PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH
Thursday, April 19, 2007
(Volume VI, Number 10)
Contents:
Chechnya
21 Chechen rebels
killed in 2007
Russian interior
ministry official also says that 138 fighters have been arrested and 106
rebels have surrendered their weapons this year.
Russian commandos in massacre trial flee
Three Russians who admitted to murdering six Chechen civilians failed to appear for the closing sessions of their trial.
Democratic
Republic of
Congo
Belgian foreign
minister in Kinshasa on fact-finding trip
De Gucht is due to meet with representatives of the international community, President Kabila, and former vice president Bemba.
DRCongo's Bemba arrives in Portugal
Bemba has been authorized to leave DRC for a period of 60 days and still hold on to his senate seat.
DR Congo prosecutor wants Bemba's immunity lifted
The prosecutor wants Bemba's parliamentary immunity lifted so he can be tried for murder.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation.
Georgia
Russia criticises US
after visa refused for Abkhazian separatist
The State
Department denied refusing the visa.
Security Council votes unanimously to extend U.N. observer mission in Georgia
The Council also urged the Georgia and Abkhazia to resume talks and address each other's legitimate security concerns.
Ivory
Coast
New Ivory Coast peace
government a boost for Gbagbo
Following last
month’s peace deal,
foreign
troops patrolling a buffer zone would begin to withdraw by the middle of
April.
Amnesty offer for I.Coast civil war crimes as brokers talk
The amnesty, which will apply only to crimes involving national security, is part of last month's peace agreement.
I.Coast foes to end years of division after burying hatchet
Thousands of UN troops will be phased out gradually and replaced by troops from a joint Ivorian army made up of former rebels and government loyalists.
Kashmir
Pakistan still backs
cross-border terrorism: India
Indian Defense Minister alleged that
there has been no change in Pakistan's support to
cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.
Policeman killed as rebels attack Kashmir railway project
Suspected militants opened fire on a group of engineers inspecting the construction of a railway line in Indian Kashmir.
Deaths set off protests in Indian Kashmir
Two Muslim men were killed by suspected militants during fighting between rebels and a security patrol.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
Click here to access the
Kashmir
Negotiation
Simulation.
Kosovo
U.N. unpopular in
Kosovo despite works
New poll reveals that
pessimism in the region is high, with 70% expressing concern about the
economy.
Serb PM says UN assessment mission in Kosovo is first step toward 'new, real' talks
Kostunica also said “a compromise solution for Kosovo was possible.”
U.S. diplomat says support for independent Kosovo should not preclude good relations with Belgrade
Undersecretary of State also stated that letting go of Kosovo would allow Belgrade to move toward greater integration with Western Europe.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Kosovo Negotiation Simulation.
Liberia
Britain concerned about costs of jailing Liberia's Taylor:
report
Britain's offer to jail Taylor if he is convicted of
war crimes has been
called into doubt because of the potential costs.
Morocco
Morocco willing to
negotiate with Polisario on proposed autonomy for Western
Sahara
Interior Minister said
the plan's language was purposefully broad to allow for open debate with
Polisario.
Morocco accuses Algeria of trying to wreck Western Sahara plan
Moroccan Foreign Minister says Algeria has been encouraging Polisario to present its own plans.
Nepal
Crucial Nepal
elections likely to be postponed
Election Commissioner said
"Technically it will be very difficult to hold the
constituent assembly elections by June."
Rights group tells Nepal Maoists to end anti-gay violence
Human Rights Watch says that Nepal’s leaders should “make it clear that no one's rights are disposable."
Maoists demand Nepal republic
Group demanded that the country immediately scrap the monarchy in order to move forward.
Philippines
Philippine police warn of
likely terrorist attack
National police chief raised the threat level in western section Mindanao to high because of the "continuing threat from Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah and Al-Qaeda terrorist groups."
UN, MILF to immunise children in Philippines
Unicef official claims the agency is “building bridges that will help consolidate peace and development” in the country.
Somalia
Ethiopia Holding 41
Suspects Who Fought With Somali Islamists, Officials
Confirm
Officials say many
were captured in Kenya, sent to Somalia and then secretly taken to prisons in
Ethiopia.
Accusations Over Somali Conflict
Somali and Ethiopian officials accused Eritrea of undermining Somalia's transitional government and being involved in terrorism in the region; Eritrea denied the accusations.
Islamic leader says al-Qaida does not exist in Somalia
Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told Al-Jazeera television that his movement "doesn't have any relationship with al-Qaida.”
Sri
Lanka
Ceasefire with Tigers
is dead: Sri Lankan minister; Five-year-old truce no longer holds, Foreign
Minister Bogollagama says
FM claims “the LTTE
fire has completely destroyed the cease-fire.”
Tigers vow retaliation in Sri Lanka's east
LTTE accused government troops of engaging in “genocidal activities” in the Eastern Province.
Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation Click here to access the Sri Lanka Negotiation Simulation.
Sudan
Militia
Talks Could Reshape Conflict in Darfur
Representatives of the main rebel groups are trying
to join forces, either to negotiate a settlement or to mount a decisive
offensive against the government.
UN to host high-level meeting with AU on Darfur
Ban Ki-moon will hold talks with the AU chairman to nail down the tentative deal to send 2,300 UN troops to Darfur.
Genocide in Darfur: A Legal Analysis Click here to access the PILPG Report.
Peace Negotiations Watch is prepared by the
Public
International Law & Policy Group in cooperation
with American
University and is made possible by a grant from the
Carnegie
Corporation of New York and the
Ploughshares
Fund.
21 Chechen rebels killed in 2007
Agence France Presse, 4/11/07
Twenty-one Chechen rebels have been killed and 138 arrested so far this year, a senior Russian interior ministry official said Tuesday.
"We are undertaking considerable efforts against clandestine fighters. Since the beginning of the year we have arrested 138 fighters and killed 21," Alexander German, a deputy director of police operations in the North Caucasus, said in an interview released on the interior ministry's website.
He said 106 rebels had surrendered their weapons during that period.
Some 127 weapons, more than 40,000 rounds of ammunition, 653 shells and mines, 338 grenades, 19 improvised explosive devices and more than 100 kilogrammes (220 pounds) of explosives were seized, he said.
Chechnya continues to be rocked by instability despite claims by the Russian authorities to have normalised the situation after years of separatist conflict dating back to the early 1990s.
Russian commandos in massacre trial flee
Agence France Presse, 4/13/07
Three Russian commandos who admitted murdering six Chechen civilians were declared fugitives Friday after failing to appear in court for the closing sessions of their trial.
Judge Nikolai Gulko ordered the military prosecutor to put the servicemen on the wanted list after they missed a second consecutive session at the military court in Rostov-on-Don, southern Russia, footage from the courtroom on NTV television showed.
Prosecutors in the trial, seen as a test case for attempts to punish war crimes in Chechnya, last week demanded prison terms of 18-23 years for the soldiers, who are from the army's secretive Main Intelligence Directorate, known in Russia as GRU.
Defence lawyers were due to make closing arguments this week.
The three GRU men admit to shooting six Chechens, including a pregnant woman, on a mountain road in southern Chechnya in January 2002, but say they are innocent because they were following orders.
