World

LAGOS — US First Lady Michelle Obama on Saturday denounced as an “unconscionable act” the kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls by Islamic militants as a mobilised international community helped Nigeria search for them.

For the first time standing in for President Barack Obama on his weekly Saturday morning address, Michelle Obama said she and her husband were “outraged and heartbroken” over the mass abduction of the girls from their school dormitory in a remote corner of north Nigeria last month.

Their sentiments were shared by “millions of people across the globe”, she said.

This violence “was not an isolated incident... it’s a story we see every day as girls around the world risk their lives to pursue their ambitions”, Michelle Obama said.

“This unconscionable act was committed by a terrorist group determined to keep these girls from getting an education — grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls.”

On April 14, 276 schoolgirls were abducted in the northeastern Nigerian town of Chibook, with eight more seized from Warabe on May 5. Three weeks later 223 girls are still missing.

The Islamist militant group Boko Haram claimed responsibility, and threatened to “sell” the girls into slavery.

The abductions have sparked offers of help from the United States, Britain, France and China.

Seven military officials from the US Africa regional command AFRICOM along with a State Department expert arrived in Nigeria on Friday, and three FBI personnel and four others from State and the USAID aid agency were due in the country on Saturday.

“They’ll be providing technical and investigatory assistance, helping with hostage negotiations, advising on military planning and operations, and assisting with intelligence and information,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Among the help on offer would be intelligence-sharing as the teams work to track down the girls, who range in age from 16 to 18.

Britain said Wednesday it would send a small team to Nigeria to concentrate on planning, coordination and advice to local authorities rather than operations on the ground to look for the girls.

France also has offered to send a specialised team while China promised to supply “any useful information acquired by its satellites and intelligence services” to Nigeria.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, whose long silence after the abductions was sharply criticised, said Friday that a search team was already at work in Sambisa forest, near Chibok, with remote sensors trying to locate the kidnappers and their victims.

The United States and officials in Chibok voiced concern that the girls might have been moved to neighbouring Chad and Cameroon to be sold.

But Jonathan said Friday that he believes the girls were still in Nigeria, possibly in the Sambisa forest.

Global media campaign 

The abductions have also led to a growing social media campaign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls joined by public figures and celebrities.

The Financial Times on Saturday published an open letter signed by 50 leading personalities, including former world leaders as well as the singer Bono, Bill and Melinda Gates and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus who have called on the international community to do everything to ensure the return of the pupils.

“We urge all local, national and regional governments, with the full support of the international community, to dedicate their expertise and resources... to #BringBackOurGirls,” it read.

Other signatories of the letter were the former presidents of Brazil, Mexico, Mozambique, Mauritius, Tanzania, Botswana, Liberia, Cape Verde and Ireland along with CNN founder Ted Turner, Virgin founder Richard Brandson, Unilever CEO Paul Polman and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu.

Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also signed the letter, as have numerous United Nations officials.

The UN Security Council said Friday the mass kidnappings “may amount to crimes against humanity” under international law, but made no explicit reference to charges in the International Criminal Court.

The 15 members of the council said they would follow the situation and consider “appropriate measures” to take against Boko Haram.

The statement urged their immediate release, without conditions.

JUBA — A ceasefire between South Sudan’s government and rebels was due to come into effect Saturday following a deal to end a brutal five-month war that has pushed the country to the brink of genocide and famine.

President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar, a former vice president, met in the Ethiopian capital on Friday, shook hands and prayed together, and agreed to order a halt to fighting within 24 hours. Army and aid sources said frontlines appeared to be quiet.

The deal came as the United Nations food agency said there was only a “small window of opportunity” to avert famine, and appealed for relief agencies — who have been subjected to armed attacks and looting — to be allowed unfettered access.

In their deal, the rivals “agreed that a transition government offers the best chance to the people of South Sudan” with the promise of fresh elections for the world’s youngest nation, said Seyoum Mesfin, head mediator with the East African regional bloc IGAD.

Both sides also “agreed to open humanitarian corridors... and to cooperate with the UN” to ensure aid is delivered, he added.

Military officials from both sides said frontlines appeared to be quiet ahead of the deadline to implement the truce. A ceasefire had been agreed to in January but quickly fell apart.

South Sudanese army spokesman Philip Aguer told AFP that the truce appeared to already be in place, information that was echoed by several independent aid sources.

“As far as the information I have there are not any skirmishes today. The rebels are under Riek Machar and it was Riek Machar who declared war against the government,” he said, adding however that he feared “other forces not under the control of Riek Machar”.

Need for ‘mammoth 

aid effort’ 

The peace deal, which followed intense lobbying from world leaders and Washington slapping sanctions on senior military commanders, came amid new reports of war crimes committed by both sides and fears that a wave of ethnic killings could result in genocide.

The war has claimed thousands — and possibly tens of thousands — of lives, with more than 1.2 million people forced to flee their homes and South Sudan said to be on the brink of Africa’s worst famine since the 1980s.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in South Sudan earlier this month to push for peace, said the “agreement to immediately stop the fighting in South Sudan and to negotiate a transitional government could mark a breakthrough”.

