Gunmen mount bomb attack on Iraq's largest oil refinery

Beiji refinery is among two to be shut down on the same day after fire at smaller refinery in Iraq's south

• Agencies
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 26 February 2011 16.50 GMT
• Article history

Gunmen attacked Iraq's largest oil refinery before dawn, killing a guard and detonating bombs that sparked a fire and forced the facility to halt operations, officials said.

A few hours later, a small refinery in the south shut down after a technical failure sparked a fire in a storage unit, an official said.

If not fixed swiftly, the two shutdowns could translate into long lines at fuel stations and longer electricity outages. The dearth of reliable electricity – some Iraqis get just a few hours a day – was one of the leading complaints of protesters during violent anti-government demonstrations across Iraq yesterday.

The attack on Iraq's largest refinery, Beiji, began at about 3.30am. Assailants carrying pistols fitted with silencers attacked guards and planted bombs near some production units for benzene and kerosene, said the spokesman for Salahuddin province, Mohammed al-Asi. One guard was killed and another wounded, al-Asi said.

Iraqi oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said an investigation would be launched and that he hoped operations could resume shortly.

The Beiji refinery, located about 155 miles (250km) north of Baghdad, has two sections. The attackers targeted the installation's North Refinery, which handles 150,000 barrels a day. The second section, the Salahuddin Refinery, is under renovation. It used to process 70,000 barrels per day.

At the height of the insurgency from 2004 to late 2007, the Beiji refinery was under control of Sunni militants who used to siphon off crude and petroleum products to finance their operations.

Hours after the Beiji facility was attacked, a small refinery in Samawa, a city on the Euphrates River about 230 miles (370km) south-east of Baghdad, went offline due to a fire in the storage unit, according to a local official.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the fire was caused by a technical failure, not foul play. He would not say when work would resume at the plant, which has the capacity of 30,000 barrels of a day.

Iraq's overall refining capacity is currently slightly more than 500,000 barrels per day. Its three main oil refineries – Dora, Shuaiba and Beiji – process slightly more than half of the 700,000 barrels-per-day capacity they had before the 2003 US invasion.

Iraq sits on the world's third-largest known oil reserves with an estimated 115bn barrels, but its production is far below its potential due to decades of war, UN sanctions, lack of foreign investment and insurgent attacks.

Iraq has been importing refined products since 2003 because of the dilapidated refining sector and booming local demand.

The closures could spell trouble for Iraqi consumers, especially at a time when the weather is just beginning to warm and more citizens will be relying on their air conditioning.

Also today, health officials and police said two teens, ages 12 and 18, died of injuries sustained in the anti-government protests, bringing the death toll for the day to 14.

On Friday, thousands marched on government buildings and clashed with security forces in cities across Iraq in an outpouring of anger, the largest and most violent anti-government protests in the country since political unrest began spreading in the Arab world weeks ago.

The protests, billed as a Day of Rage, were fueled by anger over corruption, chronic unemployment and shoddy public services from the Shiite-dominated government.

Searchlight poll finds huge support for far right 'if they gave up violence'

Level of far-right support could outstrip that in France or Holland, says poll for Searchlight

• Mark Townsend
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 26 February 2011 21.08 GMT
• Article history



‘Large numbers’ would support a far-right party, if it was not linked to violence. Photograph: KeystoneUSA-Zuma/Rex Features

Huge numbers of Britons would support an anti-immigration English nationalist party if it was not associated with violence and fascist imagery, according to the largest survey into identity and extremism conducted in the UK.

A Populus poll found that 48% of the population would consider supporting a new anti-immigration party committed to challenging Islamist extremism, and would support policies to make it statutory for all public buildings to fly the flag of St George or the union flag.

Anti-racism campaigners said the findings suggested Britain's mainstream parties were losing touch with public opinion on issues of identity and race.

The poll suggests that the level of backing for a far-right party could equal or even outstrip that in countries such as France, the Netherlands and Austria. France's National Front party hopes to secure 20% in the first round of the presidential vote next year. The Dutch anti-Islam party led by Geert Wilders attracted 15.5% of the vote in last year's parliamentary elections.

Anti-fascist groups said the poll's findings challenged the belief that Britons were more tolerant than other Europeans. "This is not because British people are more moderate, but simply because their views have not found a political articulation," said a report by the Searchlight Educational Trust, the anti-fascist charity that commissioned the poll.

According to the survey, 39% of Asian Britons, 34% of white Britons and 21% of black Britons wanted all immigration into the UK to be stopped permanently, or at least until the economy improved. And 43% of Asian Britons, 63% of white Britons and 17% of black Britons agreed with the statement that "immigration into Britain has been a bad thing for the country". Just over half of respondents – 52% – agreed with the proposition that "Muslims create problems in the UK".

Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP who fought a successful campaign against the British National party in his Dagenham and Rainham constituency in east London, said that the findings pointed to a "very real threat of a new potent political constituency built around an assertive English nationalism". The report identified a resurgence of English identity, with 39% preferring to call themselves English rather than British. Just 5% labelled themselves European.

Earlier this month David Cameron delivered a controversial speech on the failings of "state multiculturalism". The speech was seized on by the anti-Islamic English Defence League, which said that the prime minister was "coming round" to its way of thinking. BNP leader Nick Griffin also welcomed the speech as a sign that his party's ideas were entering "the political mainstream".

The poll also identified a majority keen to be allowed to openly criticise religion, with 60% believing they "should be allowed to say whatever they believe about religion". By contrast, fewer than half – 42% – said "people should be allowed to say whatever they believe about race".

Clashes erupt in Croatian anti-government protests

26 February 2011 - 20H09

Protestors clash with Croatian police in the center of the capital Zagreb on February 24. Hundreds of anti-government protestors clashed with police in the Croatian capital Saturday, leaving 33 people injured while several dozen including an AFP photographer were detained.

AFP - Hundreds of anti-government protestors clashed with police in the Croatian capital Saturday, leaving 33 people injured while several dozen including an AFP photographer were detained.

Anti-riot police used batons to disperse protestors who hurled flaming torches, stones, bricks and bottles at them, an AFP reporter said.

The demonstrators, who also rallied Thursday, demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor over high unemployment and living costs that they blame on her government's economic policy, as well as corruption.

Police said 58 people were detained because of "violent behaviour."

"Their aim was to create unrest and behave violently towards police," police official Tomislav Buterin told journalists.

He could not provide details about AFP's detained photographer. Witnesses said the photographer had not heeded a police order to move away from the scene of the clashes.

According to a police spokeswoman, the protestors were members of an anti-government group organised through Facebook and were joined by football fans.

A total of 33 people, 21 of them policemen, were injured in the violence, the official said. Two citizens sustained serious injuries, Buterin said.

Clashes also erupted in Thursday's protest, which drew about 1,000 people.

Government spokesman Mladen Pavic strongly condemned Saturday's "hooliganism and violence".

He said that "according to some information, some opposition parties were involved in organising and financing the Zagreb violence." He did not elaborate.

Kosor took over the helm of the government in 2009 when her predecessor Ivo Sanader, currently detained on suspicion of corruption and abuse of power, suddenly stepped down.

The economy of the country, which aspires to join the European Union, was hard-hit by the global crisis and has contracted for the past two years.

Saturday's violence erupted when police barred several hundred people, mainly youngsters, from marching towards the government building at which protests are banned.

At the same time about 15,000 people, according to police, protested separately in Zagreb's main square to support complaints by veterans of the 1991-1995 independence war that the government was not protecting them from war crimes prosecutions.

Police said the protestors who clashed with police were not part of the veterans' rally.

The demonstration organised by a war veterans group was the largest of its kind since a wave of similar gatherings was sparked by Bosnia's arrest in January of a Croat war veteran wanted by Serbia.

"Croatian War Veterans are Heroes"! and "Stop the Persecution of War Veterans", read some of the banners carried by the protestors.

"Treason! Treason!" they chanted also calling for Kosor to leave.

Many in Croatia see war veterans as heroes and symbols of the country's fight for independence from the former Yugoslavia.

Political prisoner freed in Cuba: Catholic church

27 February 2011 - 00H06

Alejandrina Garcia (2nd R), the wife of political prisoner Diosdado Gonzalez, speaks on her mobile phone next to other relatives of Cuban political prisoners in Havana, in 2010. Cuba's Roman Catholic church announced Saturday that arrangements have been made for the release of a political prisoner who had refused exile in Spain.

AFP - Cuba's Roman Catholic church announced Saturday that arrangements have been made for the release of a political prisoner who had refused exile in Spain.

Diosdado Gonzalez, 48, an electrician by trade, was one of six dissidents left from a group of 75 imprisoned in a 2003 crackdown by Cuba's communist regime.

Gonzalez, who is a member of the outlawed Peace, Democracy and Freedom Party, went on several hunger strikes while in prison, according to his wife Alejandrina Garcia, a member of the activist group Ladies in White.

The group, led by wives and other female relatives of political prisoners, won the European parliament's Sakharov human rights prize in 2005.

"In continuation of the process of liberation of prisoners, we inform that the release from jail of Diosdado Gonzalez has been arranged," said Orlando Marquez, a spokesman for the office of the archbishop of Havana.

Separately the church said another eight Cuban prisoners would be released soon and head into exile in Spain.

The eight are prisoners convicted of activities deemed a danger to the state, but are not considered political prisoners insofar as they were not activists with a political group opposing the only one-party communist regime in the Americas.

