BANGUI (Reuters) - Central African Republic's President Francois Bozize has accepted delaying a presidential election planned for April 25 but he wants the poll held before the end of his term in June, a statement on state radio said.

Bozize and his rivals have clashed over when to hold the election in the nation that is rich in gold, diamonds and uranium but remains poor and suffers from both internal rebellions and regional instability.

Donors and the election commission have said a free and fair election would not be possible on time and have been pushing for a delay but Bozize previously said any such postponement would be unconstitutional.

"I accept the proposition ... by our friends in the international community to delay the election initially set for April 25," Bozize said in a statement read on national radio on Saturday.

"I therefore call on the independent election commission to propose a new date for the elections, so long as it does not fall after June 11, 2010, as we cannot have a legal void," he added, referring to the date his term as president ends.

Bozize came to power in a 2003 coup and then won a five-year term in the last presidential election in 2005.

His government has held reconciliation talks with civilian and rebel rivals, but opposition groups fear the poll will be rigged and several rebel groups continue to operate in the north of the nation.

Bozize's main rivals have set up a new coalition called the "Forces for Change" and late on Friday called for thorough reforms before polls are held.

"For the elections to be transparent, credible and accepted by everyone, we propose three months of (disarmament) operations, three months of registering voters and the holding of elections in January 2011," Nicolas Tchiangaye, a spokesman for the group told reporters.

CAR is one of Africa's most isolated nations and, while facing several internal rebellions, it has also been caught up in regional conflicts involving Sudan, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Libya lifted a visa ban on citizens of 25 European countries on Saturday after EU president Spain said a Swiss-instigated visa blacklist against 188 Libyans in those countries had been scrapped.

The end to the visa ban and the Schengen zone blacklist will likely defuse a crisis that has threatened to damage growing business ties between Europe and oil exporter Libya.

"In the interests of strengthening its cooperation with the European Union, Libya lifts the restrictions it earlier imposed on the citizens of the Schengen zone," Libya's Foreign Ministry said in a communique carried by JANA, the state news agency.

Spain's foreign ministry had earlier issued a statement announcing the visa blacklist had been torn up and expressed regret as part of a diplomatic drive by EU leaders.

"Libya expresses its appreciation at the European Union for this move," JANA quoted the Foreign Ministry statement as saying. "This is a defeat for Switzerland by means of collective European action. Libya accepts the EU decision..."

Libya stopped issuing visas to citizens from the Schengen borderless travel zone in retaliation for Switzerland, a Schengen member, barring entry to 188 Libyan citizens including the country's leader Muammar Gaddafi and members of his family.

The Swiss move prevented the blacklisted Libyans from entering any of the other Schengen states because the terms of the Schengen agreement obligate all members to refuse visas to citizens of countries blacklisted by fellow Schengen nations.

The Schengen area is a borderless travel zone grouping 22 EU nations plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.

GENEVA ARREST

The Spanish statement was issued after Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos arrived for talks in the Libyan town of Sirte, where Gaddafi is this weekend hosting a summit of the Arab League.

"All the names of the Libyan citizens included in the list of the Schengen information system have been removed," the ministry said in a statement which it said came from Spain's EU presidency.



"We regret and deplore the trouble and inconvenience caused to those Libyan citizens. We hope that this move will not be repeated in the future."

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi -- whose country has some of Europe's closest business ties to Libya and who has criticised the Swiss visa blacklist -- was also in Sirte on Saturday as Gaddafi's guest.

Switzerland has been locked in a diplomatic dispute with oil exporter Libya since July 2008, when police in Geneva arrested Hannibal Gaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader, on charges of mistreating two domestic employees.

In February Gaddafi urged jihad against Switzerland and earlier this month Libya slapped a trade embargo against Switzerland.

The charges were swiftly dropped and Hannibal Gaddafi was released, but Libya stopped oil exports to Switzerland and withdrew millions of dollars from Swiss banks.