Lawyers for the trio said Friday that they had no idea where their clients are currently located and that their mobile phones have been disconnected, Russian news agencies reported.
A fourth defendant -- a major who says he relayed the fatal order delivered over the radio from a higher-ranking officer -- did appear in court. The trial has now been suspended until May 24.
Murat Musayev, a lawyer for the victims' relatives, said they had "repeatedly asked for the accused to be limited in their movements" during the trial.
This is the third trial, following two successive acquittals by juries in Rostov-on-Don. Those decisions were overturned by higher courts on technicalities.
The case has been seen as a test of Russia's ability to confront what human rights experts say have been mass war crimes in Chechnya since troops first tried to crush an independence rebellion in 1994.
The incident near the Chechen village of Dai began when the GRU men, led by Captain Eduard Ulman, mistakenly opened fire on a car packed with civilians, killing one and wounding two.
After delivering first aid and radioing their superiors, the soldiers later shot the five survivors in cold blood. The GRU operatives say this was ordered over the radio in an attempt to wipe out any witnesses to the original mistake.
Only a handful of Russian soldiers or officers have faced trial, despite widespread accusations of torture, summary executions and indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas during the fighting in Chechnya.
Growing numbers of Chechens are addressing the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Some 200 cases concerning Chechnya are currently pending at the court, half of them relating to people who disappeared.
The episode has also put the spotlight on the relatively new concept of jury trials in Russia, legalised in 1993 but only introduced nationwide from 2003. The GRU members' case is now being tried by a panel of three judges, with no jury.
Belgian foreign minister in Kinshasa on fact-finding trip
Agence France Presse, 4/10/07
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht on Tuesday arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, his country's former star African colony, for a first-hand assessment following fresh unrest in Kinshasa.
De Gucht is due to meet with representatives of the international community, as well as President Joseph Kabila and his arch-rival, former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba, whose body guards clashed with the army late last month, leaving more than 200 people dead.
Bemba, a failed presidential candidate and former rebel leader, has been holed up in the South African embassy since the March 22 and 23 clashes -- the latest spurt of violence to rock the restive mineral-rich nation.
De Gucht leaves the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday for Angola before proceeding on to Zambia, Rwanda and Burundi.
DRCongo's Bemba arrives in Portugal
Agence France Presse, 4/11/07
Democratic Republic of Congo opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, blamed for bloody clashes in Kinshasa last month, arrived in Portugal Wednesday for medical treatment, police said.
The former rebel leader and vice president, who was accompanied by his wife and five children when he left Kinshasa, landed at Faro, 300 kilometres (190 miles) south of Lisbon.
He went on to a villa in Quinta do Lago, some 10 kilometres from the airport, which was heavily guarded by Portuguese police.
Bemba, 44, who lost in presidential elections to incumbent Joseph Kabila last December, had been holed up at the South African embassy in Kinshasa since violent clashes between his supporters and government troops on March 22-23.
The clashes, which killed more than 200 people according to diplomats, were sparked by plans to remove many of Bemba's guards and integrate them into the army.
The government later issued an arrest warrant against the former rebel leader on charges of treason and maintaining a militia.
In theory, Bemba enjoys parliamentary immunity because of his seat in the senate, an immunity that can only be lifted by parliament.
Negotiations for Bemba to leave the country have been underway for a couple of weeks, and the official reason for his departure was to seek medical treatment for a leg injury sustained when he fell downstairs last December.
Bemba has been authorised to leave DRC for a period of 60 days and still hold on to his senate seat. Mandates are automatically terminated if a senator misses more than a quarter of the sittings in a session without permission.
The head of DRC's first opposition party, the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), he has vowed not to get involved in any political activity while in Portugal.
In Kinshasa the MLC stepped up its verbal assault on the government, unbowed by the departure of its leader.
Party Secretary General Francois Muamba called on the authorities to re-establish public order across the country and guarantee protection for opposition members.
"The question for us now is to know whether Kabila had a personal problem with Bemba or if he has a personal problem with the fact that an opposition exists in this country," MLC deputy Thomas Luhaka told AFP.
MLC has complained about the continued occupation of its headquarters by Kabila's troops and condemned what it called arbitrary arrests and acts of intimidation, which they say is aimed at destroying the opposition.
"This has to stop. We have to get out of this situation where there is a national assembly, a small island of democracy, and nothing outside," said Muamba.
It is not clear how long Bemba might remain in Portugal. Earlier this month Portuguese ambassador Alfredo Duarte Costa had spoken of the trip lasting several weeks.
One diplomat in Kinshasa said Bemba's "medical exile" would pave the way for a restructuring of the political opposition in the DRC, at a time when the situation in the capital remains extremely tense.
Some observers predicted that the opposition would be devastated by his departure.
"There are extremists in the Kabila camp who will do anything to keep (Bemba) at bay and push for the courts to issue a warrant for his arrest," one diplomat said.
The international community should push "with all its weight" for the reconstruction of a credible opposition in DRC, he added.
Last year's presidential elections were the first in the war-shattered country for more than four decades and the first since independence in 1960 to be considered free and fair.
Known on Kinshasa streets as the "Miniature Mobutu", Bemba abruptly left the capital when the dictator was ousted by Laurent-Desire Kabila in 1997, and he spent five years as a rebel leader in the forested north.
At the end of an anti-Kabila war that raged between 1998 and 2003, Bemba was made one of the four vice-presidents in the regime set up to usher in democracy.
DR Congo prosecutor wants Bemba's immunity lifted
Agence France Presse, 4/12/07
Former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba's parliamentary immunity should be lifted so he can be tried for murder, the Democratic Republic of Congo's state prosecutor said Thursday.
Tshimanga Mukeba told AFP he had written to the senate two days ago asking for the scrapping of the former rebel-turned-politician's immunity to enable "charges to be brought against him."
These, he said, would include "murder, armed robbery and malicious destruction," of property.
A murder conviction can attract the death penalty in DRC although it has not been applied since 2003.
The charges arise out of last month's clashes in Kinshasa between government forces and Bemba's militia, after Bemba loyalists resisted a move to integrate them into the army.
Thomas Luhaka, an official with Bemba's party, dismissed the request as a "political manoeuvre" and suggested it was done to keep Bemba from returning to DRC.
Bemba, a former rebel leader and failed presidential candidate, flew into Portugal on Wednesday, ostensibly for medical treatment.
Bemba -- an arch-foe of President Joseph Kabila -- currently enjoys parliamentary immunity by virtue of his seat in the senate.
Under current laws, it would take a two-thirds majority vote in the senate to lift Bemba's immunity.
After his forces were defeated in Kinshasa, Bemba took refuge in the South African embassy and the government issued an arrest warrant against him on charges of treason and maintaining a militia.
Prosecutors have also opened an investigation into the clashes, which diplomats say killed at least 200 people.
Bemba has been authorised to leave DRC for a period of 60 days and still hold on to his senate seat.
Mandates are automatically terminated if a senator misses more than a quarter of the sittings in a session without permission.
Democratic Republic of Congo Negotiation Simulation
Click
here to access the DR Congo Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public
International Law & Policy Group.
