France, Britain say NATO must step up Libya bombing

The criticism by London and Paris followed new shelling of Misrata on Monday and the collapse of an African Union peace initiative

France and Britain, who first launched air attacks on Libya in coalition with the United States, said on Tuesday NATO must step up bombing of Moammar Gadhafi’s heavy weapons to protect civilians.

NATO took over air operations from the three nations on 31 March but heavy government bombardment of the besieged western city of Misrata has continued unabated with hundreds of civilians reported killed.

The criticism by London and Paris followed new shelling of Misrata on Monday and the collapse of an African Union (A U)peace initiative.

Echoing rebel complaints, Juppe told France Info radio, “It’s not enough.”

He said NATO must stop Gadhafi shelling civilians and take out heavy weapons bombarding Misrata.

British foreign secretary William Hague also said NATO must intensify attacks, calling on other alliance countries to match London’s supply of extra ground attack aircraft in Libya.

NATO, which stepped up air strikes around Misrata and the eastern battlefront city of Ajdabiyah at the weekend under a U N mandate to protect civilians, rejected the criticism.

“NATO is conducting its military operations in Libya with vigour within the current mandate. The pace of the operations is determined by the need to protect the population,” it said.

Libyan state television said on Tuesday a NATO strike on the town of Kikla, south of Tripoli, had killed civilians and members of the police force. It did not give details.

Peace talks fail

The spat within the alliance came after heavy shelling and street fighting in the coastal city of Misrata on Monday where Human Rights Watch says at least 250 people, mostly civilians, have died.

Libyan rebels rejected an African Union peace plan on Monday because it did not include the removal of Gadhafi, who they accused of indiscriminate attacks on his own people.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, hailed as a hero by the rebels, led calls for military intervention in Libya and his warplanes were the first to attack Gadhafi’s forces.

In a barbed reference to the NATO takeover, Juppe added: “NATO must play its role fully. It wanted to take the lead in operations, we accepted that.”

NATO is unpopular among many insurgents, both because they believe it initially reacted slowly to government attacks and because it has killed almost 20 rebels in two mistaken bombings. Although they have recently praised the alliance after its attacks helped break a major government assault on Ajdabiyah, many of the rebels in the field still hailed Sarkozy. The rebels took up position about 40 km west of Ajdabiyah on Tuesday after clashes on Monday that left at least three of their fighters dead in a rocket attack.

There was no sign of fighting on Tuesday between Ajdabiyah and the oil port of Brega where the eastern front has see-sawed between the combatants for weeks.

The Red Cross said it would send a team to Misrata to help civilians trapped by fighting.

Rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said after talks with an African peace mission in rebel-held Benghazi on Monday:

“The African Union initiative does not include the departure of Gadhafi and his sons from the Libyan political scene, therefore it is outdated.”

The AU said in a statement it would continue the mission.

Gadhafi’s son Saif ruled out his father stepping down, calling the idea ridiculous.

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Gadhafi forces of executing prisoners, killing protesters and attacking refugees.

Scorn

Rebels in Misrata, their last major bastion in western Libya and under siege for six weeks, scorned reports that Gadhafi had accepted a ceasefire, saying they were fighting house-to-house battles with his forces.

Rebels said that Gadhafi’s forces had intensified the assault, for the first time firing truck-mounted, Russian-made Grad rockets into the city, where conditions for civilians are said to be desperate.

NATO attacks outside Ajdabiyah on Sunday helped break the biggest assault by Gadhafi’s forces on the eastern front for at least a week. The town is the gateway to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi 150 km north up the Mediterranean coast.

Gadhafi’s former foreign minister Moussa Koussa, speaking in Britain where he fled in March, called on “everybody, all the parties, to work to avoid taking Libya into a civil war”.

“This will lead to bloodshed and make Libya a new Somalia,” he told the BBC. “More than that we refuse to divide Libya. The unity of Libya is essential to any solution and any settlement in Libya.”

source:http://www.livemint.com/2011/04/12161933/France-Britain-say-NATO-must.html

Ivory Coast: 'Gbagbo weapons cache' uncovered

Several generals pledged their allegiance to Alassane Ouattara on Tuesday

French troops have discovered several large arms caches in Ivory Coast that they said would have been used by former Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo.

The weapons, stored at villas in the main city of Abidjan, included mortars, cannons and rockets.

Mr Gbagbo is reportedly being held under house arrest in Abidjan.