The Swiss government is pushing for the release from prison of Max Goeldi, a Swiss businessman who was barred from leaving Libya soon after Hannibal Gaddafi's arrest. He is serving a four-month sentence for breaking immigration rules.

Libyan officials deny any connection between Goeldi's prosecution and Hannibal Gaddafi's arrest.

A senior Libyan official, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters on Friday that Goeldi would be freed "very soon." Goeldi's lawyer said if his client was to be released early it would happen after the summit ends on Sunday.

CAIRO (Reuters) - President Hosni Mubarak returned to Egypt on Saturday, landing in Sharm El Sheikh where he will reassume presidential powers while recovering from gallbladder surgery in Germany, state television showed.

Live coverage showed the 81-year-old Mubarak descend from the door of the plane on an escalator and take measured steps as he shook hands with the government officials and military officers there to greet him after three weeks away, his longest absence over nearly three-decades in power.

"President Hosni Mubarak has arrived at Sharm El Sheikh international airport after a successful medical trip," a state television anchor said.

Mubarak, who handed over presidential powers just before his operation to Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, will reassume them upon arriving in Egypt, a government official said.

Mubarak's absence unsettled local financial markets and fuelled political uncertainty as Egyptians were reminded that the president, who has been in power since 1981, has not named a successor.

Egypt's stock market fell sharply in the days after the president's March 6 operation to remove benign tissue, before steadying when images of him sitting and chatting with doctors were broadcast.

SUCCESSOR

"Egypt is witnessing a period of instability and the president's absence, especially for health reasons and surgery, has heightened people's worries," Abdel Aziz Husseini, spokesman for the protest movement Kefaya, told Reuters.

Mubarak has not said whether he plans to run for a sixth six-year term in a presidential election due in 2011. His 46-year-old son Gamal has been widely touted as a successor, but father and son have both denied there are any such plans.

"The question is what will happen now that Mubarak has returned. Will he finally assign a vice president following an absence for health reasons?" said self-exiled political analyst Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who urged the president "to give Egyptians some measure of certainty".

Other possible presidential candidates include former U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who in his first public appearance since returning to Egypt last month was met by supporters chanting "Your are our hope" at Friday prayers.

Markus Buechler, Mubarak's German doctor at Heidelberg University Hospital, said in a statement the president has recovered from surgery but needed further rest.

"The president has fully recovered ... I have recommended however that the president continues his convalescence back home during the coming two weeks before he gradually returns to full and normal activity."

Parliament speaker Fathi Sorour and Defence Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi were among several officials receiving Mubarak. Ahmed El-Tayeb, head of al-Azhar, Egypt's seat of Islamic learning, and Pope Shenouda III, the country's highest Christian authority, were also present.

The president was accompanied by his wife Suzanne Mubarak and his two sons Alaa and Gamal. The family climbed into a vehicle after greeting officials.

2010-03-27


CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak left hospital in Germany on Saturday, three weeks after undergoing gall bladder surgery, and was flying home after the longest absence of his nearly three decades in power.

"President Mubarak has departed the hospital now and is on his way to Baden-Baden airport to fly back to Sharm El Sheikh," Information Minister Anas el-Feki told Reuters.

Mubarak, who handed presidential powers just before his operation to Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, will reassume them upon arriving in Egypt, a government official said. He was due to land at 4:30 p.m. (1430 GMT).

His three-week absence hit local financial markets and fuelled political uncertainty as Egyptians were reminded that the president, in power since 1981, has not named a successor.

Egypt's stock market fell sharply in the days after the president's operation to remove benign tissue, before steadying when images of him sitting and chatting with doctors were broadcast.

"Egypt is witnessing a period of instability and the president's absence, especially for health reasons and surgery, has heightened people's worries," Abdel Aziz Husseini, spokesman for the protest movement Kefaya, told Reuters.

"The question is what will happen now that Mubarak has returned. Will he finally assign a vice-president following an absence for health reasons?" said exiled political analyst Saad Eddin Ibrahim, urging Mubarak "to give Egyptians some measure of certainty".

