ABUJA (AFP) – Nigerian onshore oil reserves are in certain cases declining by between 10 to 12 percent per year and new investment will be needed to push the industry forward, the country's oil minister said Monday.
“We need to take now a very pragmatic approach towards our maturing assets,” Diezani Alison-Madueke told an industry conference in the capital Abuja.
“At the moment, we have an average decline of 10 to 12 percent, which means that we are very rapidly maturing.”
She did not provide specifics, but Levi Ajuonuma, a spokesman for the state oil company, later told AFP that she was referring to the decline of onshore oil assets that are 50 years or older.
A long-delayed overhaul of the industry in Africa's largest oil producer has put a chill on new investment, with firms uncertain of what the new rules and taxes will be if and when it takes effect.
The minister said competition in the industry was increasing in Africa, pointing to new discoveries in other nations on the continent, and Nigeria cannot remain complacent.
“We need to begin to boldly confront the deep water,” she said. “As the land and shallow offshore opportunities are maturing, we need now to confront both the technical and commercial challenges of the ultra deep water.”
Nigeria is currently producing around 2.3 million barrels per day. It also has what has been estimated as the world's eighth-largest gas reserves, but they remain largely untapped, due in large part to a lack of infrastructure.
TRIPOLI/NAWFALIYA, Libya (Reuters) – Libyan forces converged on Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte on Monday, hoping to seal their revolution by seizing the last bastions of a fallen but perhaps still dangerous strongman.
Gaddafi's whereabouts have been unknown since Tripoli fell to his foes and his 42-year-old rule collapsed a week ago.
Residents in the capital, hit by shortages of food, fuel and water, ventured out to shop ahead of the Eid al-Fitr festival after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
“Thank God this Eid has a special flavor. This Eid we have freedom,” said Adel Kashad, 47, an oil firm computer specialist who was at a vegetable market. “Libya has a new dawn.”
Gunfire echoed occasionally across Tripoli as residents picked up their lives amid the stink of burning rubbish and aid agencies reported a revival of medical and other services.
Rejoicing at Gaddafi's fall is not universal, however.
“You media don't tell the truth, you're all traitors, spies,” shouted an enraged taxi driver in a loyalist district, not caring that anti-Gaddafi fighters were nearby.
Gaddafi strongholds in Sirte and some towns deep in the southern desert remain a challenge for Libya's new rulers, who have vowed to take them by force, if negotiations fail.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC), asked NATO to pursue its five-month-old air campaign, which has given essential firepower to ragtag rebels who rose against Gaddafi in February.
“I call for continued protection from NATO and its allies from this tyrant,” he said in Qatar, a tiny but wealthy Gulf Arab state that has backed the revolt. “He is still a threat, not just for Libyans but for the entire world.”
Abdel Jalil was speaking at a meeting of defense ministers from countries that have supported the anti-Gaddafi movement.
A NATO commander pledged to pursue the alliance's mission, at least until its internal mandate expires on September 27.
“We believe the Gaddafi regime is near collapse, and we're committed to seeing the operation through to its conclusion,” U.S. Admiral Samuel Locklear, who heads NATO's Joint Operations Command, told a news conference in the Qatari capital, Doha.
NATO warplanes struck at Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast, for a third day on Sunday, a NATO spokesman said in Brussels. Britain said its aircraft also attacked artillery fired by Gaddafi forces near Sidra, west of the oil town of Ras Lanuf.
TRIBAL SUPPORT
Whether or not Gaddafi makes a last stand in Sirte, the city is a strategic and symbolic prize for Libya's new rulers as they tighten their grip on the vast North African country.
The NTC has offered a $1.3 million reward and amnesty from prosecution for anyone who kills or captures Gaddafi.
Its forces have advanced toward Sirte from east and west, even as contacts continue for its surrender.
Jamal Tunally, a commander in Misrata, to the west, told Reuters: “The front line is 30 km from Sirte. We think the Sirte situation will be resolved peacefully, God willing.”
“Now we just need to find Gaddafi. I think he is still hiding beneath Bab al-Aziziya like a rat,” he said, referring to Gaddafi's Tripoli compound, which was overrun last Tuesday.
