JERUSALEM – Israel's prime minister said Sunday that the unrest in Tunisia over the weekend shows why Israel must be cautious as it pursues peace with the Palestinians.
Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet that the violence surrounding the ouster of Tunisia's longtime president illustrated the widespread instability plaguing the Middle East. He also said it underscored the need for strong security arrangements in any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
"We need to lay the foundations of security in any agreement that we make," he said. "We cannot simply say 'We are signing a peace agreement,' close our eyes and say 'We did it' because we do not know with any clarity that the peace will indeed be honored," he said.
Palestinians accused the Israeli leader of searching for excuses.
"If there was a tsunami in Asia, a flood in Latin America or a lunar eclipse, Netanyahu would use it as a pretext not to negotiate," said chief negotiator Saeb Erekat.
Netanyahu, who leads the hawkish Likud Party, has long made security a top demand for any future peace deal with the Palestinians.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has spent several years reforming his security forces, which now include hundreds of officers who have received U.S. training.
Both U.S. and Israeli officials have praised the progress of the Palestinian forces in cracking down on militants and maintaining law and order in the West Bank.
Israeli officials say the forces are limited in their capabilities. They also note that the Gaza Strip, the other territory claimed for a future Palestinian state, is ruled by the Hamas militant group.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
South Korea says chemical cargo seized by Somali pirates
Somalis wait for food rations at a distribution centre in the Dharkenley District of Mogadishu in December 2010. Somalia's prime minister told the UN Security Council on Friday that the new government is winning its war with Islamist militants but that 2.5 million people face starvation because of drought
SEOUL (Reuters) – Somali pirates have seized a South Korean chemical cargo in the Arabian Sea, two months after an oil supertanker belonging to the same firm was freed after seven months in captivity, the government and local media said.
A Foreign Ministry statement issued late Saturday said the cabinet had met to discuss how to deal with the hijacking of the 11,500-tonne Samho Jewelry, seized while sailing to Sri Lanka from the United Arab Emirates.
Aboard was a crew of eight Koreans, 11 Myanmar nationals and two Indonesians.
"We are operating two teams -- one in the Korean embassy in Kenya and the other at the Foreign Affairs Ministry -- set up immediately after the hijacking was confirmed," the ministry said.
The statement said South Korean naval destroyer had been on patrol some 2,000 km away from the incident. Navies from emerging and developed nations, including the European Union, China, India, Russia, Japan and the United States, have intensified patrols in the region to combat piracy.
Officials at Samho Shipping were not immediately reachable.
Local media quoted the foreign ministry as saying that the company was in contact with the hijacked vessel and was aware of its location. Crew members, the reports said, were in good condition.
They said the Samho Jewelry belonged to Samho Shipping, whose oil supertanker Samho Dream was released in November after being held by Somali pirates for seven months.
The pirates said they had received a record ransom of $9.5 million for the release of the supertanker
Saturday, January 15, 2011
In Tunisia, Clashes Continue as Power Shifts a Second Time
Smoked poured out of a supermarket near Tunis. Power changed hands for the second time in 24 hours on Saturday morning.
NEW YORK TIMES
TUNIS — Tanks, police officers and gangs of newly deputized young men wielding guns held the deserted streets of Tunis Saturday night after a day of sporadic rioting and gunfire. Power changed hands for the second time in 24 hours, and the swift turnabout raised new questions about what kind of government might emerge from the chaos engulfing Tunisia.
The interim government named Friday had hoped that the toppling of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled the country, would satisfy protesters, but continued unrest Saturday made clear that they were determined to chase his allies from power as well.
Bursts of gunfire rang out through the capital all day Saturday, and a patient discharged from a major hospital here reported that the emergency room was packed with people suffering gunshot wounds.
After a hail of machine-gun fire in the late afternoon in downtown Tunis, snipers were visible on the rooftop of the Interior Ministry, aiming down at the Boulevard Bourguiba. Human rights groups said that they had confirmed dozens of deaths at the hands of security forces even before the biggest street battle began Friday, and on Saturday residents huddled in their homes for fear of the police.
The tumbling political succession started Friday when Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi announced on state television that the president was gone and that he was taking over. Then, on Saturday morning, Mr. Ghannouchi, an ally of Mr. Ben Ali, abruptly announced that he was surrendering the reins of government to the speaker of Parliament, complying with succession rules spelled out in the Tunisian Constitution. Now the speaker, Fouad Mebazaa, is expected to hold elections to form a new government within 60 days.
The shake-up underscored the power vacuum left here after the end of Mr. Ben Ali’s 23 years of authoritarian rule — a transition of dizzying speed that Tunisians view with both hope and fear.
With Tunisia’s relatively large middle class, high level of education and secular culture, some here argue that their country is poised to become the first true Arab democracy. And commentators around the Middle East pondered the potential regional implications of the success of Tunisia’s protests; Mr. Ben Ali’s fall marked the first time that street demonstrations had overcome an Arab autocrat. “Will Tunisia be the first domino to fall?” asked a headline on the Web site of the news channel Al Jazeera.
But others at home and abroad worried that Tunisia could slide into chaos, laying the groundwork for a new strongman to emerge. Mr. Ben Ali was viewed in the West as a reliable ally in the fight against the Islamic extremism flourishing in other parts of North Africa, and in Washington, national security experts said extremist groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb could capitalize on the disorder to find a new foothold.
For now, though, the political field remains conspicuously empty. Mr. Ben Ali’s pervasive network of secret police had succeeded in effectively eliminating or co-opting any truly viable opposition or political institution. The former president also long ago wiped away the Islamist groups that form the main grass-roots opposition in most Arab countries.
“There are very few players to keep track of,” said Michael Koplow, an expert on Tunisia who has written about the uprising for Foreign Policy magazine. “If there were new free elections, it is unclear whether there is anyone qualified to run who the people would accept. It is wide open.”
There is also no apparent leader or spokesman for the four-week-old protest against joblessness and government corruption that forced Mr. Ben Ali from power. The protests erupted spontaneously after the Dec. 17 suicide by self-immolation of a college-educated street vendor in the Western city of Sidi Bouzid frustrated by the lack of opportunity (the police had confiscated his wares because he did not have a permit). They spread through online social networks like Facebook and Twitter. And they accelerated as demonstrators shared homemade digital videos of each confrontation with the police.
“There are no leaders, that is the good thing,” one protester declared Friday as thousands crowded around the Interior Ministry just before the police imposed martial law and Mr. Ben Ali left the country.
Protesters immediately turned against the unconstitutional ascension of Mr. Ghannouchi, arguing that he was a crony of Mr. Ben Ali who came from the same hometown of Sousse. It remains unclear if critics will be satisfied with the switch in power to Mr. Mebazaa, who has presided over a Parliament dominated exclusively by Mr. Ben Ali’s ruling party and like almost every other Tunisian elected official, owes his career to the former president.
There were reports in Arabic news outlets this weekend that it was the Tunisian military that finally triggered the unwinding of Mr. Ben Ali’s government. As the demonstrations escalated on Thursday afternoon, the country’s top military official, Gen. Rachid Ammar, is said to have refused to shoot protesters.
That afternoon, the military began pulling its tanks and personnel out of downtown Tunis, leaving the police and other security forces loyal to the ruling party to take their place as President Ben Ali delivered his final speech pleading, in effect, for another chance. The tanks returned after Mr. Ben Ali left the country.
On Saturday afternoon, there were some signs that General Ammar himself may now have an eye on politics. On Facebook, a staging ground of the street revolt, almost 1,700 people had clicked that they “like” a Web page named “General Rachid Ammar President” and emblazoned with his official photographs.
Still, the Tunisian military is relatively small compared with the armies of most countries in the region and is far less pervasive here than internal security forces, and so far neither General Ammar nor any other military figure has publicly stepped forward to try to lead the country.
Meanwhile, Tunisians abroad and exiled opposition leaders reveled in the chance for a change. Several thousand Tunisians demonstrated in Paris on Saturday at the Place de la République calling for real democracy and celebrating Mr. Ben Ali’s downfall.
Exiled opposition leaders, many of whom have lived abroad for decades in France or Britain, prepared to return in the hope of rekindling their movements. Perhaps foremost among them was Rachid al-Ghannouchi, a progressive Islamic leader who founded the Hizb al-Nahdah, or Renaissance Party. He was imprisoned twice in the 1980s and granted asylum in Britain in 1993.
