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SAO TOME (AFP)

The president of Sao Tome and Principe on Thursday pardoned opposition leader Arlecio Costa after he was jailed following an attempted coup d’etat, national television said.

A further 62 people were also pardoned, the largest number ever to benefit from President Fradique de Menezes’ traditional end of year amnesty, according to a presidential decree read on television.

All were to be pardoned and have their prison sentences cancelled, it added.

Costa and other members of his party were arrested in February 2009 on suspicion of planning a coup d’etat. His lawyer said he would be freed on Thursday.

Among the 63 to benefit from the amnesty were around ten people jailed misappropriating foreign aid in a scandal which made headlines between 2004 and 2009 were also pardoned.

Costa, the head of the Christian Democratic Front (FDC), was last November sentenced to five years in prison for possessing illegal weapons and “acts amounting to rebellion”, following a month-long trial.

The authorities accused Costa and his men of plotting to attack the president on February 12, 2009 and seize power.

Costa, a former mercenary, was involved in an earlier coup attempt in the archipelago off west Africa in July 2003.

With a population of 140,000, Sao Tome and Principe used to be extremely poor, relying mainly on fishing and subsistence farming, until it became the Gulf of Guinea’s latest potentially oil-rich nation.

UNITED NATIONS (AFP)

Independent experts have concluded that video footage allegedly showing Sri Lankan troops executing prisoners during the final phase of their battle against Tamil Tiger rebels last year was authentic, a UN envoy said Thursday.

The video, aired on Britain’s Channel 4 last August, “is authentic,” Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions told reporters here.

He said the conclusion was reached by three independent experts and called for a “genuine and independent investigation” by the Sri Lankan government.

He noted that when the video showing the execution of a number of Tamil Tiger militants “stripped naked, bound and blindfolded and shot in the head by semi-automatic weapons” was shown, the Colombo government dismissed it as “a fake” and “propaganda” by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Alston said he asked three qualified experts to review the video after four Sri Lankan specialists had concluded that it was a fake.

He added that the result of the analysis of the three experts “would seem to point to the need for the government of Sri Lanka to undertake the investigation I had initially called for.”

He said Colombo should ask the United Nations to set up an independent commission of inquiry.

Sri Lankan authorities have resisted international calls for a war crimes investigation after the United Nations alleged that more than 7,000 civilians had been killed during the first four months 2009 alone.

The Tamil rebels were finally vanquished in May after nearly four decades of ethnic bloodshed that left between 80,000 and 100,000 people dead.

CONAKRY (AFP)

Talks began Thursday in Guinea on who will be the new prime minister after the junta announced that it was ready to share power with the opposition to end a crisis in the west African country.

Bauxite-rich Guinea has been under military rule since December 23, 2008, and tensions reached their height last September 28 when troops massacred at least 156 people at an opposition rally.

The opposition has reacted with caution and goodwill to a speech Wednesday by the interim junta leader, General Sekouba Konate, who opened the way to power-sharing and appeasement and urged politicians and civil society to work together for elections.

Many questions remain unanswered. Who will be the consensus prime minister, responsible for leading the country to the elections? Will the new leader come from a political party, a trade union or civil society? What will his or her powers be?

Speculation was rife within hours of Konate’s speech.

“We need someone technically competent and politically mature,” Bah Amadou Oury, vice-president of the opposition Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG) told AFP Thursday.

For Rabiatou Serah Diallo, a trade union leader in the forefront of the struggle against the junta, “it would be ideal if the prime minister was neutral, if he had no political ambition. It’s best if he comes from civil society, and we are categorical on this subject.”

The African Encounter for the Defence of Human Rights (RADDHO), based in Dakar, estimated Thursday that the best person for the job “would be a man of integrity from civil society, above all suspicion, to lead a transition that doesn’t take long,” said its secretary general, Alioune Tine.

“This man will need everybody’s help,” Tine added, suggesting that the new leader could be “a religious person, that would be the ideal. He would reassure everyone because he doesn’t rely on the state to wage a campaign and wouldn’t show any political ambition.”

Officials from opposition parties briefly met Thursday at the Conakry home of Jean-Marie Dore, president of the Union for Progress in Guinea (UPG) and spokesman of the Forces Vives (Active Forces), a coalition that includes the country’s political opposition, trade unions and civil society.