On the coastal highway east of Tripoli, transporters carried Soviet-designed T-55 tanks toward Sirte.
Libyan forces advancing from the east pushed past the village of Bin Jawad and secured the Nawfaliya junction, a spokesman said. “We're going slowly,” Mohammad Zawawi added.
“We want to give more time for negotiations, to give a chance for those people trying to persuade the people inside Sirte to surrender and open their city.”
NTC spokesman Shamsiddin Abdulmolah said most people in Sirte were against Gaddafi. “But it's the minority of Gaddafi loyalists who have the weapons,” he said. “They're using all kinds of scare tactics but it's a losing strategy.”
Marwan Mustapha, an ambulance worker at Nawfaliya, said: “God willing, the rebels will enter the city without bloodshed and the negotiations will have succeeded. But if they have to enter by force, there will be blood.”
In the desert to the south, Gaddafi loyalists are also holding out. NTC military chief Suleiman al-Obeidi said pro-Gaddafi commanders in the city of Sabha had been in touch. But a spokesman for the NTC, Mahmoud Shamman, said there would be no negotiations with “killers and executioners.”
Mindful of preserving their image to the world and stung by accounts that captured Gaddafi loyalists have been found dead with their hands tied behind their backs, NTC leaders sent a text message urging followers not to abuse prisoners.
“Remember when you arrest any follower of Gaddafi that he is like you, that he has dignity like you, that his dignity is your own dignity, and that it is enough humiliation for him that he is already a prisoner,” it said.
TRAIL OF CORPSES
NTC military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Bani has said around 40,000 people detained by Gaddafi forces remain missing, saying some might still be held in underground bunkers in Tripoli.
The Khamis Brigade, a military unit commanded by and named after one of Gaddafi's sons, appears to have killed dozens of detainees in a warehouse in a neighborhood adjoining the Yarmouk military base south of Tripoli last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said.
Three days later the warehouse, used as a makeshift prison, was set on fire but the cause was unknown. HRW said it had seen the charred skeletal remains of about 45 smoldering bodies on Saturday. At least two more corpses lay outside unburned.
The NTC, recognized as Libya's legitimate authority by more than 40 nations, has sought to establish control in Tripoli after days of chaos and clashes with diehard Gaddafi loyalists.
The council, whose leaders plan to move to Tripoli from Benghazi this week, is trying to impose security, restore basic services and revive the energy-based economy.
The chief executive of Italian oil firm Eni, the largest foreign oil producer in Libya before the conflict, met officials in Benghazi on Monday and agreed a formal deal to restart its oil and gas operations as soon as possible.
Paolo Scaroni was the first oil chief to visit Libya since Gaddafi's fall, in a move widely seen as an effort to secure Eni's stake in Libya, a former Italian colony which has Africa's biggest oil reserves.
Under the deal signed on Monday, Eni, keen to make up for hesitant Italian support for the uprising in its early stages, will supply refined oil products to the NTC to meet the immediate needs of the Libyan people.
Other countries are also seeking to forge good relations. Britain said several of its diplomats were in Tripoli to prepare for the eventual reopening of its embassy.
The reopening of the main border crossing from Tunisia on Sunday should help relieve shortfalls in the Libyan capital.
Many in the capital were stoical ahead of the Eid holiday, however. Zeid al-Akari, 60, was shopping at a Tripoli market. He said: “It's OK if we have shortages, if we have to sacrifice for this day, which is a day of freedom.”
(Reporting by Samia Nakhoul and Mohammed Abbas in Tripoli, Maria Golovnina in Abu Grein, Alex Dziadosz in Nawfaliya, Robert Birsel and Emma Farge in Benghazi and Regan Doherty in Doha; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
ABUJA (AFP) – Suspected Islamists detonated a bomb and exchanged fire with troops in northeastern Nigeria on Tuesday as the government inaugurated a panel to consider whether to negotiate with the extremists.
No one was reported killed in the attack in the city of Maiduguri, an army spokesman said, but a hospital nurse said a bullet-hit body was brought in after the gunfight with suspected members of the sect known as Boko Haram.
The bomb and gunfight came as Nigeria's government launched the panel that will look into ways of ending the violence in the northeast, which has been hit by almost daily blasts and shootings in recent weeks blamed on the sect.
