Suspected US Drone Strikes Kills 6 in NW Pakistan

VOA News 23 January 2011

Photo: AP

A file picture of a U.S. drone (Predator) in the Afghan-Pakistan region

Pakistani officials say two suspected U.S. drone strikes have killed six suspected militants in the northwestern part of the country.

The officials said an unmanned aircraft fired two missiles, killing two suspected militants as they rode a motorbike in a village in the North Waziristan tribal region.

Earlier, Pakistani intelligence officials said an unmanned aircraft fired two missiles in the same village, killing at least four suspected militants.

The French news agency quoted the officials as saying the apparent drone strike hit a car immediately after it parked outside a house in a village. The victims have not been identified, but officials believe them to be local militants.

The United States does not confirm drone attacks, but regional experts credit the attacks with killing al-Qaida and Taliban leaders. Critics say U.S. drone attacks have killed hundreds of civilians over last few years.

Last month, Pakistani tribesmen from a restive northwest region along the Afghan border staged a silent protest in Islamabad against U.S. missile strikes.

About two dozen tribesmen identified themselves as relatives of civilians killed or wounded by U.S. missiles fired from unmanned planes known as drones.

Most of the demonstrators live in the North Waziristan tribal region, which is part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan.

U.S. officials believe al-Qaida and Taliban groups use the tribal region as a safe haven to conduct strikes on coalition and Afghan forces in Afghanistan. The Pakistani military has been reluctant to launch an offensive in the region at the same time it battles domestic Taliban elements elsewhere in the country.

Pakistan Bus Accident Kills 32

VOA News 23 January 2011

Photo: Reuters

A man walks past the wreckage of a bus which was burned after it collided with an oil tanker in Nooriabad, in Pakistan's Sindh province 23 Jan 2011.

A bus in southern Pakistan has collided with an oil tanker, setting off a blazing inferno that killed 32 people and injured at least nine.

Police say women and children were among the dead in the early Sunday accident.

The Associated Press says the driver fell asleep and lost control of the bus. The news agency reports survivors told authorities they had twice asked the driver to stop and rest to avoid an accident.

Pakistan has one of the world's worst records for fatal traffic accidents, blamed on poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving.

Bombings Across Iraqi Capital Baghdad Kill 6

VOA News 23 January 2011

Photo: AP

Workers sweep away debris after a bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, 23 Jan 2011.

Iraqi officials say a series of bombings has killed at least six people and wounded some 30 others across Baghdad.

Officials said two separate car bomb attacks Sunday targeted police patrols, while another struck a bus of Iranian pilgrims. Several people were killed in the blasts, including a policeman.

Also, just north of the capital in the town of Taji, a car bomb killed two people.

While violence in Iraq has dropped dramatically since a few years ago, attacks still remain common across the country.

Attacks also have increased in the month since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki formed a new government. He has yet to appoint ministers charged with Iraq's defense, interior and national security sector.

Renault spies 'leaked electric car strategy'

Renault's Fluence Z.EA electric car on display at group headquarters in Boulogne Billancourt near Paris earlier this month. Alleged spying at the French car maker targeted its business strategy for electric cars rather than technological secrets, its chief executive says.

AFP - Alleged spying at French car maker Renault targeted its business strategy for electric cars rather than technological secrets, its chief executive said in an interview published Sunday.

"We have come to the conclusion that what got out was not technological information. It could be information on our economic model," the company's boss Carlos Ghosn was quoted as saying by French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche.

"What was targeted was our strategy for the electric cars," he added in the interview, saying that Renault was the only company making all three key elements for the electric car -- batteries, motors and chargers.

Renault and its Japanese partner Nissan have staked their future on electric vehicles and plan to launch several models by 2014 to meet rapidly rising demand for more environmentally friendly methods of transport.

They have invested four billion euros in the programme.

Ghosn was speaking out for the first time since the affair broke two weeks ago.

Renault has sacked three top managers over alleged industrial espionage and has launched legal action. The three executives have said they are suing over the allegations.

Ghosn said Renault had launched an internal probe in August but waited until this month to alert the authorities because "we had to do preliminary research ourselves to get an idea how serious the affair was."

He said he was "surprised and shocked" by the affair but insisted that in investigating it "we have been irreproachable under the law."