“The meeting on Konate’s speech has been postponed until Friday at 10:00 am (1000 GMT) because each party wants to go back to its headquarters to reflect,” Oury said.

The Social Movement, grouping labour leaders, employers and civil society, had a meeting Thursday with Prime Minister Kabine Komara and went out later to report to their followers and staff.

“You can see that a clear will is taking shape,” trade union leader Serah Diallo.

“The government has set up three working groups, notably concerning the security of opposition figures returning from exile,” she said, after General Konate asked exiles to come home.

There is also “a commission responsible for studying the claims of the work force and another charged with getting the administration up and running again.”

The UN secretary general’s special representative in West Africa, Said Djinnit, went Wednesday to Conakry and met Konate, the prime minister, labour leaders and the spokesman of the Forces Vives.

Konate’s initiative followed a week-long visit to Morocco, where the leader of the junta, Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, is in hospital after being shot in the head by his aide de camp on December 3.

The Moroccan foreign ministry announced Thursday that during his stay in Rabat, Konate had talks with American and French officials.

On Tuesday, Washington announced that US assistant secretary of state for African affairs Johnnie Carson had met Konate and other “members of the junta.”

ST LOUIS, Missouri (AFP)

Police Thursday were hunting a gunman who shot dead three people and wounded five others in an early morning rampage at the Missouri offices of a Swiss power company.

Police Captain Sam Dodson confirmed that three people had been killed in the shooting spree which began at the start of the morning shift when a man armed with an assault rifle and a handgun stormed into the offices.

Dodson could not confirm reports on the local KTVI Fox news channel that the shooter, named by police as 51-year-old Timothy Hendron, was among the dead.

Five other people were wounded, three of them were in critical condition, a St. Louis spokeswoman said.

Police SWAT teams entered the offices of ABB Power after reports of the shooting spree at the busy factory of 270 workers, located on Semple Avenue, an industrial area of the city.

“There is a large business at this location with numerous employees inside of the building,” a police spokeswoman said. “The shooter is thought to be at this location, but he is currently unaccounted for.”

Local media reported some employees had sought refuge on the roof of the building to escape the gunman, and were talking to police.

“We believe (the suspect is) in the complex right now. That’s why are tactical (teams) are going room by room. It’s a very large complex, very compartmentalized,” said Dodson.

“It’s a very large complex and it’s connected to an even larger complex so it’s a very slow and methodical process and it will take several hours.”

He added there was no indication there was more than one shooter, and confirmed he was believed to be a former employee.

“The suspect was armed with an assault rifle and a hand gun and the whole complex was involved in the shooting from the exterior to the interior,” Dodson added.

According to Kansas City court documents, Hendron was involved in a legal dispute with the firm over the management of employees’ retirement funds.

ABB spokesman Bob Fesmire could not confirm whether the shooter was a former employee.

“We can confirm that there was a shooting, but the information is still unclear,” he told AFP.

Fesmire said there would normally be around 100 people in the factory from the start of the first shift at around 6:00 am to 6:30 am.

But he added there were fewer workers at the plant on Thursday thanks to a snow blizzard and temperatures which plunged to 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 11 Celsius), forcing some colleagues to stay at home.

Police said about 40 to 50 workers were inside at the time of the shooting at the beginning of the shift.

The plant is part of Zurich-based ABB’s engineering business, and makes power transformers.

In a statement issued from Zurich, ABB said: “This is obviously a very serious situation and we are working to gather more information as it becomes available. The welfare of our employees is of utmost importance to us.”

LAGOS (AFP)

An absent president, a row over the budget, no promised reforms, no electricity for much of the time, and now its appearance on a US terror watchlist, add up to a bad New Year for African giant Nigeria.

Washington’s placing of Nigeria on a 14-nation travel watchlist after a Nigerian tried to blow up a US plane could hardly have come at a worse time.

The government in Abuja is under intense criticism over a perceived lack of leadership, given the continued absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua and persistent rumours over his state of health.

Yar’Adua has been in hospital in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah with heart problems since late November. Citing a lack of regular medical bulletins from the government, there have been strident opposition calls for him to be replaced by Vice President Goodluck Johathan.

“The ship of state has almost ground to a halt,” says prominent rights activist and lawyer Femi Falana, who has mounted one of three separate court challenges calling for Yar’Adua to be replaced.

