Tag: Evening Edition

“Today there is no return to war,” Kiir said, speaking in the grounds of the presidential state house in the southern regional capital Juba. “There is no substitute for peaceful coexistence.

“Fellow compatriots, we are left only with a few hours to make the most vital and extremely important decision of our lifetime.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing. Policemen, who are generally less well protected than soldiers in Afghanistan, are common targets in the Taliban’s nine-year insurgency against its Western-backed government.

The marketplace attack underscored the perilous security in parts of the southern province of Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual home, despite being the focus of the US-led military strategy to reverse their momentum.

Alassane Ouattara’s call came after regional bloc ECOWAS said it was prepared to use military force as a last resort to oust Gbagbo who retains control of the army and continues to defy international calls to step down.

“If he persists, it’s up to ECOWAS to take the necessary measures and those measures can include legitimate force,” Ouattara told journalists at the Abidjan hotel where he has for weeks been besieged by Gbagbo forces.

Foreign Minister Alcide Djedje said that strongman Gbagbo, who most of the world says lost November’s presidential run-off but has refused to relinquish power, would not go into exile despite offers aimed at ending the crisis.

“It was a question of the New Forces soldiers leaving the hotel, a condition for lifting the blockade,” Djedje told journalists, denying Gbagbo had said he would lift the siege as reported by African mediators.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who is facing a fight for survival after losing his parliamentary majority, immediately appealed for calm with memories fresh of riots sparked by previous political killings in Pakistan.

Officials said Salman Taseer, 66, who was appointed governor of Pakistan’s most populous and politically important province in 2008, was killed by one of his bodyguards opposed to his public criticism of controversial blasphemy laws.

“We will return,” said Benin President Boni Yayi, standing alongside a smiling Gbagbo after around two hours of talks aimed at ending his deadly stand-off with the man the world says is president, Alassane Ouattara.

Yayi and the presidents of Sierra Leone and Cape Verde were in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital Abidjan as mediators for the regional bloc ECOWAS for the second time in a week in a bid to end the bitter crisis.

The country is already grappling with a depressed economy, the after-effects of devastating floods that hit 21 million people in mid-2010, and Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked sanctuaries in its northwest on the Afghan border.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) made the announcement Sunday, days after its two federal cabinet ministers resigned, abandoning crisis talks with the main ruling Pakistan People’s Party that had scrambled to keep them on board.

A fiery waterfall plunged from the landmark Australian structure as seven tonnes of fireworks ignited in the night sky, thrilling 1.5 million people crammed on the city’s foreshore.

The celebrations followed devastating floods that have hit 200,000 in the country’s northeast, muting the festivities there, while extreme heat prompted wildfire warnings around Melbourne and Adelaide in the south.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned UN troops would resist any assault, which he said could trigger civil war in the fragile West African state, after Gbagbo’s most notorious lieutenant vowed to storm his rival’s base.

In a statement, a “deeply concerned” Ban said UNOCI force would “use all necessary means to protect its personnel, as well as the government officials and other civilians at these premises of the hotel.”