Russia criticises US after visa refused for Abkhazian separatist
Agence France Presse, 4/10/07
Russia accused US authorities Tuesday of refusing to grant a visa to a leader of the separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia, who wanted to attend a meeting at UN headquarters in New York.
The US State Department denied refusing a visa to Sergei Shamba, saying the Abkhazian had withdrawn his application before any decision had been made on the request.
Shamba, the "foreign minister" of separatist Abkhazia, had wanted to attend a UN session as the text of a new resolution on the territorial dispute was being drafted, said a Russian foreign ministry statement.
It said the State Department's move effectively prevented an informal meeting between the Abkhazian representative and UN Security Council members on the eve of the talks.
Washington was "seriously abusing" the fact that the Security Council headquarters was on their territory by refusing the visa, the statement continued.
"The United States is trying to put the two parties to a conflict on an unequal footing and thus to influence the negotiations," said the statement.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack rejected the charges.
"Basically, it comes down to the fact that Mr Shamba, who acts in the capacity as the Abkhazian, quote, 'foreign minister,' applied for a visa and then withdrew his application," McCormack told reporters.
The Security Council is due to vote soon on a resolution extending the mandate of a UN observer mission in Georgia.
Meanwhile at UN headquarters, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin accused Washington of pursuing a double standard policy since it agreed last week to allow a representative of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo to come as the future status of the Albanian-majority territory was being debated.
During last week's consultations, the self-styled president of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu, was allowed to address Security Council members despite Russian objections.
US acting Ambassador Alejandro Wolff on Tuesday accused Churkin of raising "false analogies with Kosovo in a mischievous effort to complicate that discussion."
Recalling that the contentious Abkhaz issue was being discussed within the Friends of Georgia group, of which Russia is a member, he said Moscow was the only member of the group "that believes the time is ripe for Mr Shamba to come to New York."
"The Russian proposal that Mr Shamba come to New York at this time is particularly provocative and does not help the situation on the ground," the US diplomat said.
Wolff also pointed to "an unexplained incident so far in the Kodori valley in March that complicates the situation", a reference Georgia's charges that Russian combat helicopters last month fired on villages in the Kodori gorge, the only part of Abkhazia still under Tbilisi's control.
McCormack said the United States, which strongly opposes Russian-backed separatist movements in Abkhazia and the separate Georgian region of South Ossetia, hoped the UN vote would be followed by "sufficient progress toward an Abkhazian settlement" to merit holding a conference on the territory's status.
He suggested a visit by Shamba would be more appropriate in the event such a meeting was held.
"Essentially you have to solve a process issue in order for, in our view, to merit his travel to the United States, to the UN, for this meeting," he said.
Abkhazia, a sliver of land between the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains, broke away from Georgia after fierce fighting in 1992-93 and now has de facto independence.
The Abkhazian administration survives largely thanks to support from Russia, which has provided Russian passports to Abkhazian citizens and maintains a force of about 1,900 soldiers in the province.
Since coming to power after the 2003 "Rose Revolution", Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has stepped up efforts to reassert control over Abkhazia and Georgia's other separatist enclave, South Ossetia.
Security Council votes unanimously to extend U.N. observer mission in Georgia
Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press, 4/14/07
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to extend the U.N. observer mission in Georgia and urged the former Soviet republic and the Russian-backed breakaway region of Abkhazia to resume talks and address each other's legitimate security concerns.
The Black Sea province of Abkhazia has been independently run since 1993, when two years of fighting with Georgian troops ended. Two-thirds of Abkhazia residents hold Russian passports, and it is one of two Georgian regions seeking independence or union with Russia.
The United Nations has maintained an observer mission since 1993 to monitor the cease-fire between Georgia and Abkhazia, and its mandate was extended Friday by the Security Council until Oct. 15. The mission now has about 400 people.
Georgia's pro-Western government has vowed to reassert control over Abkhazia. Last year, Georgian forces seized control of the upper Kodori Gorge region and established a new local administration made up of people who fled the fighting in the 1990s. Tens of thousands of people were killed and more than 250,000 ethnic Georgians fled the violence.
The resolution adopted by the council condemned the attack on villages in the Upper Kodori valley on March 11-12, which Georgia blamed on Russian helicopters. The attack is being investigated by a fact-finding group under auspices of the U.N. mission.
The resolution called on the Georgian side to ensure that the situation in Upper Kodori is in line with the ceasefire, and it called on the Abkhaz side "to exercise restraint" in connection with Georgian commitments.
The Security Council also called "on both sides to resume dialogue, ... to comply fully with previous agreements regarding ceasefire and non-use of violence, and to finalize without delay the package of documents on the non-use of violence and on the return of refugees and internally displaced persons." It also urged the sides "to address seriously each other's legitimate security concerns, to refrain from any actions which might impede the peace process."
On Tuesday, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin denounced the United States, an ally of Georgia, for preventing the Abkhaz foreign minister, Sergei Shamba, from addressing a council meeting.
Acting U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Alejandro Wolff retorted that Shamba's appearance would have worsened tensions. He added that Russia was the only one of the six-nation "Group of Friends" that is trying to facilitate negotiations and resolve the conflict to support a council appearance by the Abkhaz official.
On Friday, however, both Wolff and Churkin welcomed the resolution.
Churkin said Moscow was "pleased with the outcome," saying the council's call on both sides regarding the Upper Kodori valley was "very important" as was the resolution's confirmation of the importance of "the stabilizing role" of peacekeepers from the CIS organization, which includes Russia and ex-Soviet republics.
"It is very important in our view that the resolution urges the sides to step up their efforts ... to conclude such important documents as a document on non-use of violence and return of refugees," Churkin added.
Wolff said the United States was "very pleased" with the resolution, "which reaffirms by all member states the sovereignty, territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders."
"We will continue to work with the sides, measure again the progress of confidence building measures and other efforts underway to try to bring the parties together," he said.
Georgia's U.N. Ambassador Irakli Alasania also cited the council's reaffirmation of Georgia's territorial integrity, its call for the right of return of all internally displaced people to Abkhazia, and its "clear condemnation" of the March 11 attack in Upper Kodori.
"I think the resolution is one more step towards the conflict resolution process," Alasania said.
New Ivory Coast peace government a boost for Gbagbo
Emmanuel Duparcq, Agence France Presse, 4/12/07
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo appears to have tightened his grip on power in the world's top cocoa producer with the creation of a new government led by his arch-foe, who launched a rebellion in 2002.
Although the former west African economic powerhouse remains sliced in half between the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south, the recent elevation of ex-rebel leader Guillaume Soro to prime minister has strengthened Gbagbo's hands, analysts say.
The rebellion, mounted by discontented soldiers from the mainly Muslim north who complained of being marginalised by the Christian-dominated government of Gbagbo, has badly damaged the once-model economy.
Gbagbo's pointed refusal to step down and Soro's insistence that he should do so resulted in a stalemate and several mediation attempts by former colonial ruler France, the United Nations and a west African regional bloc have fallen flat.
But peace moves appear to have gained ground recently following the signing of a peace pact between the president and former rebel supremo in neighbouring Burkina Faso on March 4.
The deal paved the way for a power sharing government with Gbagbo remaining president and Soro taking over the prime ministerial job from Charles Konan Banny, a senior banker.