In inaugurating the panel, the government however backed away from an earlier statement that said its members would initiate negotiations with the sect. The seven-member committee will instead recommend whether talks should be opened.
“This is not a negotiation team,” said the secretary to the federal government, Anyim Pius Anyim. “It's a fact-finding team. It's a forum to identify a solution.”
It will also look into the behaviour of soldiers deployed to Maiduguri, where most of the violence has occurred, with troops accused of reacting to bomb attacks with brutal raids that have allegedly killed dozens of people and left residents' homes burnt.
The panel appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan is required to submit its report to the government on or before August 16. Its chairman sought to assure the Islamists that their legitimate concerns would be taken into consideration.
“I would like to plead and call on the sect to embrace this dialogue process,” said Usman Gaji Galtimari, a former ambassador to Chad and a native of the northeast.
“I assure them that all their genuine grievances will be addressed by the committee and appropriate recommendations made.”
He also referred to it as a “peace process,” while also saying the panel's timeframe was too tight and should be extended.
The panel includes the ministers of labour, defence and the Federal Capital Territory, which encompasses Abuja.
The sect has claimed to be fighting for the establishment of an Islamic state in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation of 150 million people roughly split between Christians and Muslims.
The suggestion that the government should negotiate with the sect has long been controversial and officials have been careful in their approach to the question.
Many have argued against such a move, objecting in particular to any suggestion the Islamists be given an amnesty similar to that provided to militants in the oil-producing Niger Delta.
Nigeria's northeast has been extremely tense in recent weeks, and thousands of residents have fled Maiduguri. Some have called for troops to be withdrawn, a move the government has so far resisted.
Tuesday's bomb blast was the latest such attack. After the blast, the shootout occurred when soldiers arrived at the scene, army spokesman Hassan Isijeh Mohammed told AFP.
Boko Haram launched an uprising in 2009 that was put down by a military assault which left hundreds dead. It seemed to re-emerge last year with assassinations by gunmen on motorcycles of police, soldiers, politicians and community leaders.
Bomb blasts have become more common in recent months, with most occurring in Maiduguri, though an explosion ripped through a car park at police headquarters in the capital Abuja in June and several blasts have occurred in Suleija, near the capital.
There has been intense speculation over whether some of the violence has been politically linked and if the sect has received support from Islamist groups outside of Nigeria.
On their arrival in Yemen, the children were looked after by local families and missionaries
All the 204 slaves freed by Commander Gissing were from the Oromo ethnic group and most were children.
The Oromo, despite being the most populous of all Ethiopian groups, had long been dominated by the country's Amhara and Tigrayan elites and were regularly used as slaves.
Emperor Menelik II, who has been described as Ethiopia's “greatest slave entrepreneur”, taxed the trade to pay for guns and ammunition as he battled for control of the whole country, which he ruled from 1889 to 1913.
Bisho Jarsa was among the 183 children found on the dhows.
She had been orphaned with her two brothers, as a result of the drought and disease that swept through Ethiopia in 1887, and left in the care of one of her father's slaves.
But the continuing threat of starvation resulted in Bisho being sold to slave merchants for a small quantity of maize.
After a journey of six weeks, she reached the Red Sea, where she was put on board one of the Jeddah-bound dhows intercepted by HMS Osprey.
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“Start Quote
The missionaries recorded detailed histories of the former slaves, educated them and baptised them into the Christian faith”
End Quote
Her first memory of the British was the sound of automatic gunfire blasting into the sails and rigging of the slave dhow while she huddled below deck with the other Oromo children.
They all fully expected to be eaten as this is what the Arab slave traders had told them would happen if they were captured by the British.
But Commander Gissing took the Oromo to Aden, where the British authorities had to decide what to do with the former slaves.
The Muslim children were adopted by local families. The remaining children were placed in the care of a mission of the Free Church of Scotland – but the harsh climate took its toll and by the end of the year 11 had died.
The missionaries sought an alternative home for them, eventually settling on another of the Church's missions, the Lovedale Institution in South Africa's Eastern Cape – on the other side of the continent.
Bisho and the rest of the children reached Lovedale on 21 August 1890.
