Egypt's new PM vows to meet protesters' demands

CAIRO – Egypt's new prime minister designate has vowed before thousands of mostly young demonstrators at a central Cairo square that he'll do everything he can to meet their demands, pleading they turn their attention to "rebuilding" the country.

Essam Sharaf was picked by Egypt's ruling military on Thursday to replace Ahmed Shafiq as prime minister.

Shafiq was the last premier to be named by Hosni Mubarak, who stepped down Feb. 11 at the end of 18 days of anti-government protests.

A former transport minister, Sharaf endeared himself to the protesters when he joined the demonstrations that forced Mubarak to resign.

He told the crowd at Tahrir Square on Friday that he gains his "legitimacy" from the demonstrators but declined to take an oath of office before them as they demanded.

Ivorian forces kill 7 Women, post-election toll hits 365

ABIDJAN (Reuters) – Ivorian security forces shot dead seven women protestors on Thursday and the United Nations said at least 365 people had died in violence since disputed elections that have taken the country to the brink of civil war.

Many others were wounded in the attack on the all-women demonstration against incumbent Laurent Gbagbo in the northern Abidjan suburb of Abobo, two witnesses and a security source said.

The U.N. said some 200,000 people had fled their homes in Abobo, leaving it almost completely deserted after heavy fighting last week.

The power struggle between presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara and Gbagbo, who has rejected widespread calls to stand down after a November 28 election, could push the top cocoa grower back into civil war.

ICE cocoa hit a fresh 32-year peak of $3,726 a tonne in early trading on Thursday as the crisis deepened.

The incident took place as women gathered at the Anador roundabout in Abobo for a planned march to call on Gbagbo to step down, an eye witness said.

"Men in uniform drove up and started shooting randomly. Six women died on the spot. They were all shot and the other women are crying," said Idrissa Diarrassouba. A seventh woman later died in hospital.

A poll meant to reunify a country divided since its 2002-3 war has instead triggered a crisis that has seen killings and forced people from their homes in Abidjan and the west, where some 70,000 have crossed into Liberia.

Last week Abobo saw heavy clashes between pro-Gbagbo forces and gunmen who are calling themselves the "invisible commandos" and have taken control of parts of the area. Pro-Gbagbo forces remain in the area around Anador.

Another Abobo resident said that 10 women had been killed and dozens others wounded when the security forces opened fire.

"I'm standing next to a body right now, with a bullet hole in her neck," said Moussa Fofana, a teacher.

There was no official comment on the incident. A military source confirmed the shooting but said it had been an accident.

"It was a blunder that we regret," the source said, adding the security forces had opened fire due to the tension and the fact they believe rebels sometimes hide amongst civilians to attack them. "It is unfortunate that this happened," he said.

Gbagbo has retained the loyalty of much of the security forces but has been hit by a raft of sanctions. Ouattara, meanwhile has the support of the international community and is holed up in an Abidjan hotel, protected by U.N. troops.

Both men have set up their own governments but neither are functioning properly and the economy is paralyzed.

MOUNTING TOLLS

U.N. mission spokesman Hamadoun Toure said the official confirmed death toll from violence since the election was 365, but diplomats believe the real figure to be far higher because the Ivorian military rarely discloses casualties of its own or civilians killed by its troops.

Toure said at least 26 civilians were killed and more than 200,000 displaced from Abobo since fighting flared up.

The International Crisis Group think tank warned Gbagbo was ready to fight to the end "even if it meant throwing Ivory Coast into anarchy and economic disaster," and said Ouattara should seek to form a national unity government to heal divisions.

"The most likely scenario in the coming months is armed conflict involving massive violence against civilians, Ivorian and foreign alike, that could provoke unilateral military intervention by neighbors, starting with Burkina Faso," ICG said in a report "Is War the Only Option?."

Scores of gunmen and civilians are believed to have been killed in fighting in the past week, residents say.

Toure told journalists negotiations were ongoing with both sides to open up a humanitarian corridor into Abobo in order to bring in food aid and medicine.

