The internationally recognised president of Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara, has called for a month-long ban on cocoa exports.

Ivory Coast is the world’s largest cocoa producer and it is a key source of revenue for Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to cede power.

The price of cocoa – already up 14% since November’s disputed election – rose about 7% when trading resumed.

Meanwhile, Nigeria has urged the UN to authorise force to oust Mr Gbagbo.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Odein Ajumogobia wrote an editorial published by several local newspapers saying the UN Security Council should pass a resolution to give legitimacy to previous West African threats to send troops to Ivory Coast.

He did, however, stress this would be a “last resort”.

Experts say some West African countries would be reluctant to use armed force against Mr Gbagbo.

Mr Ouattara has previously said special forces should remove Mr Gbagbo from the presidential palace but he is also trying to use financial pressure to force him out.

On Saturday, one of Mr Gbagbo’s allies was forced to resign as head of the Central Bank of West African States – which manages the currency of eight West African countries, including Ivory Coast.

‘Pandemonium’

But it is not clear how far Mr Ouattara’s call for a cocoa export ban will be heeded.

“We are getting on with things as usual,” the director of an Abidjan-based export firm told the Reuters news agency.

The BBC’s John James in the main city Abidjan, says the announcement is causing pandemonium in the international cocoa industry.

Although Mr Ouattara does not control any security forces there who could enforce the ban on the city’s ports, our reporter says the call may have some effect with major players in the world cocoa industry.

They will be worried about losing their licences if Mr Ouattara does ever come to power, he says.

And global companies could be concerned about their international reputations if they are seen to be dealing with an administration seen as illegitimate by the world community, he says.

The European Cocoa Association and Federation of Cocoa Commerce said they had not yet decided what action to take.

“We have received communications in relation to the conduct of the cocoa business in Cote d’Ivoire [Ivory Coast] to which we are in the process of responding in order to seek further clarification for our members,” they said in a joint statement.

Source: BBC

A key ally of Ivory Coast’s disputed leader, Laurent Gbagbo, has resigned as head of the Central Bank of West African States amid regional pressure.

Governor Philippe Henri Dacoury-Tabley, an Ivorian, quit after a bank meeting on Saturday.

The bank said he had failed to implement an order to no longer accept Mr Gbagbo’s signature for funds.

The internationally recognised new president, Alassane Ouattara, has been asked to designate a new bank chief.

Mr Ouattara says Mr Gbagbo has withdrawn hundreds of millions of dollars from the bank since the disputed November presidential election.

Mr Gbagbo has refused to step down as president.

Late on Saturday, Gbagbo said he rejected the resignation of Mr Dacoury-Tabley.

The Central Bank of West African States groups the treasuries of eight West African countries.

‘Technical reasons’

The European Union had said it would impose sanctions on Mr Dacoury-Tabley, making his position untenable.

According to a declaration of heads of state from West Africa’s single-currency zone, after an emergency meeting in Mali:

“The conference is concerned about the impact of the non-application of the decision [on Mr Gbagbo] on the stability of the economic, financial and monetary system of the union.”

“The conference has taken note of the resignation of Mr Philippe Henri Dacoury-Tabley from his post.”

Mr Dacoury-Tabley blamed “technical reasons” for not applying the measure.

Ouattara ally Patrick Achi told Reuters news agency the resignation had been “what we have been calling for”.

“This will reduce the money leaving the account. We are heading towards the control of the accounts but it will happen in stages.”

UN peacekeepers are protecting Mr Ouattara in his temporary headquarters at a hotel in the main city of Abidjan.

Separately on Saturday, Mr Gbagbo said he had cancelled the accreditation of the French ambassador.

He was responding to a move by Paris to accredit Ali Coulibaly, Mr Ouattara’s pick as Ivory Coast’s envoy to France.

France said the removal of its envoy’s accreditation was “devoid of any legal standing.”

The presidential election in November was supposed to reunify Ivory Coast, divided since a 2002 civil war.