He declined to give a view of who might have benefited from the leaking of strategic information. Media reports and analysts have said Chinese companies are suspected but the Chinese government angrily denied this.

"We are waiting for the results of the investigation (launched by the French secret services) which I am told should last several months," Ghosn told the newspaper.

Greece to market bonds to overseas Greeks

Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, pictured in Brussels in November, says his country will issue a diaspora bond aimed at Greek investors all over the world "within the next few months"

AFP - Greece will issue a diaspora bond aimed at Greek investors all over the world "within the next few months" in an effort to return to bond markets in 2011, said Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou in an interview on Sunday.

"We will mainly address Greeks in Europe, the US, Australia, etc., while the interest will be lower than current market rates," Papaconstantinou told the Sunday edition of Eleftherotypia newspaper.

According to the Kathimerini daily, the Greek government seeks to issue a diaspora bond "of between three and 10 years".

Greece on Tuesday raised 650 million euros ($866 million) in a sale of three-month treasury bills at a stable yield of 4.1 percent despite a recent downgrade in its credit rating to junk status by the Fitch ratings agency.

Greece last year secured a three-year, 110-billion-euro ($149 billion) loan from the EU and the International Monetary Fund, most of it from the EU.

It is currently in talks with Brussels to extend repayment on this loan, though it has repeatedly denied any restructuring of its other debts.

"Sincerely, Greece can and will avoid it," Papaconstantinou told Eleftherotypia, referring to restructuring Greece's debt.

Algiers police crack down as opposition defies ban on protests

Police broke up an opposition march calling for democracy in the Algerian capital on Saturday, with troops out in force and streets barricaded to prevent protests in the wake of a popular revolt that toppled the president in neighbouring Tunisia.

By Ahmed TAZIR / Luke BROWN (video)
Joseph BAMAT (text)

Algeria’s capital awoke to a virtual state of siege on Saturday, with a heavy police presence and many streets blocked in order to prevent protesters from reaching the May 1 Square, where opposition groups planned to stage a pro-democracy march.

The opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) planned to defy a 19-year-old ban against marches in Algiers, despite warnings from the authorities and in the wake of a popular revolt that overthrew neighbouring Tunisia's long-time president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali only a week ago.

Sporadic violence flared in and around the city, with relatively small groups of protesters clashing with police.

Outside the headquarters of the opposition RCD party, some 300 people were reportedly encircled by police. The party says at least 42 people were injured in the clashes, including its parliamentary leader, Amazouz Othman. Algerian police reported seven wounded policemen, including two in critical condition, and five arrests.

According to the independent daily al-Watan, clashes also erupted in the outskirts of Algiers between security forces and protesters who tried to reach the capital. AFP reported that a local RCD leader, Boudraa Reda, was beaten with sticks in Bejaia, some 260 km east of the capital.

The RCD said the aborted march was organised to demand the release of people arrested during previous demonstrations, lift the existing state of emergency, restore the individual and collective liberties guaranteed by the constitution and dissolve the government it claims was elected through fraud.

TUNISIA Copycat effect: How one man's self-immolation engulfed a region

Demonstrations are banned in Algeria because of a state of emergency in place since 1992, when the government was fighting an Islamist insurgency.

On Friday, city officials warned residents of Algiers against joining the march, which was scheduled to start at 11am at the May 1 square and end at the Parliament building.

"Citizens are asked to show wisdom and vigilance and not respond to possible provocation aimed at disturbing their tranquillity, peace of mind and serenity," the Algiers administration told state news agency APS.

In a statement it insisted that public gatherings were “considered a breach of public order".

Speaking to FRANCE 24, RCD chairman Said Saadi said some 15,000 Algerian security forces had been deployed in the capital. “This is not simply a political crisis,” Saadi said, “We have reached a historical impasse.”

Fears of more Tunisia-style unrest

Opposition groups in Algeria have closely monitored the popular revolt that overthrew Tunisia’s Ben Ali and continues to call for the departure of his old guard.

The country shares a 960-kilometre border with Tunisia and has had the same president for the past 12 years.

The revolution in Tunisia was set off by the self-immolation and death of a desperate street vendor. In copycat fashion, Algeria has seen at least seven immolation attempts over the past few days, plus its own isolated violent outbursts and peaceful demonstrations.