SUCCESSION UNCLEAR

Mubarak has not said whether he plans to run for a sixth six-year term in a presidential election due in 2011. While his son Gamal is widely touted as a successor, both father and son deny such plans.

Possible presidential candidates include former U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who in his first public appearance since returning to Egypt last month was meet by supporters chanting "Your are our hope" at Friday prayers.

Members of Mubarak's National Democratic Party welcomed his return, saying his absence had not shaken stability in Egyptian politics.

"The smooth passing of this period of the president's absence without any kind of a power struggle within Egypt is proof of the political stability of the country and its government," Gihad Oudah, a member of the NDP's policy committee headed by Gamal Mubarak, told Reuters.

Oudah denied there was any "political wrangling" within Egypt and said opposition members like ElBaradei and others had the right to be politically active within the limits of the constitution.

Mubarak's German doctor, Markus Buechler, said in a statement: "The president has fully recovered ... I have recommended however that the president continues his convalesence back home during the coming two weeks before he gradually returns to full and normal activity."

2010-03-27

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe, whose main daily newspaper is state owned and biggest private papers are weeklies, should speed up registration of newspapers to boost democratic reforms, a senior cabinet minister said on Saturday.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti told a pan-African journalists' conference that Zimbabwe lagged other countries in establishing a legal and political environment conducive for a free press.

But he said the southern African state -- whose media is dominated by the government and whose laws bar foreign journalists from working long-term in the country -- would correct this through a new constitution being drafted and the recently formed Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC).

"I hope the ZMC will begin to do their work in earnest, begin to move fast in registering (new) newspapers," he said, adding that Zimbabwe should also end the state's monopoly in television and radio broadcasting.

"The media is the guardian angel of democracy. It keeps in check those holding political power," he said.

Biti -- secretary-general of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) which formed a power-sharing government with veteran President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF a year ago -- said the current media environment reflected the slow pace of reforms all round.

"But the good news is that we have begun to take decisive steps to extricate ourselves," he said.

A UNESCO representative at the conference said the organisation was prepared to help the ZMC in its work to improve the media environment, including training journalists.

"UNESCO stands ready to assist. Bad journalism should never be used as an excuse to denying freedom of expression," said Mogens Schmidt, a deputy assistant director in the UN agency.

The ZMC said last week it would soon start licensing private newspapers as part of reforms agreed by the power-sharing government.

Under Mugabe's ZANU-PF administration, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, a state-appointed body used stringent media laws to police the newspaper industry, forcing several titles to close.

Critics say the new media commission is moving slowly in its work at the behest of ZANU-PF, a charge the organisation denies.

2010-03-27

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Egyptian police shot dead two African migrants as they tried to cross the border into Israel on Saturday, security and medical sources said.

Five other African migrants were injured, and police detained a further three, the sources said.

Egyptian police have killed 11 migrants this year, and at least 19 were killed last year.

The Sinai border is a major transit route for Africans seeking work or asylum in Israel. Eritreans are the largest group attempting the journey, although Ethiopians and Sudanese also make the trek.

Egypt has come under pressure from Israel to staunch the flow, while rights groups complain about the methods of the border police.

An Israeli journalist was arrested this month at the border after paying smuggling gangs to let him witness their operations and slip back into Israel with a group of migrants. He was released a week later.

The United Nations and Amnesty International have called on Egypt to check its border guards' use of excessive force against unarmed migrants. Egypt rejected comments by the U.N. human right chief earlier this month, saying they were "full of mistakes and incorrect allegations".

Security forces say they fire at migrants only if repeated orders to stop are disregarded and that smugglers who ferry migrants to the border sometimes fire on security forces.

2010-03-27

FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma said on Saturday he will sack up to 200 doctors and senior nurses who are one strike in and around the capital if they do not return to work on Monday.

The West African nation, which is still trying to recover from a 1991-2002 war and often lacks basic health services, has been crippled by a two week health workers' strike around the country over pay and conditions.

The government has drafted in the army and police to try to help out. Some workers have now accepted a deal but others, including an association of senior nurses and doctors in Freetown and other western areas, are holding out.