“The hard journey on a long road begins now and the work must continue,” Kerry said in a statement, urging “both leaders to take immediate action now to ensure that this agreement is implemented in full and that armed groups on both sides adhere to its terms”.

European Union foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton warned that “humanitarian calamity beckons” and that “the rapid implementation of this agreement is the only way large numbers of South Sudanese can be spared from violence and famine”.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who also visited the country last week, appealed to Kiir and Machar to “immediately translate these commitments into action on the ground, in particular the cessation of all hostilities”.

Oxfam, one of a handful of aid agencies working in the worst-affected areas of the country, said the deal was a “timely breakthrough” but warned that South Sudan still needed a “mammoth aid effort”.

“Civilians caught up in this bloody conflict need to have full confidence that they can return to their homes without fear of violence,” said Cecilia Millan, Oxfam’s local head.

“They need to get back to their fields to plant their crops as soon as possible or they will lose the chance of feeding their families.”

Gruesome violence 

The World Food Programme (WFP) said “a hunger catastrophe can still be avoided, but humanitarian agencies must be allowed to reach tens of thousands of people in need before it’s too late”.

UN rights chief Navi Pillay, a former head of the UN genocide court for Rwanda, said she recognised “many of the precursors of genocide” listed in a UN report on atrocities that was released during the week.

These included broadcasts urging rape and “attacks on civilians in hospitals, churches and mosques, even attacks on people sheltering in UN compounds — all on the basis of the victims’ ethnicity”.

Testimonies in a report this week by Amnesty International describe civilians, including children, executed by the side of the road “like sheep” and other victims “grotesquely mutilated” with their lips sliced off.

The conflict, which started as a personal rivalry between Kiir and Machar, has seen the army and communities divide along ethnic lines, pitting members of Kiir’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer.

The war broke out on December 15 with Kiir accusing Machar of attempting a coup. Machar then fled to the bush to launch a rebellion, insisting that the president had attempted to carry out a bloody purge of his rivals.

Observers believe implementing the truce will be tough for both sides.

“Of course this is a very difficult issue. Some of the field commanders tend to be behaving in their own way without any instructions from above. So we can still expect some rocky roads ahead,” said Simon Monoja Lubang, a lecturer at the University of Juba.

MARIUPOL, Ukraine — France and Germany Saturday threatened Russia with “consequences” if Moscow disrupts Ukrainian presidential election later this month, stepping up diplomatic pressure on the eve of “illegal” referendums the West fears will split the country apart.

In a joint statement, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also urged Ukraine’s security forces to stop their offensive on rebel-held positions in the run-up to the planned May 25 presidential part.

The warnings suggested the West might soon move to broaden its sanctions regime to include whole sections of the recession-threatened Russian economy.

But the call for the pro-Western government in Kiev to roll back its military action echoes a similar statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, who set that as his condition for backing the presidential election.

“If the internationally recognised presidential elections do not take place on May 25, this would destabilise the country further. France and Germany believe that in this case, appropriate consequences should be drawn,” indicating tougher sanctions, Hollande and Merkel said.

Paris and Berlin said “proportionate” force should be used to protect people and buildings as Kiev battles to wrest back control of more than a dozen towns and cities in eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian insurgents.

However, they stressed that “the Ukrainian security services should refrain from offensive actions before the election”.

The two leaders also called for a “visible” withdrawal of Russian troops from the Ukrainian border after NATO disputed Putin’s claims he had pulled back his estimated 40,000 servicemen.

Ukraine’s interim president Oleksandr Turchynov said that Kiev was “ready for negotiations” with representatives from the eastern region but “not terrorists whose mission is to destroy the country”.

He said voting for independence would be a “step into the abyss” for these regions and lead to the “total destruction” of the economy there.

But the head of the separatists in the flashpoint eastern town of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, told reporters that “if the junta [the Ukrainian government] doesn’t withdraw its troops, there will be no discussions”.

The crisis “for now” would not prevent France selling two Mistral warship to Russia, Hollande said.

‘Illegal’ referendums planned 

Meanwhile, preparations were in full swing for the disputed referendums in the two eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, home to 7.3 million of Ukraine’s total population of 46 million.

Merkel and Hollande dismissed the referendums as “illegal”, amid Western fears they will hasten the break-up of Ukraine and could lead to all-out civil war on Europe’s fringes.

Voters in Sunday’s referendums will be asked if they support the creation of two independent republics that many see as a prelude to joining Russia, as happened in Crimea.

“I think that the turnout will be 100 per cent,” Ponomaryov told reporters in Slavyansk.

Immediately after the referendum, “the Republic of Donetsk will begin to function” and cultivate “friendly relations” with Russia, he added.

But another rebel leader, Roman Lyagin from Donetsk, said: “If the answer is yes, it does not necessarily mean that we will be joining Russia.”

A poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Centre in the United States suggested 70 per cent of Ukrainians in the east want to stay in a united country, while only 18 per cent back secession.