“The dictatorship has fallen,” Mr. Ghannouchi told Reuters. “There is nothing to stop me returning to my country after 22 years of exile.”
In Egypt, critics of President Hosni Mubarak rushed to embrace the Tunisian example, noting that their country shared the combination of an autocratic ruler, rampant corruption and a large population of frustrated youth. Egyptians traded phone messages like “Mubarak, oh, Mubarak, your plane is waiting for you!” and posted images of the Tunisian flag to their Facebook pages. A major opposition group, led by Mohamed El Baradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, merged the Egyptian and Tunisian flags into one on its Web site.
One group of young Egyptians set up a Facebook page calling on their fellow citizens to make January 25 “The day of revolution against torture, poverty, corruption and unemployment.”
“If you care about Egypt, if you want your rights, join us and participate and enough silence,” the page said.
Still, many commentators around the Arab world wondered if it might be too soon to celebrate, given the continuing violence in Tunisia and the lack of an obvious leader. “We don’t know if the Tunisia of yesterday has opened up, or is about to plunge into a deep sea of the unknown and be added to the series of Arab disasters that don’t end,” Tarek al-Hamid wrote in Asharq al-Awsat, a paper with a Saudi owner. “No one will cry over Ben Ali, but the prayer is for Tunisia not to fall into a quagmire of crises with a bleak future.”
Saudi Arabia said Saturday that it had welcomed Mr. Ben Ali and his family. France, the former colonial power in Tunisia, made it clear that it did not want to risk inflaming its large Tunisian immigrant population by accepting the former president. And on Saturday, the French government said that members of Mr. Ben Ali’s family who had taken refuge at a hotel at Disneyland Paris were not welcome either.
“Ben Ali’s family members on French soil have no reason to stay,” a government spokesman said. “They are going to leave it.” French media said the family members were later seen leaving the hotel.
Meanwhile, reports of unrest continued Saturday in Tunisia, with the Arab news media reporting that hundreds of prisoners were freed after a jailhouse riot in a resort town and that more than 40 were killed in a fire at another prison set by an inmate hoping to escape amid the country’s chaos.
But the Tunisian airport reopened at least partially Saturday, and some in Tunis said things were looking up. Huddled in the doorway of a darkened apartment building downtown Saturday, a man in his late 20s was smoking cigarettes and watching security forces patrol the square outside. He would give only his first name, Faisal, and he said that he had been unemployed for the seven years since he graduated from college, in part because he could not afford the bribes necessary to secure a job.
He had nothing good to say about Mr. Ben Ali, but when asked about what would come out of the chaos, he shrugged and smiled.
“Look,” he said, “everything is going to be O.K.”
Nigeria begins registering millions for April polls
OTUOKE, Nigeria (Reuters) – Nigeria began the mammoth task of registering an estimated 70 million voters on Saturday, a process which will be key to ensuring nationwide elections in April are more credible than in the past.
An electoral roll riddled with fictitious names and omitting legitimate voters, combined with ballot-stuffing and intimidation, so badly marred previous votes in Africa's most populous nation that observers refused to sign off on them.
President Goodluck Jonathan, who won the ruling party nomination on Thursday, has said organizing clean presidential, parliamentary and state governorship elections in three months' time is a top priority. An accurate electoral roll is key.
Jonathan named Attahiru Jega, a respected academic, to head the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last June as part of efforts to clean up the system.
Jega said from the outset establishing a new voter list so quickly in a country of 140 million would be challenging.
"Nigerians need to understand what we have started today is such a massive exercise the like of which I don't recall in terms of scale and complexity," Jega told reporters in Jonathan's home village, shortly after the president registered.
"We're working in 120,000 polling stations nationwide. We have to deploy men and materials to these places and we have to ensure the process commences on time."
Crowds of villagers and Jonathan's supporters flocked to his village of Otuoke to see him and his wife Patience register under a makeshift canopy outside their country home.
Schools have been closed until the end of the month and are to be used as registration centers during the two-week exercise.
INEC last year bought 120,000 electronic voter registration kits -- including laptop computers, finger print scanners, cameras and printers -- using part of a controversial 88 billion naira ($585 million) budget.
Jega said around 98,000 of the kits had been deployed and acknowledged there had been logistical problems, including with some of the scanners. He said he hoped the remainder would be deployed in the next 24 hours.
"I want to ask Nigerians to be patient with us ... We are only 5 hours into the first day of a 15-day exercise," he said.
An electoral roll riddled with fictitious names and omitting legitimate voters, combined with ballot-stuffing and intimidation, so badly marred previous votes in Africa's most populous nation that observers refused to sign off on them.
President Goodluck Jonathan, who won the ruling party nomination on Thursday, has said organizing clean presidential, parliamentary and state governorship elections in three months' time is a top priority. An accurate electoral roll is key.
Jonathan named Attahiru Jega, a respected academic, to head the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last June as part of efforts to clean up the system.
Jega said from the outset establishing a new voter list so quickly in a country of 140 million would be challenging.
"Nigerians need to understand what we have started today is such a massive exercise the like of which I don't recall in terms of scale and complexity," Jega told reporters in Jonathan's home village, shortly after the president registered.
"We're working in 120,000 polling stations nationwide. We have to deploy men and materials to these places and we have to ensure the process commences on time."
Crowds of villagers and Jonathan's supporters flocked to his village of Otuoke to see him and his wife Patience register under a makeshift canopy outside their country home.
Schools have been closed until the end of the month and are to be used as registration centers during the two-week exercise.
INEC last year bought 120,000 electronic voter registration kits -- including laptop computers, finger print scanners, cameras and printers -- using part of a controversial 88 billion naira ($585 million) budget.
Jega said around 98,000 of the kits had been deployed and acknowledged there had been logistical problems, including with some of the scanners. He said he hoped the remainder would be deployed in the next 24 hours.
"I want to ask Nigerians to be patient with us ... We are only 5 hours into the first day of a 15-day exercise," he said.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
International Olympic Committee suspends Ghana
Accra, Jan. 13, GNA - The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suspended Ghana from its outfit after a long standing feud at the corridors of the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC). The decision follows an Executive Board meeting of the IOC held on Thursday, January 13, at the Lausanne, Switzerland. Information gathered by GNA Sports reveals that the IOC was compelled to suspend Ghana after months of fruitless negotiations aimed at seeking solution to the feud at the GOC. According to the information, the government of Ghana also failed to follow agreed steps outlined by the IOC to prevent any form of political interference in the affairs of the GOC. With this development, Ghana will be barred from participating in qualifiers towards the 2011 All Africa Games and 2012 All Africa Games as well as other international Olympic events. The IOC is yet to communicate to officials of the GOC. Benson T. Baba, former President of the GOC told the GNA Sports that he heard of the ban from the media, but is yet to receive any formal letter from the IOC to that effect. He however said he will not be surprised if such an action is taken against Ghana, because, the government failed to follow the road map laid by the IOC when the feud started. The former GOC President said the latest development could have been avoided if the necessary steps were taken to pass the Sports Bill and other requirements outlined by the IOC. Asked whether there is a way out of the ban, he said "that will be a tall order because we have not been faithful to our words. "Issues of credibility will also be at play as we failed to adhere to the directives of the IOC after several promises". He stated. Baba added that Ghana has also not been in good relationship with the IOC due to the pronouncements of the outgoing Minister of Youth and Sports, Ms Akua Sena Dansua as well as her letter to other Commonwealth States seeking their support to boycott IOC events. Ghana becomes the second country to be suspended by the IOC in recent times, after Kuwait was banned last year for political interference. GNA
Ivory Coast Tensions Escalate; Senegal Backs Invasion
Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Senegal renewed calls for military intervention to end the post-election stalemate in Ivory Coast, where clashes in the commercial capital, Abidjan, marked escalating tensions in the world’s top cocoa grower.
Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade is lobbying leaders in the Economic Community of West African States to stand by a Dec. 24 pledge to use military force to remove incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo from power if he refuses to step down in favor of Alassane Ouattara, said Papa Dieng, an adviser to Wade. The United Nations recognizes Ouattara as winner of the presidential election in November.
