Gunfight in Nigeria's Delta oil region kills eight: sources

YENAGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Gunmen opened fire on a group of former militants in the oil producing Niger Delta late on Saturday, leading to a shootout that left eight people dead, a security official said.

None could confirm who carried out the attack. The men targeted were loyal to one of several Nigerian Delta militant leaders who accepted a government amnesty in 2009 in exchange for money, ending attacks that at one time shut down nearly half of production in Africa's biggest oil and gas industry.

Those killed included the younger brother of General Reuben Wilson, the leader of one former militant group, Wilson told Reuters at his house on Sunday where weeping mourners were gathered. He denied that his group had returned fired.

Tensions are growing between militant leaders enjoying the lucrative state handouts or government contracts and their foot soldiers who have been paid much less or received nothing, tensions that now threaten the Delta's fragile peace.

The shootout in the town of Lobia, which sits on the creeks and swamps of the Delta's Bayelsa state, was close to where an attack on a boat by disgruntled ex-militants killed 12 policemen in April.

"There was an armed collision between two groups at Lobia, which led to the death of an unspecified number of persons. The bodies are still in the river," said a spokesman for security forces in the Niger Delta, Lieutenant Colonel Onyeama Nwachukwu.

A senior security source, who also said the attack had led to a shootout, put the death toll at eight.

But Wilson denied that the group targeted by the unidentified assailants was armed.

"Unknown gunmen shot at them and killed them all and they were not armed, as claimed in some quarters," he said.

The motive was unclear. The previous attack in April was carried out by followers of Kile Selky Torughedie, who claimed Torughedie had embezzled amnesty money they were owed.

Any resurgence of Delta violence would be a blow to President Goodluck Jonathan, who helped negotiate the amnesty and who is from the Ijaw, the same ethnic group as most of the armed groups in the Delta. His forces are stretched by an Islamist insurgency in the north.

It would also be a problem for multinational energy companies such as leading operator Royal Dutch Shell that are already contending with industrial scale oil theft by armed gangs.

Militants claiming to be from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) claimed April's attack on a boat carrying police. Analysts doubted the claim as the group's commanders are mostly under amnesty and its leader, Henry Okah, is in jail.

(Reporting by Tife Owolabi; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

View the original article here

Italian government could be settled on Saturday: sources

By Paolo Biondi

ROME (Reuters) - Italian prime minister-designate Enrico Letta could announce a new government on Saturday and spell out its programme early next week, political sources said on Friday, while outgoing premier Mario Monti said he did not expect to be a minister.

Letta, deputy leader of the centre-left Democratic Party, has been in discussions to iron out remaining differences with Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party following an initial round of talks on Thursday.

After two months of political stalemate following an inconclusive general election in February, Letta is under pressure to move quickly and form a government capable of leading Italy out of recession.

In a series of lengthy meetings, he conferred with President Giorgio Napolitano, Monti and PDL national co-ordinator Angelino Alfano.

Monti said in an evening television interview that he advised Letta not to put frontline politicians from any party in key cabinet posts in order to reduce potential tensions. He said this meant he himself would be excluded.

"I don't believe I will be in the cabinet and I have not requested to be," he told TV channel La7.

Several political sources close to Letta said he expected to announce his cabinet on Saturday and take Sunday to prepare an initial speech to parliament on Monday, which would be followed by confidence votes in the two houses of parliament.

The horse-trading around the formation of a new government represents a cooling of post-election hostilities and few politicians or commentators doubt the government will be formed.

Yet big problems remain, including securing the lasting support of Letta's own divided party and ensuring cohesion in a cabinet of long-time adversaries.

One potential stumbling block is the PDL's demand for the abolition and repayment of a housing tax introduced last year by Monti's technocrat government.

Scrapping the tax for 2013 and repaying last year's contribution would blow an 8 billion euro ($10.40 billion) hole in this year's budget plans and create further problems for medium-term finances in the years ahead.

In an interview with Italian newspapers on Friday, Berlusconi expressed optimism that a solution could be found but, in a sign that problems remained, politicians on both sides avoided public comment on how talks were progressing.

Letta has declared his chief priorities will be measures to create jobs and help small business and to reform ineffective political institutions, including an electoral law that was a leading cause of the deadlocked vote.

He has also joined a chorus of voices calling for a change to the European Union's austerity mantra to put more emphasis on economic growth and investment, a line that Berlusconi's PDL has also pushed strongly.

VIABLE COALITION?

Letta's Democratic Party has come close to breaking apart after a mutiny last week over the election of the president of the republic which forced Pier Luigi Bersani to resign as party leader.

