Tag: Evening Edition

The UN force’s determination to stay threatens to provoke a showdown with strongman Laurent Gbagbo’s hardline supporters, but leaders of the world body said it would remain and investigate reports of death squad killings.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern about “the growing evidence of massive violations of human rights” in the restive West African country since Thursday.

The demand for their “immediate” departure reflects the growing anger of Gbagbo’s nationalist supporters, and came as his most notorious lieutenant urged young Ivorians to make ready to fight for their sovereignty.

The United Nations, United States, European Union and Ivory Coast’s west African neighbours all demanded that Gbagbo cede power to Ouattara after both men claimed to have won last month’s presidential election.

The 39-year-old founder of the whistle-blowing website is fighting extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women, which he denies.

But speaking outside Ellingham Hall, a friend’s mansion in eastern England, where he must live while on bail, Assange said he was more concerned about potential moves from US authorities.

Supporters of Alassane Ouattara had intended to march on the headquarters of state television, held by his rival the incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, but fighting broke out when they were faced with heavily-armed security forces.

Former rebels loyal to Ouattara’s choice for prime minister, Guillaume Soro, fought fierce gunbattles with Gbagbo’s government security forces in Abidjan and in the central town of Tiebissou on the 2003 civil war ceasefire line.

A Council of Europe report accuses Thaci of heading a group within the ethnic-Albanian guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which fought Serbia in 1998 and 1999, that set up a network of unofficial prisons in Albania.

It alleges one of Thaci’s allies operated a ring for the “forcible extraction of human organs for the purposes of trafficking” from the prisoners, mainly Serbs.

The 39-year-old Australian had given a thumbs-up to the packed courtroom in London as the judge granted him conditional bail, one week after being arrested at the request of Swedish authorities.

But two hours later, lawyers for Swedish prosecutors announced that they would appeal the ruling, meaning the case will now go to Britain’s high court and a new hearing must be heard within 48 hours.

Lawmakers loyal to speaker of parliament Gianfranco Fini, whose break with Berlusconi earlier this year precipitated the current political crisis, said they would only support a centre-right government “headed up by someone else”.

Berlusconi, 74, had offered a new “legislative pact” with Fini’s allies, as well as with the opposition Union of the Centre (UDC) party, and said a vote of no-confidence in his government would mean holding fresh elections.

The violence comes two weeks ahead of a deadline for premier-designate Nuri al-Maliki to form a cabinet in a bid to end months of government impasse, and days before the climax of the Shiite commemoration of Ashura.

In the western city of Ramadi, a suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives near Anbar provincial government offices, killing 11 people, including six policemen, a doctor said.

The deal includes setting up a Green Climate Fund to give $100 billion a year in aid for poor nations by 2020, measures to protect tropical forests and ways to share clean energy technologies.

Ending a marathon session of talks in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun, almost 200 countries also set a target of limiting a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times.