He was concerned by reports the "invisible commandos" were preventing some civilians from leaving the areas they control and by attacks against U.N. staff by Gbagbo's youth supporters, who have set up road blocks all over Abidjan to search vehicles of suspected rebels or U.N. staff Gbagbo accuses of aiding them.

Gadhafi troops deploy ahead of Tripoli protests

TRIPOLI, Libya – Fighters loyal to Moammar Gadhafi set up checkpoints in Tripoli, searching cars, ahead of planned anti-government protests Friday, raising fears of new bloodshed in the Libyan capital where a heavy crackdown the past week has spread fear among residents.

The opposition has called for protesters to march out of mosques after noon prayers in demonstrations demanding Gadhafi's ouster. Similar protests last Friday were met by brutal retaliation: Pro-regime militiamen opened fire immediately on the marches, killing and wounding a still unknown number.

Internet services, which have been spotty throughout Libya's upheaval, appeared to be halted completely in Tripoli on Friday, as well as in Benghazi, the opposition's stronghold in the east. The extent of the cutoff was not clear. Also, Libyan authorities barred many foreign journalists from leaving their hotel in Tripoli, claiming it was for their protection because they had information "al-Qaida elements" plan to open fire on police to spark clashes.

Several hours before prayers, streets were eerily empty, with few residents out. Security forces, however, began to take up positions.

In Tajoura, an eastern district of the capital where protests a week ago were attacked, police set up two checkpoints on the main highway leading to downtown. They stopped cars to search them, check drivers' ID and ask where they were going or coming from. Another police car was set up not far from the district's main Murad Agha Mosque.

Friday could be a significant test of whether the opposition can maintain protests in Tripoli in the face of a fearsome clampdown. The capital is crucial to the Libyan leader, his strongest remaining bastion after the uprising that began on Feb. 15 broke the entire eastern half of Libya out of his control and even swept over some cities in the west near Tripoli.

The crisis has turned into something of deadlock between the two sides. Gadhafi's forces have been unable to take back significant ground from the rebellion — which has repelled repeated attacks on several opposition-held cities. At the same time, his opponents, made up of ragtag citizen militias backed by mutinous army units, don't seem to have the capabilities to make a military move against territory still in regime hands.

Instead, the eastern-based opposition is hoping that residents of those areas — including Tripoli — will be able to rise up like they did in other cities where protesters drove out Gadhafi loyalists.

Gadhafi loyalists have been working to make sure that doesn't happen in the capital by unleashing a wave of arrests and disappearances since last Friday's bloodshed. Bodies of people who vanished have been dumped in the street. Gunmen in SUVs have descended on homes in the night to drag away suspected protesters, identified by video footage of protests that militiamen have pored through to spot faces. Other militiamen have searched hospitals for wounded to take away.

Residents say they are under the watchful eyes of a variety of Gadhafi militias prowling the streets. They go under numerous names — Internal Security, the Central Support Force, the People's Force, the People's Guards and the Brigade of Mohammed al-Magarif, the head of Gadhafi's personal guard — and they are all searching for suspected protesters.

"While you are speaking to me now, there are spies everywhere and people watching me and you," one man said, cutting short a conversation with an Associated Press reporter visiting the Tripoli district of Zawiyat al-Dahman on Thursday.

The fear among Gadhafi opponents is so intense that when one family set up a mourning tent in Tripoli's Fashloum neighborhood on Thursday for a 56-year-old protester killed last Friday, no one showed up to pay condolences.

During the man's burial several days earlier, "the militia was also there watching us," said the man's brother. He — like other residents — asked that he and his relatives not be identified for fear they too would be hunted down.

He said his brother was shot when militiamen opened fire on protesters emerging from Fashloum's main Al-Baz mosque last week. "My brother was hit with a bullet right in the heart. In minutes he lost all his blood," he said, showing a mobile phone video clip of the body, with a hole in the chest.

While rushing to Tripoli's central hospital, he found militia stationed in front of the building.

"Doctors at the hospital told me that they are taking the injured to underground rooms inside the hospital away from the militia," said the brother, who is a doctor himself.