Koroma said in a statement that he had engaged in talks with unions and addressed issues including increases in salaries and allowances for transport and housing.

Therefore, continued strike action was illegal and anyone not at work on Monday would face dismissal, he said in the statement which was read out on state television.

The Sierra Leone Labour Congress, which says it represents the majority of workers in the health sector, has distanced itself from workers still on strike.

But a spokesman for the group which is holding out, complained they had not been engaged in dialogue. "We will continue our strike until our demands of salary, housing and transport allowances are address by the government," the spokesman said.

Donors have rallied around Sierra Leone since the end of the war and the nation's hopes for prosperity have been boosted by an oil find on its border with Liberia.

Last year rights group Amnesty International highlighted the poor health services in Sierra Leone with a report that said one in eight women risk dying during pregnancy or childbirth, giving the nation one of the highest maternal death rates in the world.

2014-03-27

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A government official and three other people were killed on Saturday by a roadside bomb triggered by remote control in the Somali capital, witnesses and police said.

Ahmed Mohamud, district commissioner of the Mogadishu district of Hamar Jajab, was killed while driving in a part of the city controlled by the government and African Union peacekeepers.

"He died on the spot, two soldiers and a civilian woman also died there," police officer Abdi Hassan told Reuters.

The rebel group al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack which also left several people wounded.

"Our bombs unit was responsible for the bomb that killed a senior official of the infidel government," al Shabaab said in a statement.

Elsewhere, a male civilian and a policeman were killed in clashes at a site near the airport where the government began clearing the area this week to improve security, a resident said.

"We were living here since the fall of Siad Barre (Somalia's former ruler) and we don't know where to move now," Hussein ali Ahmed, one of the residents affected, told Reuters.

"We are outside with our children, the place is surrounded by government troops pulling down our homes," he added.

Somalia has had no effective government for 19 years and the the government has been promising an assault on the al Shabaab -- viewed by Washington as al Qaeda's proxy in the region -- to drive them out of the capital.

2010-23-27

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Travel restrictions slapped on Zimbabwean officials from President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party should be lifted to help the unity government function effectively, South African President Jacob Zuma said.

Zuma, who is mediating in a dispute between Zanu-PF and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party, noted that one side in the power-sharing government was subject to international sanctions while the other was not.

"What's happening is that one part of unity government, the MDC, can travel all they want, around the world and do what they want while the other part, the ZANU-PF, cannot," he told a reporters on Friday at the end of a visit to Uganda.

"That's impeding the functioning of the unity government and so the international community that supported the power-sharing agreement must also lift the sanctions to allow the unity government to function to its full capacity."

Zuma has previously urged western powers to lift sanctions imposed before the two rival sides agreed on the unity government in 2008. The government is riven by conflict and Mugabe said on Friday he would implement terms of the agreement with Tsvangirai only if the West removed sanctions on his allies.

Zuma and his host Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni also discussed the situation in Democratic Republic of Congo. In a statement they said they had agreed that while security there was improving, the United Nation's peacekeeping mission, MONUC, was still needed to provide stability.

Zuma, who travelled with a business delegation, said Uganda offered investment opportunities for South African companies. A Ugandan official told Reuters that some South African investors were keen to participate in Uganda's budding petroleum sector.

The east African country discovered oil in 2006 and exploration companies currently estimate reserves at about 2 billion barrels.

"The mining, oil and refining of petroleum sector with the discovery of oil in the Lake Albert region provides new areas of business," Zuma said at a business forum in Kampala on Friday.

Museveni said he had not discussed any detailed plans for South African investment in Uganda with his counterpart.

"We didn't discuss anything specific on oil but we have two areas where South Africa can help us and those will be discussed when our minister for minerals meets with his South African counterpart," Museveni said.

2010-03-27

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Somali pirates have hijacked an Iranian ship carrying $4 million worth of Egyptian oranges off the coast of Yemen, Iranian media said on Saturday.

