'Presidential palace taken in Abidjan'

French soldiers patrol the Port Bouet district of Abidjan in Ivory Coast.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/173150.html

Forces loyal to president-elect Alassane Ouattara claim they have seized incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo's residence in Abidjan as fighting takes a new turn in the North African nation.

Heavy weapons fire rocked the capital Abidjan Tuesday as forces loyal to internationally recognized president Ouattara clashed with Gbagbo troops, AFP reported on Tuesday.

The arms fire came from the city's Plateau district, a business district in Abidjan where the presidential palace is located.

Witnesses describe the pre-dawn clash as the heaviest fighting since soldiers backing Ouattara entered the city five days ago.

A pro-Gbagbo military source, however, denied the claim.

Earlier, Ouattara's forces announced they would soon launch their final assault on Gbagbo's presidential palace.

The news came after French and UN helicopters attacked Gbagbo's palace and military bases on Monday.

The joint campaign followed an urgent request by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, calling for military action.

Ban said it was necessary to launch military operations to protect the civilian population against Gbagbo's onslaughts.

However, an advisor to Gbagbo in Paris described the attacks as an assassination attempt on the leader.

Meanwhile, diplomatic sources say several foreigners including two French nationals have been kidnapped in Abidjan.

'French military occupying Ivory Coast'

Toussaint Alain, aide to incumbent Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/172981.html

An aide to incumbent Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo says the French military is behaving in a similar fashion to an occupation army, after their seizure of Ivory Coast's airport in Abidjan.

"We feel that this force is behaving in Ivory Coast like an army of occupation without any mandate, because the UN mandate does not authorize Licorne to occupy a sovereign state's airport," AFP quoted Toussaint Alain, aide to Gbagbo, as saying on Sunday.

The French Licorne (Unicorn) mission and the UN peacekeeping mission (UNOCI) have taken control of Abidjan's airport as the struggle between Gbagbo and his rival Alassane Ouattara's forces intensifies.

Ivorian president-elect Ouattara has shown support for the UN and French intervention in the North African nation.

More than 15,000 foreign troops are currently stationed in the crisis-hit country, including 700 French troops.

The Red Cross says that some 800 people have been killed during the capture of Duekoue, last Tuesday.

While much of the international community has recognized Ouattara as the winner of the vote, Gbagbo refuses to give up power. Tensions escalated as both sides claimed to be the winner and appointed separate cabinets.

Post-election violence has left at least 494 people dead. A United Nations report has also said that up to one million people have fled their homes so far.

French troops take over Ivorian airport

French troops in Ivory Coast patrol a street in Abidjan

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/172867.html

The French military says its forces have taken control of the airport in Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan as post-election violence continues to haunt the country.

French Military Spokesman Thierry Burkhard said on Sunday that Paris has sent 300 back-up troops to the West African nation.

There are currently more than 1,500 foreign forces in Ivory Coast -- including 700 from France.

Forces loyal to president-elect Alassane Ouattara arrived in Abidjan on Thursday after launching a major offensive.

Abidjan has been the scene of heavy fighting between Ouattara forces and those of incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.

Ivorian state TV has accused French troops of preparing genocide like the one in Rwanda in 1994 which left an estimated 800,000 people dead in the space of 100 days.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says that at least 800 people were killed in Ivory Coast on Tuesday alone.

The humanitarian body said the victims were killed after fighting broke out in the western city of Duekoue.

The United Nations mission in Ivory Coast (ONUCI) said on Saturday that pro-Ouattara forces had killed 330 people in key-strategic town.

Ouattara has vehemently denied the report and says his forces were not involved in the Duekoue killings.

"The government [of Ouattara] notes with regret that the allegations of the deputy chief of ONUCI human rights division are not supported by any evidence after its preliminary investigation," Ouattara's government said in a statement.

Deadly violence erupted in the West African nation after a disputed presidential election in November.

While much of the international community has recognized Ouattara as the winner of the vote, Gbagbo refuses to cede power.

Tensions further escalated after they both claimed victory and appointed separate cabinets.

The disputed presidential election has raised the risk of a long power struggle that could trigger another civil war in the country.

UN: One million flee Ivory Coast violence

Families fleeing fighting and unrest in the Abobo neighborhood of Abidjan arrive at a school turned into a makeshift shelter for internally displaced people, near Anyama, on March 25, 2011

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/171699.html

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) says up to one million people in Ivory Coast have fled their homes to safer areas due to post-election violence.

UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told a news conference in Geneva on Friday that the situation was deteriorating in the African country.

"The massive displacement in Abidjan and elsewhere is being fuelled by fears of all-out war," Fleming said.

“Families fleeing areas of conflicts have told UNHCR monitors that they are terrified of being caught up in the fighting and killed by stray bullets," she added.

"Others say they can no longer cope financially due to the closures of banks and businesses and resulting unemployment,” she went on to say.

Fleming pointed out that the estimate of up to a million displaced was double the figure from just a week ago.

Political unrest in Ivory Coast has claimed at least 462 lives since mid-December 2010 with some 52 people losing their lives in Abidjan alone this week.

Violence erupted in the country following the November 28 presidential election and after incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo refused to hand over power to his rival Alassane Ouattara.

Tensions escalated after they both claimed victory and appointed separate cabinets.

The international community has recognized Ouattara as the rightful winner of the election.

The UN has set up an international probe into the post-election violence in the Ivory Coast, agreeing to dispatch an independent international commission of inquiry to the country.

This comes as France and Nigeria on Friday introduced a UN resolution imposing new sanctions on Gbagbo and his allies.

French Ambassador to the UN Gerard Araud told reporters that the draft would be discussed next week.

The draft urges an end to the violence against the civilians. It would also impose an international travel ban and freeze the assets of Gbagbo and other close allies.

The draft also seeks to refer the situation in Ivory Coast to the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

Britain braces for more civil unrests

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/158916.html


The British anti-cuts campaigners, students leaders and union officials as well as hundreds of online activists will meet next week to discuss ways to push forward their agenda.

The meeting on Saturday will focus on connecting local campaigns with anti-tax avoidance groups, student protesters, unions and anti-racism activists in a motion called NetrootsUK conference which has been organized by bloggers and received backing from the Trade Union Congress (TUC).

One of the organizers of the conference is Sunny Hundal, editor of the leftwing Liberal Conspiracy blog.

"There is widespread concern over what the coalition is doing to our economy and in recent months we've seen an enormous buildup of energy from across the country to do something about it. But most of it has been in separate campaigns. What we're trying to do here is bring together veteran campaigners with new movements so we can learn from each other, and use social media to keep on top of what works and what doesn't. It's the first time we have seen anything like this on such a scale", he said.

Clifford Singer, campaign director of the anti-cuts website False Economy, said there were great advances in online activity in the UK in 2010 but that "much of what is going on is still fragmented. To mobilise hundreds of thousands of people behind anti-cuts campaigns in 2011, we're going to need a more coordinated effort, learning good practice in each other's areas and helping the public see the links between issues and the case for the alternative."

The conference on Saturday is being held at TUC headquarters in central London and will host workshops on hyper-local campaigns, new social media tools and how to transform online campaigns into offline action.

Meanwhile, student protesters have announced several dates on which they will resume their fight against the increase in university tuition fees and education cuts in the new year.

On Wednesday, January 29, groups including the Education Activist Network (EAN) will be holding the fourth “Day X” demonstration to defend the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).

On Saturday, January 29, the National Union of Students (NUS) and University and College Union (UCU) will join the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in holding a large-scale rally in Manchester dubbed: "A Future that Works: National Rally for Young People".

The protest is aimed at highlighting issues relevant to young people including access to education, youth unemployment and government plans to scrap EMA.

On Saturday, January 29, the National Campaign against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) and the EAN are organising a demonstration in London to resume their struggle against tuition fees and funding cuts.

On Saturday, March 26, the NUS will join the TUC national demonstration against spending cuts at Hyde Park, central London. Protesters will march from Victoria to Hyde Park before holding a rally to call for a "Robin Hood" tax on the banks, an end to tax loopholes and fresh policies to boost jobs and green growth.

Campaigners censure UK protest ban

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155840.html


British civil liberties activists and student groups strongly condemn senior police commissioner's comments over a possible total ban on anti-government protests in Britain.

Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson said Wednesday he was considering to ask the Home Secretary to enforce a total ban on student protests all across the UK.

“That's one of the options we have got. Banning is a very difficult step to take, these are very balanced judgments”, Sir Paul said, when asked about the possibility of a ban.

He said protest marches could be banned altogether provided that it receives an approval from the Home Secretary, Theresa May.

