Israeli-Arab leader Salah arrested in Britain

Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel group, has been detained in London while on a speaking tour, the UK Home Office has confirmed.
Salah was detained late on Tuesday night for allegedly entering the country illegally, despite his organisation's insistence that he entered through formal and legal channels and had no knowledge of any travel ban.
Theresa May, Britain's home secretary, said in a statement to Al Jazeera that an investigation was under way into how Salah had been able to enter the country.
"We do not normally comment on individual cases but in this case I think it is important to do so.
"I can confirm he was excluded and that he managed to enter the UK. He has now been detained and the UK Border Agency is now making arrangements to remove him."
But Salah's solicitor, Farooq Bajwa, quoted by the Guardian newspaper, said that his client had "no knowledge" of a travel ban and had made "no attempt" to conceal his identity when he entered Britain.
Islamic Movement spokesperson Sheikh Kamal Khatib said the arrest order was not yet clear, and the organisation had not yet spoken to Salah's lawyer.
"He was arrested on Tuesday night in London and is still in custody. We don't know yet if he will be deported but we are expecting to hear from his lawyer today," Khatib told the AFP news service.
The Islamic Movement is tolerated in Israel, and unlike some Islamic groups is not banned in the country, although it is under constant surveillance by government forces.
Sarah Colborne, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) - one of the groups organising Salah's speaking tour in Britain - told press: "The attempt to remove Sheikh Raed Salah from this country whilst he is taking legal action against those who have been defaming him is an obstruction of the course of justice.
"We have been organising a meeting on peace and justice in Jerusalem for weeks – with publicity widely available – to which Sheikh Raed Salah was one of the speakers. PSC also invited MPs to speak at the same meeting. At no stage did anyone contact us from the government or the police.
"Following rumours in the papers, Sheikh Raed Salah’s legal team tried to verify if it was true that a travel ban had indeed been issued, and had no confirmation nor denial from any official source," she said.
"This shocking move by the British government will deeply damage British relations in the Middle East."
The PSC's Ruqayyah Collector told Al Jazeera that Salah spoke at a public event on Monday for over an hour, and encountered no problems.
The PSC also said he was due to speak on Wednesday night at an event at the Houses of Parliament, alongside a group of MPs in an event that was widely advertised.
Salah has had multiple run-ins with the Israeli law, including most recently being arrested at the Israeli border with Jordan after allegedly striking an interrogator.
In 2010, he spent five months behind bars for spitting at an Israeli police officer, and he has been detained on a number of other occasions, although he denies most allegations and was acquitted of rioting charges from 2007.
He was also held after taking part in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that Israeli naval commandos stormed on May 31, 2010, killing nine Turkish human rights activists dead.
Israel's Arab community numbers 1.3 million, about 20 percent of the population. It is made up of 160,000 Palestinians who remained in Israel after the 1948 establishment of the Jewish state, and their descendants.

Venezuela's Chavez shown with Castro

New photographs and video footage of President Hugo Chavez have been released after his surgery in Havana.
"Let these images serve to bring peace to the people of Venezuela regarding the health of President Chavez," Venezuelan Communications Minister Andres Izarra said on Tuesday.
There has been speculation about Chavez being seriously ill.
The new images do not disprove the most extreme rumors -- that Chavez has prostate cancer -- but they give substance to the government's insistence that he is simply recovering from a painful operation to remove an abscess from his pelvis.
Beyond referring to the abscess, the government has given no more medical details of the operation nor a clear timetable for Chavez's homecoming.
"We affirm the right of President Chavez to undergo his recovery and treatment in the established time," Vice President Elias Jaua said on state TV after the pictures were released.

In the images, which state TV said were recorded earlier on Tuesday, Chavez appeared in better condition -- albeit still thinner than usual -- than in the one set of pictures released shortly after the procedure

Fresh clashes in Cairo's Tahrir Square

Clashes are continuing between Egyptian security forces and more than 5,000 protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square, leaving more than 590 injured, according to witnesses and medical officials.

Tahrir Square, the epicenter of protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's former president, remained sealed off early on Wednesday as lines of security forces in riot gear strived to regain control from  demonstrators.

Witnesses said the clashes started on Tuesday when police tried to clear a sit-in at the state-TV building, which included families of those killed during the country's revolution earlier this year, known as the "martyrs", according to the Daily News, an Egyptian news website.

Witnesses said police showed up and attacked the families outside the Balloon Theatre in Agouza, where a planned memorial service for the families was taken place.