Fars news agency quoted Reza Nourani, head of the fresh fruits importers and exporters union, as saying the 5,000-tonne ship was seized last week while heading to Iran from Egypt.

The media reports said the ship was currently 640 km (400 miles) off the coast of Somalia and the hijackers were believed to be Somali.

Nourani said the ship was named as Talca and belongs to two members of the Iranian union.

Somali pirates have stepped up attacks in recent months, making tens of millions of dollars in ransoms from seizing ships in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.

2010-03-28

SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Arab states should prepare for the possibility that the Palestinian-Israeli peace process may be a total failure and prepare alternatives, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said on Saturday.

He did not specify what the alternatives might be.

The troubled Middle East peace process suffered a fresh setback when the Palestinians warned that indirect talks with the Israelis would not take place unless Israel cancelled a decision to build 1,600 new homes in a settlement near east Jerusalem.

Speaking to Arab leaders at a summit of the Arab League in the Libyan town of Sirte, Moussa said the peace process had reached a turning point and that it was time for Arab states to stand up to Israel.

He also said the Arab League should open a dialogue with Tehran to address concerns, especially among Iran's neighbours across the Gulf, about its nuclear programme.

"We have to study the possibility that the peace process will be a complete failure," Moussa said in his opening speech to the summit.

"It's time to face Israel. We have to have alternative plans because the situation has reached a turning point," he said.

"The peace process has entered a new stage, perhaps the last stage. We have accepted the efforts of mediators.

"We have accepted an open-ended peace process but that resulted in a loss of time and we did not achieve anything and allowed Israel to practice its policy for 20 years."

He did not say what alternatives there were to the peace process, but it could involve a a revival of the Arab Peace Initiative, which was first proposed by Saudi Arabia at the Arab League's summit in Beirut in 2002.

Under that initiative, Arab countries would normalise relations with Israel in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories and a fair settlement for Palestinian refugees.

2010-03-27

RAFAHA, Sudan (Reuters) - Sudan's ousted prime minister accused the government on Saturday of destroying the country and forcing the separation of the south as he took his campaign for re-election to one of his traditional heartlands.

Sadeq al-Mahdi, a descendant of the self-proclaimed Mahdi who fought the British in the 19th century, was overthrown by Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 1989.

Mahdi, Sudan's last elected leader, is one of the main presidential candidates in elections, due to start on April 11, that have been marred by delays and opposition charges of fraud.

"This country was destroyed by the programme of a partisan minority," he told Reuters in Rafaha, a town in Sudan's rural Gezira state where he was surrounded by hundreds of supporters.

He said Bashir's Islamist backers had forced their ideology on to Sudan's multicultural society. "(This) has been the main reason why the country has been polarised and broken up."

Mahdi, the leader of the opposition Umma party, said Bashir's divisive rule had incited the revolt in western Darfur and strengthened an independence movement in the oil-producing south, where most follow Christianity and traditional beliefs.

"This has taken the country to very dangerous waters...This polarisation has got the potential to make the south secede and secede into a hostile neighbouring state. This is one of the costs that Sudan has incurred by this coup."

Bashir's government signed a peace deal with southern rebels in 2005 that promised the elections and a referendum on whether the south should secede. Southerners are widely expected to choose independence in the ballot due in January 2011.

Umma's campaign has been overshadowed by that of Bashir's National Congress Party which has jetted its leader around the country with a media entourage.

Mahdi had to drive past a long line of Bashir street hoardings as he approached his first stop of his Gezira tour late on Friday, crossing a new bridge over the Blue Nile.

Crowds of people cheered as the convoy passed outside shops with a few A4-sized Umma party posters on display.

"Our posters aren't the same quality as the National Congress Party's and we don't have so many," said Khalafala Ahmed El-Sherif, Umma's candidate for Gezira governor.

"But they don't have the voices of the people behind them. We have a lot of support here..And we are putting our trust in the international observers."

Mahdi said Umma and other opposition groups still reserved the right to boycott the elections, in protest at perceived irregularities. But he hoped parties would choose to run.

