International news 5

Saudi, Qatar move to seal ties

Agence FrancePresse . Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Gulf neighbours Saudi Arabia and Qatar are to demarcate their border and set up a joint council to develop relations after years of tension, the official SPA news agency reported. The decision was taken after two successive visits last week to the Saudi summer capital of Jeddah on the Red Sea by the Qatari prime minister, and the foreign minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani, said. The move is a further step towards normalising relations between the two members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council. In 1992 differences over the frontier sparked an armed clash at a border post that killed two people. The incident prompted the creation of a joint committee aimed at solving the dispute, but little progress was made. Ten years later Riyadh withdrew its ambassador from Qatar in 2002 amid fury at criticism of the Saudi royal family aired in a talk show by the Doha-based television channel Al-Jazeera. In March, gas-rich Qatar and oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia sealed a thaw in ties when Saudi crown prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz visited Doha. Although Saudi King Abdullah had attended a Gulf regional summit in Doha in December last year, Sultan’s trip was the first by a Saudi leader since 2002. SPA reported that the joint coordination council to oversee relations would be co-chaired by the Saudi crown prince and the Qatari premier. It said the council would develop ‘bilateral relations in the political, security, financial, economic, trade, investment, cultural and information domains.’

Betancourt to write play about hostage ordeal

Agence France-Presse . Paris

Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt retreated Sunday from the media glare for a few days with her newly reunited family, before returning to Colombia to write a play about her six-year hostage ordeal. Earlier the 46-year-old former Colombian presidential candidate, who was freed from Marxist rebels in Colombia’s jungle on Wednesday, said she was given a clean bill of health after seven hours of medical tests at a Paris military hospital. Betancourt, who has dual French-Colombian nationality, said in an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche she would ‘return to Colombia in a few days.’ She added that ‘meanwhile I want to see France, all of France. But I also want to be alone with my children.... I want to give this time to my family, to the father of my children whom I adore, who fought an extraordinary fight for me.’ Asked whether she would write a book about her experience, she replied: ‘I’ll write a play.’ ‘When I was in captivity, I said to myself: ‘People need to understand this, but I can’t just write it down the way it happened. So I’ll write a play. That way I will show people what they need to feel.’ After her tests Saturday at the Val-de-Grace hospital, she told France 3 television: ‘The doctors showered me with good news. I have had a number of concerns all these years. Now, I’m totally happy.’ She said she was ‘very, very surprised’ not to have any physical side-effects after more than six years of captivity in the hands of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia . ‘The spirit helps you to carry on,’ said Betancourt, who has repeatedly spoken of her Catholic faith and of a ‘spiritual protection.’ Earlier, her sister Astrid said doctors had recommended rest for Betancourt, who has been rushed from interview to press conference to official reception in the few days since her release. Snatched from the grip of Marxist FARC rebels in a Colombian army operation on Wednesday along with three US hostages and 11 Colombians, Betancourt arrived in France two days later on board a French presidential plane from Bogota. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, on Saturday called his counterparts in Ecuador and Argentina, Rafael Correa and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, to thank them for their support in the freeing of the hostages. Bogota says the 15 captives were rescued after Colombian soldiers posing as rebels arrived at a FARC jungle hideout and tricked the guerrillas into handing them over, ostensibly to be transferred to another rebel site. But Colombia has been forced onto the defensive following a Swiss report saying the bloodless operation was arranged in advance with the help of 20 million dollars paid to bribe the hostages’ guards. To counter the claims, Colombia’s military has released a video showing the hostages sobbing with relief aboard a helicopter upon discovering they had been freed.