Following the pact, the Ivorian government said foreign troops patrolling a buffer zone dividing rebel-held areas in the north from the rest of the country would begin to withdraw by the middle of this month.
Some 7,800 blue-helmet troops and 3,500 French forces have been operating in the Ivory Coast under a United Nations mandate.
Gbagbo does not hide his elation at the turn of events. On Easter Sunday, he announced in the central town of Bocanda that he would soon set a date for elections, pushed pack several times since his tenure ended in 2005.
He also said he would soon tour the rebel-held north, something he has not done since the rebellion broke out in September 2002.
The media and observers say Gbagbo appears to have won the first round by seizing control of two key ministries -- interior and defence -- in the new government.
Gbagbo's party and allies hold 11 posts in the transitional government while Soro's former New Forces rebel group have a total of seven portfolios, including justice, tourism and communication.
"One would go round in circles if one seeks to understand why the prime minister has made so many concessions to the head of state," the independent Soir Info daily said Tuesday.
The other contentious point is exactly how much power Soro will wield as it has not been clearly spelt out.
"It is difficult to believe that Gbagbo has agreed to share power," one Western diplomat noted, adding that Soro had "perhaps given in a little too fast."
Political analysts say that Soro would also be constrained to give his all to make the peace accord work as he would lose international backing if the latest peace initiative flopped.
The previous track record of both men has been less than sterling. Each has accused the other of breaching peace accords, traded insults and both have repeatedly gone back on their word.
A Western diplomat warned that it was time "Soro united the opposition and took decisions or he would let Gbagbo organise his camp."
Another diplomat said: "One has the impression that Gbagbo holds all the cards and is scenting victory in elections."
The pro-opposition and pro-rebel Nord-Sud daily on Tuesday said that the overwhelming impression was that Soro had in effect "paved the way for Gbagbo's re-election."
But other political observers say Soro entered into a covert arrangement with the president by accepting his future re-election in exchange for the rehabilitation of the former New Forces rebels.
Amnesty offer for I.Coast civil war crimes as brokers talk
David Youant, Agence France Presse, 4/13/07
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo on Friday offered an amnesty for crimes committed during the country's civil conflict, as foreign powers met in Abidjan to discuss the peace process.
The amnesty, which will apply only to crimes involving national security, is part of last month's historic peace agreement signed between Gbagbo and rebel leader-turned prime minister Guillaume Soro to reunite the country.
"Violations against state security and national defence committed by Ivorians in the country or in exile between September 17, 2000 and April 12, are fully pardoned," the new law said.
It was announced as the International Working Group (GTI), made up of UN, African and Western diplomats, began talks in Abidjan on how to respond to the peace deal, which sidelined the original UN plan for Ivory Coast.
The head of the UN peacekeeping mission which has sponsored the fragile peace process over the past few years, Abou Moussa, said the latest mediators' meeting had to seek "a new approach" to help stabilise the country.
Gbagbo and Soro secured a landmark peace deal brokered by Burkina Faso to end the low-key but protracted civil conflict in this cocoa rich-country, which has been politically and militarily divided for the past four years.
The agreement, which gave Soro the post of prime minister, also allowed for the end of the geographical split of the country by removing a foreign-patrolled buffer zone separating the rebel-held north and government-run south.
The zone is to be gradually cleared starting Monday.
The new peace deal also enisages the drafting of voters' lists and the holding of elections this year.
The conflict in Ivory Coast, which accounts for 40 percent of the world's cocoa production, dates from 2002, when Soro failed to topple Gbagbo in a coup bid.
Two years of mediation talks led by the UN, African Union and South Africa among others, laboured over issues such as disarmament and identification of voters.
The UN had deployed an 8,000-strong peacekeping force, assisted by 3,500 French soldiers, to patrol a ceasefire line and prevent fresh fighting.
Security Council officials flew into Ivory Coast this week to determine how best the UN could contribute to the implementation of the new peace deal.
Several diplomatic sources in Abidjan have said they believe that Friday's meeting could be the working group's last.
Soro, who until months ago, fiercely criticised Gbagbo, is due to make his first address to the nation since he took up office two weeks ago.
Moussa said the new deal showed the political will of the arch-foes "to appropriate the process ...and create a new partnership for peace".
The mediating group comprises diplomats from the UN, African Union, European Union, the organisation of French-speaking countries, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as well as from neighbouring countries and the United States, Britain and France.
I.Coast foes to end years of division after burying hatchet
Emmanuel Duparcq, Agence France Presse, 4/15/07
Ivory Coast is set to begin Monday pulling down a buffer zone that has divided the country into two over the past four years in a key move to forge ahead with a historic peace deal penned last month.
Demolition of the so-called confidence zone, created in 2002 by UN peacekeeping troops trying to keep apart the fighting sides and help end a civil war, is due to start on Monday at a ceremony symbolically marking the unification of the former bastion of stability and once-economic powerhouse of west Africa.
Ivory Coast's arch-foes, President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro, took a decisive step to bury the hatchet and agreed last month to end the crisis at talks brokered by nearby Burkina Faso.
Thousands of UN troops who have patrolled the zone will be phased out gradually and replaced by troops from a joint Ivorian army made up of former rebels and government loyalists.
"The process will be staggered over several weeks ... and will depend on the ability of the Ivorians" to take over from the international force, UN forces commander Fernand Amoussou said in the run up to the exercise.
The UN says it will be on standby to quell any outbreak of violence in the clearance of the zone, but it and observers fear the western region bordering Liberia, through which the buffer zone cuts, could pose the greatest threat to the smooth running of the exercise.
A Dakar-based expert with the global think-tank International Crisis Group (ICG), Gilles Yabi, said in Dakar that what is important is the "flexibility to allow for adjustments in case of a security threat, but perhaps we can expect more problems from the west."
The west has been notoriously troublesome over the years due to the diverse ethnic-based tension rife in the region.
Amoussou said dismantling of the zone will be "heavy and complex", admitting that the west of the country could be problematic. The latest UN human rights report said rights conditions in the west of Ivory Coast "remained very alarming".
The end of the demilitarised zone will ease movement of people and goods between north and south, and speed up the re-deployment of the government administrative institutions in the north, long deserted by the civil servants in 2002 fleeing the fighting.
It should also facilitate the organisation of elections, key to the reunification of the country, but often delayed due to bickering among the warring parties. Gbagbo's tenure expired in 2005.
France, which has aided the UN, said it will soon begin to reduce its 3,500 troops while the UN which has some 8,000 men said it will not immediately withdraw but re-deploy its forces across the country.
The UN's role has been relegated to that of an observer after the two protagonists signed a landmark deal which saw the ex-rebel chief appointed prime minister, and a new government installed within weeks of signing it.
Soro, who led a failed coup to unseat Gbagbo in 2002, setting off a protracted civil conflict in the world's top cocoa grower, on Friday asked for forgiveness "for all and in the name of all" and called for reconciliation during his first address to the nation.
In his own gesture towards reconciliation, Gbagbo enacted Friday a new amnesty law for national security crimes committed during the past six and a half years.