Falana said the 58-year-old Yar’Adua was “incapacitated” and the lawsuit was aimed at ensuring there was no vacuum in the Nigerian presidency.

“There is no state, no authority,” observed one foreign diplomat.

“Things have never been so bad for Nigerians and democracy has never been so threatened as it has in been in recent times,” said Lai Mohammed, opposition Action Congress spokesman.

Opposition parties are now challenging the official version of events whereby Yar’Adua was sufficiently alert last week to sign a supplementary budget law at his hospital bed.

The opposition say Yar’Adua’s continued absence has further stalled badly-needed reform of the country’s corruption-ridden oil and gas sector.

And it fell to Jonathan to admit in his New Year message that the country had failed to achieve even a modest increase in the electricity supply, which remains at 3,500 megawatts for its population of 150 million.

The vice president apologised to the millions of Nigerians who continue to live in darkness, despite Nigeria being one of the world’s largest oil producers.

An amnesty for so-called oil rebels in the southern Niger Delta has taken much of the sting out of a crippling war that slashed output.

However, Islamist violence in the Muslim-dominated north — where security forces clashed with militants last month, killing 70 — and the involvement of a 23-year-old Nigerian in a plot to blow up a US plane, has heightened US suspicions that Nigeria could become a breeding ground for Al-Qaeda.

Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe summoned US ambassador Robin Sanders to protest the move to place Nigeria on Washington’s watchlist, but such indignation is unlikely to sway Washington.

Unusually, the accumulation of crises has moved two former US ambassadors to Abuja to voice their concerns.

John Campbell, ambassador from 2004-07, said that “if the current crisis spins out of control, the Nigerian army is likely to intervene, possibly with a nominal civilian leader.”

“It will justify itself, saying it would prepare for elections and deal with ‘extremism’ in the Niger Delta and — following the Abdulmuttalab incident — in the north,” Campbell added.

One of Campbell’s predecessors, Princeton Lyman, who was envoy from 1986-89, said Nigeria “can become less relevant to the United States”.

Relations with Washington dominated Wednesday’s cabinet meeting in Abuja, with a statement released later saying the watchlisting has “the potential of undermining long-standing and established US-Nigeria bilateral ties and the goodwill the US enjoys in Nigeria”.

SINDHULI, Nepal (AFP)

Thousands of former child soldiers who fought for the Maoists in Nepal’s decade-long civil war began leaving the UN-monitored camps where they have spent the past three years on Thursday.

Their departure marks a step forward in Nepal’s faltering peace process, but they face an uncertain future.

Most are now adults, but some were as young as 13 when they joined the rebels and have had little formal education.

“My hands have only been trained to use guns,” said 23-year-old Bhawana Chaudhary, who was just 17 when she joined the army.

“I’ve been doing that since I joined the war. It will be hard to adjust to normal life after living in the camp.”

More than 200 young men and women swapped their blue People’s Liberation Army (PLA) uniforms for civilian clothes and began their journey home after an official ceremony at the Sindhuli camp in central Nepal.

They are the first of almost 24,000 former Maoist fighters confined to UN-supervised camps as part of the 2006 peace agreement to be formally discharged.

“After a lot of delays we are finally ready to discharge the disqualified Maoist combatants from the UN-monitored camps. It is a milestone for the country’s peace process,” a spokesman for the peace ministry told AFP.

“We hope it will pave the way for the crucial step of rehabilitating and reintegrating Maoist combatants.”

In December 2007 the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) completed a verification process and found that 2,973 former fighters were minors when the war ended and another 1,035 were not genuine combatants.

They had been scheduled for release soon afterwards, but the process was repeatedly delayed by disagreements between the Maoist party, now in opposition, and its political rivals.

All 4,008 will leave the camps over the next month after being issued with a set of civilian clothes and identity papers and given 10,000 rupees (135 dollars) to travel back to their villages and begin setting up home.

PLA spokesman Chandra Prasad Khanal said it would be sad to see former members of the rebel army leave, but the move would “send a message to the world that we are committed to peace”.

“We are taking this step in order to bring the peace process to a logical conclusion,” he told AFP.

Among those leaving, there were mixed feelings, with some saying they had hoped to join the regular army along with their former comrades.