The country’s electoral commission said Mr Ouattara had won – a position backed by the UN mission in Ivory Coast, which helped organise the poll.

But Mr Gbagbo’s supporters said that the New Forces rebels who control the north had rigged the poll in favour of Mr Ouattara.

The Constitutional Council, headed by an ally of Mr Gbagbo, then annulled votes in these areas and declared Mr Gbagbo the winner.

Early results from Southern Sudan’s referendum indicate the region has voted overwhelmingly to split from the north and form a new country.

Full results of the poll are not due until next month, but the region is widely expected to choose to secede.

Southern Sudanese people living in Europe have already voted 97% in favour of a new state.

The historic referendum was part of a peace agreement signed with north Sudan in 2005, ending decades of war.

Polling stations opened on 9 January and were officially closed on Saturday evening.

A minimum 60% turnout was required for the vote to be considered valid, a target which had easily been passed by the middle of the week.

The chairman of the Southern Sudanese Referendum Commission, Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil, has said more than 80% of eligible voters in the south had cast their ballots, along with 53% in the north and 91% of voters living in the eight other countries hosting polling stations.

He said the referendum would be considered “a good result by any international standard”.

The Associated Press reported a 95% turnout at 10 sites in Juba, which would be the capital of a future Southern Sudan. A sample suggested that 96% had voted in favour of secession.

Southern Sudanese people living in Australia have been given extra time to cast their votes where severe flooding has hampered the process.

‘Peaceful determination’

International observers in Southern Sudan have been almost universally optimistic, saying the balloting process has been free and fair.

The BBC’s Peter Martell in Juba says that has come as massive relief to the south, for whom this vote means so much.

The process was marred, however, by a deadly attack on a convoy of south Sudanese civilians earlier this week.

The group were returning home to vote when they were ambushed near the north-south border in the disputed oil-rich region of Abyei.

The UN’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has praised “all the people of Sudan for the display of wisdom, patience, and peaceful determination that has characterised the voting over the last week”.

But he warned that Southern Sudanese must continue to “exercise patience and restraint” while the count is carried out.

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir has promised to accept the results of the poll either way, even if it meant the partition of Africa’s largest nation.

“The referendum took place in an atmosphere of calm with a great degree of freedom and fairness,” Rabie Abdul Ati, a senior official in Mr Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP), told the AFP news agency.

“It is very clear that the party will accept the result whether it be for unity or secession.”

The referendum was agreed as part of the 2005 deal to end the two-decade civil war between Southern and north Sudan.

Correspondents say there has been little doubt that the largely Christian Southern Sudan would opt for secession from the mainly Muslim north.

Source: BBC

Deposed Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali ‘s head of security has been arrested.

State media said Ali Seriati, who led Mr Ben Ali’s presidential security force, is accused of threatening state security by fomenting violence.

Meanwhile, there are reports of exchanges of fire between gunmen and security forces in the capital Tunis.

Political leaders have started efforts to fill the power vacuum created by the fall of President Ben Ali.

Interim leader Foued Mebazaa, who until Saturday was the speaker of parliament, has asked Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi to form a national unity government.

Under the present Tunisian constitution, a presidential election must be held within 60 days.

Mr Ben Ali, who had been in power for 23 years, fled to Saudi Arabia on Friday after a month of mounting protests across the country over unemployment, food price rises and corruption.

Dozens of people were killed as police opened fired on demonstrators.

The announcement of Mr Seriati’s arrest on Sunday came after the previous day saw widespread violence across Tunisia, including looting, arson and deadly jail riots.

The BBC’s Wyre Davies, in Tunis, reports that the sound of sporadic gunfire has been heard in and around the city centre throughout Sunday.

Several reports describe a gun battle outside the headquarters of the Democratic Progressive Party.

Our correspondent says there appears to be a residual base of people loyal to former regime and opposed to moves towards democratisation who are holding out against the new order.

Photographer dies

Other attacks appear to have targeted businesses and buildings connected with the former president and his family.

