Morocco calls for calm after riots Saturday, 04 February 2012 00:44

RABAT: Morocco’s Communications Minister Mustapha Khelfi called yesterday for talks and a return to calm after up to 160 people were hurt in clashes between police and youths protesting against high unemployment.

The mid-week clashes in the northeastern town of Taza pitted the police against mainly unemployed youths and other disadvantaged persons, injuring between 150 and 160 people on both sides, a medic said.

“Calm prevails in Taza and we are getting on top of the situation. The authorities are concerned with maintaining order and with responding to the legitimate demands of the population,” Khelfi said.

“Dialogue is the only means to resolve such problems,” he said.

Insofar as the right to demonstrate peacefully is guaranteed, the respect for public property should also be ensured,” Khelfi said.

Morocco’s new government, which was officially put in place by parliament last week, is confronted with difficult social conditions with a high rate of unemployment in the nation of 33 million people, most of whom are poor. The protests, which broke out on Wednesday saw cars torched and public buildings ransacked.

Taza is in one of the poorest parts of the north African kingdom, where such violence is sporadic.

Dozens killed in South Sudan shootout

JUBA: Dozens of people were killed in South Sudan in a shootout at a peace meeting to resolve disputes about stolen cattle, with some reports claiming as many as 37 deaths, officials said yesterday.

“These guys just started shooting everywhere,” said Gideon Gatpan Thoar, Unity state information minister, giving the figure of 37 people killed in Wednesday’s gunfight.

Local officials from Unity and neighbouring Lakes and Warrap states had been taken by the UN for talks to the remote town of Mayendit in Unity after a spate of cattle raids, including a brutal attack last week that killed 79 people.

“The fight just started there and no one knew the cause,” said Lakes state governor Chol Tong Mayay, after gathering accounts from witnesses. “People were just shooting at each other, without knowing whose police and army they were.”

Gunmen, reportedly including rival bodyguards, policemen, soldiers and armed government wildlife officers, sprayed the meeting room with bullets in the battle. What exactly prompted the fight was not known, but United Nations peacekeepers said it erupted after one official interrupted the meeting and shouted at a counterpart.

Mayay said 22 people from Lakes state were killed and 24 wounded, but he did not know how many were killed from the two other states. “Four pick-up trucks carrying armed men believed to be SPLA (army) and SSPS (police) then appeared and started shooting indiscriminately at the Mayendit County Commissioner’s compound,” the UN said, without giving a toll.

Bahrain oppn urges pressure on regime  

MANAMA: Bahrain’s Shia opposition called on yesterday for international pressure on the Sunni-dominated regime it accuses of brushing aside a report denouncing a deadly crackdown on protests last year.

In a statement read at the end of a march through a Shiite suburb of Manama, five opposition parties jointly accused authorities of ignoring recommendations made by an independent commission in November condemning excessive and unjustified violence that killed 35 people. Implementation by the regime requires more international pressure and oversight by the UN High Commission for Human Rights, the statement said.AFP

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