Ivory Coast's latest conflict started in 2002 with a rebellion, mounted by discontented soldiers from the mainly Muslim north who complained of being marginalised by the Christian-dominated government of Gbagbo.
Several mediation attempts by former colonial ruler France, the United Nations and a west African regional bloc fell flat over the years before the so-called homegrown deal signed on March 4.
Pakistan still backs cross-border terrorism: India
Agence France Presse, 4/16/07
India's defence minister on Monday accused arch-rival Pakistan of continuing to support cross-border terrorism in troubled Indian-administered Kashmir.
"There is no change in Pakistan's support to cross-border terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir," Defence Minister A.K. Antony told a conference of top army officials in New Delhi.
"This remains a cause of concern to us," a defence ministry statement quoted him as saying.
India accuses Pakistani-backed Islamic militants of waging an insurgency in its sector of Kashmir and of triggering attacks in other parts of the country. Pakistan denies it arms or trains the militants.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir. They also massed troops on the border in 2002, after militants attacked the Indian parliament.
They began a peace process in January 2004 focused on Kashmir and nuclear weapons but it has moved slowly, with few major steps except a trans-Kashmir bus service.
The insurgency in Kashmir began in 1989 and has left more than 42,000 people dead by an official count. Human rights groups put the toll at 70,000, including 10,000 people who have disappeared and are presumed dead.
The defence minister's remarks came ahead of a meeting between pro-India Kashmir groups and the government, due to be held in New Delhi on April 24 and aimed at easing tensions in the revolt-hit state.
Muslim separatist groups who oppose Indian rule in part of Kashmir have said they will boycott the gathering.
Policeman killed as rebels attack Kashmir railway project
Agence France Presse, 4/16/07
A policeman was killed Monday when suspected militants opened fire on a group of engineers inspecting the construction of a railway line in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, police said.
The incident took place in the southern district of Pulwama, a police spokesman said.
"None of the engineers were hurt," he said.
Indian railways is building a rail link from Jammu, the winter capital, with the northern Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley. A part of the line is scheduled to be opened by mid-year.
Kashmir is in the grip of a 17-year-old insurgency against Indian rule that has so far left thousands dead.
Deaths set off protests in Indian Kashmir
Agence France Presse, 4/16/07
Hundreds of villagers in Indian Kashmir poured onto the streets Monday chanting anti-police slogans to protest the death of two Muslim men in a weekend shoot-out, a witness said.
Police said the two were killed by suspected militants Sunday during fighting between rebels and a security patrol in Kashmir's southern Pulwama district.
However, local residents blamed the police and launched a protest that shut down traffic on a main road, a witness said.
Villagers agreed to call off the protest after authorities ordered an investigation.
"An official probe has been ordered into the incident and those involved in the killings will be dealt as per the law," deputy commissioner of Pulwama, Mehraj Ahmed Kakroo, told reporters.
Indian police are already investigating five cases that came to light in early 2007 in which innocent civilians were allegedly killed and passed off as militants.
Police have charged 17 members of the security forces with murder in two of the cases.
In a separate incident Monday, a policeman was killed when suspected militants opened fire on a group of engineers inspecting the construction of a railway line in Pulwama, police said.
India is building a rail link from Jammu, Kashmir's winter capital, with the northern Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley. A part of the line is scheduled to be opened by mid-year.
Kashmir is in the grip of a 17-year insurgency that has left more than 42,000 people dead by official count, with as many as 3,000 disappeared.
Human rights groups put the death toll at 70,000 and say the number of disappeared is closer to 10,000.
Kashmir Negotiation Simulation
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U.N. unpopular in Kosovo despite works
United Press International, 4/12/07
The United Nations is among the most unpopular institutions in Kosovo says a new poll, as Kosovars struggle with poverty and unemployment.
Despite movement at the United Nations toward a final political agreement for Kosovo, pessimism in the region remains high. That is primarily because of economic concerns, according to a poll released Thursday by the U.N. Development Program.
Only 26 percent of respondents to the poll said they were satisfied with the U.N. Mission in Kosovo -- which was ranked second lowest among all of the institutions poll-takers were asked about. Only satisfaction with the courts was lower.
Meanwhile, almost 70 percent of respondents to the poll said they feel worried or anxious about their economic situation. About 50 percent of Kosovo's population was unemployed in 2005, according to the CIA World Factbook.
"I think the United Nations, from the start of its mission, has had a very proactive strategy for trying to reach out to the Kosovo people," said Marie Okabe, U.N. spokeswoman, at a news conference at U.N. World Headquarters in New York City, when asked about the low approval numbers.
The U.N. mission has been trying to turn control of the Serbian province over to local governing bodies, but is still very involved in day-to-day activities.
Kosovo's economy has floundered as its political status remains unresolved. Discussion has begun in the U.N. Security Council on a proposal that would give Kosovo qualified independence, but Serbia has rejected independence for Kosovo.
According to the UNDP poll, among the 90 percent of Kosovo's population who are ethnically Albanian, a majority support the U.N.'s proposal for Kosovo's final status. Over 80 percent of Kosovo's Serbian population do not support the proposal.
Serb PM says UN assessment mission in Kosovo is first step toward 'new, real' talks
Jovana Gec, Associated Press, 4/16/07
Serbia's prime minister expressed Monday his belief that a visit to Kosovo and Serbia by a U.N. assessment mission will lead to what he called "real" talks on the future of Kosovo.
Vojislav Kostunica said in a statement that the arrival later this month of the mission would present a "first step in the start of new, real negotiations ... with a new international mediator." He gave no other details.
The comments follow a decision by the U.N. Security Council earlier this month to send the mission to probe the situation in Kosovo and Serbia before the council decides whether the region will become a new independent state or remain part of Serbia.
Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate since 1999. Its majority ethnic Albanian population want Kosovo to become independent, but Serbia strongly opposes the secession of what it considers the nation's historic heartland.
A U.N. envoy in the yearlong talks on Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, has proposed that the region be granted internationally supervised independence a plan backed by Western governments but criticized by Serbia and its traditional ally, Russia.
Kostunica, in his statement issued after a meeting with Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, said that Ahtisaari's plan was "illegal" and "illegitimate" and violated the U.N. Charter.
Kostunica said the arrival of the U.N. mission to Serbia and Kosovo was "very important," adding that "a compromise solution for Kosovo was possible ... and it presented substantial autonomy for the province within Serbia's state borders."
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians have rejected offers of autonomy from Serbia, while Belgrade refuses to let the province go. Ahtisaari himself has said that it was useless to hold any more talks between the two sides because they were too far apart.
Norway's Eide, who has substantial experience in the Balkan affairs, led another U.N. assessment mission to Kosovo last October. The Tanjug news agency reported ahead of Eide's visit that the Belgrade officials "would like to see Eide as a new international mediator" on Kosovo.
There was no immediate comment from Eide or the international officials to the remarks.
Also expected in Belgrade this week as part of stepped up Kosovo diplomacy, were senior Chinese and Russian officials.
U.S. diplomat says support for independent Kosovo should not preclude good relations with Belgrade
Desmond Butler, Associated Press, 4/17/07
A senior U.S. diplomat said Monday that the United States hopes that its strong support for Kosovo's independence from Serbia will not cause lasting damage to relations with Belgrade.