A hospital source in Tunis told AFP news agency that Imed Trabelsi, the nephew of Mr Ben Ali’s powerful wife, had been stabbed to death on Saturday.

Source: BBC

At least five people were killed Tuesday in clashes between police and supporters of Ivory Coast’s president-elect as a tense political standoff continued Tuesday in the West African nation.

The governor of Abidjan said three police officers and two demonstrators were killed.

The violence comes a day after the U.N. Security Council deplored the violence in the country since the November 28 election and “urged all parties to exercise restraint.”

The cocoa-producing West African nation was plunged into crisis when Alassane Ouattara was declared the winner of the presidential runoff election, but incumbent Laurent Gbagbo refused to leave office.

The Security Council expressed its backing for the efforts by the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States in pursuing a peaceful resolution of the crisis.

At the same time, the council repeated its readiness “to impose measures, including targeted sanctions against people “who threaten the peace process,” block the work of the U.N. mission and other international people there or “commit serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.”

Meanwhile, Ouattara is willing to add supporters of self-proclaimed president Gbagbo to his Cabinet, provided the defiant incumbent steps down, the West African nation’s ambassador to the United Nations said Monday.

Ambassador Youssoufou Bamba said Ouattara would not enter a power-sharing government similar to that in Zimbabwe but that he would be open to a unity cabinet.

U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq could not confirm any such offer from the Ouattara government and said that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon still called for Gbagbo to step down in favor of an orderly transition.

Ouattara told CNN last week that he welcomes a proposal for direct negotiations with Gbagbo — on the condition that Gbagbo recognize Ouattara as president.

But in a telephone interview on Tuesday, Gbagbo’s government spokesman, Ahoua Don Melo, rejected the proposal, saying Ouattara “should first go to the Constitutional Council to get recognized as the president before making any proposal.”

An independent election commission declared Ouattara the winner of the runoff election in November, but the country’s Constitutional Council then declared Gbagbo the winner.

The U.S. Treasury froze Gbagbo’s assets in the United States last week and barred Americans from doing business with him. His wife and three top aides also were sanctioned.

Source: CNN

Three West African heads of state are expected in Ivory Coast for talks on the crisis following the disputed presidential election.

Leaders from Sierra Leone, Benin and Cape Verde are to give the incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, a final chance to step down peacefully.

Mr Gbagbo insists he is the winner of the election.

He is refusing to make way for Alassane Ouattara, who has been internationally recognised as the president-elect.

Mr Ouattara’s victory in 28 November polls was overturned by the Constitutional Council, a body headed by a Gbagbo ally, citing claims that results were rigged in the north.

A Sierra Leone government spokesman told the BBC that the leaders from the Ecowas regional grouping would be offering Mr Gbagbo a way of leaving without being humiliated.

Ecowas has deliberately chosen to send three heads of state who have not yet spoken strongly on the election dispute, says the BBC’s John James in Abidjan.

But after the failure of mediation efforts by the former South African president Thabo Mbeki and the head of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, this visit has a single agenda – to persuade Mr Gbagbo to step down and avoid Ecowas military intervention, our correspondent adds.

Mr Gbagbo’s supporters say the presidents will be received respectfully, but Mr Gbagbo continues to insist that he won last month’s election.

Special envoy

On Monday, the African Union (AU) appointed Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga as its special envoy to Ivory Coast to push for a peaceful outcome to the crisis.

The AU said Mr Odinga had been asked to “follow through the crisis”, a month after the country’s disputed polls.

Correspondents say the AU’s appointment is another setback for Mr Gbagbo, as Mr Odinga has been hawkish on the crisis, and was the first African leader to call for military action.

Mr Odinga has said he planned to talk to Mr Gbagbo, but would wait for the outcome of the Ecowas talks before deciding his next move.

“[Mr Gbagbo] has of course portrayed himself as a democrat all his life, that’s why he lived very many years in France in exile,” Mr Odinga told the BBC.

“So I think I’m going to try to impress upon him that the time has come for him to lead by example.

