Count is underway after culminating Sudan's independence referendum

Voters in Southern Sudan began celebrating after the end of a weeklong independence referendum Saturday, a poll that is widely expected to lead to the creation of the world's newest country.

By News Wires (text)

AFP - The marathon task of counting the ballot in south Sudan's independence referendum was underway on Sunday after the week-long polling on partitioning Africa's largest nation closed.

"Secession. Secession. Secession," the returning officer intoned on Saturday night as he carefully unfolded each ballot paper cast at a polling station in a school in the southern capital of Juba before pronouncing the voter's choice.

There was the odd vote for unity with the mainly Arab, Muslim north but they were dwarfed by the huge pile in favour of turning the mainly Christian, African south into the world's newest nation and putting the seal on five decades of civil conflict.

The count was being conducted by torchlight, creating an almost religious atmosphere in the small classroom. The school has no mains electricity.

Each vote was passed for checking to two other polling station staff and shown to domestic and international observers. There were a dozen at the school in Juba's Hay Malakal neighbourhood.

Some polling stations were expected to continue the count through the night until all ballots had been recorded and checked.

Others, particularly in rural areas where many were out in the open, locked away the ballotboxes for the night and were due to start counting later on Sunday.

The deputy chairman of the referendum commission, Chan Reec, said the only extension to polling would be among emigre voters in flood-hit areas of Australia, who would have a further five days.

An Anglican bishop sporting a purple cassock blew the "last trumpet" on rule by the Muslim north after being among the final people to vote before polls closed at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Saturday.

"I have blown the last trumpet at the very end of voting," said Yugusuk, after sounding his orange vuvuzela, draped in the black, red and green of the south Sudanese flag.

"This is the signal not only of the end of the voting but of an end to our slavery, oppression and the beginning of our freedom," said the Anglican bishop who chairs a Religious Referendum Leaders' Initiative.

The vote was the centrepiece of a 2005 peace deal that ended a devastating 22-year civil war between north and south that cost around two million lives.

The referendum commission's chairman, Mohammed Ibrahim Khalil, an elder statesman who served as Sudanese foreign minister in the 1960s, hailed the "most peaceful" election he had ever seen in Sudan.

So many people turned out on the first four days of the week-long polling period that the 60-percent threshold set for the referendum to be valid by the 2005 peace agreement was already passed on Wednesday evening.

That hurdle had been the only real question mark over the poll -- in a Sudanese general election last April the pro-independence former rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement took a full 93 percent of the vote.

Few analysts expected the margin of victory to be much different this time round. The final result is not expected before next month.

A senior official of the National Congress Party of President Omar al-Bashir said it would accept the outcome even if the south voted to become the 193rd UN member state in July.

"The referendum took place in an atmosphere of calm ... with a great degree of freedom and fairness," Rabie Abdul Ati told AFP. "It is very clear that the party will accept the result whether it be for unity or secession."

On the streets of Khartoum, there was a sense of rueful resignation that the nearly nine million people of the south were poised to break away -- and with them some 80 percent of Sudan's oil reserves, which provide China with a total of six percent of its oil supplies.

"I feel sad," said Mustafa Mohammed, a young tax officer. "I am not for secession."

Europe split over boosting euro crisis fund

A protester holds a European flag bearing a swastika in th centre of it, as he demonstrates outside the Irish Parliament in Dublin December 15. Eurozone finance ministers head into a meeting Monday under pressure to ramp up the firepower of a debt rescue fund even after markets backed off pressure on vulnerable nations.

EU Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, smiles during a press conference. Eurozone finance ministers head into a meeting Monday under pressure to ramp up the firepower of a debt rescue fund even after markets backed off pressure on vulnerable nations.

AFP - Eurozone finance ministers head into a meeting on Monday divided over growing calls to ramp up the firepower of a debt rescue fund to douse market fears about the fate of vulnerable countries.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who heads the European Union's executive arm, has urged EU leaders to take a decision by their next summit in February but faces resistance from eurozone paymaster Germany.

"I expect top German politicians to respect the role of the commission. We in the commission have not only the right, but also the duty, to tell Europe's citizens what we think is right," Barroso told Germany's Spiegel magazine.

Germany insists that the 750-billion-euro financial safety net is large enough and says only one-tenth has been used so far to rescue Ireland from a banking catastrophe in November.

"I do not understand Barroso's comments. If only a small part of the fund has been used, then there is no need to discuss making it bigger," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in the Tagesspiegel am Sonntag weekly.

But analysts have repeatedly warned that the fund would be too small to come to the rescue of bigger economies such as Spain, amid fears that Portugal could be next to fall into the financial abyss and drag its neighbour with it.

Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders called this week for the safety net to be doubled to 1.5 trillion euros ($2 trillion) and said he hoped to raise the issue at the meeting of finance ministers Monday and Tuesday in Brussels.

"I think that doubling the resources would be a reasonable objective," Reynders told AFP in a telephone interview.