The ministry of interior said in a statement on Tuesday that "people who claimed to be families of martyrs, tried to break into the theatre" in which the service was held

Rwandan woman jailed for genocide

Judges at the UN court for Rwanda have sentenced a former Rwandan minister for women's affair, to life in prison for genocide and incitement to rape.
The ruling by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) means that Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, 65, is the first women to be ever convicted of genocide.
She was found guilty on seven of the 11 genocide charges she faced for atrocities committed in Rwanda's southern Butare region in 1994.

"For these crimes, and considering all relevant circumstances, the chamber sentences you, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, to life imprisonment," said William Hussein Sekule, the presiding judge, on Friday.
"Pauline Nyiramasuhuko conspired with other members of the interim government to commit genocide in Butare.

IN VIDEO

Al Jazeera speaks to journalist Andrew Wallis who followed the trial in Tanzania.

"She ordered rape at the Butare prefecture office. She had superior responsibility on the Interahamwe [militia which she ordered] to commit the rapes at the Butare prefecture."
Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, the former minister's son, is one of five co-accused, who was also sentenced to life for crimes including genocide, extermination and rape as a crime against humanity.
The other co-accused, all former senior officials in the Butare area, were sentenced to terms ranging from 25 years to life at the court in Tanzania.
Only female

Nyiramasuhuko was born into a modest family in southern Rwanda. At the age of 40 she enrolled at university, gaining a law degree four years later.
In April 1992 she was appointed minister for women's affairs, a position she continued to hold in 1994 when approximately 800,000 people, mostly minority Tutsi, were killed by majority Hutus.

After the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front she fled into neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
She was arrested in Kenya in July 1997 and transferred to the ICTR.
The only female detainee at the UN court, Nyiramasuhuko first appeared at the tribunal in 2001, in what has been the longest-running trial at the ICTR.
The verdict comes 16 years after the first of the co-accused was arrested

'Tea Party' activist enters Republican race

Michele Bachmann has formally launched a bid for the US presidency from her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa.
Bachmann, a member of the House of Representatives from Minnesota and a rising star in the “Tea Party” movement, said on Monday that the US “cannot afford” to reelect Barack Obama in next year’s presidential elections.
"Make no mistake about it, Barack Obama will be a one-term president," said Bachmann, who will be looking to challenge current Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney.
"We can't afford four more years of millions of Americans who are out of work," she said to voters in Iowa.
"And we can't afford four more years of a foreign policy with a president who leads from behind and who doesn't stand up for our friends like Israel, and who and who too often fails to stand against our enemies," said Bachmann.
Bachmann, a fierce critic of gay marriage and abortion, also addressed the growing US national debt, rising gasoline prices, scores of home foreclosures and high unemployment.
Infamous for her frequent oratorical blunders, Bachmann told Fox News that “what I want them (voters) to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That's the kind of spirit that I have, too."
John Wayne, the Hollywood star of a number of western films is from Winterset, Iowa, while “Killer Clown” 1970s serial killer John Wayne Gacy was from Waterloo

French banks agree to defer Greek loans

French banks have reached an outline agreement to roll over holdings of maturing Greek bonds as part of a wider European plan to avoid sovereign default.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said in Paris on Monday that the banks would be offered 30-year Greek bonds with a coupon equivalent to the euro zone's lending rate to Greece, plus a premium based on the financially troubled nation's future economic growth rate.
"We concluded that by stretching out the loans over 30 years, putting [interest rates] at the level of European loans, plus a premium indexed to future Greek growth, that would be a system that each country could find attractive," Sarkozy said.
Banking sources confirmed the agreement was part of a deal under which banks would reinvest 70 per cent of the proceeds when Greek bonds fall due. Of that amount, 50 per cent would go into the new 30-year bonds and 20 per cent would be reinvested in a zero-coupon guaranteed fund based on high-quality securities.
The news came as international bankers met euro zone policymakers in the Italian capital, Rome, to discuss how the private sector can share the burden of a second rescue programme for Greece.
Euro zone sources said EU officials were discussing the French idea with international bankers and the Institute of International Finance (IIF).
According to them, Charles Dallara, the managing director of IIF, met Vittorio Grilli, director general at Italy's treasury and chairman of the euro zone's Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), to discuss Greece's struggle to avoid default.
Greek approval
Any new financial rescue for Athens, including official lending and private sector participation, depends on the Greek parliament approving this week a five-year austerity plan and legislation to implement structural reforms and privatisations.
A Greek minister warned on Monday of "catastrophe" if parliament blocked a 28bn-euro ($40bn) package of tax increases and spending cuts after signs of revolt by some deputies in the ruling PASOK party.
Greece's conservative opposition has rejected EU leaders' calls for national unity, forcing Prime Minister George Papandreou to rely on his slim parliamentary majority to push through the package.
   