He admitted, however, that campaigners would be likely to march in defiance of a ban, which could “just be inflaming the situation further”.

The police commissioner said he did not favor a “paramilitary model” of policing, adding the police are considering whether they should use water cannons in their attempts to contain protesters.

The remarks were made after tens of thousands of students from universities, colleges and schools poured into the streets in London and other UK cities to protest a decision by the government to triple university tuition fees in England to £9,000 per year.

The motion was narrowly clinched by lawmakers last week on December 9 at the parliament in defiance of violent clashes between the police and protesters outside the parliament building that left 14 police officers and dozens of protesters injured.

Police said they have arrested more than 180 people in London in the aftermath of the protests for instigating public disorder after the police reviewed the footages.

Matt Horne, a Detective Chief Superintendent, said that the number of arrests is likely to increase as police study footage of the protests.

“I would urge those who turn up for protests to think about the impact this could have on their future careers”, he warned.

Simon Hardy of the National Union of Students (NUS) warned Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights that if the authorities “increase the police repression” then it would be “only a matter of time” before a protester or passer-by is killed.

Police mull banning all UK protests

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155603.html


The British police chief says he is weighing up an option to ask the Home Secretary to enforce a ban on any future protest gatherings altogether across the UK.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson referred to the level of violence in recent student protests against the rise in tuition fees, saying that he does not rule out banning all future student protests across the country, the daily Independent reported.

Tens of thousands of student protesters from universities, colleges and schools have been marching across England in protests against the huge hikes in tuition fees, together with the scrapping of Educational Maintenance Allowance and proposed cuts in college funding.

Police have arrested more than 180 people in London after four protests against the government's plan to increase the fees.

The motion was voted on and approved last Thursday in defiance of the most violent protest scenes in and around Parliament Square where the clashes between police and protesters left 12 officers and more than 40 protesters injured.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner said banning students from marching was a power he had not ruled out using.

"It is one of the tactics we will look at and something we will keep under review, and if we think it is the right thing to do then we will do it," said Sir Paul Stephenson.

The head of the National Union of Students (NUS) dismissed the police chief's idea as in clear contrast to civil freedoms.

"Peaceful protest is an integral part of our heritage and it is the responsibility of the police to help facilitate that", said the NUS president, Aaron Porter.

Speaking about the suggestion that water cannons could be used to control crowds in the future, Sir Paul said that the force had ruled that option out three years ago but that officers were taking advice from colleagues in Northern Ireland about its efficacy in London.

Plain-clothes police were in protests

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/155600.html


A British civil rights activist says there are eye witnesses saying plain clothes police officers were present in last week student protests in London.

Chris Dowdeswell, who earlier released his own footages of officers without ID and badge numbers in the demonstrations, said some of his colleagues have seen a number of police officers in plain clothes among the protesters and that they occasionally went to uniformed officers to talk.

Dowdeswell who runs the Brutal Cops website told Islamic Republic of Iran News Agency (IRNA) he has been covering public protests in Britain for the past seven years but the police have been exceptionally violent during past weeks' demonstrations.

He said he witnessed the most brutal of such scenes in the Thursday rallies during which the police beat up protesters.

Dowdeswell also lashed out at the 'kettling' operations carried out by the police during the rallies and said it is natural for the people to become angry and aggressive when they are penned in for several hours in freezing cold temperatures without access to food and water.

He described kettling technique as a provocative act by the police, which is unacceptable and unlawful and pushes demonstrators toward violence.

Also on the violent treatment of a police officer with the disabled journalist Jody McIntyre who was pushed off his wheelchair and dragged on a pavement during Thursday rallies, Dowdeswell said the British police is essentially brutal and violent.

He added he has posted many examples of police rough treatment of people who were not even demonstrators in different occasions on his website.

'US responsible for Iraq violence'

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=124363§ionid=351020201


Iraq's Sadr movement holds US forces responsible for the recent wave of violence and insecurity in Iraq that has left numbers of people dead.

A leading Sadrist condemned Friday's bloody attacks on mosques in Baghdad.

Talal al-Sa'adi accused the occupation forces of launching terrorist attacks in order to weaken the government. He said that the United States does not want Iraq to have a strong government made up of different political parties because such a government would not be in Washington's best interest.

On Friday, a string of bombings rocked a market in central Baghdad and the capital's suburban district of Sadr City, leaving over 70 dead and more than 200 injured.