“Gbagbo has to leave by any means necessary, even military means,” Dieng said yesterday in an interview in Senegal’s capital, Dakar. “If he stays there, African leaders will feel there’s no need to ever concede an election.”
One person was killed in Abobo, a suburb of Abidjan, said Yves Doumbia, a spokesman for the town’s mayor said today. The streets were empty as residents stayed indoors to avoid the fighting. People “are very scared,” said resident Ladji Soumahoro by phone today. “Early this morning, security forces prevented people from leaving the area to go to work.” Gunfire was also heard in the suburb of Williamsville, where one of the city’s main police barracks are located.
Cocody, Riviera Explosions
A police truck was burned in Abobo, Doumbia said by phone today, while Abidjan’s affluent Cocody and Riviera suburbs were rocked with explosions at 2 a.m. today, witnesses including resident Francois Durand said.
“I heard at least 10 explosions, either from grenade launchers or some kind of cannon, and sustained gunfire from Kalashnikovs,” Durand said. Ouattara is currently blockaded in a hotel in Riviera by the army, while the majority of Abobo’s inhabitants are his supporters.
Ouattara won 59 percent of votes in Abobo, according to the electoral commission, which named him the overall winner. Gbagbo, 65, refuses to cede power, citing a ruling by the Constitutional Council that annulled votes in parts of Ivory Coast’s north on fraud allegations and gave him victory. Gbagbo has retained the loyalty of the army, while Ouattara is backed by the African Union, the U.S. and former colonial ruler France.
Search for Weapons
At least four people were killed yesterday after security forces loyal to Gbagbo conducted a house-to-house search for weapons in Abobo, according to Mustapha Ouattara, a spokesman for the pro-Ouattara RHDP coalition. A doctor at the military hospital in the city said nine members of the security forces were shot and injured, state-owned RTI television reported.
A United Nations patrol was halted by a roadblock as it attempted to enter Abobo, Kenneth Blackman, deputy spokesman for the UN mission in Ivory Coast, said yesterday. Peacekeepers were pelted with stones by civilians whose political affiliation wasn’t clear, Blackman said. The UN peacekeepers are protecting Ouattara headquarters in Abidjan.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the security council to agree to send 2,000 soldiers and three attack helicopters to the West African nation to deter the threat of violence, as “the precarious situation could quickly degenerate into widespread conflict”.
The UN’s 9,100 peacekeepers and civilian police are “operating in an openly hostile security environment with direct threats from regular and irregular forces” loyal to Gbagbo, Ban said in a Jan. 7 letter to Ambassador Ivan Barbalic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, president of the UN Security Council this month. The body is due to discuss the situation in Ivory Coast on Jan. 14.
Deaths Reported
An estimated 210 people have been killed in post-election violence, the UN said last week before the Abobo clashes. As many as 25,000 people have fled from the west of the country into neighboring Liberia, and are arriving at a rate of about 600 each day, the UN’s refugee agency said in a statement yesterday.
Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga is due to return to Ivory Coast this week in his second attempt to find a resolution to the conflict. He follows former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who made an unannounced visit to the country Jan. 8.
John Atta Mills, the president of neighboring Ghana said on Jan. 7 it will not contribute troops to an Ecowas intervention, saying he doubted it would “bring peace.”
Missed Payment
Amid the political crisis, Ivory Coast missed a $29 million interest payment on its $2.3 billion of Eurobonds on Dec. 31. It has a 30-day period of grace to make the payment.
The government is “fully committed” to meeting payment obligations to avoid defaulting on the bonds, said Annick Kone, a spokeswoman for the finance ministry, in an interview today. Finance and Economy Minister Desire Dallo sent a letter to bondholders dated Jan. 10, saying the country would honor the obligation within the grace period.
The statement caused the Eurobonds to jump the most in intraday trading yesterday since being issued in April, gaining as much as 11 percent. They traded 3.5 percent lower at 39.375 cents on the dollar at 2:21 p.m. in Abidjan today, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The yield on the bond, due December 2032, increased to 16.220 percent.
Cocoa prices have risen 7.4 percent since the election and climbed for a fourth straight day today, adding $16, or 0.6 percent, to $2,950 per metric ton at 2:22 p.m. in London trading.
Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade is lobbying leaders in the Economic Community of West African States to stand by a Dec. 24 pledge to use military force to remove incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo from power if he refuses to step down in favor of Alassane Ouattara, said Papa Dieng, an adviser to Wade. The United Nations recognizes Ouattara as winner of the presidential election in November.
“Gbagbo has to leave by any means necessary, even military means,” Dieng said yesterday in an interview in Senegal’s capital, Dakar. “If he stays there, African leaders will feel there’s no need to ever concede an election.”
One person was killed in Abobo, a suburb of Abidjan, said Yves Doumbia, a spokesman for the town’s mayor said today. The streets were empty as residents stayed indoors to avoid the fighting. People “are very scared,” said resident Ladji Soumahoro by phone today. “Early this morning, security forces prevented people from leaving the area to go to work.” Gunfire was also heard in the suburb of Williamsville, where one of the city’s main police barracks are located.
Cocody, Riviera Explosions
A police truck was burned in Abobo, Doumbia said by phone today, while Abidjan’s affluent Cocody and Riviera suburbs were rocked with explosions at 2 a.m. today, witnesses including resident Francois Durand said.
“I heard at least 10 explosions, either from grenade launchers or some kind of cannon, and sustained gunfire from Kalashnikovs,” Durand said. Ouattara is currently blockaded in a hotel in Riviera by the army, while the majority of Abobo’s inhabitants are his supporters.
Ouattara won 59 percent of votes in Abobo, according to the electoral commission, which named him the overall winner. Gbagbo, 65, refuses to cede power, citing a ruling by the Constitutional Council that annulled votes in parts of Ivory Coast’s north on fraud allegations and gave him victory. Gbagbo has retained the loyalty of the army, while Ouattara is backed by the African Union, the U.S. and former colonial ruler France.
Search for Weapons
At least four people were killed yesterday after security forces loyal to Gbagbo conducted a house-to-house search for weapons in Abobo, according to Mustapha Ouattara, a spokesman for the pro-Ouattara RHDP coalition. A doctor at the military hospital in the city said nine members of the security forces were shot and injured, state-owned RTI television reported.
A United Nations patrol was halted by a roadblock as it attempted to enter Abobo, Kenneth Blackman, deputy spokesman for the UN mission in Ivory Coast, said yesterday. Peacekeepers were pelted with stones by civilians whose political affiliation wasn’t clear, Blackman said. The UN peacekeepers are protecting Ouattara headquarters in Abidjan.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the security council to agree to send 2,000 soldiers and three attack helicopters to the West African nation to deter the threat of violence, as “the precarious situation could quickly degenerate into widespread conflict”.
The UN’s 9,100 peacekeepers and civilian police are “operating in an openly hostile security environment with direct threats from regular and irregular forces” loyal to Gbagbo, Ban said in a Jan. 7 letter to Ambassador Ivan Barbalic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, president of the UN Security Council this month. The body is due to discuss the situation in Ivory Coast on Jan. 14.
Deaths Reported
An estimated 210 people have been killed in post-election violence, the UN said last week before the Abobo clashes. As many as 25,000 people have fled from the west of the country into neighboring Liberia, and are arriving at a rate of about 600 each day, the UN’s refugee agency said in a statement yesterday.
Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga is due to return to Ivory Coast this week in his second attempt to find a resolution to the conflict. He follows former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who made an unannounced visit to the country Jan. 8.
John Atta Mills, the president of neighboring Ghana said on Jan. 7 it will not contribute troops to an Ecowas intervention, saying he doubted it would “bring peace.”
Missed Payment
Amid the political crisis, Ivory Coast missed a $29 million interest payment on its $2.3 billion of Eurobonds on Dec. 31. It has a 30-day period of grace to make the payment.
The government is “fully committed” to meeting payment obligations to avoid defaulting on the bonds, said Annick Kone, a spokeswoman for the finance ministry, in an interview today. Finance and Economy Minister Desire Dallo sent a letter to bondholders dated Jan. 10, saying the country would honor the obligation within the grace period.
The statement caused the Eurobonds to jump the most in intraday trading yesterday since being issued in April, gaining as much as 11 percent. They traded 3.5 percent lower at 39.375 cents on the dollar at 2:21 p.m. in Abidjan today, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The yield on the bond, due December 2032, increased to 16.220 percent.