Without approval for the measures, the European Union and International Monetary Fund say they will not disburse the fifth tranche of Greece's 110 billion-euro bailout programme.
  
If the 12 billion-euro tranche is not forthcoming, the Greek government, which has been shut out of financial markets because of the ruined state of its public finances, will run out of money within weeks, probably triggering a Europe-wide crisis.

Four Khmer Rouge leaders go on trial

The United Nations-backed trial of the four most senior surviving members of Cambodia's murderous Khmer Rouge regime began on Monday, three decades after its "year zero" revolution marked one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century.
The defendants, infirm and ranging in age between 79 and 85, were among the inner circle of the late Pol Pot, the French-educated leader of the Khmer Rouge's ultra-Maoist "Killing Fields" revolution.
An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians - a quarter of the population - were killed through torture, execution, starvation and exhaustion from 1975-1979.
The quartet is: 84-year-old "Brother Number Two" and former state security chief Nuon Chea, 79-year-old former president Khieu Samphan, 85-year-old ex-foreign minister and "Brother Number Three" Ieng Sary, and Ieng Sary's 79-year-old wife, former social affairs minister Ieng Thirith.
The four face charges including crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture. All are expected to enter pleas of not guilty; Nuon Chea has already called the proceedings a "sham".
Pol Pot, "Brother Number One," died in 1998. Only one other Khmer Rouge member has been tried: Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, was given a 35-year prison term in 2010; it was commuted to 19 years.
Test for Cambodia's "Extraordinary Chambers"

In depth

Profiles: Khmer Rouge leaders on trial In depth: Surviving the Khmer Rouge Timeline: The Khmer Rouge  Ex-Khmer Rouge prison chief appeals sentence Court indicts Khmer leaders

The case is a crucial test of whether the multi-million dollar Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a hybrid international-led tribunal created in 2005, can deliver justice.
Ou Virak, President of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said the start of the second case was a "cathartic moment" that he hoped would help bring some closure.
The crimes "remain ingrained in Cambodia's collective psyche. I hope that this trial ... provides all victims with some sense of justice, however delayed that justice may be", Ou Virak said in a statement.
Except for Khieu Samphan, none of the defendants has shown a willingness to co-operate with the court, and there are concerns that Cambodians will be denied the chance to hear first-hand accounts of the motivation and ideology that fuelled an unrelenting killing spree by one of the world's most enigmatic regimes.
The closest any of the defendants have come to disclosure is seen in an award-winning documentary film yet to be released in Cambodia entitled "Enemies of the People", in which Nuon Chea, during six years of recorded interviews with a journalist, admitted those seen as threats to the party line were "corrected" at the behest of the regime.
The filmmakers have said they would not hand over tapes if asked by the court, but judges say material from the film can be used by prosecutors once in the public domain.
Theary Seng, president of the Center for Cambodian Civic Education, said she welcomed Nuon's "sham" statement.
"We want him to be defiant ... we want his team to put out a very strong defence, but there is no defence that can take away the gravity of the crimes committed by him," she said. "We want a fuller accounting of history."
Courts move slow, mired by politics
But justice might continue to elude Cambodia. Cases have moved slowly through the ECCC, and its processes are extremely bureaucratic. The defendants are old and in poor health and some might die before a verdict is delivered by the court, which estimates its spending will reach $150 million by the end of the year.
Duch, who faced trial over his role in the deaths of more than 14,000 people at the notorious S-21 torture centre in Phnom Penh, has appealed against his sentence.

Venezuela dismisses Chavez illness rumours

Venezuela's vice-president has rejected suggestions that President Hugo Chavez is gravely ill, two weeks after he underwent emergency surgery in Cuba.
Elias Jaua said on Saturday that Chavez was "recuperating to continue the battle" and would soon be ready to counter his political opponents and media speculation.