In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said that the U.S. considers independence the only option for the province, which has been a U.N. protectorate since 1999.
Letting go of Kosovo would allow Belgrade to move toward greater integration with Western Europe and beyond troubled relations with Washington, Burns said, while gesturing toward Ivan Vujacic, Serbia's ambassador, who was sitting in the front row. Burns identified the Serbian diplomat as a friend.
"We don't want this very painful and difficult decision about the independence of Kosovo to in effect scuttle the possibility of good relations between our two countries," Burns said. "Following this very painful separation of Kosovo from Serbia, the United States will signal very clearly our belief that we can have a good future with the Serb people."
Burns called Serbia: "that great state with which we have had very good and warm relations throughout our history with the exception of the last 10-15 years."
But he said that the United States hoped that a plan proposed by chief United Nations envoy for Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari granting the breakaway province supervised statehood would be debated by the U.N. Security Council within weeks. Under the proposal, Kosovo would have interim period of international supervision with its own army, flag, anthem and constitution, before achieving full statehood.
"We are on the verge of a major development with the looming independence of Kosovo as a new state in the international system," Burns said. "It is very clear to the United States that the future of Kosovo should be one of independence and we will lead the way as authors of a resolution that would allow that to happen."
Serbia has rejected the proposal and has been supported by Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council with veto power. During a question period following Monday's speech, Vujacic, asked Burns, the third ranking official in the State Department, why the U.S. would not consider Serbia's proposals for extensive autonomy for Kosovo.
"There is every reason to believe that that solution put forward by Russia, put forward by the Serb government itself, would lead to more violence, rather than less," Burns replied.
He said that Kosovo was effectively lost for Belgrade in the 1990s when brutal repression by former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic led to NATO intervention in 1999.
"You put forward the proposal of autonomy. We think that is 10 to 12 years too late," Burns said.
Vujacic also asked Burns whether the United States would rule out unilateral recognition of Kosovo. The question is sensitive because some have suggested that if Russia carries out threats that it has made to veto a resolution on the Ahtisaari plan, other countries, including the United States, should recognize Kosovo's independence anyway.
"We will support a declaration of independence by the people of Kosovo," Burns said.
But he made clear that the United States expected that U.N. resolution would pass and that recognition would follow.
Kosovo Negotiation Simulation
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Liberia
Britain concerned about costs of jailing Liberia's Taylor: report
Agence France Presse, 4/15/07
Britain's offer to jail former Liberian president Charles Taylor if he is convicted of war crimes is in doubt because of the potential costs of his detention, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper said.
The weekly published details of a leaked government memo that highlighted the cost of keeping such a high-profile inmate in jail as "in the region of 44,000 pounds" (64,500 euros, 87,200 dollars) a year.
Britain's lower House of Commons is to debate whether to pass emergency legislation allowing his detention here when it returns from its Easter break this week.
According to the newspaper, the memo states: "A possible objection to the Bill relates to the potential cost of imprisoning Taylor in the UK.
"Some may argue that, with the UK prison system heavily loaded and given the other demands on the UK taxpayer, it is not appropriate to commit government funds to imprison foreign nationals."
The memo also reportedly highlights the fact that Taylor may choose to stay in Britain after his release or claim asylum and that this "might represent a danger to the public or a drain on public resources".
It advises the government to argue that such commitments are not entered into lightly but by its action "the UK will be making a major contribution to the cause of international justice".
Taylor is considered to be the single most powerful figure behind a series of civil wars in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone between 1989 and 2003, which between them left about 400,000 people dead.
He has been indicted by the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes and violations of international human rights.
He is accused of sponsoring and aiding rebel groups who perpetrated murder, sexual slavery, mutilation and conscription of child soldiers in Sierra Leone's civil war in exchange for a share in the lucrative diamond trade.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said last June that London had agreed to a request by the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan that if Taylor were convicted, he would serve his sentence in Britain.
Morocco
Morocco willing to negotiate with Polisario on proposed autonomy for Western Sahara
John Thorne, Associated Press, 4/13/07
Morocco is willing to negotiate details of its proposed autonomy plan for Western Sahara with the independence-seeking Polisario Front, Morocco's Interior Minister said Friday.
Morocco has resisted past offers by Polisario to engage in talks over the fate of the desert territory.
Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa told reporters the plan was "largely open to negotiation" and stressed that Morocco would not press ahead with it without the agreement of the United Nations and Polisario.
He said the plan's language was purposefully broad to allow for open debate with Polisario. Previously, Morocco has said it would implement the plan with U.N. approval even if Polisario objected.
The Moroccan plan, submitted Wednesday to the U.N. Security Council, would create a regional government in Western Sahara to oversee day-to-day affairs.
But the Moroccan state would retain control of major areas such as defense, foreign relations and customs. Western Sahara would continue to use the Moroccan flag, currency and stamps and would recognize King Mohamed VI as the highest religious authority in the land.
On Tuesday, Polisario called for an independence referendum and offered to forge a "special relationship" with Morocco should it lead to a sovereign Saharawi state.
Benmoussa called Polisario's proposal a stalling tactic designed to sow confusion. "We consider autonomy the only way out" of the conflict, Benmoussa said.
Morocco has been keen to promote its plan, but its submission to the U.N. was overshadowed by three suicide bombings Tuesday in Casablanca, the kingdom's commercial capital.
Morocco and Mauritania split Western Sahara in 1975 after former colonizer Spain ceded them the territory. Full-scale war broke out the following year with Polisario, an Algerian-backed independence movement founded in 1973 to contest Spanish rule. Mauritania withdrew its troops in 1979, but Morocco continued fighting until the United Nations brokered a cease-fire in 1991.
The United Nations installed a peacekeeping mission to organize an independence referendum, but it has foundered on disagreement over voter lists. In 2003, Morocco rejected a U.N. plan, accepted by Polisario, that envisaged temporary autonomy followed by a referendum in which both Saharawis and Moroccan settlers would vote.
Morocco has annexed most of Western Sahara, where Moroccan settlers now outnumber an estimated 90,000 Saharawis by more than two to one. Saharawi and international human rights groups complain of regular abuses by Moroccan police against pro-independence activists.
Some 160,000 Saharawi refugees live in Polisario's bleak camps in southwest Algeria and depend on foreign aid. The Moroccan and Polisario armies still face off across a desert no man's land.
The conflict poisons relations between regional big-hitters Morocco and Algeria, which the U.S. wants working together against terrorism.
Morocco accuses Algeria of trying to wreck Western Sahara plan
Agence France Presse, 4/16/07
Morocco accused Algeria on Monday of trying to wreck its proposal to give autonomy to the disputed Western Sahara territory by encouraging the separatist Polisario Front there to present its own plans.
Speaking less than a week after the plan was presented to the UN, Foreign Minister Mohamed Banaissa told a parliamentary committee that Algeria was attacking it "based on erroneous and unfounded grounds".
He said Algiers was "encouraging the Polisario Front to deceive the international community by tabling an initiative that has no other aim but to block our own constructive proposal".
On Wednesday, the day Rabat presented the proposal to the UN, the Polisario Front submitted its own plan advocating independence in the Western Sahara and "good neighbourly relations with the Kingdom of Morocco".