Cocoa prices have risen 7.4 percent since the election and climbed for a fourth straight day today, adding $16, or 0.6 percent, to $2,950 per metric ton at 2:22 p.m. in London trading.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Iceland Angered Over U.S. Subpoena of Lawmaker's Records
Somewhat lost in the media revelation that WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange had his Twitter account details subpoenaed is the fact that also named in the legal documents was an Icelandic lawmaker. Now, it would appear, the American ambassador to that country has been called to Reykjavik and clearly has some explaining to do. Iceland is, essentially, what the U.S. would be if our country did more than pay lip service to the "freedom" that our forefathers fought so hard for and, instead, actually tried to promote a free society.
So, now that the U.S. Justice Department has obtained a court order to look into Twitter records for Birgitta Jonsdottir, there is a bit of discomfort between the two countries. Jonsdottir is an Icelandic parliamentarian who is on the nation’s Foreign Affairs Committee. She is also a former WikiLeaks collaborator and is known for working to initiate and further free speech directives. Noted Iceland’s Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson, "[It’s] very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official." Why, yes, Ogmundur, it is. It is a very serious matter indeed, as it appears that the U.S. government is taking this witch hunt international.
Added Janasson, "This is even more serious when put [in] perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people’s freedom in general." Also well put, Mr. Janasson. Side note: You’re doing such a fine job of pointing out the hypocrisy of the "free nation" that I will be able to abstain from doing so herein. Where the disagreement ends is anyone’s guess, but what remains clear is that messing with the U.S. government – whether your activities are legal or not – will get you in some serious trouble
So, now that the U.S. Justice Department has obtained a court order to look into Twitter records for Birgitta Jonsdottir, there is a bit of discomfort between the two countries. Jonsdottir is an Icelandic parliamentarian who is on the nation’s Foreign Affairs Committee. She is also a former WikiLeaks collaborator and is known for working to initiate and further free speech directives. Noted Iceland’s Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson, "[It’s] very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official." Why, yes, Ogmundur, it is. It is a very serious matter indeed, as it appears that the U.S. government is taking this witch hunt international.
Added Janasson, "This is even more serious when put [in] perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people’s freedom in general." Also well put, Mr. Janasson. Side note: You’re doing such a fine job of pointing out the hypocrisy of the "free nation" that I will be able to abstain from doing so herein. Where the disagreement ends is anyone’s guess, but what remains clear is that messing with the U.S. government – whether your activities are legal or not – will get you in some serious trouble
U.S. Court Demands WikiLeaks Twitter Account Information
Investigators in the U.S. have asked a judge to help them get at the details in WikiLeaks’ Twitter account as part of a criminal case that the Obama administration is determined to build. Julian Assange, the young leader behind the organization, noted that he expected other U.S. companies, including Facebook and Google, to have similar demands made of them. The U.S. Districut Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issue a subpoena that ordered Twitter to release private messages, billing information, phone numbers and a variety of other information associated with the account that is maintained by Assange and others in his organization.
In addition, Pfc. Bradly Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst who is suspected of working with Assange by supplying classified information, has also be targeted by the subpoena. Assange called the legal maneuvering harassment, saying, "If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out."
Twitter did not comment on the subpoena, instead reiterating its policy of attempting to notify account holders if their information has been requested by the government. Mark Stephens, lawyer for Assange, noted that the move was an attempt to "shake the electronic tree in the hope some kind of criminal charge drops out of the bottom of it." Assange is currently in Britain, where he is out on bail and fighting extradition to Sweden over sex crime allegations that appear to be closely tied to the U.S. government’s efforts to find or manufacture criminal activities and attribute them to Assange.
In addition, Pfc. Bradly Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst who is suspected of working with Assange by supplying classified information, has also be targeted by the subpoena. Assange called the legal maneuvering harassment, saying, "If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out."
Twitter did not comment on the subpoena, instead reiterating its policy of attempting to notify account holders if their information has been requested by the government. Mark Stephens, lawyer for Assange, noted that the move was an attempt to "shake the electronic tree in the hope some kind of criminal charge drops out of the bottom of it." Assange is currently in Britain, where he is out on bail and fighting extradition to Sweden over sex crime allegations that appear to be closely tied to the U.S. government’s efforts to find or manufacture criminal activities and attribute them to Assange.
Republic of Ghana Orders 104 Custom Fire Trucks from Pierce
OSHKOSH, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Oshkosh Corporation announced today that its subsidiary, Pierce Manufacturing, has received an order for 104 custom fire trucks from U.S. exporter Project Development International (PDI) for Ghana’s Ministry of Interior Service and the Ghana National Fire Service. The order includes a combination of 90 pumper tanker units, 10 water tender vehicles and four aerial ladder vehicles. Shipment of the vehicles will be completed by early 2012. This order is valued at more than $31 million.
“We are excited to have been selected by Project Development International and the Republic of Ghana for an order of this magnitude. This is a major accomplishment and a significant step for the Pierce brand to expand globally,” said Charlie Szews, Oshkosh Corporation president and chief executive officer. “Pierce and our other Oshkosh companies earned this award based on the quality of our vehicles, technology, and aftermarket support, and we look forward to serving the Republic of Ghana. This is a comprehensive effort by our international team across the entire Oshkosh Corporation.”
The Pierce vehicles will replace existing units and will help the Ghana National Fire Service in its planned expansion from 136 to 202 fire stations across the country.
In addition to Pierce fire apparatus, the order includes the following additional Oshkosh Corporation products: 13 Jerr-Dan HDL 500 heavy-duty wrecker vehicles and four IMT service trucks.
Pierce dealer, Fire Raiders, Inc., of South Africa will open a facility in the Republic of Ghana to provide local service and support.
About Pierce Manufacturing
Pierce Manufacturing Inc., an Oshkosh Corporation [NYSE: OSK] company, is the leading North American manufacturer of custom fire apparatus. Products include custom and commercial pumpers, aerials, rescue trucks, wildland trucks, minipumpers, elliptical tankers, and homeland security apparatus. In addition, Pierce designs its own foam systems and was the first company to introduce frontal airbags and the Side Roll Protection system to fire apparatus. To learn more about Pierce, visit www.piercemfg.com.
About Oshkosh Corporation
Oshkosh Corporation is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of a broad range of specialty access equipment, commercial, fire & emergency and military vehicles and vehicle bodies. Oshkosh Corporation manufactures, distributes and services products under the brands of Oshkosh®, JLG®, Pierce®, McNeilus®, Medtec®, Jerr-Dan®, Oshkosh Specialty Vehicles, Frontline™, SMIT™, CON-E-CO®, London® and IMT®. Oshkosh products are valued worldwide in businesses where high quality, superior performance, rugged reliability and long-term value are paramount. For more information, visit www.oshkoshcorporation.com.
®, ™ All brand names referred to in this news release are trademarks of Oshkosh Corporation or its subsidiary companies.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains statements that the Company believes to be “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Company’s future financial position, business strategy, targets, projected sales, costs, earnings, capital expenditures, debt levels and cash flows, and plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, words such as “may,” “will,” “expect,” “intend,” “estimate,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “should,” “project” or “plan” or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors, some of which are beyond the Company’s control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include the impact on revenues and margins of the projected decrease in M-ATV production rates; the cyclical nature of the Company’s access equipment, commercial and fire & emergency markets, especially during periods of global economic weakness and tight credit markets; the Company’s ability to produce vehicles under the FMTV contract at targeted margins; the duration of the ongoing global economic weakness, which could lead to additional impairment charges related to many of the Company’s intangible assets and/or a slower recovery in the Company’s cyclical businesses than equity market expectations; the expected level and timing of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) procurement of products and services and funding thereof; risks related to reductions in government expenditures in light of U.S. defense budget pressures and an uncertain DoD tactical wheeled vehicle strategy; the potential for the U.S. government to competitively bid the Company’s Army and Marine Corps contracts; the consequences of financial leverage associated with the JLG acquisition, which could limit the Company’s ability to pursue various opportunities; the potential for commodity and other raw material costs to rise sharply, particularly in a future economic recovery; risks related to the collectability of receivables, particularly for those businesses with exposure to construction markets; the cost of any warranty campaigns related to the Company’s products; risks related to costs and charges as a result of facilities consolidation and alignment; risks related to production delays arising from supplier quality or production issues; risks associated with international operations and sales, including foreign currency fluctuations and compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; risks related to work stoppages and other labor matters; the potential for disruptions or cost overruns in the Company’s global enterprise system implementation; the potential for increased costs relating to compliance with changes in laws and regulations; and risks related to disruptions in the Company’s distribution networks. Additional information concerning these and other factors is contained in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company assumes no obligation, and disclaims any obligation, to update information contained in this press release. Investors should be aware that the Company may not update such information until the Company’s next quarterly earnings conference call, if at all.