"I think it is a negative thing to boycott...We say it is necessary to contest the elections. Because if there is any degree of freedom and fairness, we think he (Bashir) will be defeated. If not we will document the corruption and reject the results."

LOME (Reuters) - The Togolese government and opposition have agreed on the postponement of a demonstration planned for Saturday against the re-election earlier this month of President Faure Gnassingbe, officials from both sides said.

The opposition says the result of the March 4 election, which gave victory to Gnassingbe with just over 60 percent of the vote, was rigged. It had planned to hold a rally in the capital, Lome, on Saturday.

Security forces used teargas to disperse demonstrators earlier this week and the authorities outlawed further protests. An official of the main opposition group UFC had said its rally would go ahead.

However, according to a joint statement read on state television late on Friday, the two sides agreed Saturday's march should be postponed "in order to avoid any recurrence of violence and to preserve the atmosphere of peace".

Opposition spokesman Kofi Yamgnane said the demonstration would probably take place next Saturday.

Wednesday's protest was the latest in a series since the election, although most have been peaceful. In 2005, 500 people were killed in post-election violence.

International observers said the election in the phosphate-producing country appeared generally free and fair.

2010-03-27

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian opposition politicians were barred from visiting their jailed leader, Birtukan Mideksa, on Saturday after a U.S State Department human rights report said her mental health has deteriorated.

Eight opposition politicians asked for access to Birtukan at the prison. They were met by prison head Abebe Zemichael and, after a heated argument in the street outside, were refused permission for not being family members.

Unity for Democracy and Justice party (UDJ) leader Birtukan, a 36-year-old single mother, is seen by analysts as the biggest threat to the almost 20-year-rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Ethiopia holds parliamentary elections on May 23.

"We are here today because we are worried about her health and we want to see for ourselves what her condition is," senior UDJ official Seye Abraha told Reuters at the entrance to Kaliti prison, 20 km from the capital Addis Ababa.

"Only her mother and her daughter have been given access to her. They bar friends, they bar party colleagues, no lawyer, no independent doctors."

Ethiopia's last elections in 2005 ended with violence after the opposition said the government fixed its victory.

About 200 protesters were killed by soldiers in riots and opposition leaders, including Birtukan, were jailed for life after Meles said they were trying to oust him.

They were pardoned and released in 2007 when they signed a letter admitting to provoking the violence. Birtukan was sent back to prison in December 2008 after she denied responsibility for the trouble and said she did not ask for a pardon.

The U.S. State Department's human rights report for 2009 said this month: "There were credible reports that Birtukan's mental health deteriorated significantly during the year."

It called her a political prisoner, echoing rights groups.

"She is severely depressed," a relative who did not want to be named told Reuters. "We need to get an independent doctor, not a prison one, to see her."

Ethiopian law permits friends and lawyers to visit prisoners.

Meles has said Birtukan was in "perfect" health, but that diplomats and journalists would not be allowed to visit her.

Analysts say Meles' Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition will win the May 23 poll.

The opposition says this is because they are harassed and jailed. The government says the opposition is trying to discredit a poll it has no chance of winning.

2010-03-27
CAIRO (Reuters) - Hundreds of worshippers greeted potential Egyptian presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei when he attended midday prayers at a Cairo mosque in his first public appearance since returning home to much fanfare in February.

Worshippers and bystanders rushed to accompany ElBaradei to the 800-year-old al-Hussein mosque in the capital's historic Islamic district for Friday prayers, with many chanting "Long live Egypt" and "You are our hope".

Prior to the mosque visit he had not made a public appearance, instead hosting opposition leaders and academics and giving media interviews at his house on Cairo's outskirts.

ElBaradei's return to Egypt after 12 years as head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has energised the country's calcified political scene, weakened by decades of autocratic rule under President Hosni Mubarak.

Around a thousand supporters met ElBaradei on his return to Egypt last month, but he left the airport without addressing the crowd, which had become unruly.