In a sudden about-face Wednesday that stunned the world, Putin called on the rebels to postpone the referendums to allow dialogue to take place to ease the worst East-West crisis since the end of the Cold War.

But the insurgents immediately snuffed out the brief glimmer of hope, vowing to press ahead with the votes.

One rebel manning barricades in Donetsk where there was a sign reading “the referendum is the will of the people”, told AFP his job was to stop pro-Kiev “provocateurs” from spoiling the vote.

“We are going to kill them, we are going to cut them, they are bastards, we are going to kill them and hang them from the lamp posts,” said the man, who gave his name as Nikolai.

Underscoring the tensions, rebels briefly detained a group of Red Cross staff in Donetsk, believing them to be spies.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague said that recent events had shown that Putin had lost his grip on the Ukrainian situation.

Putin “seems to have unleashed forces that he cannot control. Armed thugs with modern weapons are stirring old tensions and stoking new hatreds”, Hague said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.

Burning barricade 

While the diplomatic pressure on Russia intensified, the situation on the ground in Ukraine remained combustible as the southern city of Mariupol observed a day of mourning for up to 21 people killed in clashes on Friday between Ukrainian authorities and pro-Russian separatists.

An AFP reporter in Mariupol said passions were running high as the rebels set alight a captured Ukrainian army armoured vehicle, causing the ammunition inside to explode.

A crowd of several hundred pro-Russians had gathered around the town hall and smoke billowed from a barricade of burning tyres.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on his official Facebook page that the chief of the city’s police force had been captured and snipers had been active during Friday’s violence, which occurred as Ukraine commemorated the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

He put the death toll from the near-two-hour combat at 20 rebels and one policeman, while another four policemen were wounded and four rebels were captured.

That sent the death toll from recent unrest to more than 100.

In addition to the 21 dead in Mariupol, some 14 troops have been killed and 66 servicemen wounded in Ukrainian army assaults on the rebels.

The fighting has also claimed the lives of more than 30 insurgents.

Clashes that resulted in a horrific inferno in the southern port city of Odessa last week claimed another 42 lives, most of them pro-Russian activists.

DONETSK, Ukraine — Pro-Moscow rebels fighting in east Ukraine vowed Thursday to press on with disputed independence referendums, defying a call from President Vladimir Putin to postpone the vote in a bid to ease tensions.

“The vote will happen on May 11,” the leader of the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, declared to reporters.

“The people’s desire to hold the referendum is becoming even greater. There was a vote and a 100 per cent decision was made not to change the date of the referendum,” Pushilin said, to applause from members of the “republic’s” ruling council.

On Sunday, people in the restive eastern region will be called to answer one simple question: “Do you support the declaration of independence by the Donetsk People’s Republic?”

Insurgents in the other main rebel-held towns of Slavyansk and Lugansk also declared they would hold a plebiscite.

“Since the fascists came to power we are left with no option but to separate from them,” said retiree Olga, a resident of beleaguered Slavyansk, using the epithet many in the east use for the interim leaders in Kiev.

The move dashed hopes of an easing in the crisis sparked on Wednesday by Putin’s surprise call to the rebels to postpone their referendums.

In a stunning about-face, the Kremlin strongman also backed a presidential election planned by Kiev’s interim leaders on May 25 that Moscow had only recently described as “absurd”.

But the Cold War-style tension was ratcheted up another notch on Thursday as Russia conducted military drills, including test-firing ballistic missiles.

Russia’s defence minister also warned that the country’s nuclear capable forces remained on “constant combat alert”.

‘Undeclared war’ 

Putin had said that Kiev must cease its military operations in the east in return for his backing the May 25 election.

But on Thursday, Kiev vowed to press forward with what it calls an “anti-terrorist” operation against insurgents holding a dozen or so towns and cities in the east.

“The counterterrorist operation will go on regardless of any decisions by any subversive or terrorist groups in the Donetsk region,” Andriy Parubiy, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, told reporters.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said in a speech marking the Soviet victory against Nazi Germany that the former Soviet republic was facing “a real albeit undeclared war”.

Putin had also said Wednesday after his meeting with OSCE chair and Swiss President Didier Burkhalter that Russia had withdrawn its estimated 40,000 troops from the Ukrainian border.

But NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters in Warsaw he had yet to see “any indications” that Russia had actually done so.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow needed time to study the rebels’ snub. “This is a new development... it needs to be analysed,” Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.

The European Union, whose foreign ministers meet on Monday to consider further possible sanctions against Russia, said the referendums “could have no democratic legitimacy and would only further worsen the situation”.

As diplomatic efforts intensified to defuse the worst crisis between Moscow and the West since the Cold War, the secretary general of the OSCE flew into Kiev to continue mediation.

 ‘Talking through his hat’ 

Putin’s proposals had appeared to offer the first glimmer of hope that the seemingly inexorable decline into war might be averted.

