Tag: Coast

PARIS/ABIDJAN - Ivory Coast's presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara said on Thursday he had proof his rival, Laurent Gbagbo, had instigated post-election violence and ordered foreign agents to carry out killings.
There was no immediate reaction from Gbagbo's camp but the United Nations said the confirmed death toll from the violence had risen to 210 and condemned the blocking of investigators trying to probe reports of further killings.
Ivory Coast has been in turmoil

ABIDJAN - At least 210 people have been killed in Ivory Coast since a presidential stand-off escalated in mid-December, the United Nations mission in the crisis-hit west African nation said on Thursday.
At least 31 people have died since the last toll given by the United Nations Mission in Ivory Coast (UNOCI) on December 30, the mission's human rights spokesman Simon Munzu told journalists, bringing the total to 210.
The toll includes those killed during the crisis pitting

ABIDJAN - Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo's troops kept up their blockade of his presidential rival's headquarters on Wednesday, despite a vow to lift the siege as a prelude to talks to resolve the stand-off.
African leaders struggling to mediate an end to the crisis had said on Tuesday that Gbagbo promised to allow free access to the hotel that has become home to Alassane Ouattara, the man the world says won a November election. With no visible progress in the

PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday said French troops had no reason to get involved in "the internal affairs of Ivory Coast," where strongman Laurent Gbagbo is refusing to step down as president.
Sarkozy also repeated his support for Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognised winner of November's Ivorian presidential elections.
French Defence Minister Alain Juppe said earlier Tuesday that France's troops in Ivory Coast would not "take the initiative" to

ABUJA - Ivory Coast's political crisis was deadlocked Tuesday, African mediators said, after the latest diplomatic mission to the country failed to get strongman Laurent Gbagbo to step down as president.
"There is still a stalemate," Nigerian president and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) head Goodluck Jonathan told reporters after talks with envoys who met Gbagbo and his rival Alassane Ouattara on Monday.
Three west African presidents and Kenyan Prime

ADEN - At least 43 African migrants have drowned off the coast of Yemen while trying to cross to the Arabian Peninsula country, Yemen's Interior Ministry said on Monday.
The ministry website said three Somalis were rescued after a vessel carrying 46 people mostly from Ethiopia capsized, with another boat missing with up to 40 on board. Many African migrants try to reach Yemen, which they see as a gateway to wealthier parts of the Middle East and the West.

ABIDJAN - African mediators flew in to Ivory Coast on Monday, armed with inducements but vowing no compromise in their bid to get incumbent Laurent Gbagbo to stand down following disputed polls.
Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the African Union's envoy, arrived in Abidjan, with three heads of state due to join him to try to end the stand-off between Gbagbo and the man the world says beat him to the presidency, Alassane Ouattara.
"It is necessary to give Mr Gbagbo the

PARIS - France on Monday dealt another blow to Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo by promising to recognise as the country's Paris ambassador the envoy sent by his rival Alassane Ouattara.
Paris is in the process of recognising the envoy named by Ouattara, seen by the international community as the winner of a disputed presidential election last month, French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.
Asked to confirm reports that the current ambassador named by

KARACHI - Pakistan Coast Guards (PCG) foiled an attempt to smuggle a consignment of hashish and heroin in Windar, Balochistan.
According to a PCG statement issued on Saturday, PCG officials stopped a car at Naka Khari check post and upon searching it found 34 kg hashish and 11 kg heroin from the car.
Seizing the drugs, PCG authorities has started investigation into the matter, the statement added.

ABIDJAN - Ivory Coast marked a fearful Christmas on Saturday after West African leaders threatened military action to force defiant strongman Laurent Gbagbo to cede power to his rival Alassane Ouattara.
The pair have been locked in a political stand-off for almost a month after both claimed to have won the November 28 presidential election, but mounting international pressure may have brought the crisis to a turning point.
Christmas was a sad milestone for Ivory Coast, where

ABUJA: West African leaders held emergency talks Friday on the crisis in Ivory Coast with the United States searching for more UN troops and France offering Laurent Gbagbo a final chance to step aside.
The summit came after a UN body demanded a halt to "atrocities" in Ivory Coast and the Central Bank of West African States blocked Gbagbo's access to finances, putting a further squeeze on his bid to remain in power. Much of the world, including the United Nations, has recognised

ALGIERS: The African Union does not favour sanctions for now over a disputed presidential election in Ivory Coast and will instead stick to quiet diplomacy, the Union's top security official said on Sunday.
A row over who won an election on November 28 has left Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, in a state of paralysis with the president and his rival running parallel administrations, and many people fear an outbreak of violence. Asked in an interview with Reuters if

ABIDJAN: Former South African leader Thabo Mbeki sought on Sunday to mediate an end to a dispute over Ivory Coast's presidential election that has threatened to trigger unrest in the divided West African nation. The Nov. 28 poll, designed to reunite a country split after a 2002-2003 civil war, has raised tensions as both incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and his challenger Alassane Ouattara have claimed victory and taken presidential oaths.
In the northern town of Bouake, the stronghold

ABIDJAN: Gunmen shot dead at least eight people in an attack on supporters of Ivory Coast presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara amid tensions over delayed vote results, witnesses told AFP on Thursday.
Violence erupted as Ouattara and President Laurent Gbagbo were locked in a stand-off over results of the hotly contested presidential vote, following pre-election violence that left at least another seven people dead. Witnesses in the western Yopougon district of Abidjan, a

ABIDJAN: Violence in western Ivory Coast during Sunday's second round of presidential elections has killed three people, the UN envoy to the divided west African country, Youn-jin Choi, said Monday.
The previous toll, given on Sunday by the government, was two dead, and the authorities blamed Dozo traditional hunters.
"We have confirmed three deaths yesterday in the west," Choi told a press conference, without giving details of "this violence, these troubles," which he said

ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast opposition leader Henri Konan Bedie has challenged the results of an election in which he came third, failing to make the second round run-off, a spokesman said on Friday.
Ivory Coast's first election in a decade left Bedie with around 25 percent of the vote, against President Laurent Gbagbo's 38 percent and challenger Alassane Ouattara's 32 percent. Gbagbo and Ouattara now head to the second round scheduled for Nov 28.
The long-delayed poll in the