“I don’t want to be retrained for another job. I want to be a soldier. That is what I am good at,” said Chaudhary.

The Maoists want the remaining 20,000 PLA members to be integrated into the Nepalese army, a key tenet of the peace agreement.

But no one is sure how many former fighters remain in the camps. They are not being kept there by force and several thousand are believed to have walked out in the three years since the war ended.

Rights groups say the rebels forcibly recruited child soldiers during the conflict, sometimes demanding one person from every home in areas under their control, although some signed up voluntarily.

Many became cooks or porters or did medical work, but also received military training.

Tulasa Poudel, 24, joined the PLA aged 14, and said she was proud to have fought for the Maoists.

“I did not like the way women were treated in my community. The men always looked down on us,” she told AFP.

“I joined the PLA to try to change that because I felt the Maoists were committed to equality.”

Those leaving the camps will be offered education and training for jobs such as hairdressing, bicycle repair and house painting.

UN observers will monitor their progress amid concerns they could be lured into Nepal’s growing number of criminal gangs, many of which have political links.

Gillian Mellsop, Nepal representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said their departure “sends out a symbolic message for the new year”.

“Not only can these young people now finally get on with their lives, but this also marks a new beginning at the start of a new decade for Nepal, so that it can move forward to a more stable, peaceful future,” she said.

ST LOUIS, Missouri (AFP)

A gunman was on the run in Missouri Thursday after storming a power company’s office, killing one person and wounding four others, authorities said.

Fire brigade officials said five people were shot when a gunman went on the rampage at the offices of ABB Power. Two people were said to be in a critical condition and one was said to be serious, as police hunted for the shooter.

Police SWAT teams entered the offices of ABB Power after reports of the shooting spree at the busy factory of 270 workers, located near the center of St. Louis.

The authorities shut down interstate highway 70 in the hunt for 51-year-old Timothy Hendron, whom they named as their main suspect, and said he was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun.

Police said the attack took place on Semple Avenue, an industrial area that is home to the local offices of the Swiss-Swedish engineering giant ABB.

“There is a large business at this location with numerous employees inside of the building,” a police spokeswoman said. “The shooter is thought to be at this location, but he is currently unaccounted for.”

Local media reported some employees had sought refuge on the roof of the building to escape the gunman, and were talking to police.

“We believe (the suspect is) in the complex right now. That’s why are tactical (teams) are going room by room. It’s a very large complex, very compartmentalized,” said police Captain Sam Dodson.

“It’s a very large complex and it’s connected to an even larger complex so its a very slow and methodical process and it will take several hours.”

He added there was no indication there was more than one shooter, and confirmed he was believed to be a former employee.

“The suspect was armed with an assault rifle and a hand gun and the whole complex was involved in the shooting from the exterior to the interior,” Dodson added.

According to Kansas City court documents, Hendron was involved in a legal dispute with the firm over the management of employees’ retirement funds.

ABB spokesman Bob Fesmire could not confirm whether the shooter was a former employee.

“We can confirm that there was a shooting, but the information is still unclear,” he told AFP.

Fesmire said there would normally be around 100 people in the factory from the start of the first shift at around 6:00 am to 6:30 am, around the time the shooting is thought to have taken place.

But he added there were fewer workers at the plant on Thursday thanks to a snow blizzard and temperatures which plunged to 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 11 Celsius) which forced some colleagues to stay at home.

Police said about 40 to 50 workers were inside at the time of the shooting at the beginning of the shift.

The plant is part of Zurich-based ABB’s engineering business, and makes power transformers.

IQUIQUE, Chile (AFP)

Spain’s two-time motorcycling champion Marc Coma won the sixth stage of the Dakar Rally on Thursday, a 418 km special from Antofagasta.

Coma, eighth overall before the stage but who moved into fourth position following his victory, came in on his KTM motorbike at least 10 minutes clear of his rivals including France’s overall leader Cyril Despres, who finished second.

Chile’s fifth stage victor Francisco Lopez finished fourth on the stage behind Portuguese rider Helder Rodrigues.

The stage was marred by a serious injury suffered by Italian rider Luca Manta following a fall. Manta, ninth overall going into the stage, was flown by helicopter to hospital but neither the circumstances of the crash or his state of health were known.