But they sparked mixed reactions from a sceptical West.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier welcomed the “constructive tone” of Putin’s comments, but Yatsenyuk said the Kremlin strongman was “talking through his hat”.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry issued a statement saying Putin’s call to push back the referendums was “just a mockery and by no means a sign of goodwill” because the votes were illegal.

While the government wants to have a “full-scale national dialogue... a dialogue with terrorists is impermissible and inconceivable,” the ministry said.

Ukraine has lost 14 troops and three helicopter gunships with 66 servicemen injured in the assault on the rebels. The fighting has also claimed the lives of more than 30 on the insurgent side.

The majority of the fighting has taken place around the town of Slavyansk, where explosions and small-arms fire could still be heard overnight, according to an AFP reporter there.

Clashes that resulted in a horrific inferno in the southern port city of Odessa last week claimed another 42 lives, most of them pro-Russian activists, pushing the death toll over the past week to nearly 90.

The violence has prompted many Western politicians to warn that the country of 46 million people was slipping towards a civil war that would imperil the peace in Europe.

The unrest also shattered a peace deal struck in Geneva on April 17 that called for the insurgents to lay down their arms.

But politicians have stressed that diplomacy is still the preferred way to solve the crisis and Putin accepted an invitation from French President Francois Hollande to attend D-Day celebrations in June.

More sanctions 

US President Barack Obama has, however, vowed to step up his sanctions strategy to hit whole areas of the recession-threatened Russian economy.

There were fears that Ukraine could still erupt in fresh violence on Friday when both it and Russia celebrate the Soviet victory in World War II.

While Putin plans to mark the occasion with a show of patriotic fervour and military might on Red Square, Ukraine is holding muted celebrations amid tight security for fears of “provocation” from pro-Russian militants.

There have been some reports that Putin could make a triumphant entry into Crimea, annexed by Russia from Ukraine in March.

Steinmeier said German Chancellor Angela Merkel had warned him against making the trip to the peninsula.

“Were Putin to take part, it would make things more difficult than they already are,” the minister told German television.

ABUJA — Nigeria’s president said Thursday that Boko Haram’s mass abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls would mark a turning point in the battle against the Islamists, as world powers joined the search to rescue the hostages.

President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration has struggled to contain Boko Haram’s bloody five-year uprising and experts have questioned whether Nigeria can end the violence without help.

“I believe that the kidnap of these girls will be the beginning of the end of terror in Nigeria,” Jonathan told delegates at the World Economic Forum, thanking Britain, China, France and the United States for their offers of help to rescue the hostages.

The four world powers have pledged varying levels of assistance to track down the girls whose April 14 mass abduction from Chibok in northeastern Borno state has sparked global outrage.

Jonathan’s comments echoed those of US President Barack Obama earlier in the week.

Obama said the Chibok kidnappings “may be the event that helps to mobilise the entire international community to finally do something against this horrendous organisation that’s perpetrated such a terrible crime”.

In the latest massacre by the Islamists, hundreds of people were killed this week in the town of Gamboru Ngala, which like Chibok is in northeastern Borno state, Boko Haram’s historic stronghold.

Most of the insurgents’ recent attacks have targeted the remote and deeply impoverished northeast, but two car bombings on the outskirts of the capital Abuja in the last month underscored the grave threat the Islamists pose.

Jonathan had hoped that the World Economic Forum would highlight Nigeria’s economic progress and its recent emergence as Africa’s top economy, but headlines have remained focused on Boko Haram.

Holding the summit in Abuja despite the recent violence amounted to victory over the extremists, the Nigerian leader said.

“You are supporting us in winning the war against terror,” he told the more than 1,000 delegated from over 70 countries.

“If you had refused to come because of fear the terrorist would have jubilated,” he added, saying the conference going ahead was “a major blow to the terrorists”.

World joins hostage search

Nigeria has typically resisted security cooperation with the West, which analysts say has hampered efforts against the militants who have killed thousands since 2009.

American officials have acknowledged that the US military had relatively weak ties with Nigeria and unlike many other African states, the government in Abuja has shown little interest in major training programmes.

“In the past, the Nigerians have been reluctant to accept US assistance, particularly in areas having to do with security,” said John Campbell, former US ambassador to Nigeria.

“Whatever assistance we might provide and might be welcomed by the Nigerian side is likely to be essentially technical,” Campbell said.

Some have voiced hope that collaborating on the hostage rescue may improve Nigeria’s broader capacity to defeat Boko Haram.

Washington plans to send a team of fewer than 10 military personnel as well as specialists from the Justice Department and the FBI, US officials said.

Britain said it will send experts in planning and coordination, France has offered a specialist team, while China said it would make available “any useful information acquired by its satellites and intelligence services”.

Bloodshed continues 

As concern grew worldwide over the fate of the 223 girls being held hostage and the rescue mission ramped up, the Islamists carried out another massacre near the northeastern border with Cameroon.

After storming Gamboru Ngala in armoured vehicles after midday on Monday, the gunmen burnt traders alive in their stalls and murdered entire families.

“We have been collecting bodies from all over the town, on the streets and in burnt homes,” resident Musa Abba said. “Nine members of a family were burnt alive in their home.”

