Madagascar's president Marc Ravalomanana will stand down and hand power over to the military, according to BBC sources in the president's office. Soldiers and armoured vehicles yesterday seized the central bank and the offices of the embattled president. The army chief of staff, Colonel Andre Ndriarijaona, claims his forces are 99 percent behind opposition leader and former mayor Andry Rajoelina who led early protests against the president and has installed a rival government in the cleared offices.
The toD verdict: Ravalomanana, guarded by supporters in a presidential palace outside the capital, had until hours ago remained defiant in the face of mounting military hostility. He earlier vowed to resist until death and a spokesman even claimed he had discussed military intervention on his behalf with the UN and South African states. Although reports of his intended resignation are at present unconfirmed, it seems impossible that Ravalomanana will remain in power with the balance of forces against him so unfavourable.
While the African Union denounced military action as an "attempted coup" and the EU vowed not to recognise any forcible takeover, it is highly unlikely that either will offer any more than vocal support for a leader tainted by his violent suppression of anti-government protests and by allegations of vote-rigging. Although Rajoelina has promised to hold elections within the next two years, he has shown little respect for constitutional methods, calling on Ravalomanana to be arrested and rejecting offers of an immediate referendum on his rule. The last president installed by a coup on the island controlled the country for 26 years until presidential elections in 2001. Recent instability has seriously damaged the island's economy, disrupting the lucrative tourist trade, as well as international industrial interests represented by the mining giant Rio Tinto.
Behind the unrest is a country wracked by poverty. Recent years have witnessed dramatic fluctuations in economic growth, the application of numerous IMF and World Bank development schemes, and the controversial exploitation of natural resources by multinational companies such as Rio Tinto and Coca Cola. Although the present crisis is settled, such structural instability points to a tumultuous future.
Political violence erupts in Sierra Leone
At least twenty people were injured and six women raped in violent confrontations between the supporters of the two major political parties in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. The series of clashes began on Friday after a parade led by the governing All People's Congress (APC) apparently came under attack by members of the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP). Crowds supportive of the APC then surrounded the SLPP's offices where supporters were forced to seek refuge on the roof of the building. Paramilitary police deployed in Freetown fired warning shots and tear-gas in an attempt to disperse the rioters who fought each other with machetes, bottles and stones. The violence mars a period of relative stability and democracy following the civil war which devastated the country between 1991 and 2002.
Suicide bomber strikes Afghan counter-narcotics police convoy
A suicide bomber struck a police convoy about to depart from Kandahar on a poppy eradication mission on Monday morning, killing eleven and wounding 28 people. A spokesman for the governor of Helmand province suggested the attack was a retaliatory move by the "Taliban and drug smugglers" against the recent destruction of opium crops by security forces. The attack follows several bloody days for international forces in the country, with four American soldiers killed on Saturday and two British soldiers killed on Sunday by roadside bombs, and an Australian killed in a fire-fight with Taliban forces on Monday.
Police station bombed in a Tibetan region of China
Unidentified assailants threw a bomb into a newly built Chinese police station late on Monday night, smashing windows and damaging the unoccupied building. The Chinese state media claimed "terrorists", a term often used to describe Tibetan dissidents, were responsible for the incident which is being investigated by the police. The attack occurred in Ganzi prefecture, which was host to some of the most violent anti-government riots across Tibetan areas last March.
Russian rearmament plan provokes fears of renewed arms race with NATO
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev announced today an extensive rearmament plan to modernise the country's armed forces. Medvedev cited fears of NATO expansion and conflicts on the Russian periphery as motivating the $140bn of military spending planned until 2011, the foremost objective of which was to improve Russia's strategic nuclear forces. At the same meeting, Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov warned that the US was attempting to wrest control of mineral resources in states bordering Russia. The announcements threaten to derail US president Barack Obama's hopes for détente with the US's former Cold War rival.
US Air Force shot down Iranian military drone
A US military official in Baghdad claimed yesterday that US jets tracked and shot down an Iranian surveillance drone that breached Iraqi airspace last month. The unmanned aircraft is reported to be an Iranian-made Ababil drone, three of which were sent into Israeli airspace by Hezbollah during the Lebanon conflict in 2006. The spokesman, Lieutenant John Brimley, said the drone's flight-path "was not an accident on the part of the Iranians". He was contradicted, however, by press statements made by the Iraqi defence ministry suggesting the incursion into Iraqi airspace was a mistake. Iran has not yet responded to the incident, which the US kept concealed until yesterday.
Philippine forces battle kidnappers to rescue Red Cross hostages
Intense fighting between government troops and rebels holding three Red Cross aid workers hostage has left three soldiers killed and 19 wounded. The aid workers were captured in January by Abu Sayyaf Islamist militants while working on a water project on the southern island of Sulu. The army overran an Abu Sayyaf camp on the island recovering Red Cross tents and equipment but there was "no word on the hostages" according to military spokesman Brigadier General Gaudencio Pangilinan. The outbreak of fighting is the most recent instalment in an ongoing and decades-old struggle between Islamist separatists and the Manilla government which has left 160,000 dead and displaced over two million people.