Mubarak, who is in Germany recovering from a March 6 surgery, has not said whether he plans to run for a sixth six-year term in a presidential election due in 2011. If he does not, many Egyptians believe he will try to hand power to his son Gamal. Both father and son deny such plans.

UNCERTAINTY

The president's prolonged absence from the country for medical reasons has focused attention on who might succeed him and whether they would continue the government's economic liberalisation programme.

Allies of Gamal Mubarak in the cabinet hold key economic portfolios.

Egypt's stock market fell sharply in the days after the president's operation, before steadying when images of him sitting and chatting with doctors were broadcast.

ElBaradei has said he would consider a presidential bid if certain demands are met, including constitutional changes to limit power, judicial supervision of the vote and equal media coverage of all candidates.

Political analysts say the chances of securing such changes by next year are remote, while any presidential bid faces a huge challenge in the most populous Arab country as rules make it almost impossible for anyone to succeed without the backing of Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party, which dominates parliament.

Egypt experimented with its first multi-candidate presidential election in 2005 that it touted as a process of democratisation, but which critics panned as a sham.

SIRTE, Libya, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Libya has lifted a ban on visas for citizens of the Schengen zone, the Foreign Ministry announced Saturday.

"In the interests of strengthening its cooperation with the European Union, Libya lifts the restrictions it earlier imposed on the citizens of the Schengen zone," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official JANA news agency.

The Libyan move came after the EU announced earlier Saturday to remove all the names of Libyan citizens from a blacklist, which banned them from entering the Schengen zone, a borderless travel zone comprised of 22 EU states plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.

The blacklist, initiated by Switzerland in July 2008 following a diplomatic row involving Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son, prevents 188 Libyan citizens, including Gaddafi and his family members, from entering any of the Schengen states.

The EU had been pushing for a diplomatic drive to resolve the issue, which threatens to damage its growing business ties with Libya, an oil exporter.

"All the names of the Libyan citizens included in the list of the Schengen information system have been removed," the Spanish Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday, shortly after Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos arrived in the Libyan town of Sirte, where Gaddafi is hosting a summit of the Arab League.

Spain is holder of the rotating EU presidency in the first half of 2010.

"We regret and deplore the trouble and inconvenience caused to those Libyan citizens. We hope that this move will not be repeated in the future," said the EU presidency statement.

In July 2008, Swiss police arrested Hannibal Gaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader, on charges of mistreating two domestic employees. Libya retaliated by stopping oil exports to Switzerland and withdrawing savings from Swiss banks. Gaddafi, the leader, urged jihad against Switzerland.

Though the charges were later dropped and Hannibal was released, the two sides had been locked in a diplomatic dispute.

CAIRO, March 27 (Xinhua) -- "My mother is an environment activist and I'd like to follow the steps of mama," Mathew, a nine- year-old Canadian boy who lives in Cairo, said while observing the Earth Hour at the Giza Pyramids.

"My mom goes to eco-club and I am signed up for the eco-club and then we are even learning about the environment," he said.

In the famed Giza Pyramids on the western outskirts of Cairo, all lights and sound systems were tuned off for one hour starting from 08:30 p.m. (1830 GMT). Egypt's well-known sound and light show completely stopped during the hour.

Many Egyptian bodies and organizations participated in the Earth Hour campaign on Saturday for the second year in response to calls by the ministries of environment and electricity to show solidarity with the people all over the world against climate change.

"This is the second year that Misr Light and Sound Company takes part in the Earth Hour and it commit itself to turning off all sound and light systems in the archeological sites it operates in," said Maged Eldeeb, director of the Sound and Light Show in the Pyramids plateau.

Earth Hour was launched in Sydney, Australia in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against the climate change. A year later, it became a global sustainability movement.

Nowadays the event which was promoted by an initiative from the World Wildlife Fund gains the support of almost 5 million people and a global network in more than 100 countries.

"I have done it last year and the year before but it is the first time we come to the Pyramids to celebrate here. I am from Canada but I am living currently in Egypt ... I could not imagine a more magical place than the pyramids in Egypt when the light is switched off," Lisa Ashbey, a 30-year-old environmental activist, said.