Area Senator Ahmed Zanna put the death toll at 300, citing information provided by locals, in an account supported by other witnesses.

Zanna said the town had been left unguarded because soldiers based there had been redeployed north towards Lake Chad in an effort to rescue the schoolgirls.

Nigeria’s military has been repeatedly accused of leaving unarmed civilians to fend for themselves during the uprising, which Boko Haram says is aimed at creating an Islamic state in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria

“Some bodies are burnt beyond recognition,” Babagana Goni, another resident said. “Some of the bodies were shot while others had their throats slit, which made me sick. I couldn’t continue the count.”

GENEVA — Global access to safer drinking water and decent sanitation has hugely improved over the past two decades but the world’s poorest often remain sidelined, the UN said Thursday.

Providing better drinking water and sanitation is the bedrock of the battle against diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, and typhoid.

“It’s really an issue of addressing excreta, faeces, poo, I can even say shit. This is the root cause of so many diseases,” said Bruce Gordon, coordinator of the water and sanitation arm of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Diarrhoea related to poor water, sanitation and hygiene kills 842,000 people every year, Gordon said.

In a report, the WHO and UNICEF said 89 per cent of the globe’s population had access to improved water supplies at the end of 2012, up 13 per cent on two decades ago.

In UN jargon, an “improved drinking water source” protects the supply from contamination, notably by faeces.

But despite the progress, 748 million people — roughly half of them in Sub-Saharan Africa and most of the rest in Asia — still used unimproved water sources.

The bulk of them lived in rural areas.

The study also examined access to “improved sanitation facilities”, which separate excreta from human contact.

By the end of 2012, 64 per cent of the global population used such facilities, a rise of 15 per centage points since 1990, it found.

Open-air defecation 

a scourge 

Compounding the lack of access to decent sanitation, a billion people worldwide still defecate in the open air, including 600 million in India, the study found.

Open-air defecation — which the report noted is a matter not only of poor sanitation but also of cultural acceptability — can all to easily undermine efforts to improve water supplies.

“It’s a matter of demand by the community. They all demand water, but not all of them demand sanitation. What is shocking is the picture of someone practising open defecation and on the other hand, having a mobile phone,” said Maria Neira, the WHO’s public health chief.

Vastly reducing the number of people without access to improved water and sanitation was one of the Millennium Development Goals, a set of targets set for 2015 by the international community at the turn of the century.

“The MDGs were about poverty alleviation and their job is only half done. And in sanitation, the job is not even half done,” said UNICEF expert Rolf Luyendijk.

There has been major progress in narrowing the water and sanitation gap between urban areas — home to over half of the globe’s population — and the countryside.

In 1990, only 62 per cent of people in rural areas could drink improved water, compared to 95 per cent in urban areas. By 2012, the figures had jumped to 82 per cent and 96 per cent, respectively.

On the sanitation front, the proportion of urban dwellers with access rose by four points over the same period, reaching 80 per cent.

In rural areas, the proportion of inhabitants with access to improved sanitation, meanwhile, jumped from 28 per cent to 47 per cent.

But that figure masked major disparities.

“Progress on rural sanitation — where it has occurred — has primarily benefitted richer people, increasing inequalities,” said Neira.

In addition to the disparities between urban and rural areas, there are often also striking differences in access within towns and cities, with the poor far less likely to be covered, the study said.

DONETSK, Ukraine/MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin called on pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine to postpone a vote on secession just five days before it was to be held, potentially pulling Ukraine back from the brink of violent dismemberment.

It was the first sign the Kremlin leader has given that he would not endorse a referendum planned for Sunday by pro-Russian rebels seeking independence for two provinces in the east, and Russian analysts said they believed the rebels would heed Putin’s call to put off the vote.

In what could be a breakthrough in the worst crisis between East and West since the Cold War, Putin also announced he was pulling Russian troops back from the Ukrainian border.

However, NATO, the Pentagon and the White House said they had not seen any signs of a Russian pull-back from the frontier, where Moscow has massed tens of thousands of troops, proclaiming the right to invade Ukraine to protect Russian speakers.

“We call on the representatives of southeastern Ukraine, the supporters of the federalisation of the country, to postpone the referendum planned for May 11,” Putin said.

He said this would create conditions for dialogue between Ukrainian authorities in Kiev and the separatists.

“We’re always being told that our forces on the Ukrainian border are a concern. We have withdrawn them. Today they are not on the Ukrainian border, they are in places where they conduct their regular tasks on training grounds,” Putin said.

NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen said during a visit to Poland: “Russia should live up to its international commitments and stop supporting separatists and scale back troops from the border, so political solutions can be found.”

Putin spoke in Moscow after talks with the head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who said the security and rights body would soon propose a “road map” to defuse the Ukraine crisis.

People’s assembly

A pro-Russian separatist leader said the separatists would consider Putin’s call to postpone their referendum at a meeting of their self-proclaimed People’s Assembly on Thursday.