Banaissa said the Moroccan proposal was a "an open proposition aimed at reaching a consensual and realistic settlement that could be enriched by suggestions from other parties during negotiations".
The Algerian-backed Polisario Front fought Morocco for independence in the Western Sahara from when the territory was annexed by Rabat in the 1970s until a UN-brokered ceasefire in 1991.
Crucial Nepal elections likely to be postponed
Deepesh Shrestha, Agence France Presse, 4/13/07
Elections in Nepal slated for June that are a crucial part of a peace process between the government and former Maoist rebels are likely to be postponed, a top election official said Friday.
"Technically it will be very difficult to hold the constituent assembly elections by June," election commissioner Bhojraj Pokharel told AFP.
As part of a landmark peace deal reached between Nepal's mainstream political parties and the former rebels last year, the Himalayan nation was due to go to the polls on June 20 to elect a body that will rewrite the constitution and address the future of the embattled monarchy.
"The date set by the government is just over 60 days away, and we have already told the government that we need at least 110 days to prepare for the election after necessary legislation has been passed," Pokharel said.
He warned that security problems could also hamper elections plans, with at least 60 people killed in ongoing ethnic unrest in the south.
"The peace and security situation has not yet improved in the country," he added in a separate statement.
"We cannot ignore the fact that it could create difficulties if the nation opts to hold polls without addressing this issue."
The new government containing Maoist ministers declined to comment on the election commissioner's warnings.
"The government will give its views after a meeting later Friday between the top leaders of the eight parties including the Maoists," Rajendra Mahato, minister for industry, commerce and supplies, told AFP.
Recently appointed Maoist government spokeman Krishna Bahadur Mahara was unavailable for comment.
The Maoists signed a peace deal in November 2006 after fighting for 10 years to impose a communist republic on the Hindu-majority country in a war that left at least 13,000 people dead.
The former rebels, who still feature on Washington's list of foreign "terrorist" organisations, have registered their weapons and fighters with the United Nations as part of the accord.
The peace process moved forward again earlier this month when the Maoists were given five ministerial posts in a new 22-member interim cabinet.
The United Nations, which has been invited to assist in the elections and monitor former rebel weapons and soldiers, expressed concerns late last month that the poll timing announced by the new government was unrealistic.
"The complex political context has significantly delayed the process of timely decision making that was needed to meet what was from the outset an ambitious electoral timeline," said Ian Martin, the UN's envoy to Nepal.
The constituent assembly elections will pave the way for a decision over the future of the monarchy and King Gyanendra, discredited by his attempted use of dictatorial powers to crush the Maoist rebellion before the peace deal but still viewed by many loyalists as a Hindu deity.
The Maoists are lobbying hard for the country to be declared a republic.
Rights group tells Nepal Maoists to end anti-gay violence
Agence France Presse, 4/16/07
Nepal's Maoists, who were recently given ministerial roles in a new parliament, need to end violence and intimidation against gay men and women, a rights group said Monday.
"As Nepal tries to recover from a decade of conflict, its leaders should make it clear that no one's rights are disposable," Jessica Stern, a researcher with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
The New York-based rights group issued the statement after it had received reports that Maoists abducted, tortured and tried to forcibly recruit a woman and a teenage girl in March they accused of having a lesbian relationship.
The Maoists have also faced charges of forcibly recruiting children during a decade-long people's war.
"Abusing women for their sexuality and forcibly recruiting children are simply unacceptable in a new Nepal," said Stern.
After King Gyanendra was forced to end a 14-month period of direct rule last April, the former rebels signed a peace deal with the government late last year to end a civil war that had killed at least 13,000 people
Although homosexuality is not listed as a crime under Nepali law, "unnatural sex acts" can be punished here by up to a year in prison.
Maoists demand Nepal republic
Agence France Presse, 4/16/07
Nepal's Maoists demanded Monday that the country immediately scrap the monarchy and declare itself a republic amid probable delays in an election over the issue.
"We have to find a new political basis in order to move forward. That basis is declaring the country a republic immediately," Maoist leader Prachanda told reporters.
The Himalayan kingdom is scheduled in June to elect a body that will rewrite the constitution and decide whether sidelined King Gyanendra and the monarchy as a whole should stay or go.
But last week Nepal's election commissioner, Bhojraj Pokharel, said the peace process that has brought the Maoists into government after 10 years of insurgency was moving so slowly that the elections would have to be postponed.
The eight-party alliance government, which contains five Maoists ministers, has not formally announced the delay in the polls.
But Prachanda -- whose nom de guerre means "the fierce one" -- argued that any delay would give room for King Gyanendra and his supporters to destabilise the country and undermine the peace process.
The Maoists accuse the king, who has already been striped of most of his powers, of provoking ethnic violence in a bid to hang on to his throne.
"The longer the delay the more it will space to feudalistic and reactionary forces for creating a negative environment. Such forces have been conspiring to sabotage and derail the peace process," Prachanda told a news conference.
"If this republic is not declared immediately, we have some other options -- which include a referendum and appealing to the population to protest against the feudal set up," he said.
The Maoists signed a peace deal in November 2006 after fighting for 10 years to impose a communist republic on the Hindu-majority country in a war that left at least 13,000 people dead.
The former rebels, who still feature on Washington's list of foreign "terrorist" organisations, have registered their weapons and fighters with the United Nations as part of the accord.
Nepal Negotiation Simulation
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Philippines
Philippine police warn of likely terrorist attack
Agence France Presse, 4/12/07
Islamic militants are likely planning a "terrorist" attack somewhere on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao this month, police warned Thursday.
National police chief Oscar Calderon raised the "threat level" on the Muslim-populated western section of the island to "high" due to the "continuing threat from Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah and Al-Qaeda terrorist groups," a police statement said.
The "terrorist threat in the said region will remain high for the month of April," it said without elaborating.
Calderon said in the statement the terrorist threat against Manila this month was "moderate" but police would implement "Level Three public safety measures" to ensure the threat was minimised.
These measures included intelligence operations and 24-hour roadblocks at city entrances conducting vehicle searches, the statement added.
Meanwhile, two soldiers were killed during a clash with the Abu Sayyaf Islamic militant group on the southern island of Jolo, off Mindanao on Wednesday, military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro told reporters Thursday.
Government forces have been conducting operations there to track down two Jemaah Islamiyah bomb makers being sheltered by the Abu Sayyaf, but the two suspects, Dulmatin and Umar Patek, escaped a military raid on Monday.
The two were allegedly involved in the deadly 2002 Bali bombings. The US government has an 11-million-dollar bounty offered for their capture.
More than 8,000 Filipino troops are on Jolo on instructions from President Gloria Arroyo to crush the Abu Sayyaf.
The group has been blamed for a series of bomb attacks in the Philippines in recent years, as well as high-profile kidnappings of foreigners and missionaries.
Since the military operation began last September, the group's two top leaders have been killed and the remaining members, said to number around 400, have splintered into smaller units trying to evade government forces.
UN, MILF to immunise children in Philippines
Agence France Presse, 4/16/07
The United Nations Children's Fund on Monday launched a massive immunisation and health programme in the southern Philippines.