Ashbey who also celebrated the occasion last year in her house in Cairo said she believes the event is of big symbolic significance for the climatic dilemma of the earth.

"It won't completely change. But I think it is so important that people from all around the world are reminded of how important it is to look after our earth," she said.

"It doesn't matter what country you are from, we are on the same planet and we need to look after this planet for us and for the future generations and by doing it today it reminds us of things that we can do tomorrow and each day," she said.

Eldeeb, however, said that the event could be a good opportunity for his fellow citizens to give a strong message to people worldwide about the importance of taking action to protect the earth against the climate change.

"There is a message that we want to give through our participation. It is that we, the Egyptians, share the world issue, " he said.

"And there are many groups and organizations taking part in the event to underline the necessity to protect our planet against the dangers of pollution and noise to guarantee a safe and sound life for us and the coming generations," Eldeeb said.

But it still needs time for the message to be heard by all.

Outside the Pyramids, everything went on normally. No light was turned off in the souvenir shops, and the only change was that visitors were a little bit fewer, which made each of them have a bigger share of light.

"It is really interesting that people are turning off the light at this time ... we did it last year at our house in Cairo," said Benjamin, a 12-year-old boy who was with Ashbey at the Pyramids.

CAIRO, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak returned home on Saturday after a three-week medical trip in Germany during which he underwent a successful surgery in the Heidelberg University Hospital.

TUNIS, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos arrived in Libya on Saturday in a bid to persuade the North African country to lift visa restrictions on European citizens.

State-run Jana news agency said, in a report, that Moratinos, whose country holds the presidency of the European Union, landed in Libya to attend the opening session of the 22nd Arab summit, currently held in the country.

However, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Friday that Moratinos will travel to Libya in a bid to end a spat between Libya and Switzerland that disrupted mobility between Libya and the EU nations.

The dispute could be resolved "in the coming hours or days," Zapatero said at the end of a two-day EU summit in Brussels. "I think we are nearing a settlement."

Tension has been mounting between Libya and Switzerland as Libya suspended issuing entry visas to citizens from the Schengen area of 25 European countries, including Switzerland, after Libyan authorities detained two Swiss businessmen, one of them was released last month.
The move came in response to Switzerland's visa blacklist that included 188 Libyan figures amid diplomatic row between the two countries.

The situation took a worse turn when Libyan leader called last week for Jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland over the latter's decision to ban mosque minarets in the country.

Switzerland said Wednesday it was ready to lift the travel ban, a move that drew satisfaction by the Spanish presidency of the European Union.

EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton said she expected Libya, for its part, to free the other Swiss businessman, now serving a four-month jail term, and drop visa restrictions on Europeans.

KAMPALA, March 27 (Xinhua) -- One person died and about 150 others were injured during a stampede at Kasubi Tombs as tens of thousands of people ended a week of mourning over the destruction of the royal mausoleum by a fire, police said here on Saturday.

Vincent Sekate, deputy police spokesperson, told Xinhua by telephone that the Friday incident at the tombs located in a suburb of Kampala occurred as the crowd tried to catch a glimpse of the presiding Ronald Mutebi II, King of Buganda Kingdom, one of the country's four traditional kingdoms reserved as cultural institutions.

According to him, an elderly woman, Harriet Namuddu was killed and 146 other people injured as local media put the number of the injured at 250, though most of them minor.

"For us the report we have is that 146 people were injured including those with minor injuries. Only 16 people were admitted at Mulago Hospital with serious injuries," Sekate said.

A late night fire whose cause is still being investigated burned down the main structure of the royal burial ground and a World Heritage Site on March 16, which housed the tombs of four former Buganda Kings.

The incident, which destroyed some of the royal artifacts such as traditional instruments, photographs, weapons, shields but left the tombs intact, drew suspicion of foul play of the government which has had strained relationship with the kingdom.

President Yoweri Museveni, however, denied any foul play or conspiracy involving the government in the incident and condemned those spreading rumors though he did not rule out arson as a possible cause of the fire.