“We have the utmost respect for President Putin. If he considers that necessary, we will of course discuss it,” Denis Pushilin told Reuters in Donetsk, a city of 1 million people which the rebels have proclaimed capital of an independent “People’s Republic of Donetsk”.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk dismissed as “hot air” Putin’s call for the referendum to be postponed.

The White House said the “illegitimate, illegal” vote should be cancelled rather than postponed.

Since a pro-Russian president was ousted in an uprising in February, Putin has overturned decades of post-Cold War diplomacy by proclaiming the right to send troops to Ukraine and seizing and annexing Crimea.

A rebellion in the east has raised the prospect that Ukraine, a country of around 45 million people the size of France, could be carved up or even descend into civil war, pitting Russian-speaking easterners against pro-European Ukrainian speakers in the west.

Residents in areas held by the pro-Moscow rebels were stunned by Putin’s remarks at a time when the region seemed to be hurtling towards inevitable independence and a week of bloodshed had brought animosity towards Kiev to a fever pitch.

“Maybe Putin doesn’t understand the situation? There is no way this referendum isn’t happening,” said Natalia Smoller, a pensioner who has been bringing food to rebels manning a roadblock in Slaviansk, a town turned into a fortified redoubt where fighters withstood a government advance this week.

Nevertheless, experts predicted the separatists would heed Putin’s call to stand down for now.

“Among those confronting Ukrainian troops, a certain logic should prevail under which they understand that without the support of Russia and thereby the Russian army, they could be subjected to heavy military strikes,” said Yevgeny Minchenko, a political analyst friendly to the Kremlin.

Russian share prices surged after Putin’s remarks, seen as reducing the likelihood of damaging new sanctions. The MICEX index shot up 3.64 percent.

Military campaign

Ukrainian government troops have launched a military campaign to retake territory held by separatists this week. Troops briefly captured the rebel-held city hall in the eastern port of Mariupol overnight, but quickly abandoned it, leaving it back in the hands of the separatists.

In a boost for the rebels, one of their leaders, Pavel Gubarev, was released in exchange for three members of the Ukrainian security services, a spokesman for the separatists’ military headquarters in Slaviansk said.

The United States and European Union, which have so far imposed limited sanctions on Russian individuals and small firms, have threatened to impose much wider sanctions if Moscow took further steps to interfere in Ukraine. Sunday’s planned referendum was seen as a potential trigger.

Moscow has denied Western accusations that it was orchestrating the rebellion in Ukraine’s east, where Ukrainian forces have been largely unable to reassert control.

In Mariupol, where Ukrainian forces briefly recaptured the rebel-held city hall overnight, witnesses said the soldiers left after smashing furniture and office equipment. The smell of tear gas hung in the air inside the building which was largely empty in the morning, with activists in gas masks clearing debris.

Pro-Russian activists were rebuilding barricades outside the building where separatist flags flew and patriotic songs blared from loudspeakers.

The prospect that further sanctions might be imposed on Moscow has already hurt Russia’s economy indirectly by scaring investors into pulling out capital and forcing the central bank to raise interest rates to protect the rouble.

A range of European companies that do business in Russia — as diverse as Italian appliance maker Indesit, Danish brewer Carlsberg, Finnish tyre maker Nokian Tyre and Swedish cosmetics firm Oriflame — announced results on Wednesday that blamed the crisis for hurting their bottom lines.

French bank Societe General wrote down the value of its Russian arm Rosbank by $730 million, blaming the economic uncertainty caused by the Ukraine crisis.

BANGKOK — A Thai court ordered Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step down on Wednesday after finding her guilty of abusing her power, prolonging a political crisis that has led to violent protests and brought the economy close to recession.

The decision is bound to anger supporters of Yingluck, but the court did allow ministers not implicated in the case against her to stay in office, a decision that could take some of the sting out of any backlash on the streets.

After the ruling, the Cabinet said Commerce Minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongphaisan, who is also a deputy prime minister, would replace Yingluck, and the caretaker government would press ahead with plans for a July 20 election.

“The caretaker government’s responsibility now is to organise an election as soon as possible,” said Niwatthamrong, a former executive in a company owned by Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck’s brother and himself a former prime minister who was ousted by the military in 2006.

“I hope the political situation will not heat up after this,” Niwatthamrong said of the court ruling.

Thailand’s protracted political crisis broadly pits Bangkok’s middle class and royalist establishment against mainly poor, rural supporters of Yingluck and Thaksin, who lives in exile to avoid a 2008 jail sentence for abuse of power.

Yingluck, who faced six months of sometimes deadly protests in the capital, Bangkok, aimed at toppling her government and ending the considerable political influence of her brother, thanked the Thai people in a televised news conference.

“Throughout my time as prime minister I have given my all to my work for the benefit of my countrymen... I have never committed any unlawful acts as I have been accused of doing,” Yingluck said, smiling and outwardly upbeat.

“From now on, no matter what situation I am in, I will walk on the path of democracy. I am sad that I will not be able to serve you after this.”

Despite her removal from power, there is no obvious end in sight to the turmoil in Thailand, with protesters opposed to Yingluck and her government still pushing for political reforms before new elections.