Contact:
Oshkosh CorporationFinancial:Patrick Davidson, 920.966.5939Vice President of Investor RelationsorMedia:John Daggett, 920.233.9247Vice President of Communications
“We are excited to have been selected by Project Development International and the Republic of Ghana for an order of this magnitude. This is a major accomplishment and a significant step for the Pierce brand to expand globally,” said Charlie Szews, Oshkosh Corporation president and chief executive officer. “Pierce and our other Oshkosh companies earned this award based on the quality of our vehicles, technology, and aftermarket support, and we look forward to serving the Republic of Ghana. This is a comprehensive effort by our international team across the entire Oshkosh Corporation.”
The Pierce vehicles will replace existing units and will help the Ghana National Fire Service in its planned expansion from 136 to 202 fire stations across the country.
In addition to Pierce fire apparatus, the order includes the following additional Oshkosh Corporation products: 13 Jerr-Dan HDL 500 heavy-duty wrecker vehicles and four IMT service trucks.
Pierce dealer, Fire Raiders, Inc., of South Africa will open a facility in the Republic of Ghana to provide local service and support.
About Pierce Manufacturing
Pierce Manufacturing Inc., an Oshkosh Corporation [NYSE: OSK] company, is the leading North American manufacturer of custom fire apparatus. Products include custom and commercial pumpers, aerials, rescue trucks, wildland trucks, minipumpers, elliptical tankers, and homeland security apparatus. In addition, Pierce designs its own foam systems and was the first company to introduce frontal airbags and the Side Roll Protection system to fire apparatus. To learn more about Pierce, visit www.piercemfg.com.
About Oshkosh Corporation
Oshkosh Corporation is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of a broad range of specialty access equipment, commercial, fire & emergency and military vehicles and vehicle bodies. Oshkosh Corporation manufactures, distributes and services products under the brands of Oshkosh®, JLG®, Pierce®, McNeilus®, Medtec®, Jerr-Dan®, Oshkosh Specialty Vehicles, Frontline™, SMIT™, CON-E-CO®, London® and IMT®. Oshkosh products are valued worldwide in businesses where high quality, superior performance, rugged reliability and long-term value are paramount. For more information, visit www.oshkoshcorporation.com.
®, ™ All brand names referred to in this news release are trademarks of Oshkosh Corporation or its subsidiary companies.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains statements that the Company believes to be “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Company’s future financial position, business strategy, targets, projected sales, costs, earnings, capital expenditures, debt levels and cash flows, and plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, words such as “may,” “will,” “expect,” “intend,” “estimate,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “should,” “project” or “plan” or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors, some of which are beyond the Company’s control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include the impact on revenues and margins of the projected decrease in M-ATV production rates; the cyclical nature of the Company’s access equipment, commercial and fire & emergency markets, especially during periods of global economic weakness and tight credit markets; the Company’s ability to produce vehicles under the FMTV contract at targeted margins; the duration of the ongoing global economic weakness, which could lead to additional impairment charges related to many of the Company’s intangible assets and/or a slower recovery in the Company’s cyclical businesses than equity market expectations; the expected level and timing of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) procurement of products and services and funding thereof; risks related to reductions in government expenditures in light of U.S. defense budget pressures and an uncertain DoD tactical wheeled vehicle strategy; the potential for the U.S. government to competitively bid the Company’s Army and Marine Corps contracts; the consequences of financial leverage associated with the JLG acquisition, which could limit the Company’s ability to pursue various opportunities; the potential for commodity and other raw material costs to rise sharply, particularly in a future economic recovery; risks related to the collectability of receivables, particularly for those businesses with exposure to construction markets; the cost of any warranty campaigns related to the Company’s products; risks related to costs and charges as a result of facilities consolidation and alignment; risks related to production delays arising from supplier quality or production issues; risks associated with international operations and sales, including foreign currency fluctuations and compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; risks related to work stoppages and other labor matters; the potential for disruptions or cost overruns in the Company’s global enterprise system implementation; the potential for increased costs relating to compliance with changes in laws and regulations; and risks related to disruptions in the Company’s distribution networks. Additional information concerning these and other factors is contained in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company assumes no obligation, and disclaims any obligation, to update information contained in this press release. Investors should be aware that the Company may not update such information until the Company’s next quarterly earnings conference call, if at all.
Contact:
Oshkosh CorporationFinancial:Patrick Davidson, 920.966.5939Vice President of Investor RelationsorMedia:John Daggett, 920.233.9247Vice President of Communications
Ghana Currency Unchanged as Investors Match Demand for Dollars
Ghana’s currency, the cedi, was unchanged as demand for dollars by importers was matched by investors bringing greenback into the country to buy bonds, according to Standard Bank Group Ltd.
The cedi traded at 1.4820 at 1.40 p.m. in the capital, Accra, unchanged from earlier in the day, said Chris Nettey, a trader with the bank’s Ghanaian unit.
“There were inflows of dollars offshore from those buying bonds on the secondary market but this was matched by demand by people who needed dollars to import goods and services,” Nettey said by phone today
The cedi traded at 1.4820 at 1.40 p.m. in the capital, Accra, unchanged from earlier in the day, said Chris Nettey, a trader with the bank’s Ghanaian unit.
“There were inflows of dollars offshore from those buying bonds on the secondary market but this was matched by demand by people who needed dollars to import goods and services,” Nettey said by phone today
Suicide Bomber Strikes Bus in Afghan Capital
KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber apparently targeting Afghan intelligence officers killed two people and wounded 36 on Wednesday in a crowded Kabul neighborhood near the Parliament’s offices.
The attack took place at about 8 a.m. when the bomber drove a motorcycle alongside a bus carrying employees of the National Directorate of Security and detonated a powerful explosion. A security directorate officer was among the dead, officials said, and at least six other agency personnel were wounded.
Mohammad Zahir, director of the Criminal Investigations Department of Kabul Province, said the death toll could rise because some of the wounded were in critical condition.
Another employee of the agency was killed on Wednesday in a separate bombing in the eastern province of Kunar. The Taliban claimed credit for both attacks.
The Kabul blast went off on a busy street lined with grocers and small shops, just a few feet from a Ministry of Health psychiatric hospital. At least six patients were among the wounded, though none seriously, as shattered glass and shrapnel blew through hospital offices and patient rooms.
Once a regular occurrence in the capital, bombings diminished sharply in 2010 but appear to be picking up. Last week, a bomb hidden in a rice sack in downtown Kabul killed a policeman and wounded two civilians.
And in December, two militants wearing suicide vests and armed with machine guns and grenades attacked a bus carrying Afghan National Army officers, killing five and wounding nine. The December blast was the first major attack in the capital since May, when a suicide car bomb struck a NATO convoy, killing 18 people, including five American service members.
In Kunar, meanwhile, a Taliban spokesman said militants killed the security agency’s deputy chief for the province using a remote controlled magnetic bomb that was placed under his car. Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the security directorate, confirmed the death.
The attack took place at about 8 a.m. when the bomber drove a motorcycle alongside a bus carrying employees of the National Directorate of Security and detonated a powerful explosion. A security directorate officer was among the dead, officials said, and at least six other agency personnel were wounded.
Mohammad Zahir, director of the Criminal Investigations Department of Kabul Province, said the death toll could rise because some of the wounded were in critical condition.
Another employee of the agency was killed on Wednesday in a separate bombing in the eastern province of Kunar. The Taliban claimed credit for both attacks.
The Kabul blast went off on a busy street lined with grocers and small shops, just a few feet from a Ministry of Health psychiatric hospital. At least six patients were among the wounded, though none seriously, as shattered glass and shrapnel blew through hospital offices and patient rooms.
