COTE D'IVOIRE: Economic recovery depends on the activity of the port of Abidjan

Reopened for three days, the Autonomous Port of Abidjan (PAA), the main entrance and exit of goods to and from destinations all over West Africa, is still far from knowing the influx of large days. On the docks, dozens of containers waiting vessels absent. After more than a week of consecutive closing the outbreak of the battle between the Forces of Abidjan republic of Cote d'Ivoire (FRCI) support Alassane Ouattara, Gbagbo recognized by the international community, and supporters of the former President Laurent Gbagbo, the site, now secured by armored white United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI), is almost deserted.

Some experts, however, the recovery of the activity of AAP could take place quickly."It all depends on the resumption of banking business and improving security conditions in the country for the delivery of goods for import and export," explains an economic journalist in Ivory Coast. For the rest, in fact, everything seems in place: the port of the Ivorian economic capital has not been subject to looting in the midst of the chaos that reigned in the city during the assault by the palace and FRCI the presidential residence, unlike the residential neighborhoods of Cocody and Plateau. A stock of tens of thousands of tons of cocoa there would otherwise be stored, allowing immediate resumption of naval rotations upon confirmation of the return to calm.As for the sanctions that had been taken against the Autonomous Port of Abidjan by the European Union at the height of the post-election crisis in Ivory Coast, they were removed before the final assault, as a boost to President-elect Alassane Ouattara .

COTE D'IVOIRE: Fighting with heavy weapons resume in the Abobo neighborhood in Abidjan

AFP - The heavy gunfire resumed Saturday in the Abobo neighborhood in Abidjan that families fled after a week of clashes between forces loyal to incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and the armed insurgents who have left Cote d'Ivoire on the verge of explosion.

According to these witnesses, the shooting resumed in early afternoon outside the sector "PK-18" in the heart of the fighting that has turned into a battlefield this northern district supports Alassane Ouattara, recognized head of state by the international community after the disputed November 28 presidential election.

Residents said the firing had almost ceased since Friday but "Baghdad", is now known as Abobo, retained traces of those days of fire and blood.

"This morning I saw bodies, apparently civilians, which no one recovered," he told AFP driver, but did not say when they were killed.

An assessment of the fighting was still impossible to establish, but several witnesses reported clashes very deadly.

"The work goes on" in Abobo, told reporters the General Philippe Mangou, Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces and Security (FDS) loyal to Gbagbo.

Meanwhile, the exodus continued."The area is empty," said a resident after a night under curfew, a measure introduced for the weekend by the Gbagbo regime in the southern half of the country under its control.

"The mini-buses could enter and are attacked" by mothers and their children, told this young woman, herself part of the family join in the Yopougon (west).

Called by the local press "commando invisible" group, including armed with rocket launchers, which attacked the SDS since January in Abobo before intensify activity in recent days, continues to generate queries.

For SDS, it is composed of elements infiltrated the "rebellion" of the Forces Nouvelles (FN) holding the north since the failed coup of 2002 and joined forces with Alassane Ouattara in the beginning of the crisis resulting from November ballot.

But the camp is Ouattara denies any involvement, saying it is people who took up arms or SDS defectors.

In the political capital Yamoussoukro theater for the first time fighting with heavy weapons on the night of Thursday to Friday, calm had returned Saturday.

The city "timidly resumed its activities, many shops are closed and there is little busy the market," he told the morning a local journalist.

In the "Great West" unstable region near Liberia, the situation was uncertain following the decision by the FN from two localities on the borders of the southern zone.FDS assured Saturday having driven the enemy.

The past week has given an almost surreal to mediation efforts led by the African Union to resolve the crisis, which has already killed at least 315 deaths according to UN and driven tens of thousands of Ivorians to flee the country.

Four Heads of State - Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (Mauritania), Jacob Zuma (South Africa), Idriss Deby (Chad) and Jakaya Kikwete (Tanzania) - Ivorian rivals met earlier this week in Abidjan.

