for grabs in the by-elections, meaning the NLD can only secure a tiny stake in the national legislature.

The last time the party contested an election was in 1990, when its landslide win was ignored by the junta. Suu Kyi did not run in the poll because she was under house arrest.

It remains to be seen exactly what Suu Kyi could achieve in a parliament stacked with military appointees and lawmakers allied with a party widely believed to have been formed and funded by the ruling generals before they stepped aside.

But the farmers who turned out in their droves believe Suu Kyi can be the decisive factor in transforming the country.

"I've never seen such a huge crowd. We're very lucky she's decided to stand in the election representing our village," said mother of four, Naw Ohn Kyi, 59. "It's like we've won the biggest prize in the lottery without even buying a ticket."

Another villager, Sa San Thein, 35, added: "We were thrilled to hear Aunty Suu was coming. It's just like a mother who left on a long journey, coming home unexpectedly."

The elections will be closely watched by the international community as a litmus test of the government's sincerity towards reforms, which have included the release of an estimated 650 political prisoners and ceasefires with ethnic rebel armies.

Diplomats expect the polls will be free and fair, despite irregularities in the 2010 election, because the participation of Suu Kyi, the charismatic darling of the West, would be a powerful endorsement of its fledgling democratic system.

A clean poll is also a pre-requisite for lifting of sanctions that are currently under review, as Western nations seek to bring the vastly underdeveloped but resource-rich country out from the cold after two decades of isolation.

(Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Ed Lane)

Read More

9:50 PM | 0 comments

UK to "robustly" defend Falklands, Argentina seeks U.N. aid

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS | Fri Feb 10, 2012 6:46pm EST

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - London's U.N. ambassador warned Argentina on Friday that Britain would "robustly" defend the Falkland Islands if necessary, but added that his country remained open to bilateral talks with Buenos Aires on any issue except the islands' sovereignty.

British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant was speaking to reporters after Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman met with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the president of the U.N. Security Council to ask for help in stopping what he said was Britain's "militarization of the South Atlantic."

"We are not looking to increase the war of words, but clearly if there is an attempt to take advantage of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands war by Argentina, then we will obviously defend our position and defend it robustly," Lyall Grant said.

The British envoy's comments came a day after British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to defend the islands "properly.

Britain and Argentina fought a 10-week war over the Falkland Islands in 1982 after Argentina invaded the South Atlantic islands, which the Argentines call Las Malvinas. London has refused to start talks on sovereignty with Buenos Aires unless the 3,000 islanders want them.

Tensions have risen before the 30th anniversary of the Falklands conflict this year. Oil exploration by British companies off the islands has raised the stakes.

Timerman repeated accusations that surfaced in the British press about a nuclear submarine being sent to the South Atlantic. He said that bringing atomic weapons into the region violated Latin America's treaty banning the presence, pursuit or use of nuclear weapons.

Britain has signed two protocols to the 1967 treaty, according to which it vowed to support the maintenance of a nuclear-weapons-free zone across Latin America.

BRITAIN OPEN TO BILATERAL TALKS

Lyall Grant denied militarizing the region and said Britain had a "purely defensive military posture" for the islands. He neither confirmed nor denied reports a nuclear-armed British submarine is lurking around the Falklands.

"We do not comment on the disposition of nuclear weapons, submarines, et cetera," he said.

"But it is well known that ... as part of our overall defensive posture, there are submarines on patrol all around the world at any time. So it's not a question of anything new in what he (Timerman) is suggesting," Lyall Grant added.

Timerman said he welcomed Ban's offer to mediate in the dispute.

"Argentina agrees that the secretary-general should begin conversations with both countries so that we can sit down at a table ... to resolve this conflict in a peaceful way," he said.

Security Council action on Argentina's complaint is very unlikely given Britain's veto on the 15-nation panel.

Lyall Grant said Britain was open to bilateral talks with Argentina and there was no need for "third-party mediation." He said it was Buenos Aires, not London, that was preventing talks aimed at defusing the tensions between the two nations.