Once a regular occurrence in the capital, bombings diminished sharply in 2010 but appear to be picking up. Last week, a bomb hidden in a rice sack in downtown Kabul killed a policeman and wounded two civilians.
And in December, two militants wearing suicide vests and armed with machine guns and grenades attacked a bus carrying Afghan National Army officers, killing five and wounding nine. The December blast was the first major attack in the capital since May, when a suicide car bomb struck a NATO convoy, killing 18 people, including five American service members.
In Kunar, meanwhile, a Taliban spokesman said militants killed the security agency’s deputy chief for the province using a remote controlled magnetic bomb that was placed under his car. Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for the security directorate, confirmed the death.
Fears Growing of Mugabe’s Iron Grip Over Zimbabwe
HARARE, Zimbabwe — The warning signs are proliferating. Journalists have been harassed and jailed. Threats of violence are swirling in the countryside. The president’s supposed partner in the government has been virulently attacked in the state-controlled media as a quisling for the West. And the president himself has likened his party to a fast-moving train that will crush anything in its way After nearly two years of tenuous stability under a power-sharing government, fears are mounting here that President Robert Mugabe, the autocrat who presided over a bloody, discredited election in 2008, is planning to seize untrammeled control of Zimbabwe during the elections he wants next year.
“Everything seems to point to a violent election,” said Eldred Masunungure, a political scientist and pollster.
Having ruled alone for 28 of the last 30 years, Mr. Mugabe, 86, has made no secret of his distaste for sharing power with his rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, since regional leaders pressured them to govern together 22 months ago.
In recent months, Mr. Mugabe has been cranking up his party’s election-time machinery of control and repression. He appointed all the provincial governors, who help him dispense patronage and punishment, rather than sharing the picks as promised with Mr. Tsvangirai. And traditional chiefs, longtime recipients of largess from his party, ZANU-PF, have endorsed Mr. Mugabe as president for life.
Political workers and civic activists who lived through the 2008 campaign of intimidation and repression — in which many foot soldiers in Mr. Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change were tortured or murdered — say ZANU-PF will not need to be so violent this time around. Threats may be enough.
In Mashonaland West, Mr. Mugabe’s home province, people said they were already being warned by local traditional leaders loyal to Mr. Mugabe that the next election would be more terrifying than the last one, when their relatives were abducted and attacked after Mr. Tsvangirai won some constituencies.
“They say, ‘We were only playing with you last time,’ ” said one 53-year-old woman, too frightened to be quoted by name, repeating a warning others in the countryside have heard. “ ‘This time we will go door to door beating and killing people if you don’t vote for ZANU-PF.’ ”
But even as many voice a growing conviction that Mr. Mugabe is plotting to oust his rival and reclaim sole power, he has retained his ability to keep everyone guessing. His political opponents and Western diplomats wonder if Mr. Mugabe is bluffing about a push for quick elections, perhaps to force the factions in his own party to declare their allegiance to him and extinguish the internal jockeying to succeed him.
Further complicating the picture, Mr. Mugabe struck a statesmanlike pose on Monday at a news conference where he graciously shared the stage with Mr. Tsvangirai. The next day, the state-controlled newspaper quoted him as boasting that he, Mr. Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara had brought peace to the country after the 2008 elections. But he also said that new elections would be held after the process of crafting a new constitution was completed, and that the power-sharing government should not be extended beyond August.
The contest between Mr. Mugabe, a university-educated Machiavellian, and Mr. Tsvangirai, 58, a former labor leader who never went to college and is often described as a well intentioned but bumbling tactician, lies at the heart of Zimbabwe’s tumultuous political life.
Not long after Mr. Tsvangirai quit the June 2008 runoff in hopes of halting the beating and torture of thousands of his party workers and supporters, the two men suddenly found themselves alone in the same room. Thabo Mbeki, then South Africa’s president and the mediator in the Zimbabwe crisis, vanished during a lunchtime.
In his resonant, cultivated voice, Mr. Mugabe invited Mr. Tsvangirai to join him for a traditional meal of sadza, greens and stew, prepared by Mr. Mugabe’s personal chef, but Mr. Tsvangirai, who had been viciously beaten by Mr. Mugabe’s police force the year before, refused to eat, aides to both men say.
“I can assure you,” Mr. Mugabe said, according to his press secretary, George Charamba, “I’m not about to poison you.”
In 2009, under excruciating pressure from regional leaders, Mr. Tsvangirai agreed to a deal that some in his own party saw as a poisoned chalice. It made him prime minister, but allowed Mr. Mugabe to retain the dominant powers of the state.
African Unity Faces a Test in Ivory Coast
The New York Times
On a continent where coups and stolen elections are far from uncommon, one thing makes the standoff over Ivory Coast exceptional: all the major powers in Africa and overseas agree that Laurent Gbagbo, the strongman leader, must go In the month since Mr. Gbagbo lost a long-delayed presidential election, the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, the African Union and the West African regional grouping known as Ecowas — in a rare example of African and international solidarity — have all declared that he must step down, slapping a near daily array of sanctions on his government until he does so. West African nations have even threatened to use military force to oust him if he refuses to leave.
But Mr. Gbagbo has been adamant, rebuffing a delegation of African leaders who urged him to give up power this week. That resistance has quickly turned Ivory Coast into a global test case of how — and maybe whether — the international community can impose its will on leaders who maintain solid support within their own militaries and refuse to recognize the elections they lose.
Given how many authoritarian leaders have been tolerated in Africa and elsewhere, the first hurdle in that test — achieving a broad international consensus — has been handily cleared. But Mr. Gbagbo’s persistent refusal to budge has effectively thrown the onus back on the foreign powers once again, forcing the issue of how far they will go to remove him.
“The question now is what will happen next?” said Elkanah Odembo, Kenya’s ambassador to the United States. “What will we do next?” Whatever the strategy, he added, “it needs to happen fast” before more “lives are lost.”
On Wednesday, as the leaders of Ecowas, or the Economic Community of West African States, agreed to further negotiations with Mr. Gbagbo, their defense chiefs were meeting in Nigeria to discuss possible troop deployments, according to a Western diplomat there. Analysts argue that the group’s military capacities are limited and hampered by, among other things, the Gbagbo government’s veiled threats to retaliate against citizens of countries that intervene against Ivory Coast, where there is a large immigrant population.
To back down now would entail a significant loss of credibility for the international institutions and governments pressing Mr. Gbagbo, analysts contend. But the possibility of force has seemed equally unappealing to some African diplomats, particularly because Ivory Coast has already endured a civil war and there is little appetite for fueling another one.
When disputed elections spilled into violence in Kenya and Zimbabwe in recent years, many nations embraced political compromises that joined rivals into tense and sometimes unwieldy power-sharing agreements.
In this case, many African leaders themselves have said power sharing is off the table, rejecting the notion that Mr. Gbagbo should have a significant role in the government. At least five more elections are in the offing in the coming year in West Africa alone, and few want to enshrine a solution that allows recalcitrant leaders to hold onto power beyond their legitimate terms.
“There’s a strong sense here that if they let another wishy-washy power-sharing arrangement emerge in Côte d’Ivoire, it will create a very bad precedent,” said the Western diplomat in Abuja, Nigeria, where Ecowas is based, who was not authorized to discuss the matter. “The stakes here are unusually high. Either Gbagbo loses everything, or it will be a tremendous loss of face for Ecowas.”
It is unclear whether Mr. Gbagbo can play for time through negotiations and somehow split the coalition of nations urging him to leave, or whether the weight of sanctions and threat of military force will compel him to surrender.
So far, there is no sign of the latter. Just the opposite, Mr. Gbagbo has deployed his security forces in opposition neighborhoods, beating and killing dozens in nighttime raids, according to the United Nations.
He has also sent around his minister of youth, Charles Blé Goudé, known as the “General of the Streets,” to whip up popular fervor for an assault on the headquarters of his main rival, Alassane Ouattara, who has been declared the winner of the elections by the scores of countries of the United Nations General Assembly. On Wednesday, Mr. Blé Goudé urged a cheering crowd to “liberate” the hotel where Mr. Ouattara is holed up, protected by peacekeepers.
Mr. Gbagbo proclaimed last week on state television that the “international community has declared war” on Ivory Coast, and that he was merely upholding the country’s Constitution against intruders, including the United Nations. On Tuesday a United Nations convoy was attacked by machete-wielding partisans in a pro-Gbagbo neighborhood, and a Bangladeshi soldier was injured.