Charged initially to develop solutions "binding" on the parties by the end of February, they will consult again on March 4 in Nouakchott. "We're not out of the woods", agreed by the Mauritanian president.

LIBYA: In Paris, a hundred people denounce crimes Gaddafi

Abderahim, 32, is in France for several months. Tour guide in his country, he came to follow French courses in Montpellier, before initiating studies of Greco-Roman history. His father and sisters remained in Benghazi, a city in northern Libya, where dozens of people have died since the beginning of the protest movement, according to several organizations. "I'm very worried," said Abderrahim. It's four days as the Internet and telephones are cut off. I have not heard from my family. "

Beshah, an archaeologist of 44 years, he left the coastal city of Al-Bayda two years ago. He was only "occasionally" for news of loved ones. "The situation is catastrophic," he assures. It's war. Libyans were killed by mercenaries in Africa.Today, it is even more for the freedom that is manifest, but so that our people can stay alive. "

"Before yesterday with Tunisians, Egyptians yesterday, today with the Libyans"

Avenue de Suffren Paris, a few dozen meters from the Libyan embassy, a hundred people gathered Tuesday afternoon. Men, women, children ... "Gaddafi, murderer!" they shouted in chorus. Demonstrators waved pictures of victims of violent repression of demonstrations, circulating on the Internet.

The Libyans are only a few hundred in France, including many university students. Medicine, engineering, research ... Some came from Lyon or Strasbourg to warn about the situation of their country.Ahmed, sunglasses and hat on his head, follows last year and a half trained as a pilot line in Toulouse. "I have a scholarship from my government for my education, but I do not agree with this regime," he says. He prefers not to be photographed: not for himself but for his family and his younger brother stayed in Tripoli. He also discusses the "African mercenaries" who "enter houses, attack the girls, shooting at people."

Tunisians, Egyptians, Syrians and Algerians also came to express their solidarity. "We were two days ago with the Tunisian people, the Egyptian people yesterday, today and tomorrow with the Libyans we will certainly be with other people in the Arab world, says Boushaki, Franco-Tunisian.Even if Libya is in total isolation, the limited information we receive allows us to follow live the bloody events taking place. Muammar Gaddafi government for nearly 42 years, is a world record. He must go! "

"Libya has oil and gas"

Moved, Dhekra, a Tunisian, it provides also want to alert public opinion. Very active since the beginning of the revolution in Tunisia, it has created on Facebook about twenty pages noting the departure of ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the resignation of the French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, the France's ambassador in Tunis Boillon Boris ... "The movement is different revolutions Libyan Tunisian or Egyptian," she said.There, Saif al-Islam [a son of Muammar Gaddafi, ed] clearly says that if the challenge does not stop, he would kill everyone until the last. "

All hope now that Muammar Gaddafi will quickly leave power. Beshah dream of elections and democracy. In a country where most people would not live in misery. "What we miss most in Libya? Justice! Abderahim said. In recent years, Muammar Gaddafi has changed its foreign policy, but never his domestic policy. We are a rich country but a third of the population lives below the poverty, I am 32 years old and I can not buy a house. "

Ahmed, himself, is less optimistic."I hope the international community will stop these crimes, this is not the first of which Gaddafi is responsible. But Libya has oil and gas, so I doubt it ..."

BAHRAIN: The army fired on demonstrators in Manama

The Bahraini army fired on Friday a thousand people who wanted to take a sit-in in Manama, leaving many wounded, while the crown prince promised a dialogue with opponents, once peace is restored in this tiny Gulf kingdom .

Dozens of people were injured when soldiers opened fire on demonstrators, according to an AFP photographer on the spot.

The protesters were trying to get to the Place de la Perle, where security forces forcibly dispersed at dawn Thursday a sit-in against the plan, sources said.

"Twenty-six wounded, some severely affected were admitted to hospital Salmaniya," he told AFP an elected official of the opposition Shiite, Ali al-Assouad, adding that the injured was "in a state of clinical death. "

"The army fired live ammunition against more than a thousand people who wanted to visit the Place de la Perle" he said.