The eight are Osvaldo Gonzalez, Jose Miguel Fernandez, Enrique Martinez, Jose Rodriguez, Carlos Martin, Ernesto Duran, Gilberto Martinez and Mario Alberto Perez, a church statement added.

Calls on Facebook to oust Syria's Assad

27 February 2011 - 03H06

A Facebook page has called for mass protests in Syria and in several Western countries against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, pictured in 2010.

AFP - A Facebook page has called for mass protests in Syria and in several Western countries against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

The organisers of the page, which had 25,000 fans early on Saturday, said the date for demonstrations to be held "in all Syrian cities" was being carefully studied and "will be determined in a few days."

It urged "peaceful demonstrations in all Syrian cities, in Canada, in the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and Australia" to demand Assad's ouster.

Assad became president in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, and was returned for a second seven-year term in a referendum in 2007 in which he was the only candidate.

The organisers say on the page that they do not belong to any party, but are "defenders of human rights, Syrian militants inside Syria and in Europe."

Other similar Facebook pages have cropped up recently, particularly in support of Tal al-Mallouhi, a 19-year-old Syrian blogger who was sentenced last week to five years in prison after she was accused of working for the CIA.

The US State Department has described the accusation as "preposterous."

Another, unidentified, group recently used Facebook to call for a "day of rage" on February 4, but despite attracting thousands of members on the site, the demonstrations did not take place.

Syria was 173rd of 178 countries in a 2010 ranking of press freedom around the world by Reporters Without Borders, eight rungs lower than in 2009 because of its stepped up controls over the Internet.

Man blows himself up outside Moscow supermarket

A man blew himself up with a grenade outside a Moscow supermarket on Saturday, the Interfax news agency has reported. No other people were injured in the blast.

By News Wires (text)

AP - The Interfax news agency says a man has blown himself up with a grenade outside a supermarket in Moscow.

The agency cites witnesses as saying the man drove alongside the store in southeast Moscow, then got out of his car, muttered something indistinct, pulled out a grenade and set it off.

The report says the man was dead at the scene and there were no other people injured in the Saturday afternoon incident.

Moscow police said they had no immediate information on the report.

Ivory Coast on the brink as new clashes erupt in Abidjan

Heavy-weapons fire resounded through Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan on Saturday, a day after UN head Ban Ki-moon raised the spectre of civil war.

By News Wires (text)

AFP - Fresh clashes erupted on Saturday in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan a day after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned the crisis-hit nation was on the brink of civil war.

Heavy-weapon gunfire broke out in the commercial capital Abidjan where forces loyal to rival claimants for the presidency have been fighting, witnesses said.

The gunfire came from the northern Abobo area that is a stronghold of Alassane Ouattara, internationally recognised to have won the November 28 election although incumbent Laurent Gbagbo refuses to step down.

It follows deadly clashes earlier this week in the area, from where Gbagbo's camp says "rebels" allied with Ouattara are operating, a charge that has been denied.

Witnesses said the gunfire resumed in the early afternoon after the shooting stopped overnight Friday, although residents continued to flee Saturday.

"The neighbourhood is empty," one resident told AFP, adding that families were leaving for other districts of Abidjan.

"People think the neighbourhood will be bombed," said another resident who had decided to stay.

Mini-buses were able to enter the area and were "stormed" by mothers and their children, a young woman said who had fled to the western Yopougon district to stay with her family.

"This morning I saw bodies, apparently civilians, that nobody has recovered," a driver told AFP but was unable to say when the people were killed.

No toll has been given for the latest flare-up.

Fighting erupted in various parts of the country on Friday, with forces loyal to Ouattara seizing two towns in the west of the country, close to the border with Liberia, but the FDS forces loyal to Gbagbo said Saturday they had driven them off.

Forces from the two sides also engaged in a gunbattle in Yamoussoukro that lasted several hours but calm had returned to the political capital, witnesses said Saturday.

Businesses in the city are slowly reopening but many shops are closed and the market is practically empty, a local journalists said early Saturday.

Ban warned Friday the violence marked "a disturbing escalation which draws the country closer to the brink of reigniting civil war".

Ivory Coast has been gripped by unrest since the November poll and divided since late 2002, with the New Forces, a former rebel group allied to Ouattara, holding the north and Gbagbo loyalists the south.

The election, monitored by the United Nations, was intended to be a step on the way to reuniting Africa's leading cocoa producer, a former economic powerhouse of the region.

Four African leaders -- Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania, Jacob Zuma of South Africa, Idriss Deby Itno of Chad and Tanzania's Jakaya Kikwete -- who have been mediating in the conflict will meet again on Friday in Mauritania for consultations.

"A lot of work still needs to be done," the Mauritanian president had said after the latest round of talks with Gbagbo and Ouattara.

The African Union has backed a peaceful resolution to the crisis, but former mediator Raila Odinga, the Kenyan prime minister, said Wednesday that force would be used if economic sanctions do not result in Gbagbo's ouster.