As long as Mr. Gbagbo commands the loyalty of the army, he will be difficult to dislodge, analysts say. A potential blow to his hold on power came last week when African leaders blocked his access to money at the regional West African bank, possibly limiting his ability to pay his soldiers. But the impact of even that is uncertain, since the move did not put all state funds in Ivory Coast — the world’s biggest cocoa exporter — beyond the reach of Mr. Gbagbo’s entourage.
“They think they’re Saudi Arabia, but they’re not; they have an obsession with autarky,” said Rinaldo Depagne, an International Crisis Group analyst who has studied Ivory Coast closely, describing the Gbagbo government’s belief in economic self-sufficiency.
“They say, ‘We’re rich.’ They are ultranationalists.”
Meanwhile, the principal pressure point on Mr. Gbagbo, Ecowas, is marching in new and uncertain territory. Although it has deployed military force in the past — in conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau — its previous interventions have been “geared towards ending civil wars,” not removing entrenched leaders, wrote Gilles Yabi, the new director of the International Crisis Group’s West Africa project, in a recent paper.
Mr. Gbagbo’s control over fiercely loyal elite units like the Republican Guard, a force of about 1,000 to 1,500 soldiers that has been central in the current wave of repression against opponents, would make him a tough match militarily.
“I really have trouble seeing how this would work,” Mr. Yabi said in an interview from Dakar, Senegal, on Wednesday. “There is no precedent.”
The Western diplomat in Abuja, who has been following the Ecowas deliberations closely, said: “The Ecowas standby force is something that exists only on paper. They would not be able to survive any kind of fight with Gbagbo’s forces.”
And then there is the question of stomach for the fight. “Ecowas has no desire for an offensive military operation,” Mr. Yabi said Wednesday.
On a continent where coups and stolen elections are far from uncommon, one thing makes the standoff over Ivory Coast exceptional: all the major powers in Africa and overseas agree that Laurent Gbagbo, the strongman leader, must go In the month since Mr. Gbagbo lost a long-delayed presidential election, the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, the African Union and the West African regional grouping known as Ecowas — in a rare example of African and international solidarity — have all declared that he must step down, slapping a near daily array of sanctions on his government until he does so. West African nations have even threatened to use military force to oust him if he refuses to leave.
But Mr. Gbagbo has been adamant, rebuffing a delegation of African leaders who urged him to give up power this week. That resistance has quickly turned Ivory Coast into a global test case of how — and maybe whether — the international community can impose its will on leaders who maintain solid support within their own militaries and refuse to recognize the elections they lose.
Given how many authoritarian leaders have been tolerated in Africa and elsewhere, the first hurdle in that test — achieving a broad international consensus — has been handily cleared. But Mr. Gbagbo’s persistent refusal to budge has effectively thrown the onus back on the foreign powers once again, forcing the issue of how far they will go to remove him.
“The question now is what will happen next?” said Elkanah Odembo, Kenya’s ambassador to the United States. “What will we do next?” Whatever the strategy, he added, “it needs to happen fast” before more “lives are lost.”
On Wednesday, as the leaders of Ecowas, or the Economic Community of West African States, agreed to further negotiations with Mr. Gbagbo, their defense chiefs were meeting in Nigeria to discuss possible troop deployments, according to a Western diplomat there. Analysts argue that the group’s military capacities are limited and hampered by, among other things, the Gbagbo government’s veiled threats to retaliate against citizens of countries that intervene against Ivory Coast, where there is a large immigrant population.
To back down now would entail a significant loss of credibility for the international institutions and governments pressing Mr. Gbagbo, analysts contend. But the possibility of force has seemed equally unappealing to some African diplomats, particularly because Ivory Coast has already endured a civil war and there is little appetite for fueling another one.
When disputed elections spilled into violence in Kenya and Zimbabwe in recent years, many nations embraced political compromises that joined rivals into tense and sometimes unwieldy power-sharing agreements.
In this case, many African leaders themselves have said power sharing is off the table, rejecting the notion that Mr. Gbagbo should have a significant role in the government. At least five more elections are in the offing in the coming year in West Africa alone, and few want to enshrine a solution that allows recalcitrant leaders to hold onto power beyond their legitimate terms.
“There’s a strong sense here that if they let another wishy-washy power-sharing arrangement emerge in Côte d’Ivoire, it will create a very bad precedent,” said the Western diplomat in Abuja, Nigeria, where Ecowas is based, who was not authorized to discuss the matter. “The stakes here are unusually high. Either Gbagbo loses everything, or it will be a tremendous loss of face for Ecowas.”
It is unclear whether Mr. Gbagbo can play for time through negotiations and somehow split the coalition of nations urging him to leave, or whether the weight of sanctions and threat of military force will compel him to surrender.
So far, there is no sign of the latter. Just the opposite, Mr. Gbagbo has deployed his security forces in opposition neighborhoods, beating and killing dozens in nighttime raids, according to the United Nations.
He has also sent around his minister of youth, Charles Blé Goudé, known as the “General of the Streets,” to whip up popular fervor for an assault on the headquarters of his main rival, Alassane Ouattara, who has been declared the winner of the elections by the scores of countries of the United Nations General Assembly. On Wednesday, Mr. Blé Goudé urged a cheering crowd to “liberate” the hotel where Mr. Ouattara is holed up, protected by peacekeepers.
Mr. Gbagbo proclaimed last week on state television that the “international community has declared war” on Ivory Coast, and that he was merely upholding the country’s Constitution against intruders, including the United Nations. On Tuesday a United Nations convoy was attacked by machete-wielding partisans in a pro-Gbagbo neighborhood, and a Bangladeshi soldier was injured.
As long as Mr. Gbagbo commands the loyalty of the army, he will be difficult to dislodge, analysts say. A potential blow to his hold on power came last week when African leaders blocked his access to money at the regional West African bank, possibly limiting his ability to pay his soldiers. But the impact of even that is uncertain, since the move did not put all state funds in Ivory Coast — the world’s biggest cocoa exporter — beyond the reach of Mr. Gbagbo’s entourage.
“They think they’re Saudi Arabia, but they’re not; they have an obsession with autarky,” said Rinaldo Depagne, an International Crisis Group analyst who has studied Ivory Coast closely, describing the Gbagbo government’s belief in economic self-sufficiency.
“They say, ‘We’re rich.’ They are ultranationalists.”
Meanwhile, the principal pressure point on Mr. Gbagbo, Ecowas, is marching in new and uncertain territory. Although it has deployed military force in the past — in conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea-Bissau — its previous interventions have been “geared towards ending civil wars,” not removing entrenched leaders, wrote Gilles Yabi, the new director of the International Crisis Group’s West Africa project, in a recent paper.
Mr. Gbagbo’s control over fiercely loyal elite units like the Republican Guard, a force of about 1,000 to 1,500 soldiers that has been central in the current wave of repression against opponents, would make him a tough match militarily.
“I really have trouble seeing how this would work,” Mr. Yabi said in an interview from Dakar, Senegal, on Wednesday. “There is no precedent.”
The Western diplomat in Abuja, who has been following the Ecowas deliberations closely, said: “The Ecowas standby force is something that exists only on paper. They would not be able to survive any kind of fight with Gbagbo’s forces.”
And then there is the question of stomach for the fight. “Ecowas has no desire for an offensive military operation,” Mr. Yabi said Wednesday.
Gates Warns of North Korea Missile Threat to U.S.
BEIJING — US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned Tuesday that North Korea was within five years of being able to strike the continental United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile, and said that, combined with its expanding nuclear program, the country “is becoming a direct threat to the United States.”
Mr. Gates is a former director of the C.I.A., and his statement, officials said, reflected both a new assessment by American intelligence officials and his own concern that Washington had consistently underestimated the pace at which the North was developing nuclear and missile technologies.
It is unclear how recent the new assessment may be, but Mr. Gates’ remarks, made just an hour after he met with Hu Jintao, China’s president, may have been partly intended to convince China that the Obama administration no longer regards the North as a concern only in the region. The administration has increasingly put pressure on China to try to persuade North Korea, a longtime China ally, to give up its nuclear weapons program.
“The Chinese are always talking about their ‘core interests’ and threats they may have to respond to,” said one American official deeply involved in North Korea strategy. “They needed to hear that we have a few, too.”