Ortega threatens opposition for conspiring with US help

Agence France-Presse . Managua

The Nicaragua president, Daniel Ortega, charged Saturday that the opposition was ‘openly conspiring’ with US help to overthrow his government, and threatened to unleash ‘weapons of war’ if they did not stop. Thousands of Nicaraguans marched against Ortega last month after the Electoral Tribunal disqualified two political parties from the November municipal and the 2011 general elections. ‘We want peace, but we’re also prepared to raise the steel weapons of war if they try to overthrow the people’s government, the power of ordinary citizens,’ Ortega said on the 29th anniversary of the rebel uprising that overthrew the Anastasio Somoza dictatorship. The leftist former Sandinista strongman who led the 1979 coup and was elected president in 2006, called opposition members ‘traitors’ in the pay of the US Embassy in Managua.

Firefighters seeking grip on California blazes

Agence France-Presse . Los Angeles

Firefighters reported progress in their fight against two large wildfires that threatened Sunday thousands of homes along California’s coastline. With more than 330 wildfires listed as active across the state, attention focused on blazes near the tourist haven of Big Sur and the town of Goleta, near Santa Barbara, 103 miles north of Los Angeles. The Goleta blaze has forced the evacuation of 2,663 homes according to latest figures and jumped to more than 8,350 acres overnight as it ripped through forest and chapparal that has not burnt for 50 years. An army of 1,186 firefighters were tackling the blaze, which was 24 per cent contained on Saturday. Efforts to tame the fire have been hampered by the region’s steep slopes and deep ravines. Incident commander James Smith said weary firecrews faced a crucial day as they attempted to tighten their grip on the fires before the return of night-time winds known as ‘sundowners.’ ‘This is going to be a critical day for us,’ Smith was quoted by local media as saying at a briefing. ‘We want to be vigilant, we want to stay persistent and put a good amount of effort in the east today...so we can seal it up...so we can focus on the west tomorrow.’ The blaze has cost 6.2 million dollars to fight in the four days it has been burning, The Los Angeles Times reported, citing local officials. Later Saturday, the California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, visited the command centre overseeing the firefight and told a briefing that the unprecedented firestorm had stretched resources thing.

15 killed in Iraq attacks

Agence France-Presse . Baghdad

At least 15 people were killed across Iraq on Sunday, including seven by a bomb targeting a local leader of president Jalal Talabani’s political party, officials said. The bomb exploded in the town of Qara Tappa in the restive province of Diyala outside the house of Mohammed Ramadan Eisa, a local leader of Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the town’s mayor Sherwan Shukra said. ‘Eisa was seriously wounded in the blast but his wife, mother-in-law, his two children, one brother and two of his guards were killed,’ Shukra said. Qara Tappa is 70 kilometres north of Baquba, the provincial capital. ‘The incident occurred when all the victims were standing in front of the house. They were probably getting ready to go somewhere,’ Shukra said. A local police officer said three more of Eisa’s guards were wounded in the blast. In another attack in Diyala province, this time in the town of Kana’an, one civilian was killed and four were wounded when an army patrol was targeted by a roadside bomb, a police officer said. Another civilian was killed when police clashed with ‘rogue’ members of a local anti-Qaeda group in central Baquba, the officer added.

South Ossetia comes again under Georgian fire: separatists

Agence France-Presse . Moscow

A town in Georgia’s rebel region of South Ossetia came under fire from the Georgian side of the border overnight, the Russian Vesti-24 channel reported early Sunday quoting a South Ossetian spokesman. A police post in the village of Ubiat came under fire from guns and grenade-launchers, the spokesman for the South Ossetian side in the joint commission on the crisis resolution said, adding that there were no reports on damage or casualties. Tensions soared in South Ossetia on Friday after separatists said two people were killed by intense shelling and threatened to retaliate with heavy weapons. Russia accused Tbilisi of carrying out an ‘act of aggression’ against South Ossetia, while the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe expressed concern over the fighting – the heaviest in the volatile region so far this year. Tbilisi regularly accuses Russia of seeking to annex South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, and derail its efforts to join the NATO military alliance. Russia in turn accuses Georgia of preparing to take back the breakaway regions by force.