“This, I think, is something that needs to be said and to tell him also that he risks becoming an international pariah if he tries to continue to cling to power. Going by the current trends he will have no friends left any more anyway.”

Mr Odinga was named Kenya’s prime minister in 2008 in a coalition government after weeks of political unrest.

However, he dismissed the possibility of power-sharing between Mr Gbagbo and Mr Ouattara, saying the election commission, not the constitutional court, was the only legitimate authority to determine the winner.
Strike bites

Buses have now stopped working in Abidjan after Mr Ouattara called for a general strike on Monday as part of his protest, our correspondent says.

The atmosphere in Abidjan is tense, he adds; while less violent than a few days ago, everyone fears a military intervention in the coming weeks.

Source: BBC

The UN General Assembly has formally recognised Alassane Ouattara as the winner of Ivory Coast’s disputed presidential election.

The move came ahead of a meeting of West African heads of state to urge President Laurent Gbagbo to step aside.

Earlier, the region’s central bank handed over control of Ivory Coast’s accounts to Mr Ouattara.

Correspondents say the moves are increasing the isolation of Mr Gbagbo, who has insisted that he won the vote.

The decision of the Central Bank of West African States could make it difficult for the incumbent president to pay the army.

Violence since disputed election in November has left 173 people dead in Ivory Coast.

A senior UN official said its investigators had also found evidence of extrajudicial executions, more than 90 cases of torture and 500 arrests, as well as abductions, kidnappings, acts of sexual violence, and destruction of property.

The 28 November poll was meant to unite the country after a civil war in 2002 split the world’s largest cocoa producer in two.

The country’s electoral commission ruled that Mr Ouattara had won, but the Constitutional Council said Mr Gbagbo had been elected, citing vote-rigging in some northern areas.

The UN, which has about 10,000 peacekeepers in the country overseeing the peace process, has backed Mr Ouattara as the winner.

He was given a further boost on Thursday when the General Assembly unanimously decided to recognise his choice of diplomats as the sole official representatives of Ivory Coast to the UN.

Power-sharing ruled out

The West African heads of state are scheduled to meet later on Friday in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

The 15-nation the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has already suspended Ivory Coast over Mr Gbagbo’s refusal to hand over power.

“It’s a one-item agenda, and that’s Cote D’Ivoire [Ivory Coast],” Sunny Ugoh, spokesperson for the regional body, told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

“I believe that what we have done so far has put them under pressure, but I think perhaps we need to work a lot harder to increase the pressure to make sure that there’s a transition to President Ouattara,” he said.

The BBC’s Tomi Oladipo in Nigeria says there have been suggestions that member nations send in troops, to strengthen the presence of the international peacekeeping force.

Nigeria, in particular, sent peacekeeping forces to Liberia and Sierra Leone during their civil wars in the 1990s, and is expected to do the same in Ivory Coast if the situation escalates, our reporter says.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who is also Ecowas chairman, has ruled out the possibility of accepting power-sharing government.

In Ivory Coast Mr Ouattara and his supporters are currently holed up in the Golf Hotel in Abidjan, protected by 800 UN peacekeepers. They are in turn being blockaded by soldiers loyal to Mr Gbagbo.

“There are three levers – diplomacy, finance and the army. Now there’s only the third lever to get, and that will certainly be discussed today by Ecowas,” Mr Ouattara’s spokesman Patrick Achi is quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

Mr Gbagbo still has control of state television and the public support of the army.

The BBC’s John James in Abidjan says without access to Ivory Coast’s state accounts it is going to be extremely difficult to pay the salaries of soldiers and civil servants next month, even if Mr Gbagbo almost certainly has other financial reserves.

The incumbent president has demanded that UN and French troops leave the country immediately. A close ally even warned that they could be treated as rebels if they did not obey the instruction.

A US government specialist on Africa, William Fitzgerald, told the BBC that various options for defusing the crisis were being considered, but that “we’re really trying to avoid violence if at all possible”.

Source: BBC