In comments to reporters during a visit to Beijing, Mr. Gates said he was worried that within a relatively short time frame North Korea would simultaneously continue to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. That combination, he said, had increased the need for pressure on North Korea, particularly if there is another provocation on South Korea by the North like the deadly shelling of a South Korean island in November.
“We consider this a situation of real concern, and we think there is some urgency in proceeding down the track of negotiations,” Mr. Gates said.
Mr. Gates said he nonetheless expected North Korea’s ability to be limited. “I don’t think it’s an immediate threat,” he said.
But his remarks were the first to put a time frame on when the North, which has conducted two nuclear tests, including one that fizzled, might be able to launch a nuclear-capable missile that could cross the Pacific. That has been a much-debated point for more than a decade, and the subject of a lengthy study on missile threats conducted by Donald H. Rumsfeld before he became President George W. Bush’s first defense secretary.
Mr. Gates made his comments to reporters on the same day that China, in a show of force for the United States, apparently conducted the first test flight of its new stealth fighter jet. The 15-minute flight occurred just hours before Mr. Gates met with President Hu to talk about improving relations between the Chinese and American militaries and ways to reduce tensions during a nascent arms buildup between the two countries.
Mr. Gates’s new assessment on North Korea is a significant shift for the Obama administration, which until now has viewed the North first and foremost as a proliferation threat, fearing that it might sell its existing missiles and nuclear devices to other countries, like Iran. North Korea has a long history of missile trade with Iran, Syria and Pakistan, among other nations, and is believed to have provided the technology for Syria to build a reactor. The reactor was destroyed in a 2007 air raid by Israel.
But Mr. Gates changed that emphasis, by focusing on the North’s capability to aim its small arsenal at the United States. Already there is an antimissile unit based at Fort Greely, Alaska, armed with interceptor missiles designed to stop a small attack, presumably by North Korea, before it hits the United States.
Implicit in Mr. Gates’s five-year assessment was the possibility that the North could soon solve one of its biggest technological hurdles: manufacturing a warhead small enough to fit atop a missile. Exploding a nuclear device underground, which North Korea did in 2006 and again in 2009, is comparatively simple. Manufacturing a warhead that is light, small and reliable is a far more complex art.
Nuclear inspectors who were inside North Korea periodically until 2009 have never publicly reported seeing work done on a warhead. But it is unlikely that they would be shown such efforts, even though the North quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty eight years ago.
It is unclear whether the North obtained designs for a warhead from another desperately poor country — possibly Pakistan, which sold uranium enrichment equipment to the North. Designing such a warhead from scratch is difficult, as Iran has learned.
Predicting missile capabilities is notoriously difficult. Documents released last year by WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy organization, revealed sharp disagreements between American and Russian experts on Iran’s missile technology.
Mr. Gates is a former director of the C.I.A., and his statement, officials said, reflected both a new assessment by American intelligence officials and his own concern that Washington had consistently underestimated the pace at which the North was developing nuclear and missile technologies.
It is unclear how recent the new assessment may be, but Mr. Gates’ remarks, made just an hour after he met with Hu Jintao, China’s president, may have been partly intended to convince China that the Obama administration no longer regards the North as a concern only in the region. The administration has increasingly put pressure on China to try to persuade North Korea, a longtime China ally, to give up its nuclear weapons program.
“The Chinese are always talking about their ‘core interests’ and threats they may have to respond to,” said one American official deeply involved in North Korea strategy. “They needed to hear that we have a few, too.”
In comments to reporters during a visit to Beijing, Mr. Gates said he was worried that within a relatively short time frame North Korea would simultaneously continue to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. That combination, he said, had increased the need for pressure on North Korea, particularly if there is another provocation on South Korea by the North like the deadly shelling of a South Korean island in November.
“We consider this a situation of real concern, and we think there is some urgency in proceeding down the track of negotiations,” Mr. Gates said.
Mr. Gates said he nonetheless expected North Korea’s ability to be limited. “I don’t think it’s an immediate threat,” he said.
But his remarks were the first to put a time frame on when the North, which has conducted two nuclear tests, including one that fizzled, might be able to launch a nuclear-capable missile that could cross the Pacific. That has been a much-debated point for more than a decade, and the subject of a lengthy study on missile threats conducted by Donald H. Rumsfeld before he became President George W. Bush’s first defense secretary.
Mr. Gates made his comments to reporters on the same day that China, in a show of force for the United States, apparently conducted the first test flight of its new stealth fighter jet. The 15-minute flight occurred just hours before Mr. Gates met with President Hu to talk about improving relations between the Chinese and American militaries and ways to reduce tensions during a nascent arms buildup between the two countries.
Mr. Gates’s new assessment on North Korea is a significant shift for the Obama administration, which until now has viewed the North first and foremost as a proliferation threat, fearing that it might sell its existing missiles and nuclear devices to other countries, like Iran. North Korea has a long history of missile trade with Iran, Syria and Pakistan, among other nations, and is believed to have provided the technology for Syria to build a reactor. The reactor was destroyed in a 2007 air raid by Israel.
But Mr. Gates changed that emphasis, by focusing on the North’s capability to aim its small arsenal at the United States. Already there is an antimissile unit based at Fort Greely, Alaska, armed with interceptor missiles designed to stop a small attack, presumably by North Korea, before it hits the United States.
Implicit in Mr. Gates’s five-year assessment was the possibility that the North could soon solve one of its biggest technological hurdles: manufacturing a warhead small enough to fit atop a missile. Exploding a nuclear device underground, which North Korea did in 2006 and again in 2009, is comparatively simple. Manufacturing a warhead that is light, small and reliable is a far more complex art.
Nuclear inspectors who were inside North Korea periodically until 2009 have never publicly reported seeing work done on a warhead. But it is unlikely that they would be shown such efforts, even though the North quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty eight years ago.
It is unclear whether the North obtained designs for a warhead from another desperately poor country — possibly Pakistan, which sold uranium enrichment equipment to the North. Designing such a warhead from scratch is difficult, as Iran has learned.
Predicting missile capabilities is notoriously difficult. Documents released last year by WikiLeaks, the antisecrecy organization, revealed sharp disagreements between American and Russian experts on Iran’s missile technology.
Tunisia’s Interior Minister Fired
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia's prime minister said Wednesday that the interior minister has been fired after protest violence that has killed at least 23 people and left the country's leadership struggling to keep the country under control.
Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi also announced that most prisoners arrested during nearly a month of riots are being freed. He said the release did not apply to those whose guilt has been proven, without elaborating.
The prime minister announced the appointment of a new interior minister, Ahmed Friaa.
Despair over Tunisia's soaring unemployment and corruption has fueled the protests, which pose the most significant challenge yet to President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The 74-year-old leader grabbed power 23 years ago in a bloodless coup.
The government has said 23 people have died in the protests around the country during which police repeatedly shot at demonstrators setting fire to buildings and stoning police.
Unions and witnesses say at least 46 have died in the unrest.
Social networks like Facebook have helped spread word of the protests in a country where the media are tightly controlled and little dissent is allowed.
The protests began in towns in the center of the country, far from the Mediterranean beaches popular with European tourists. But they have been spreading, and riots were reported late Tuesday in the Ettadhamoun neighborhood five kilometers (three miles) west of Tunis — the first time the violence has reached so near the capital.
Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi also announced that most prisoners arrested during nearly a month of riots are being freed. He said the release did not apply to those whose guilt has been proven, without elaborating.
The prime minister announced the appointment of a new interior minister, Ahmed Friaa.
Despair over Tunisia's soaring unemployment and corruption has fueled the protests, which pose the most significant challenge yet to President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The 74-year-old leader grabbed power 23 years ago in a bloodless coup.
The government has said 23 people have died in the protests around the country during which police repeatedly shot at demonstrators setting fire to buildings and stoning police.
Unions and witnesses say at least 46 have died in the unrest.
Social networks like Facebook have helped spread word of the protests in a country where the media are tightly controlled and little dissent is allowed.
The protests began in towns in the center of the country, far from the Mediterranean beaches popular with European tourists. But they have been spreading, and riots were reported late Tuesday in the Ettadhamoun neighborhood five kilometers (three miles) west of Tunis — the first time the violence has reached so near the capital.
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