ST LOUIS (Missouri) (AFP)

A gunman is on the run in Missouri on Thursday after storming a power company’s office killing one person and injuring four others, the authorities said.

Fire brigade officials said five people were shot when a gunman went on the rampage at the offices of ABB Power. Two people were said to be in a critical condition and one was said to be serious, as police hunted for the shooter.

Police SWAT teams entered the offices of ABB Power after reports of the shooting spree at the busy factory of 270 workers, located near the center of St. Louis.

The authorities shut down interstate highway 70 in the hunt for 51-year-old Timothy Hendron, whom they named as their main suspect.

Police said the attack took place on Semple Avenue, an industrial area that is home to the local offices of the Swiss-Swedish engineering giant ABB.

“There is a large business at this location with numerous employees inside of the building,” a police spokeswoman said. “The shooter is thought to be at this location, but he is currently unaccounted for.”

Local media reported some employees had sought refuge on the roof of the building to escape the gunman, and were talking to police.

According to Kansas City court documents, Hendron was involved in a legal dispute with the firm over the management of employees’ retirement funds.

ABB spokesman Bob Fesmire could not confirm whether the shooter was a former employee.

“We can confirm that there was a shooting, but the information is still unclear,” he told AFP.

Fesmire said there would normally be around 100 people in the factory from the start of the first shift at around 6:00 am to 06:30 am, around the time the shooting is thought to have taken place.

But Fesmire said there may have been fewer workers at the plant on Thursday thanks to a snow blizzard and temperatures which plunged to 12 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 11 Celsius) which forced some colleagues to stay at home.

The plant is part of Zurich-based ABB’s engineering business, and makes power transformers.

BRUSSELS (AFP)

The EU’s much-delayed Galileo sat-nav network will begin operation in 2014, the European Commission said Thursday as it awarded key contracts to Germany’s OHB System and France’s Arianespace.

The European system is aimed to challenge the dominance of the US-built Global Positioning System (GPS), set up by the Pentagon in the 1980s, which is widely used in a huge variety of navigation devices like those in cars and boats.

OHB System beat out larger rival EADS-Astrium for the contract to build the first 14 satellites for the 30-satellite navigation system, EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani said, with Arianespace providing the launch services.

The first satellites will be launched from French Guiana by Russian Soyuz rockets.

Franco-Italian group Thales Alenia Space was handed the contract to provide system support services.

“This will allow the initial deployment and service provision of Europe’s satellite navigation system as of early 2014,” Tajani said.

“With this and the upcoming awards for the remaining procurement packages, we are concluding a critical phase of the Galileo programme.

“We can now focus on the actual roll-out and demonstrate to European citizens that Europe’s own satellite navigation system is firmly under way,” he added.

The EU has struggled to secure financing for the project, originally put at 3.4 billion euros (5.4 billion dollars), and has had to tap unused funds from the bloc’s massive agricultural budget.

Tajani said there was bound to be an increase in the budget, especially as regards the costs of the launchers, but could not provide a figure.

Last year, the European Court of Auditors criticised the Galileo project as ill-prepared and badly managed.

The commission said some services would be available by early 2014, including the “open service,” which will be freely available to the public in Europe, just as the US GPS system is.

Also available early will be the search and rescue service.

Galileo is intended to offer a superior accuracy of one metre (yard), compared to up to 10 metres for GPS, making it very useful for car drivers, farmers and even the blind.

The European version will have global coverage and an encrypted, pay service for commercial clients, with extra information such as weather detail.

The OHB contract for 14 satellites is worth 566 million euros.

The commission offered hope to EADS-Astrium by stressing that subsequent satellites will be procured “each time” from OHB or EADS-Astrium “depending on which company provides the most advantageous offer.”

EADS-Astrium had already secured the contract for a preliminary four satellites, which will be among the first launched.

Since the launch of the bidding process, EADS has also taken over Surrey Satellite Technology, a partner with OHB in its successful bid.

The contract with Arianespace covers the launch of five Soyuz launchers with the first lift-off scheduled for October 2012. The contract is worth 397 million euros.

The contract awarded to Thales Alenia Space, worth 85 million euros, for the system support services covers the industrial services needed to support the European Space Agency for the integration of Galileo.

Remaining procurement contracts, for the ground mission infrastructure, the ground control infrastructure and operations should be awarded by mid-2010.