Pro-democracy group makes call to protest in Algeria Report by Ahmed Tazir, FRANCE 24 correspondent in Algiers

A small pro-democracy gathering in Algiers earlier this week startled residents and led to a handful of arrests. “At the police station the first question I was asked was whether we supported the unrest in Tunisia. For the authorities, our march is a call to violence,” said Sofia Djama, an Algerian filmmaker who participated in the demonstration.

According to Sorbonne scholar Burhan Ghalioun, who predicted Ben Ali’s fall, Algeria like Tunisia can no longer maintain a dysfunctional political and economic system under the guise of its war against Islamic terrorism.

The RDC’s Saadi, was also quick to draw a parallel between the situation in the two countries and the potential consequences: “If we cannot set off a peaceful process towards a transitional phase, the violence will be much more devastating in Algeria than it was in Tunisia.”

Gbagbo slams West African bank governor's 'forced' resignation

Ivory Coast's incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo has rejected a move to replace the governor of the West African regional central bank, who was forced to step down Saturday after failing to cut off funds to the Ivorian leader.

By News Wires (text)

AFP - West African leaders have piled pressure on Ivory Coast's defiant strongman Laurent Gbagbo by forcing the resignation of a key ally in a regional bank who ensured the troubled leader's cash supply.

In a further blow, they asked Alassane Ouattara, recognised by the world as the winner of November 28 presidential elections, to name a new governor of the region's central bank.

Leaders gathered in Mali for a meeting of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) made their offer to Ouattara after Philippe-Henry Dacoury-Tabley resigned as governor of the Central Bank of West African States.

The bank comprises former French colonies who share a common currency, the CFA franc.

Dacoury-Tabley, an Ivorian, is close to Gbagbo, who has refused to step down following the elections.

Dacoury-Tabley had himself presented his resignation, said a statement issued at the end of a WAEMU summit meeting Saturday.

The meeting criticised his failure to implement a decision taken in December by finance ministers from the bank's seven other member states to give Ouattara control of Ivory Coast's assets lodged with the bank.

Since that decision, the bank has paid out between 60 and 100 billion CFA francs (91-152 million euros, $124-$206 million) to the Gbagbo regime.

"It's for very technical reasons that we were not able to implement the heads of states' decisions," Dacoury-Tabley told journalists in Bamako. "That's what I tried to explain to them."

But his position became untenable after reports emerged Friday that the European Union was about to impose sanctions against him, including an EU assets freeze and travel ban, because of the payments to Gbagbo.

Denis N'Gbe, head of the Abidjan branch of the bank, was also to be targetted, said a Brussels-based diplomat.

Gbagbo's government immediately slammed the decision.

In comments broadcast on state television, still controlled by Gbagbo, his administration said it "rejected" what it said was the "forced resignation of Philippe-Henry Dacoury-Tabley," and urged the "population, the economic operators and financiers," not to panic.

"All measures have been taken to ensure the smooth functioning of the Ivorian banking system," the statement said.

Ouattara has been holed up in an Abidjan hotel where he and his supporters are paying their expenses with help from other countries and savings.

The events in Bamako further cemented Ouattara's position -- and it was Guillaume Soro, Ouattara's prime minister, who represented Ivory Coast at the Union's meeting rather than anyone from the Gbagbo camp.

The WAEMU statement called on Gbagbo to recognise Ouattara's victory in the November election and stand aside.

For diplomats and politicians, cutting the purse strings that have enabled to Gbagbo to defy the international community for so long is crucial to increasing the pressure on him.

It is part of an international campaign to force him from power without resorting to a military intervention, which many observers fear could push the country into civil war.

France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler, meanwhile rejected an announcement Saturday by Gbagbo's administration that it had cancelled the accreditation of its ambassador.

The Gbagbo side acted after receiving a verbal note from Paris saying it had accredited Ali Coulibaly, Ouattara's pick as Ivory Coast's envoy to France.

A French foreign ministry statement said the move by Gbagbo was "devoid of any legal standing."

The West African regional bloc ECOWAS has threatened military intervention to dislodge Gbagbo, with Nigerian junior foreign minister Salamatu Suleiman saying Friday such intervention appeared to be "the only option".

But Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the African Union envoy in the crisis, warned Friday that it was "absolutely the last resort" and should be avoided if at all possible.