The fund was created last year to protect the euro from market upheaval after Greece became the first eurozone country be bailed out due to its huge public deficit and debt load.

The system combines a 440-billion-euro European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) backed by guarantees from the 17 eurozone countries, plus 250 billion euros from the IMF and another 60 billion euros from the 27-nation EU.

But the EFSF's effective lending capacity is estimated at only 250 billion euros as the fund borrows money on the markets and, in order to secure a top rating and low interest rates, it must keep part of funds raised in reserve.

Although German officials oppose an expansion of the fund, German Finance Miniser Wolfgang Schaeuble indicated on Sunday that increasing the EFSF's effective lending capacity may be necessary.

"We must and we will solve this problem," the minister told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung weekly.

The eurozone won some breathing room this week after Portugal and Spain successfully raised funds on the sovereign bond market.

But analysts warned that it was likely a temporary reprieve as the rate of returns Portugal and Spain had to offer investors were still high and could yet rise to levels that would require bailouts.

"Even if the German government is officially still reluctant to change the 'rules of the game,' an increase in the size and scope of the EFSF has become likely," ING banking group said in a note to clients.

If Portugal taps the EFSF, then the fund would lack enough funds to cover Spain, which would need support of around 300 billion euros, ING estimated.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said Friday it was "premature" to put a new figure on the fund but admitted that increasing its size was among several options being debated.

She confirmed one idea would be to enlarge the EFSF's toolbox to allow it to buy the debt of troubled eurozone members on the secondary market, taking over a role that the European Central Bank has reluctantly taken.

Germany to raise growth forecasts: reports

Shoppers walks past a window offering mershandise on sale on Kurfurstendamm in Berlin on January 12. Germany, Europe's top economy, is poised to grow at a faster rate than previously forecast this year and next, according to provisional government estimates leaked to the media over the weekend.

AFP - Germany, Europe's top economy, is poised to grow at a faster rate than previously forecast this year and next, according to provisional government estimates leaked to the media over the weekend.

News weeklies Spiegel and Focus reported that Berlin's forecasts, due to be officially published on Wednesday, will estimate output growth this year at between 2.1 and 2.4 percent.

For 2012, Germany is forecast to grow at between 1.6 percent and 1.9 percent, the two magazines said.

If confirmed, this would represent a sharp upwards revision from previous estimates. Berlin currently sees growth of 1.8 percent for this year. The government has not yet published a 2012 forecast.

After its worst recession in more than 60 years in 2009, Germany has embarked on what one analyst has termed a "mind-boggling" recovery.

Driven by its traditional export motor, but also increasingly by domestic demand, German growth boomed in 2010 at 3.6 percent, more than twice what France is expecting for last year.

The result was also better than that anticipated for the United States, at 2.7 percent, and Japan at 3.5 percent, but remained well below the level forecast for China of more than 10 percent.

UniCredit economist Andreas Rees has called it "one of the most mind-boggling turnarounds in German economic history" as the nation leapt "from annus horribilis to annus mirabilis."

Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle, who will present the official figures on Wednesday, already hinted at a hike in the forecasts, telling reporters on Thursday: "There is a good chance for a two before the decimal point."

Nine killed by Afghan roadside bomb: officials

A policeman stands guard at Pul-e Khumri in the Baghlan province of Afghanistan in 2009. Nine civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghlan province, northern Afghanistan, as they travelled to a wedding on Sunday, police and local officials said.

AFP - Nine civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in Baghlan province, northern Afghanistan, as they travelled to a wedding on Sunday, police and local officials said.

Six women, two men and a child died in the blast, which happened as the vehicle travelled from Pul-e-Khumri, the provincial capital, to a village in the province, on a road often used by foreign forces.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the blast.

"A mine struck a civilian minibus," provincial governor Abdul Majeed told AFP.

"Nine civilians -- six women, a child and two men -- have been killed. The road is often used by the PRT (provincial reconstruction team) soldiers. All the casualties are civilians."

The incident was also confirmed by Major Qudratullah, a spokesman for police in Baghlan province.

The incident came a day after six civilians were killed by a roadside bomb which hit a minibus in the Sangin district of southern Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province.

Afghanistan's interior ministry says that last year 2,043 civilians died as a result of Taliban attacks and military operations targeting the militants.

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or home-made bombs are a frequent cause of death for civilians in Afghanistan.

There are around 140,000 international troops in the country fighting the Taliban insurgents who were ousted from power in a 2001 US-led invasion.

Iran fighting the flu at Asian Cup

Iran's players celebrate after winning their 2011 Asian Cup group D football match against North Korea at Qatar Sports Club in Doha on January 15. The team is struggling with a bout of the flu at the Asian Cup as they continue their bid to lift a record fourth continental title.

AFP - The Iranian team is struggling with a bout of the flu at the Asian Cup as they continue their bid to lift a record fourth continental title.

"We have half of our team either semi-sick or really sick," Iran coach Afshin Ghotbi said after Team Melli became the first to book a quarter-final spot when they edged past North Korea 1-0 on Saturday.