The missionaries recorded detailed histories of the former slaves, educated them and baptised them into the Christian faith.
Mandela fascinated
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“Start Quote
Her real liberation was not the British warship but the education she later received in South Africa”
End Quote Neville Alexander
Life was tough here too, however, and by 1903, at least another 18 of the children had died.
In that year, the Lovedale authorities asked the survivors whether they would like to return to Ethiopia.
Some opted to do so, but it was only after a protracted process, involving the intervention of German advisers to Emperor Menelik, that 17 former slaves sailed back to Ethiopia in 1909.
The rest had by this time married or found careers and opted to stay in South Africa.
Bisho was trained for domestic service, but she must have shown signs of special talent, because she was one of only two of the Oromo girls who went on to train as a teacher.
In 1902 she left Lovedale and found a position at a school in Cradock, then in 1911 she married Frederick Scheepers, a minister in the church.
Frederick and Bisho Jarsa had a daughter, Dimbiti. Dimbiti married David Alexander, a carpenter, and one of their children, born on 22 October 1936, was Neville Alexander.
By the 1950s and 60s he was a well-known political activist, who helped found the short-lived National Liberation Front.
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Ethiopia Returnees
If you know these people – the freed slaves who decided to return home in 1909 – please use the form below to let us know:
Aguchello Chabani
Agude Bulcha
Amanu Figgo
Baki Malaka
Berille Boko Grant
Dinkitu Boensa
Fayesse Gemo
Fayissa Umbe
Galgal Dikko
Galgalli Shangalla
Gamaches Garba
Gutama Tarafo
Hawe Sukute
Liban Bultum
Nagaro Chali
Nuro Chabse
Rufo Gangilla
Tolassa Wayessa
He was arrested and from 1964 until 1974 was jailed in the bleak prison on Robben Island.
His fellow prisoners, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, were fascinated by his part-Ethiopian origins but at the time, he was not aware that his grandmother had been captured as a slave and so they could not draw any comparisons with their own fight against oppression.
So what did he feel when he found out how is grandmother had ended up in South Africa?
“It reinforced my sense of being an African in a fundamental way,” he told the BBC.
Under apartheid, his family was classified as Coloured, or mixed-race, rather than African.
“We always struggled against this nomenclature,” he said.
He also noted that it explained why he had often been mistaken for an Ethiopian during his travels.
The strongest parallel he can draw between his life and that of his grandmother is the role of schooling.
“Her real liberation was not the British warship but the education she later received in South Africa,” he said.
“Equally, while on Robben Island, we turned it into a university and ensured that all the prisoners learned to read and write, to prepare them for their future lives.”
Poor in natural resources, prone to drought and with little arable land, the Cape Verde islands have won a reputation for achieving political and economic stability.
The former Portuguese colony comprises 10 islands and five islets, all but three of which are mountainous.
During the 20th century severe droughts caused the deaths of 200,000 people and prompted heavy emigration. Today, more people with origins in Cape Verde live outside the country than inside it. The money that they send home brings in much-needed foreign currency.
From the mid-1990s, droughts cut the islands' grain crop by 80%, and in 2002 the government appealed for international food aid after the harvest failed.
Nonetheless, Cape Verde enjoys a per capita income that is higher than that of many continental African nations. It has sought closer economic ties with the US, EU and Portugal.
In 2008 Cape Verde became only the second country after Botswana to be promoted by the United Nations out of the ranks of the 50 least developed countries. In recent years it has seen economic growth averaging 6%, the construction of three international airports and hundreds of kilometres of roads.
Increasing numbers of Europe-bound migrants have been intercepted in Cape Verde's waters
Tourism is on the rise, but there are concerns that it poses a threat to the Cape Verde's rich marine life. It is an important nesting site for loggerhead turtles and humpback whales feed in the islands' waters.
Cape Verde became independent in 1975, a year after its sister colony, Guinea-Bissau, won freedom from Portugal. The two countries planned to unite, but the plan was ditched after a coup in Guinea-Bissau in 1980 strained relations.
In 1991 Cape Verde held its first free presidential elections, which were won by Antonio Mascarenhas Monteiro, who replaced the islands' first president, Aristides Pereira.
TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libyan forces converged on Muammar Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte on Monday, hoping to seal their revolution by capturing the last bastions of a fallen but perhaps still dangerous strongman.
Gaddafi's whereabouts have been unknown since Tripoli fell to his foes and his 42-year-old rule collapsed a week ago.
The leader of Libya's ruling council asked NATO to pursue its five-month-old air campaign, which has given essential firepower to ragtag rebels who rose against Gaddafi in February.
“I call for continued protection from NATO and its allies from this tyrant,” Mustafa Abdel Jalil said in Qatar, a tiny but wealthy Gulf Arab country that has backed the revolt. “He is still a threat, not just for Libyans but for the entire world.”
Abdel Jalil, chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC), was speaking at a meeting of defense ministers from countries that have supported the anti-Gaddafi movement.
A NATO commander pledged to pursue the alliance's mission, at least until its internal mandate expires on September 27.
“We believe the Gaddafi regime is near collapse, and we're committed to seeing the operation through to its conclusion,” U.S. Admiral Samuel Locklear, who heads NATO's Joint Operations Command, told a news conference in the Qatari capital, Doha.
“Pockets of pro-Gaddafi forces are being reduced day by day. The regime no longer has the capacity to mount a decisive operation,” he said, adding that NATO air raids had destroyed 5,000 military targets in Libya.
NATO warplanes struck at Sirte, on the Mediterranean coast, for a third day on Sunday, a NATO spokesman said in Brussels.
Gaddafi was born near Sirte, 450 km (280 miles) east of Tripoli, in 1942. After seizing power in 1969 he built it up from a sleepy fishing village into a city of 100,000 people which he often used for state occasions.
TRIBAL SUPPORT
He still retains tribal support in Sirte. Whether or not he plans to make a last stand there, the city's capture would be a strategic and symbolic prize for Libya's new rulers as they strengthen their grip on the vast North African country.
The new leadership says there are also areas in the southern desert which its forces are still trying to bring under control.
The NTC has offered a $1.3 million reward and amnesty from prosecution for anyone who kills or captures Gaddafi.
Its forces have advanced toward Sirte from east and west, even as negotiations continue for its surrender.
Jamal Tunally, a commander in Misrata, to the west, told Reuters: “The front line is 30 km from Sirte. We think the Sirte situation will be resolved peacefully, God willing.”
“Now we just need to find Gaddafi. I think he is still hiding beneath Bab al-Aziziya like a rat,” he said, referring to Gaddafi's Tripoli compound, which was overrun last Tuesday.
On the coastal highway east of Tripoli, transporters carried Soviet-designed T-55 tanks toward Sirte. Fighters said they had seized the tanks from an abandoned base in Zlitan.
Libyan forces advancing from the east pushed 7 km past the village of Bin Jawad and secured the Nawfaliya junction, a spokesman said. “We're going slowly,” Mohammad Zawawi added.
“We want to give more time for negotiations, to give a chance for those people trying to persuade the people inside Sirte to surrender and open their city.”
Mindful of preserving their image to the world and stung by accounts that captured Gaddafi loyalists have been found dead with their hands tied behind their backs, NTC leaders sent a text message urging followers not to abuse prisoners.
“Remember when you arrest any follower of Gaddafi that he is like you, that he has dignity like you, that his dignity is your own dignity, and that it is enough humiliation for him that he is already a prisoner,” it said.
TRAIL OF CORPSES
NTC military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Bani said the fate of 40,000 people who had been detained by Gaddafi forces was unknown, suggesting that some might still be in underground bunkers in Tripoli that had yet to be found.
The Khamis Brigade, a military unit commanded by and named after one of Gaddafi's sons, appears to have killed dozens of detainees in a warehouse in a neighborhood adjoining the Yarmouk military base south of Tripoli last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said.
Three days later the warehouse, used as a makeshift prison, was set on fire but the cause was unknown. HRW said it had seen the charred skeletal remains of about 45 smoldering bodies on Saturday. At least two more corpses lay outside unburned.
“Sadly this is not the first gruesome report of what appears to be the summary execution of detainees in the final days of the Gaddafi government's control of Tripoli,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW Middle East and North Africa director.