The number of deaths across Tripoli last Friday is not confirmed. The brother gave the names of six people from Fashloum who were killed. He said other bodies of slain protesters that day were seen being loaded into cars by militiamen and have not been seen since. He said he knows families who are still searching for bodies of their loved ones.

Others were arrested later on. The brother said he knows a 37-year-old man who disappeared for several days afterward. Then his body was dumped in a street in Tripoli's Abu Selim district.

In Tajoura, a 31-year old protester showed the AP on Thursday the houses of his two brothers, who were rounded up in a 3 a.m. raid a day earlier.

The protester said he was on the roof of a nearby building during the raid, counting the militia vehicles: 15 white pickup trucks with People's Guards license plates and two 4x4 Toyotas screeched up to the adjacent houses in a narrow, unpaved alley. They cordoned off the buildings, militiamen leaped over the buildings' fences, froze the door locks off with a compressed substance in cans and broke in. They drove off with his 32- and 35-year-old brothers, whose whereabouts remains unknown, the protester said.

They were among 20 protesters rounded up in Tajoura at that same time, according to various residents.

"They call Tajoura 'the terrorist neighborhood' because we dared to call for ousting Gadhafi," the protester said.

In the home of one of the arrested men, clothes were left scattered around the living room, drawers were open and the TV was still on. The door was intact, but its lock was knocked out. In the bedroom, the mattress was overturned. The protester said money, jewelry and four mobile phones were also taken. Other young men from the family had already been arrested days earlier, he said.

Except for the barking dogs, the house was empty and still.

"We moved their families away from here. There is no way they can stay after what happened," he said, adding that he and his fellow activists had also decided not to spend the night in their homes.

"This is the message to all Libyans: if you say you don't want Gadhafi, this is what will happen to you," he said.

Zimbabwe's Mugabe goes to Singapore for eye check

HARARE, Zimbabwe – A senior government official says Zimbabwe's 87-year-old President Robert Mugabe has returned to Singapore, his fourth visit there this year.

Presidential spokesman George Charamba said the trip is for an eye checkup after the longtime leader underwent cataract surgery in January. Charamba says "there is nothing to cause any alarm."

Mugabe is expected home on Sunday, the state media reported Friday.

At celebrations marking his 87th birthday in February, an increasingly frail Mugabe said even if his body "may get spent" his mind remained young and alert.

But seven weeks away in Asia since December have fueled doubts on the health of Zimbabwe's authoritarian ruler since 1980.

Warship evacuates South Koreans from Libya

SEOUL (AFP) – A warship carrying 32 South Koreans evacuated from strife-torn Libya is set to arrive at the Mediterranean island of Malta, Seoul's defence ministry has said.

The 4,500-ton South Korean destroyer Choi Young left Tripoli on Thursday en route for Valletta, said spokesman Kim Min-Seok.

"After safely transporting them to Malta, the Choi Young will be on standby outside the port of Tripoli to support further evacuation efforts," Kim was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.

The 32 Koreans include three women and three elementary school students, Kim said.

The warship had been stationed in waters near Somalia on anti-piracy patrol before being dispatched to Libya.

Seoul has already evacuated hundreds of nationals via chartered flights and ships while scores of others fled by land to Tunisia and Egypt.

Almost all South Koreans wishing to leave Libya were expected to have left as early as this weekend, officials said.

Some 100 people still want to remain in the country though the number could change if the situation worsens, they said.

Venezuela's Chavez talks up Libya peace plan

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez pushed a vague peace plan for Libya on Thursday, saying his friend Muammar Gaddafi supported foreign mediation and accusing the West of eyeing the North African nation's oil.

Though rebels have rejected talks with the Libyan president and some analysts view the Chavez plan as grand-standing, the socialist leader said the idea had gained traction in Tripoli.

"I was able to speak to Gaddafi yesterday and we proposed a negotiating commission and he said yes," Chavez said, adding that he had also discussed the idea with other Latin American, Middle East and African nations.

"I hope they don't invade Libya ... we want peace."

Gaddafi's son Saif al Islam told Sky News he appreciated the offer but said there was no need for help from Venezuela.