"So we will really have to get the whole team healthy in the next few days."

The 46-year-old coach said he was among the victims of an outbreak which first hit ahead of the tournament and has also affected team captain and midfielder Javad Nekonam.

Iran, who also outlasted old foes and defending champions Iraq 2-1 in their opening match, face the United Arab Emirates in their last Group D clash, hoping to maintain their form and end a 35-year title drought.

Ghotbi said earlier it takes mental toughness and total fitness to win the championship through six matches over three weeks.

He added that the team's medical staff was doing a "good job" to solve what he called a "minor flu."

The problem started with Nekonam and "then I had the flu for several days and it has gone through two, three, up to four players at a time."

Stunned UAE down but not quite out of Asian Cup

UAE's midfielder Subait Khater bleeds after crashing into an Iraqi player during the 2011 Asian Cup group D football match between UAE and Iraq in Doha on January 15. UAE was staring down the barrel of Asian Cup elimination, but coach Srecko Katanec insisted they still had a chance.

AFP - The United Arab Emirates was staring down the barrel of Asian Cup elimination on Sunday, but coach Srecko Katanec insisted they still had a chance and urged his players to remain focused.

The Emirates were stunned by defender Walid Abbas's injury-time own goal that condemned them to a 1-0 defeat to holders Iraq late Saturday.

Katanec's side twice hit the woodwork -- as did Iraq -- in a finely poised game that seemed sure to end in stalemate, until the unfortunate Abbas prodded the ball past his own keeper with moments to spare.

The 25-year-old put his head in his hands as the reigning champions celebrated a victory that put them on the brink of qualification to the last eight.

With one more game to go in Group D, UAE's fate is out of their hands. They need to beat already-qualified Iran on Wednesday and hope North Korea defeat Iraq.

But to make the UAE's task even more unlikely, they need to see off Iran by a greater margin than North Korea defeat Iraq.

A downcast Katanec, who took his native Slovenia to the European Championships in 2000 and the 2002 World Cup, said his up-and-coming side deserved the three points.

"It is normal that we are all disappointed because we played a good match," he said.

"To concede a goal in the last minutes is always hard but we must accept that because this is football.

"We have one more game to play and we must try to concentrate in the next four days. We have lost this match now but we can't change that and we have one more game left.

"In training we will work on everything. It is a shock for us to concede the goal after the good game that we had. The players must be strong because they are professional players."

Katanec has put together a UAE side that combines a number of promising youngsters with some older heads. One of those prospects, one-time young Asian player of the year Ahmed Khalil, was a constant threat.

And the UAE had the first meaningful chance on goal, defender Hamdan Al Kamali leaping highest to crash the ball against the post from an inswinging corner in front of a disappointing crowd of just over 7,000.

They hit the post again on the hour when striker Khalil's blistering pile-driver smacked the bar, while the holders were also denied twice by the woodwork late in the first half.

The match looked destined for a a draw until Iraq captain Younis Mahmoud's cross deep in stoppage time was turned in by Abbas.

After seeing his side squander a slew of chances, Katanec said: "The problem that we have is that our strikers don't play regularly.

"In our clubs, the foreign strikers are always there so it?s difficult to ask the players to produce a better performance than this.

"My players gave 100 percent in their efforts and I'm proud of them. But we didn't score and while there were a lot of reasons for that, simply we also were not lucky while Iraq managed to get the three points.

"We were better in the game but this is football and we must play like this and score against Iran. We must look to win against Iran and then pray that Iraq will lose against North Korea."

The former Sampdoria star had words of consolation for Abbas.

"Sometimes we live moments like these and the players must learn something from this," he said.

Swiss whistleblower to give bank data to WikiLeaks

Swiss whistleblower Rudolf Elmer is planning to handover to WikiLeaks two CDs containing data of around 2,000 bank clients who may have been evading taxes, according to an interview in Swiss newspaper Sonntag.

AFP - Swiss whistleblower Rudolf Elmer is planning to handover to WikiLeaks two CDs containing data of around 2,000 bank clients who may have been evading taxes, according to an interview published Sunday.

"The documents show that they are hiding behind bank secrecy, possibly to avoid taxes," Elmer, a former Swiss banker, told Swiss newspaper Sonntag.

The data is to be handed over on Monday, during a press conference in London during which WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would also be present, said Sonntag.

However, the information would not be published immediately on the whistleblower website, said Elmer, noting: "WikiLeaks will go through the data, and if they really deal with tax evasion, they will be published later."

According to Elmer, the clients listed on the two discs include multimillionaires, multinationals and hedge funds from several countries, including Switzerland, the United States, Germany and Britain.

The data also implicate around 40 politicians.

Elmer said that the data stem from "at least three financial institutions and cover the period of 1990 and 2009.

Elmer, who was a director at Bank Julius Baer in Cayman Islands, is to appear before a Zurich court on Wednesday to answer to charges of bank secrecy violation, after he passed on clients' data to WikiLeaks in 2007.

The move led to tax evasion prosecutions in several countries against these clients.