The blasts across the Iraqi capital are one of the deadliest waves of attacks to date, taking its toll on Shia mosques among other places.

Erekat: Israel incites settler violence

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=124048§ionid=351020202


Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has blasted Tel Aviv for inciting a new wave of Israeli settler violence as part of a culture of vandalism and extremism.

"Settler violence and the wanton destruction of Palestinian property replicate what is being done on a much larger scale by Israel as it pushes ahead with illegal settlement construction across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (al-Quds)," Erekat said in a statement on Wednesday.

"They bring into full view the violence that underpins Israel's policy of illegal settlement construction and the cost to Palestinians," he added.

The Palestinian official described Israeli settlers as the direct beneficiaries of Tel Aviv's policy which encourages occupying Palestinians' land and demolishing their houses to further expand its "apartheid system that promotes settlements by stripping Palestinians of their basic rights and freedoms."

"The result is a culture of violence, hatred and extremism in which Israeli settlers, often accompanied by Israeli soldiers, run riot across the West Bank," Erekat noted.

The remarks come a day after a group of residents from the Israeli settlement of Givat Hayovel uprooted 250 olive tree seedlings planted by Palestinian farmers in the village of Qaryut to mark Earth Day.

On Monday, settlers attacked the General Union of Palestinian Workers' housing complex in Ein Sinyia, north of Ramallah, destroying water tanks and nearby property.

Israeli settlers also vandalized a mosque in the village of Huwwara last week and painted racist slogans on its walls. They also torched two cars and damaged more than 300 olive trees.

Erekat charged Israeli officials with encouraging extremists "to intimidate and destroy at will, armed with the absurd notion that they have a divine right to steal, to vandalize and to persecute another people."

He reiterated his criticism of Israel's refusal to halt expansion of illegal West Bank settlements as "the major obstacle to peace and the greatest threat to the two-state solution."

The settlements "are a black hole in which hopes of peace are fast disappearing," he warned.

More violence grips Kyrgyzstan

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=123851§ionid=351020406


Five people have been reported killed and 13 injured as hundreds of angry protesters clash with landowners just outside Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek.

Amid mystery over the whereabouts of the country's ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, more violence gripped Kyrgyzstan on Monday.

Ethnic Kyrgyz rioters seized plots of land from Russians and Turks in Mayevka, a village outside Bishkek, prompting the country's interim government to send in hundreds of police to quell the unrest.

"The police and internal forces have established order in the village. Forty instigators of the riots have been arrested," the head of the interim government, Roza Otunbayeva, told reporters.

The violence was the latest challenge to the interim government which seized power in Kyrgyzstan this month in the wake of a popular uprising that ousted the president.

So far, the interim government has failed to establish full control over the country, a mountainous former Soviet republic which is home to a US air base used to supply operations in nearby Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, officials in neighboring Kazakhstan say the deposed Kyrgyz president has left for an unknown destination. Bakiyev had sought refuge in Kazakhstan in the aftermath of a bloody uprising in his country last month.

He is wanted by the interim Kyrgyz government in connection with the deaths in the revolt that unseated him on April 7. More than 80 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in the unrest.

Israel orders demolition of Nablus mosque

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=120825§ionid=351020202


Israeli authorities ordered the demolition of an under-construction mosque in the northern West Bank village of Burin on Sunday, head of the Palestinian Authority's settlement portfolio said.

Ghassan Daghlas explained that the Israeli Civil Administration ordered a stop on construction work at the Salman Al-Farisi Mosque, demanding the demolition of the three-story mosque's already built structures.

The order was issued under the pretext that the mosque's renovations were done without the proper licensing, Daghlas said.

The PA official believes that given the current circumstances, Israel's decision was a "dangerous procedure."

Tawfiq Jabarin, a Palestinian lawyer, who has taken over the case, said that the Israeli Construction and Structure department in Beit El had issued the demolition order.

The order gave the Palestinians seven days to dismantle the mosque building, Jabarin said.

The mosque — surrounded by Palestinian homes built since 1967— was being funded by local residents and is the second-largest mosque in the village.

Burin's mayor, Ali Eid said Israeli authorities claimed the mosque was in area C, thereby falling under Israel's full purview.

Jabarin said Israeli courts dismiss "verbal agreements," adding that a stop-order must be officially issued by the Civil Administration detailing the demolition's suspension.