The AFP photographer who visited the hospital, saw dozens of wounded, victims of this first event since the dispersion of the sit-in Thursday that killed four, according to the opposition and families victims.

The shooting occurred while the Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, speaking on state television to promise a dialogue with the opposition once calm was restored.

"I make no distinction between a Bahraini and another and what is happening now is unacceptable," said Prince Salman.

"Bahrain has never been a police state," he said, stressing: "I'm not lying.All these people are my countrymen and the phase we are going through is difficult and requires us to be all responsible, "he said.

"It is important that our dialogue is going on in a quiet overall," he said, assuring that "no subject can not be excluded from this dialogue."

"Bahrain is currently experiencing a state of division and that is unacceptable," he hammered the prince, noting that "many countries have experienced such a state but that their elders have come to talk of everything in a calm."

King Hamad Ben Issa Al-Khalifa, then decided to instruct the Crown Prince's "dialogue with all parties without exception," including the opposition, giving him why "the powers necessary", according to state television State.

Through cooperation "sincere", "Bahrain will come out stronger," he said.

Bahrain, a small kingdom populated predominantly Shia is ruled since the 18th century by a Sunni dynasty.

While the Shiites buried Friday killed four of their suppression of a sit-in demanding democratic reforms, suppressed by force Thursday before dawn, thousands of Sunnis marched in Manama to express their support to King Hamad bin Salman Al-Khalifa.

The opposition claimed the government's resignation after the dispersion by the force of a peaceful rally, said Thursday at the AFP chief of Shiite Al-Wefaq, Sheikh Ali Salman.

The Prime Minister, Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the king's uncle, is in the position since Bahrain's independence in 1971.

Because of continuing tensions, the opposition groups have decided to postpone until Tuesday a march originally scheduled Saturday. At the initiative of seven opposition groups, the march was to converge on the Place de la Perle.

Bahrain is of strategic importance for Washington, which has set up the headquarters of its Fifth Fleet, to monitor the maritime routes used by tankers to support operations in Afghanistan and to counter a potential Iranian threat.

Release of twenty Cuban dissidents, including cyberjournalist Guillermo Farinas

AFP - Police on Thursday released the Cuban opponent Guillermo Farinas, 2010 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament and a score of dissidents in custody after seven hours in Santa Clara in the center of the island , said Mr. Farinas told AFP.

"We are free. They had us arrested for coming to the aid of a family they wanted to remove.The opposition should devote themselves to peaceful protests of citizens such as we have done, "said the opponent by telephone from Santa Clara, 280 km east of Havana.

This cyberjournalist psychologist and 48 years, who had observed a hunger strike for 135 days last year, was renewed by the police at his home around midnight and ensure they were not mistreated.

"The police wanted us to sign a recognition of pre-criminal social dangerousness + +, but we did not.After three such, they can introduce you to court, "Farinas said.

The police justified the arrest by the "scandal" that opponents led by haranguing the authorities, while trying to evict a family who illegally occupied housing, he said.

Farinas had stopped eating to demand the release of political prisoners after the death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo, 23 February 2010, after 85 days of hunger strike to protest against his conditions of detention.

He had ended his fast after 135 days when the government of Raul Castro, had begun an unexpected dialogue with the Church and allowed the release of 52 of the 75 dissidents arrested in 2003.

Forty-one of them have since been released. Forty agreed to leave the country and went to Madrid and one remained in Cuba.The eleven remaining refuse to emigrate to Spain and are held in prison.

The Cuban government accuses Farinas behavior "antisocial" and considers it, like other dissidents as "mercenaries" of the United States.

Farinas was represented by an empty chair at the Sakharov prize last December 15 in Strasbourg (north-eastern France), permission to travel having been refused.

Military training, a native of Santa Clara and son of two ardent revolutionary, he had distanced himself from the regime in 1989, opposing the execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa, accused of drug trafficking.

Became an opposition activist has been imprisoned three times before police custody on Wednesday and said he observed 23 hunger strikes since 1990.