"We have always been open to dialogue with Argentina. ... We had a dialogue with Argentina and they broke it off," he said, adding that "we are not going to discuss sovereignty."

Lyall Grant said one of the problems in restarting talks with Buenos Aires was a 1994 amendment to Argentina's constitution requiring that the government seek sovereignty over the islands.

"We have made clear that we are not prepared to go into talks with the precondition that has been set in the Argentine constitution and discuss sovereignty over the heads of the people of the Falkland Islands," he said.

Argentina has also condemned British plans to deploy one of its most advanced destroyers, HMS Dauntless, to the area. It has also criticized the posting of Prince William, second in line to the British throne, to the islands as a military search-and-rescue pilot.

(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Read More

3:15 PM | 0 comments

One killed in clashes in Lebanon's Tripoli

 

Debris is seen scattered on the road in front of graffiti (L) that reads ''Down with Bashar'' in the Sunni Muslim Bab al-Tabbaneh neighbourhood in Tripoli, northern Lebanon, on the second day of heavy gunfire and clashes, that has left at least one dead, February 11, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Omar Ibrahim

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) - One person was killed and several soldiers wounded in street battles in Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli Saturday, a security source said, in a second day of violence involving supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The coastal city is dominated by Sunni Muslims who support the 11-month uprising against Assad in neighboring Syria, but is also home to members of Assad's Alawite minority.

Residents said rocket-propelled grenades were fired from the Sunni Muslim district of Bab al-Tabbaneh toward the Alawite district of Jebel Mohsen, but caused no injuries.

Saturday, Reuters Television footage showed gunmen taking cover on street corners and firing volleys of automatic gunfire.

"We are the supporters of the Syrian revolution in Lebanon, and we are going to (fight) the shabbiha," one of the gunmen said, referring to pro-Assad militias blamed by Syrian opposition activists for much of the killing in Syria.

A Lebanese army statement said troops had deployed in the Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jebel Mohsen districts to restore order and were "carrying out raids on sites that took part in the clashes," making arrests and seizing weapons.

Several soldiers were wounded, one seriously, it said.

There are frequent clashes in Tripoli between rival sects, but tensions have heightened sharply since the outbreak of unrest in Syria. Friday's violence came after hundreds of people demonstrated against Assad following weekly Muslim prayers.

(Reporting by Nazih Siddiq, Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Read More

8:05 AM | 0 comments

Two Westerners kidnapped in Pakistan held by Taliban

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two Western aid workers kidnapped in Pakistan in January are being held by the Pakistan Taliban near the border with Afghanistan, a senior militant commander told Reuters on Saturday.

Gunmen stormed a house in Multan in southern Punjab province on January 19 and drove away with two foreigners -- one an Italian citizen and the other believed to be a German.

"The two NGO (non-governmental organization) workers who were kidnapped in Multan nearly a month ago are in our custody near the border. We haven't made any demands yet," a senior commander of the Pakistan Taliban said.

"They are in good health."

A Punjab provincial police chief said last month the foreigners were being held for ransom.

Criminal gangs often target foreign aid workers in Pakistan in hope of securing large ransoms for their release. Pakistani officials say militant groups such as the Taliban are also involved in kidnappings.

The senior commander said the Westerners were being held by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella group of Pakistani militant factions formed in 2007 which is also allied with the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda.

In January, a Kenyan aid worker and his Pakistani driver went missing in southern Sindh province. A British doctor with the International Committee of the Red Cross was kidnapped by gunmen from the southwestern city of Quetta on January 5.

Last year, American aid worker Warren Weinstein was kidnapped from the central Pakistani city of Lahore. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for Weinstein's abduction in December.

In July, a Swiss couple was kidnapped from the southwestern Baluchistan province by the Pakistani Taliban.

Such kidnappings in Pakistan put off long-term investors. Foreign direct investment in Pakistan fell 37 percent to $531.2 million in the second half of 2011 from $839.6 million in the final six months of 2010.

(Reporting by Saud Mehsud; Writing by Serena Chaudhry; Editing by Chris Allbritton and Ed Lane)

Read More

1:01 AM | 0 comments