HRW quoted a survivor as saying that guards at the warehouse read out 153 names of detainees in the roll call on the day of the killings. He estimated that 20 escaped from the attack and around 125 of the 153 detainees were civilians.
The NTC, recognized as Libya's legitimate authority by more than 40 nations, has sought to establish control in Tripoli after days of chaos and clashes with diehard Gaddafi loyalists.
The council, whose leaders plan to move to Tripoli from Benghazi this week, is trying to impose security, restore basic services and revive the energy-based economy.
The reopening of the main border crossing from Tunisia on Sunday should help relieve shortages of food, water, fuel and other supplies that the Libyan capital has endured.
Sporadic gunfire still echoes across Tripoli as residents try to pick up their lives amid the stench of burning garbage.
Despite the widespread jubilation over Gaddafi's fall, the ousted leader still commands some support. In a loyalist district two men vented their fury:
“You media don't tell the truth, you're all traitors, spies,” shouted an enraged taxi driver in a busy shopping street, not caring that anti-Gaddafi fighters were nearby.
(Additional reporting by Maria Golovnina in Misrata, Robert Birsel, Alex Dziadosz and Emma Farge in Benghazi, Regan Doherty in Doha; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
A mainly desert territory in north-west Africa, Western Sahara is the subject of a decades-long dispute between Morocco and the Algerian-backed Polisario Front.
The territory is phosphate-rich and believed to have offshore oil deposits. Most of it has been under Moroccan control since 1976.
Western Sahara fell under Spanish rule in 1884, becoming a Spanish province in 1934. Nationalism emerged in the 1960s, as nomadic Saharans, or Saharawis, settled in the region.
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At a glance
Seized by Morocco after Spain and Mauritania withdrew
Polisario Front seeks independence
Morocco only prepared to grant autonomy
Territory rich in phosphates, fisheries and possibly offshore oil
Cease-fire in place since 1991
Polisario was set up on 10 May 1973 and established itself as the sole representative of the Saharan people. Some 100,000 refugees still live in Polisario's camps in Algeria.
Madrid Agreement
In October 1975 the International Court of Justice rejected territorial claims by Morocco and Mauritania. The court recognised the Saharawis' right to self-determination and Spain agreed to organise a referendum.
But in November 1975, Moroccan King Hassan II ordered a “Green March” of over 300,000 Moroccans into the territory. Spain backed down and negotiated a settlement with Morocco and Mauritania, known as the Madrid Agreement.
Signed on 14 November 1975, the deal partitioned the region. Morocco acquired two-thirds in the north and Mauritania the remaining third. Spain agreed to end colonial rule.
Polisario declared the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) on 27 February 1976 and announced its first government on 4 March.
The current SADR president, Mohamed Abdelaziz, was elected Polisario secretary-general in August 1976.
In August 1978, one month after a coup, a new Mauritanian government signed a peace deal with Polisario and renounced all territorial claims.
Morocco moved to occupy areas allocated to Mauritania. Algeria in turn allowed refugees to settle in its southern town of Tindouf, where Polisario still has its main base.
Polisario led a guerrilla war against Moroccan forces until 1991.
Referendum
In April 1991 the UN established Minurso, the United Nations Mission for a Referendum in Western Sahara. Its brief was to implement a peace plan outlined in a 1990 Security Council resolution. In September 1991 a UN-brokered ceasefire was declared.
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Key dates
1884: Spain colonises Western Sahara
1973: Polisario set up
1975: World Court rules people should decide on sovereignty
1975: “Green March”, Spain agrees to hand over to Morocco, Mauritania
1976: Spain withdraws, SADR declared
1979: Morocco annexes Mauritania's share
1976-1991: Guerrilla warfare
1991: Minurso established
1991: Ceasefire declared
1996: UN suspends referendum moves
2001: Baker plan
2007-8: Talks fail to reach resolution
The peace plan provided for a transition period, leading to a referendum in January 1992. Western Saharans would choose between independence and integration with Morocco.
Minurso was to total 1,000 civilian and 1,700 military personnel. Its brief was to monitor the ceasefire, the confinement of warring parties to designated areas and the exchange of prisoners.