Under an agreement with the 12,000-member Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Unicef is to provide basic health services to 707 small villages on Mindanao and other southern islands.
Unicef's country representative for the Philippines, Nicholas Alipui, said: "It is time for us to bridge the gap and reduce the stark disparities that affect children in the Philippines."
"We are building bridges that will help consolidate peace and development as we work together to bring about more investment in programmes for children."
Unicef said some 30,000 infants would be immunised against preventable diseases between April 16 and the end of June.
The health services would cover many of the poorest areas of the Philippines and would eventually include vitamin supplements (beginning with Vitamin A), a de-worming programme and tetanus shots for 16,500 expectant mothers.
The joint communique signed by Unicef and the MILF also called for the delivery of "additional basic services" including "birth registrations, malaria control, educational supplies," and the setting up of "community-based health programmes in selected areas."
Most of the target villages were chosen by the MILF. The campaign will be jointly managed by the MILF development agency and Jesus Dureza, President Gloria Arroyo's adviser on peace talks with the the Muslim rebels.
"The Days of Peace campaign requires a commitment to full cessation of hostilities from all parties to facilitate maximum delivery of services for children," the joint communique said.
"The MILF will be in charge of providing access and guaranteeing security for the service delivery teams."
The Philippine government is observing a three-year-old ceasefire with the MILF, helped by a small team of international monitors from Malaysia, Libya and Brunei.
However, peace talks have stalled since September last year over MILF demands for a share of revenues in areas in the south that it considers part of the large Muslim minority's "ancestral domain".
The Philippines is a largely Roman Catholic nation that has battled Muslim separatism since the early 1970s.
It signed a peace treaty with another faction, the Moro National Liberation Front in 1996 that gave limited Muslim self-rule in several impoverished Muslim provinces in the south.
Somalia
Ethiopia Holding 41 Suspects Who Fought With Somali Islamists, Officials Confirm
Jeffrey Gettleman & Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, 4/11/07
Ethiopian officials acknowledged Tuesday for the first time that they had detained 41 terrorism suspects from 17 countries who had been fighting for Somalia's Islamist movement.
''Suspected international terrorists have been and are still being captured by the joint forces of the transitional federal government of Somalia and Ethiopia,'' said a statement from the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry.
For weeks now, human rights groups have been urging Ethiopia, which has a nettlesome human rights record, to shed some light on the detainees. Many were captured in Kenya, sent to Somalia and then secretly taken to prisons in Ethiopia.
The acknowledgment by Ethiopia of its role in detaining terrorism suspects prompted officials in Washington to speak more candidly about American interrogations of the captives. Those officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly, said Tuesday that American intelligence agents had questioned several of the detainees in Ethiopian jails over the past several months.
But they denied that the United States had played any part in transferring or detaining the prisoners, and denied that the prisoners were part of a covert rendition program in which suspects are captured by American forces and flown to another country to be interrogated. In the past, many rendition suspects have been taken to countries where torture is routine.
It was unclear whether the Ethiopians acted unilaterally in detaining the suspects, or with encouragement from American officials. The Washington officials said that the Ethiopian military had been anxious to get Islamic fighters off the battlefield in Somalia because they had successfully attacked Ethiopian troops, and that the government in Addis Ababa had rarely hesitated in the past to begin operations in the Horn of Africa without American approval.
Several Ethiopian opposition groups had been using Somalia as a base for attacks on Ethiopia, and another American official said it was suspects from those outfits that most interested Ethiopian intelligence agents. Also, Eritrea, Ethiopia's neighbor and bitter enemy, is widely suspected by Ethiopian intelligence agents of supporting Islamists in Somalia.
Although Ethiopia has a long and storied Christian history, its population today is about half Muslim. Some Ethiopians worry that the conditions are ripe for a radical Islamist movement in their own country.
The United States and Ethiopia have grown closer over the past year as their interests in combating Islamic extremism in the region have aligned.
Last December, Ethiopian forces, with clandestine American help, overthrew an Islamist movement that briefly ruled Somalia. Thousands of Ethiopian soldiers remain in that country and many Somalis say that if they leave, Somalia's weak transitional government will collapse.
At the time of the invasion, the United States provided the Ethiopians with detailed intelligence about the fighting positions of Islamic fighters. The Pentagon has also used a secret airstrip in Ethiopia for Special Operations raids into Somalia.
The significance of the detainees in Ethiopian custody was unclear. American officials have said that none of the top operatives in Al Qaeda who have been active in the Horn of Africa have been killed or captured since the Ethiopian invasion began in December.
Human rights groups have accused the Ethiopian government of running a secret detention program and breaking international law. They have also accused Ethiopia of committing war crimes during recent fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital. They cited the bombing of several neighborhoods by Ethiopian forces that caused hundreds of civilian deaths. Ethiopian officials have said their troops did not intentionally single out civilians.
As for accusations of illegality, the statement from the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry said, ''All legal procedures are being followed, and the suspected terrorists have been allowed to appear before the relevant court of law.''
Five suspects have already been freed, the statement said, and 29 others have been cleared by a military court. It said that the five were from Denmark, Sweden, Tanzania, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. The statement added that foreign investigators had questioned some of the suspects but it did not specify the nationalities of the investigators.
American Special Operations forces have been working closely with Ethiopian forces for several months to hunt terrorism suspects believed to have played a role in attacks during the past decade, including the bombings of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
American intelligence agencies believe that Qaeda operatives responsible for those and other large-scale attacks have been hiding in Somalia, which has been mired in anarchy since the central government imploded in 1991.
Early this year, F.B.I. agents in Kenya questioned several militia fighters who escaped over Somalia's southern border into Kenya, including two Americans, Amir Mohamed Meshal and Daniel Joseph Maldonado. Mr. Meshal was deported to Somalia and wound up in an Ethiopian jail. Mr. Maldonado was later flown to Houston, where he faces terrorism-related charges.
One American intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said that the interviews in Ethiopia had produced ''valuable information.'' It would have been ''irresponsible'' for the United States to give up the opportunity to interrogate suspects who could have information about Al Qaeda in the Horn of Africa, the official added.
Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined to give details about the agency's activities in the region, but said that the ''C.I.A. acts boldly yet legally, alone and with partners, just as our government and people expect us to.''
Accusations Over Somali Conflict
Anthony Mitchell, Associated Press, 4/13/07
Somali, Ethiopian and Eritrean officials traded accusations on Friday about their roles in Somalia's conflict, highlighting other officials' warning that the current situation in Somalia could destabilize the Horn of Africa region and beyond.
The African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia has not received the expected financial and logistical support needed to make it more effective, officials said, adding that the two-year delay in deploying the force had led to a costly war and hundreds of civilians killed.
Ministers of the seven-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development are holding a one-day meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi to review the situation in Somalia. Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda are members of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development.
Officials of Somalia and Ethiopia whose forces are fighting an insurgency in the Somali capital, Mogadishu accused Eritrea of undermining Somalia's transitional government and being involved in terrorism in the region. An Eritrean official denied the allegations.
"The government of Eritrea is openly involved in undermining, including through the use of force, the legitimately recognized transitional federal government of Somalia," Somalia's Foreign Minister Ishmael Hurreh told his fellow ministers.