French forces led an assault against him on Monday to force him from power. He had refused to accept defeat in a November election.

His rival in last year's election, Alassane Ouattara, who was internationally recognised as winning the poll, has now taken power.

During the stand-off between Mr Gbagbo and Mr Ouattara about 1,500 people were killed and a million forced from their homes.

The BBC's Mark Doyle says the French army took journalists to three innocent-looking villas in central Abidjan where they had discovered the weapons.

He says there were enough arms there to launch a new war, more evidence that the dispute over last year's polls were leading the country into chaos.

The French troops documented the arms before handing them over to African UN soldiers for safe disposal.

Earlier, five generals who had remained loyal to Mr Gbagbo pledged allegiance to Mr Ouattara, though there are reports that some soldiers and militiamen have refused to surrender.Risk of reprisals

US President Barack Obama has called Mr Ouattara to congratulate him and offer support as Ivory Coast tries to recover from the recent conflict.

Mr Ouattara's government said Mr Gbagbo had been placed under house arrest, without saying where, AFP news agency reported.

"Pending the opening of a judicial inquiry, Mr Laurent Gbagbo and some of his companions have been placed under house arrest," said Justice Minister Jeannot Ahoussou-Kouadio.

There had been confusion about Mr Gbagbo's whereabouts, with the UN retracting an earlier claim that he had been moved out of Abidjan.

Immediately after his arrest Mr Gbagbo had been taken with his wife Simone to Mr Ouattara's headquarters at Abidjan's Golf Hotel.

Mr Ouattara has promised that Mr Gbagbo will not be harmed, but rather "treated with dignity".

He has appealed for calm, and announced that a truth and reconciliation commission will be set up to "shed light on all the massacres, crimes, and all cases of human rights violation".

Both sides have been accused of atrocities.

Troops loyal to Mr Ouattara also began patrolling the streets of the southern city on Tuesday in an attempt to restore order. Despite their presence, sporadic gun and mortar fire was heard.

International human rights group Amnesty International warned that those seen as supporters of Mr Gbagbo were at risk of violent reprisals, despite Mr Ouattara appeals.

"Today in Abidjan, armed men, some wearing military uniforms, have been conducting house-to-house searches in neighbourhoods where real or perceived supporters of Laurent Gbagbo are living," the group said.

It quoted one witness saying he had seen a policeman belonging to Mr Gbagbo's ethnic group being dragged from his house and shot at point blank range.

Until a 2002 rebellion split the country in two, Ivory Coast - the world's largest cocoa producer - was the most developed economy in West Africa.

source:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13058331

Central African Republic: Teachers provide education despite on-going violence

EI supports teachers in the Central African Republic who struggle to bring quality education to their students despite decades of political violence.

The all Africa website has reported that due to widespread destruction and displacement, the educational sector has been badly affected by a dire shortage of teachers and adequate physical infrastructure. For thousands of children, classes take place not in solid buildings of brick, but in rudimentary “bush schools.”

UNICEF's chief education officer in the country, Farid Boubekeur, told the humanitarian news and analysis service from the UN Office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs that “needs are huge and funds insufficient. More appropriate infrastructure as well as qualified teachers are needed. Because of difficulties in the conflict-affected areas of the North, disparities in terms of access and quality are deepening.”

Many of the pupils attending schools in the northeast of the country were forced to flee their homes due to the conflict between rebel groups and government forces, and are now living in informal settlements in and around the village. According to UNICEF, there are more than 5,000 children of primary-school age and a total of 19 schools in the M'Brès Sub-Prefecture, 10 built of semi-perishable materials. Among the 76 teachers, 40 are pupils' parents, without any sort of qualification.

In line with country statistics showing an average of one teacher for about 94 students, the Ecole Ouande in the Linguiri village has two teachers, both contracted by the government, and one trainee. Unlike the two teachers earning a wage of 60,000 CFA (US$120), the trainee works for free, but is supported by parents who voluntarily contribute with 100 CFA each (50 cents).

Aid agencies have helped to build some 800 schools in the northwest, two-thirds of them “bush schools,” and have given basic teacher training to some 2,000 parents.

EI urges the national authorities to guarantee the employment of properly trained and qualified teachers; to stop resorting to unpaid trainees; and to provide decent teaching and learning conditions by building education infrastructures and paying adequate wages to teachers.

source:http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=1528&theme=healthandsafety&country=car