Sudan's Bashir says tensions with South could spark war
3 February 2012 - Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Friday tensions with South Sudan over oil transit payments could lead to war, stepping up the rhetoric in a row over crude reserves between the two countries. Asked in an interview with state television whether war could break out with South Sudan, Bashir said: 'There is a possibility.' Bashir said the economic situation was difficult for Sudan this year but the country would boost current oil production of 115,000 bpd by 75,000 bpd. Sudan's current output serves only domestic consumption. Sudan would also export gold worth $2.5 billion this year and expand the agricultural sector to compensate for the loss of oil, he said. Experts have expressed doubts rising gold exports and other measures to diversify the economy will offset the loss of oil revenues of $5 billion booked in 2010. They say economic diversification has been hampered for years by corruption, misplanning, and a US trade embargo. (more)

Egypt protesters besiege Cairo ministry
3 February 2012 - Protesters laid siege to Egypt's Interior Ministry on Friday, extending a rally against the military-led government into a second day in a show of anger triggered by the deaths of 74 people in the country's worst soccer disaster. In separate clashes in the city of Suez, two protesters were killed as police used live rounds to hold back crowds trying to break into a police station, witnesses said. Demonstrations erupted in Egypt this week following deaths at a soccer stadium in Port Said as the football incident turned quickly into a political crisis. Protesters hold the military-led authorities responsible for the bloodshed. The soccer stadium deaths have heaped new criticism on the military council, which has governed Egypt since Mubarak stepped down a year ago in the face of mass protests. Critics regard them as part of his administration and an obstacle to change. (more)

6 dead, 20 wounded in new attack on Colombia cops
3 February 2012 - Assailants in pickup trucks fired homemade mortars at a police station in this western town Thursday, killing at least six people and wounding more than 20, the regional police chief said. President Juan Manuel Santos and his defence minister both said they had no doubt the authors were the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country's main insurgency. The FARC numbers about 9,000 combatants. Although it has suffered major setbacks in recent years, analysts say its hit-and-run attacks have been rising. In January alone, it staged 133 attacks on police and military targets, according to the independent think tank Nuevo Arco Iris. (more)

Insight - Deficits, the US election, and politics of fear
3 February 2012 - The top contenders in the US presidential race seem to have a simple plan for the gaping budget deficit: use it to strike fear into the hearts of voters. Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney says President Barack Obama is such a big spender that he would trigger a Greece-style crisis if re-elected in November. Democrat Obama says Republican candidates would balance the budget by slashing social programs older Americans rely on to pay their medical bills. Romney is trying to connect with voters with a prop -- a giant electronic debt clock that shows the nation's total debt and the debt per taxpayer. The figures tick up while he is speaking. But with the public shaken by high unemployment, some voters worry aggressive measures to shrink deficits could leave people in the cold. Obama frequently paints the Republican vision of government as 'you're-on-your-own' economics. To punch his point home, Obama has brought up his own grandmother, who he says depended on Medicare as she lay on her deathbed in 2008. It remains unclear if Obama's allusions to ailing grandmothers can neutralize Republican prophesies of doom and joblessness. (more)

Bahrain boils as uprising nears 1-year mark
2 February 2012 - A year ago this month, Bahrain's majority Shiites took inspiration from the Arab Spring to sharpen long-standing grievances against the Sunni monarchy, accused by Shiites of relegating them to second-class status in the Western-allied nation. Within days of the first protest march, Bahrain was sliding into a crisis that would bring more than two months of martial law, more than 40 deaths, hundreds of arrests, and ongoing clashes so disruptive that the US Embassy last month relocated workers into safe haven neighbourhoods. Hit-and-run battles are now a near daily event in some areas with tear gas so intense that it's been blamed for respiratory failure among some of the nearly 40 deaths from the unrest. But the troubles also reach far beyond the tiny flame-shaped island off the Saudi coast. The past year has turned Bahrain into a crossroads for every major showdown in the region. 'The international paralysis over Bahrain has, if anything, become more pronounced with the rising tensions over Iran's nuclear programme,' said Toby Jones, an expert on Bahraini affairs at Rutgers University. 'It's every tough problem in the region funnelled into one small place.' (more)

Activist : Jamaican police violence fostered by a culture of impunity
2 February 2012 - Jamaica is rife with police violence, affected by what human rights activists say is a culture of impunity that has allowed police to serve as judge, jury, and executioner. And when families of alleged victims try to get justice through the court systems, their wait usually turns out to be long, painful, and fruitless. More than 2,000 fatal shootings by security officers were reported by police over the last decade in this Caribbean country of 2.8 million people, but only one officer stands convicted of involvement in a wrongful killing. Police almost always claim that the deaths came as they responded to unprovoked gunfire. Police statistics show that more accused officers have fled the island than have been convicted of abuse since 1999. (more)

Fans, not constructors responsible for Egypt deaths
2 February 2012 - In terms of global visibility there could hardly be a greater contrast between Wednesday's soccer disaster in Egypt which claimed the lives of at least 73 people and the world's worst recorded stadium disaster in which 340 people died in Moscow in 1982. Video footage of the riot in Port Said seen by millions around the world on the internet within minutes of it unfolding. But the disaster in Moscow was covered up for seven years by the Soviet authorities who originally said 66 people died but later admitted -- in July 1989 -- that 340 people had lost their lives. UEFA, European soccer's governing body, recently issued a guide to 'quality stadiums' in which its general secretary Gianni Infantino expressed the need for the best design and construction to ensure that stadiums were safe. The Stadium in Port Said, a multi-use 18,000 all-seater venue, was built in 1955 and more than met FIFA's standards after modern improvements. Unlike other disasters the stadium could not be faulted for the resulting loss of life which appears to be due entirely to human failings. (more)

Juarez police leave their homes after 5 are slain
2 February 2012 - Every one of the 2,500 police officers in this Mexican border city has been ordered to leave home and stay in a hotel after the killing of five officers by a local drug cartel. The gang threatened a week ago to kill one policeman a day unless Police Chief Julian Leyzaola resigns. Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia said Wednesday that the attacks carried out since the warning are a response to toughening police action against drug cartels in the city across from El Paso, Texas. At least 10 banners bearing threats to Juarez's police chief appeared around the city last week. The messages were signed by the New Juarez Cartel, an offshoot of the La Linea or Juarez Cartel, a major target of law enforcement actions in recent months. (more)