While the ceasefire held, the mission was never fully deployed. Nor was the transition period ever completed. A key sticking point was an “identification process”, to decide who was eligible to vote.
Identification was to be based on a census carried out by Spain in 1973. Polisario wanted to rule out Moroccans who settled in Western Sahara after the Green March.
In May 1996 the UN suspended the identification process and recalled most Minurso civilian staff. Military personnel stayed to oversee the truce.
Initial attempts to revive the process foundered over Morocco's worries that a referendum would not serve its interests.
Baker plan
Peace returned to the drawing board when UN special envoy James Baker mediated in talks between Polisario and Morocco in London, Lisbon and Houston in 1997, then in London again in 2000.
Agreements were reached on the release of POWs, a code of conduct for a referendum campaign, UN authority during a transition period – but not on voter eligibility. Further talks were held in Berlin and Geneva in 2000, but again ran into trouble.
In a new bid to break the deadlock, James Baker submitted a “Framework Agreement”, known as the Third Way, in June 2001.
It provided for autonomy for Saharawis under Moroccan sovereignty, a referendum after a four-year transition period, and voting rights for Moroccan settlers resident in Western Sahara for over a year.
This formula was rejected by Polisario and Algeria. Then in July 2003, the UN adopted a compromise resolution proposing that Western Sahara become a semi-autonomous region of Morocco for a transition period of up to five years.
A referendum would then take place on independence, semi-autonomy or integration with Morocco.
This compromise was seen as addressing Moroccan concerns, in a bid to entice it to agree to a referendum.
Impasse
Polisario signalled its readiness to accept, but Morocco rejected the plan, citing security concerns. Envoy James Baker resigned in June 2004 and the UN process remains deadlocked.
Talks resumed between Morocco and the Polisario Front in March 2008 in New York, with Mauritania and Algeria also attending. They made no progress.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to break the impasse during a visit to North Africa in September, but the pursuit of al-Qaeda networks in Morocco and Algeria took precedence.
In January 2009 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed US diplomat Christopher Ross as his new special envoy to deal with Western Sahara. Mr Ross was once US ambassador to Algeria.
In November 2010, several people were killed in violent clashes between Moroccan security forces and protesters near the capital Laayoune, shortly before UN-mediated talks on the future of the territory were due to open in New York.
DOHA (Reuters) – Muammar Gaddafi, who has not been seen since rebels took over the Libyan capital of Tripoli a week ago, is still a threat to the country and the world, the chairman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) said on Monday.
Speaking at a meeting in Doha, Qatar, of defense ministers from countries supporting the insurgency against Gaddafi's rule, NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil called on NATO to keep supporting the movement.
“I call for continued protection from NATO and its allies from this tyrant,” Abdel Jalil said. “He is still a threat, not just for Libyans but for the entire world.”
The NTC, which is hunting Libya's deposed leader and pushing to take over his hometown of Sirte east of Tripoli, said on Saturday it had no firm information on his whereabouts. It has offered a $1.3 million reward and amnesty from prosecution for anyone who kills or captures Gaddafi.
As the rebels consolidate their grip on the vast North African country, Abdel Jalil has been in Europe, Benghazi and Doha to push for ongoing support for the campaign and discuss the shape of a post-Gaddafi Libya.
NATO, whose bombing campaign was a key element in the rebels' success, said at the same meeting in Doha that it would continue its mission.
“We believe the Gaddafi regime is near collapse, and we're committed to seeing the operation through to its conclusion,” said U.S. Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of NATO's Joint Operations Command.
“Pockets of pro-Gaddafi forces are being reduced day by day. The regime no longer has the capacity to mount a decisive operation,” Locklear told a news conference.
Locklear added that NATO had a mandate through September 27 to keep up the operation, which has consisted mainly of targeted bombing to support the rebels. More than 5,000 military targets have been destroyed, NATO said.
For an extension of the mandate, NATO members would have to hold another council, Locklear said.
(Reporting by Regan Doherty; Writing by Reed Stevenson; Editing by Tim Pearce)
On their arrival in Yemen, the children were looked after by local families and missionaries
Increasing numbers of Europe-bound migrants have been intercepted in Cape Verde's waters