Many in the party refuse to accept any coalition with the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, their enemy for almost 20 years, who is appealing against a four-year sentence for tax fraud and fighting charges of paying for sex with a minor.

Younger party activists have protested loudly against any deal and there has already been speculation that some rebels may refuse to support Letta in confidence votes in parliament.

The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, Berlusconi's former allies in the Northern League and the PD's own former allies in the leftist Left Ecology Freedom party have already declared they will not be in a government dominated by the PD and PDL.

The PDL insists that the government be made up mostly of politicians from the main parties rather than technocrats, putting it at odds with many in Letta's party.

Berlusconi pressed for Renato Brunetta, a combative former economics professor who is currently the PDL's lower house leader, to be given the economy ministry, ruling out Bank of Italy official Fabrizio Saccomanni, who had been mooted.

Other possible candidates include former prime minister Giuliano Amato, while either Monti or former prime minister Massimo D'Alema have been considered possible foreign ministers.

Berlusconi claimed a role in a group deciding institutional reforms and urged a transformation of the electoral system to include a directly elected head of state along the lines of the French model.

($1 = 0.7689 euros)

(Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Tom Pfeiffer)

View the original article here

China's Xi flexes muscle, chooses reformist VP: sources

By Benjamin Kang Lim and John Ruwitch

BEIJING (Reuters) - A reformist member of China's decision-making Politburo, Li Yuanchao, is set to become the country's vice president this week instead of a more senior and conservative official best known for keeping the media in check, sources said.

Li's appointment would be a sign that new Communist Party leader and incoming president Xi Jinping's clout is growing, a source with ties to the leadership said. Xi fended off a bid by influential former president Jiang Zemin to install propaganda tsar Liu Yunshan in the job, the source said.

Jiang was a major power behind the scenes in the administration of outgoing President Hu Jintao.

The post of vice president is largely symbolic. However the job would raise Li's profile, give him a role in foreign affairs and further bolster Xi, who took the top jobs in the party and military at the Communist Party congress in November.

The promotion of Li may also signal a willingness on the part of Xi to pursue limited reforms that Li is known to have advocated in his previous posts, such as making the selection of Communist officials more inclusive.

Leadership changes in China are thrashed out behind closed doors through horse-trading between new leaders and outgoing or retired leaders anxious to preserve their influence and protect family interests, but reshuffles must go through a choreographed selection process.

Two other sources, who declined to be identified because it is sensitive to discuss elite politics with foreign media, also confirmed that Xi had decided to make Li his vice president rather than Liu.

The National People's Congress, China's rubber-stamp parliament, will vote in Xi and Li as president and vice president respectively on March 14. Li Keqiang, the party's new No.2 official, will succeed Wen Jiabao to become premier and oversee the economy and day-to-day running of the cabinet.

"Li Yuanchao will be vice president, not Liu Yunshan," the source with leadership ties said.

"It was Xi's decision and a sign he is strong and able to say 'no' to Jiang," the source told Reuters.

CONSOLATION PRIZE

In November, Liu was promoted to the seven-man Politburo standing committee with responsibility for propaganda and ideology. He has also taken over two of Xi's previous positions: president of the Central Party School, which grooms up-and-coming cadres, and top seat on the Secretariat of the party's elite 205-member Central Committee.

Liu served as propaganda minister from 2002 to 2012, keeping a tight leash on domestic media and China's Internet, which has more than 500 million users.

His rival, Li, had been widely considered a top contender for a spot on the standing committee in November but party elders led by Jiang used a last-minute straw poll to block him from joining the body, sources have said.

The vice presidential appointment "in part is compensation for him not getting into the Politburo standing committee", said Guo Liangping, a Chinese politics expert at the National University of Singapore's East Asia Institute.

"That position has high exposure to the world, it's high profile, probably more prestigious, but in terms of real power it's limited."

If Li makes it, it would mark the first time since 1998 that the vice president is not a member of the standing committee - the apex of power in China. Li sits on the 25-member Politburo, one notch below the standing committee.

But both Li and Liu are too old to be potential successors to Xi.

"This time it's kind of a holding position," said Kerry Brown, executive director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

Li has been regarded as progressive for advocating incremental reforms in how the party promotes officials and consults the populace on policies, but how much influence he has as vice president will be, to a large degree, decided by Xi.

"If Xi wants a pro-active, tightly-allied kind of vice president, then the vice president will have power. If he wants a purely symbolic figure who is there to do absolutely nothing, then that's what the vice president will do," said Brown.

The vice presidency was created by a change to the constitution in 1982. President Hu served in that role from 1998 to 2003 which formally anointed him as heir apparent to Jiang. Xi also served in that role from 2008 until the present.