The judge who delivered the verdict at the constitutional court said Yingluck had abused her position by transferring a security chief to another post in 2011 so that a relative could benefit from subsequent job moves.

The court ruled that nine ministers linked to the case should step down but others could remain, leaving Yingluck’s ruling party in charge of a caretaker government.

Yingluck, a businesswoman until entering politics to lead her party to victory in a 2011 election, was not in court on Wednesday. Thaksin, based in Dubai, was unavailable for comment.

Financial markets took the ruling in their stride. The stock market had fallen as much as 1.1 percent early on as investors worried about unrest if Yingluck’s whole Cabinet had been forced out, but the index ended down just 0.1 per cent. The baht was barely changed at 32.37 per dollar.

Protests will go on

Yingluck’s supporters accuse the constitutional court of bias in ruling against governments loyal to Thaksin. In 2008, the court forced two prime ministers linked to Thaksin from office.

“We were bracing ourselves for this verdict. Everything our enemies do is to cripple the democratic process,” said Jatuporn Prompan, the leader of pro-Shinawatra “red shirt” activists. “The court chose a middle way today.”

Asked about a vow to resist Yingluck’s removal that had raised fears of violence, Jatuporn replied: “There is no reason why we should take up arms. We will rally peacefully as planned on May 10.”

In Thailand, the prime minister is normally elected by the lower house of parliament, but that was dissolved in December when Yingluck called a snap election to try to defuse protests.

From that point, she headed a caretaker administration with limited powers. The election in February was disrupted and later declared void by the constitutional court.

Yingluck and the election commission agreed last week a new ballot should be held on July 20, but the date has not been formally approved and it is bound to be opposed by protesters.

Thaksin or his loyalists have won every election since 2001 and would probably win again.

The former telecoms tycoon won huge support in rural areas and among the urban poor with populist policies such as cheap healthcare and loans. But his enemies say he is a corrupt crony capitalist who buys elections and harbours republican sympathies, which he denies.

The anti-government protesters say they want to end Thaksin’s hold over politics and are demanding reform of the electoral system before new polls.

The main leader of the protests, Suthep Thaugsuban, later told supporters to prepare for a big rally on Friday. “We can no longer let this illegitimate party rule this country,” he said.

Ongoing turmoil would make matters worse for Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, already suffering from weak exports, a year-long slump in industrial output, a drop in tourism and a caretaker government with curtailed powers.

JOHANNESBURG — South Africans voted in the first “Born Free” election on Wednesday, with the image of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) as conqueror of apartheid likely to appeal even to those with no memory of white-minority rule.

Voters young and old wrapped up against the early winter chill to stand in long lines across the country, evoking memories of the huge queues that snaked through streets and fields for South Africa’s historic all-race elections in 1994.

“It is great voting for the first time. Now I have a say in the country’s election and what is happening. It is something new in my life,” said 18-year-old Mawande Nkoyi — a so-called post-apartheid “Born Free” — in the Cape Town township of Langa.

Chief Election Commissioner Pansy Tlakula said turnout was “extremely high” but voting was proceeding smoothly at all the 22,263 polling stations, which were due to close at 1900 GMT.

A firm idea of the outcome should emerge by the afternoon of May 8 although there is little doubt about the overall result.

Polls put ANC support near 65 per cent, only a shade lower than the 65.9 per cent it won in the 2009 election that brought President Jacob Zuma to power.

The ANC’s enduring popularity has surprised analysts who had said the party could suffer as its glorious past recedes into history and voters focus instead on the sluggish economic growth and slew of scandals that have typified Zuma’s first term.

Africa’s most sophisticated economy has struggled to recover from a 2009 recession — its first since 1994 — and the ANC’s efforts to stimulate growth and tackle 25 per cent unemployment have been hampered by powerful unions.

South Africa’s top anti-graft agency accused Zuma this year of “benefiting unduly” from a $23 million state-funded security upgrade to his private home at Nkandla in rural KwaZulu-Natal province that included a swimming pool and chicken run.

Zuma has denied any wrongdoing and defended the upgrades as necessary for the protection of a head of state. He confidently told reporters on Monday the Nkandla controversy was “not an issue with the voters”.

His personal approval ratings have dipped this year, but Zuma appeared relaxed and assured as he voted at a school near Nkandla, ending what he called a “very challenging” campaign.

“I hope that all voters will cast their votes free,” he told reporters. “This is our right that we fought for.”

Besides being easy fodder for cartoonists who have revelled in the freedom of speech enshrined in the post-apartheid constitution, Nkandla has exposed the gulf between current and former ANC leaders, in particular Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president who died in December.

It has also become the rallying cry for those who feel the ANC’s dominance as it enters its third decade in power has damaged the soul of the 102-year-old former liberation movement.

“It is not necessarily the huge sum paid by the public that is the most corrupt aspect of Zuma’s palatial rural estate,” the Business Day newspaper said in an editorial this week.