"They are our friends, we respect them, we like them, but they are far away. They have no idea about Libya. Libya is in the Middle East and North Africa. Venezuela is in Central America. We appreciate this," he said.

The Arab League said it was considering the idea but needed more details. Oil markets gave the mediation plan some credence, with prices falling after a rally on worries that the Libya crisis will hit supplies.

Both Chavez and Gaddafi are military men who have cast themselves as anti-imperialist revolutionaries and forged a friendship during half a dozen encounters in the last decade.

Much like his mentor, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Chavez often takes a vocal role in international crises, although his efforts to influence events do not always bear fruit.

Perhaps seeking to increase the plan's credibility, a government source said Venezuela hoped to convince Brazil's former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to lead mediation.

Brazil backed a unanimous U.N. security council vote to impose sanctions on Libya last week. In 2010, Lula sought to raise Brazil's global profile by proposing the South American nation as an unbiased mediator in the crisis over Iran's nuclear program, but was rejected by Western nations.

ACCUSATIONS OF INVASION PLAN

Analysts are skeptical Chavez can help bring a quick end to the fighting in Libya, where Gaddafi faces an increasingly organized rebel army that has said it would only negotiate an end to the leader's 41-year rule.

"Chavez's credibility does not fly very high," said Olivier Jakob of think tank Petromatrix.

"The only value of such a proposal is if it offers some honorable way out for the Gaddafi clan."

Chavez, who has won plaudits in the Arab world for his condemnation of Israel, says Washington is exaggerating reports of repression to justify an invasion of Libya to steal its oil wealth.

"No to the imperialist intervention in Libya! No to the new war that seeks oil at the cost of innocents' blood," he said.

An international war over Libya could send oil prices over $200 to the barrel "and that wouldn't be good for anyone," Chavez added in a speech to a meeting of his Socialist Party.

Along with fellow left-wingers Castro and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Venezuelan officials point to Libya's relatively high levels of education and healthcare to suggest the uprising is over oil not living conditions.

Ecuador, another Chavez ally, said foreign ministers from the left-wing ALBA bloc of Latin American nations would meet in Caracas on Friday to discuss Libya.

Venezuela has been mentioned as a possible destination for Gaddafi if he abandons Libya. He visited the South American fellow OPEC member in 2009, donating a Bedouin tent to Chavez.

A small group demonstrated outside the Libyan Embassy in Caracas calling Chavez an apologist for "assassin" Gaddafi.

Australia welcomes Japanese apology to POWs

SYDNEY (AFP) – Canberra has welcomed an apology made by Tokyo's foreign minister to an emotional group of former Australian prisoners of war for their suffering at the hands of Japanese troops during World War II.

Seiji Maehara made the gesture in person on Thursday to five men now in their 80s and 90s, who travelled to Tokyo from Australia with their families -- more than six decades after the end of the war.

"Minister Maehara reiterated Japan's feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology for the tremendous damage and suffering inflicted on many people during the war," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The Australian government said it welcomed the apology "for the horrors they endured under Japanese control in World War II".

The gesture was made "in a spirit of reconciliation", it added.

Attending the meeting was 89-year-old Australian Norm Anderton, who was used as slave labour by the Japanese on the Thai-Burma railway, also known as the Death Railway owing to the tens of thousands who died during its construction.

Anderton said Maehara's apology "expressed great remorse for the suffering that was inflicted on us".

"It was a very moving experience," he told Australian broadcaster ABC.

Another former POW Harold Ramsey, also 89, from Victoria state, said the apology was "really good, very sincere".

"We waited a long time but it was sincere and a much better time than when I was here before in 1944," he told news radio programme AM.

Maehara also announced that Japan would return to Australia historical records of former Australian POWs held by Japan during the war.

Australian foreign minister Kevin Rudd welcomed the offer of records "which is made in the spirit of cooperation".

The Australian government hopes the Japanese records may shed light on the fate of the members of army unit Lark Force, many of whom were lost when the Japanese transport Montevideo Maru was sunk by a US submarine in 1942.