The duties of the vice president include assisting the president and taking over the presidency in the event the president resigns or dies in office.

Li, a "princeling" whose father was a former vice mayor of Shanghai, earned mathematics and economics degrees from two of China's best universities and has a doctorate in law. He also spent time at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

View the original article here

AP sources: US weighs direct aid to Syrian rebels

PARIS (AP) — The Obama administration is for the first time considering supplying direct assistance to elements of the Free Syrian Army as they seek to ramp up pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down.

Officials in the United States and Europe said Tuesday that the administration is nearing a decision on whether to provide non-lethal assistance to carefully vetted fighters opposed to the Assad regime in addition to what it is already supplying to the political opposition.

The officials say a decision is expected by Thursday when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will attend an international conference on Syria in Rome.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the shift in strategy has not yet been finalized and still needs to be coordinated with European nations.

View the original article here

U.S. plans medical, food aid for Syrian rebel fighters: sources

ROME (Reuters) - The United States plans to provide medical supplies and food to Syrian fighters, a policy shift to directly help those battling President Bashar al-Assad's forces on the ground, sources familiar with the matter said.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States continues to oppose providing lethal assistance and said it also will not provide such items as bullet-proof vests, armored-personnel vehicles and military training for now.

One source said the United States was also expected to announce a large increase in assistance to the Syrian National Coalition, the main civilian opposition group.

The announcements could come as early as Thursday in Rome, where U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will meet coalition members at a "Friends of Syria" meeting of mostly European and Arab nations supporting the opposition.

The steps would reflect a U.S. desire to do more to help the opposition in the conflict, in which an estimated 70,000 people have died since protests against Assad erupted nearly two years ago, while stopping far short of a full-blown military intervention, for which Washington appears to have no appetite.

The moves, however, might not satisfy some members of the Syrian National Coalition, which last week said it would boycott the conference out of frustration at not receiving more assistance and only agreed to come on Monday.

COALITION SOURCE DISMISSIVE

A coalition source said the planned U.S. steps were a continuation of what he described as an American policy of wanting "no winners, no losers" in the conflict.

He said that what he viewed as the relatively small size of the coalition delegation in Rome reflected strong expectations that the meeting will not come up with substantial support.

"There is a major current in the coalition that wanted to send a message that enough is enough and that the coalition will not go along with whatever the United States has in mind and (just) say 'thank you,'" the source said.

Even if Washington were to commit to supply weapons, there was no guarantee it would keep up the supply, the source said.

"Here and there, every once in a while the armed opposition get some decent weapons, but the supply is so patchy that it renders the weapons useless," he said.

"What is the use of a sophisticated gun for example without a constant supply of ammunition?"

'HUGE DEBATE' IN OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

The White House has long resisted providing weaponry to the rebel forces, arguing there was no way to guarantee the arms might not fall into the hands of militants who might eventually use them against Western targets.

U.S. officials have said that the U.S. Defense and State Departments, under former secretary of defense Leon Panetta and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, privately recommended that the White House arm the rebels but were overruled.

"It's a huge debate inside the administration between those that have to deal with Syria on an everyday basis, the State Department and DoD particularly, and the White House, which ... until now has vetoed any kind of outreach to the armed groups," said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think-tank in the U.S. capital.

"Until now we've drawn a very clear policy line away from armed groups and preferred to deal with civilians, he said, saying he did not know what the United States would ultimately decide.

The United States has not so far given aid directly to the rebel fighters and a decision to provide medical supplies and food in the form of Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), the U.S. army's basic ration, would reverse that policy.

"Why would the policy change now? The answer is because it will have to. This policy is not succeeding ... Assad is not stepping down, the post-Assad Syria is not going to be peaceful, democratic and secular," he added. "So, given this reality, we have to deal with what's going to come next."

Kerry, who took over as U.S. secretary of state on February 1, signaled that he wanted the United States to do more, saying on Monday that "the Syrian opposition is not going to be dangling in the wind wondering where the support is or if it's coming."

The source who said that the United States was expected to announce a large increase in assistance to the Syrian National Coalition said the group would receive substantially more than the rebel fighters, but declined to divulge either sum.

The United States so far has provided more than $50 million in non-lethal assistance such as communications gear and governance training to the Syrian civilian opposition, according to a U.S. State Department fact sheet.

The coalition source, however, said giving the coalition even another $50 million was a pittance compared to what he said was the $40 million a day in humanitarian aid needed to meet the basic needs of Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons.

The United States has provided some $365 million in humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees in countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon and for internally displaced people, channeling this money through non-governmental organizations.

A U.S. State Department spokeswoman declined comment.

(Reporting By Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Paul Simao)

View the original article here