“It is how voraciously this wretched business has sucked in so many others: ministers, bureaucrats, party officials and, as the election hots up, ordinary loyalists.”

Barring a major upset, the stock market and rand should take the vote in their stride and could even gain if South Africa’s reputation for stability relative to other emerging markets such as Brazil, Ukraine or Turkey is affirmed.

“Overall, the election is reassuringly boring,” said Simon Freemantle, an economist at Standard Bank in Johannesburg. “We know who’s going to win and we know there are not going to be any radical policy changes. That is reassuring.”

The ANC’s nearest rival, the Democratic Alliance, polled 16.7 per cent nationwide in 2009 and, even though it has been gaining ground, is still seen too much as the political home of privileged whites to have mass appeal.

Instead, the most spirited challenge has come from the ultra-leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, who models himself on Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, right down to the jaunty red beret.

In his final rally at a Pretoria football stadium, Malema, who wants to nationalise banks and mines and seize white-owned farms without compensation, lambasted everything from the Nkandla issue to foreign investors and former colonial powers.

“London must know that we’re not scared of the queen,” he said to thunderous applause. “We shall not report to London. We will report to the people. The people of South Africa will decide how business is conducted in South Africa. We are taking everything.”

However, even the EFF’s noisy emergence is likely to have minimal overall impact, with polls putting its support at 4-5 per cent.

The silver-tongued Malema himself is also likely to barred from public office this month if a court confirms a provisional sequestration order imposed in February because of 16 million rand ($1.4 million) owed in unpaid taxes.

BANGKOK — Thailand’s constitutional court said it will rule on Wednesday whether to remove Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra from office on abuse of power charges, a verdict that could plunge the country deeper into crisis.

The premier appeared at the court on Tuesday to deny the allegation, filed by a group of senators who said that then-national security chief Thawil Pliensri was replaced after her 2011 election for the benefit of her party.

But the court’s president Charoon Intachan said the nine-member bench had heard enough evidence and was ready to rule.

“The hearing is over... the court has decided to rule on May 7 at noon,” he said.

The case, one of two potential knockout legal moves against her premiership, comes as Thailand’s political crisis reaches a critical juncture.

Anti-government protesters are still massed on Bangkok’s streets — although in diminished numbers — and Yingluck’s supporters are also threatening to rally to defend her.

“I didn’t violate any laws, I didn’t receive any benefit from the appointment,” a composed Yingluck told the court.

Under the constitution — forged after a 2006 coup that ousted Yingluck’s billionaire brother Thaksin Shinawatra as premier — such an offence could lead to her removal.

The court could also extend its verdict to Cabinet members who endorsed the decision to remove Thawil, potentially dislodging a layer of ruling party decision makers with ties to Thaksin, who lives overseas to avoid jail for corruption convictions.

Pro-government “Red Shirts” have vowed to defend Yingluck from being toppled and any decision to remove the premier will kindle fears of deadly clashes between rival political sides.

At least 25 people have died and hundreds more have been wounded in political violence linked to the six-month protests.

End game near? 

If Yingluck alone is dismissed then a deputy prime minister can replace her until a new government is formed through elections.

But observers say a ruling to sack Yingluck and her Cabinet could send the kingdom into uncharted territory.

“Thailand will enter a legal limbo,” according to Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of South East Asian Affairs at Chiang Mai University.

“There will be no Cabinet, prime minister and no lower house. Only the senate.”

The Thai senate is part appointed, part elected and it is unclear which side of the political divide holds sway over the chamber — which could be given a role in appointing a new premier.

The Constitutional Court, which oversees cases of violations of Thailand’s charter rewritten in the wake of Thaksin’s removal, has played a key role in recent chapters of Thai politics.

Critics accuse it of rushing through Yingluck’s case and allege previous rulings show that it is politically biased against the Shinawatras.

In 2008, the court forced two Thaksin-linked prime ministers from office.

It also annulled a February election called by Yingluck to shore-up her flagging administration, citing widespread disruption by opposition protesters.

The chairman of the pro-government “Red Shirts” accused the court of being bent on “overthrowing democracy”.

“We Red Shirts will not allow any undemocratic change,” Jatuporn Prompan added, confirming a mass rally in the Bangkok suburbs on Saturday.

The backdrop to the current crisis is an eight-year political rupture since Thaksin was booted out of office by an army coup.

The kingdom has become fractured since then, split between the Bangkok-based elites and middle-classes, backed by the royalist south — and the rural north and northeast and urban poor who have powered Thaksin-led or allied governments to office in every election since 2001.

Street protests, sparked by a bungled bid to push through an amnesty that could have allowed Thaksin to return, have so far failed to force Yingluck from office.

Yingluck has also been charged by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) with neglect of duty in connection with a costly rice subsidy scheme that critics say fomented rampant corruption.

If indicted on those charges, Yingluck would be suspended from office and face an impeachment vote in the upper house of parliament that could lead to a five-year ban from politics.

Election authorities and the ruling party have agreed on July 20 for new polls, but the date has been rejected by the opposition Democrat Party, and still requires a royal decree to be carried out.