"The national and international press are rubbing their hands and rejoicing about the state of the president's health", Jaua said.
"They [the opposition] know they cannot win the elections against our commander, Hugo Chavez, so they are always waiting for a situation like this to try to overtake us".
Chavez has been in Cuba since June 8, when he arrived there on the final leg of a trip that also included Brazil and Ecuador. He was rushed into emergency surgery after suffering sharp pain diagnosed as a pelvic abscess that required immediate surgery.
The president's brother told Venezuelan state media on Wednesday that Chavez could return to Caracas in about two weeks.
The president is scheduled to host a summit of Latin American leaders on July 5.
Twitter messages
Chavez has not been speaking in public since he told Venezuelan state television by telephone on June 12 that he was recovering quickly after the surgery. He said medical tests showed no sign of any "malignant" illness.
Chavez is normally a regular user of the micro-blogging site Twitter, but no messages were posted to the site for 19 days until Friday, when he congratulated the armed forces on a public holiday that celebrates a key military victory over Spanish colonial forces in 1821.
Three messages also appeared within 30 minutes on Saturday afternoon, including one mentioning visits by Chavez's daughter Rosines and grandchildren.
"Ah, what happiness it is to receive this shower of love!" a Twitter message read. "God bless them!"
Opposition legislators, who control 40 per cent of Venezuela's parliament, argue that his prolonged absence means that the vice-president should replace him.
Under Venezuela's constitution, Jaua would take the president's place during "temporary" absences of up to 90 days. Jaua would serve the rest of Chavez's term if the president were to die or resign.
No clear successor
Presidential elections are due next year, and speculation about Chavez's health has prompted some to ponder what would happen if his health forced him to relinquish power.
Steve Ellner, a political science professor at Venezuela's University of the East, believes the future of Chavez's political movement would largely depend on whether he designates a successor.
"There is no second-in-command in the Chavez movement,'' Ellner said. "If Chavez is unable to endorse anyone, there will inevitably be dissension."
Ellner said the situation would be much different if Chavez threw his support behind a would-be successor.
"There is a great sense of loyalty within the Chavez movement," he said.
"If Chavez himself is unable to run for physical reasons, but endorses a given candidate, the movement will not fall apart."
While there are no obvious candidates to succeed Chavez, some observers believe the president could pick Jaua or Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela's energy minister.
Diosdado Cabello, a former army officer who joined a 1992 coup attempt led by Chavez, was once perceived as Chavez's closest confidant. But Cabello's standing seems to have faded since he lost a 2008 re-election bid as the governor of Miranda state to a prominent opposition leader

Bashir visits China ahead of S Sudan split

Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, has said his country's relations with China will not be weakened by Beijing's ties with South Sudan.
In remarks made on Monday ahead of his four-day visit to China, Bashir said he was not troubled by Beijing's dual loyalties.
"Our policy, and also China's, stands on the principle that each country is free to adopt the procedures and build relations in the manner that preserves its interests and relations," he told China's official Xinhua news agency.
"Therefore, even if China has established relations with the south Sudan state, that will definitely not be a deduction on its relations with the north," he said.
Bashir's visit to China, a major buyer of Sudanese crude oil, comes days before South Sudan is to split from the north and become the world's newest sovereign nation.
South Sudan's secession on July 9 is likely to feature in Bashir's talks with Hu Jintao, his Chinese counterpart.

Beijing has been building ties with the emerging state in southern Sudan but continues to be one of the major supporters of Bashir, who faces indictment from the International Criminal Court over war crimes charges stemming from long-running fighting in the Darfur region.

Analysts expect Bashir to use his visit to assure Chinese leaders that their investments and energy stake in Sudan will not be threatened by the north-south split.

China praised
Bashir praised Sino-Sudanese relations as a "model" for developing countries, and lauded China's role as an investor in oil projects shunned by Western companies, whose home governments have imposed sanctions on Khartoum.

"When the American companies refused to work in the oil field and when restrictions were imposed on the Western companies operating in Sudan, we found in China the real partner," Bashir said.

"In fact, we have received a better offer from China than that of the Western companies."

Beijing has been encouraging a smooth transition along Sudan's volatile north-south border and hopes to ensure that its oil supplies are not interrupted.
Khartoum seized the main town in the north-south border region of Abyei on May 21, raising fears the two sides could return to conflict.

But Sudan's military and the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army last week agreed to withdraw their forces in favour of Ethiopian peacekeepers.

ICC issues Gaddafi arrest warrant

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and two of his confidants, citing evidence of crimes against humanity committed against opponents of the Libyan regime.
Judge Sanji Mmasenono Monageng announced the decision on behalf of a three-judge panel in The Hague on Monday, saying the warrants were meant to force Gaddafi, his son and his intelligence chief to appear before the court and prevent the possibility of a cover-up.
It was the second time in the ICC's nine-year history that it has issued an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state. The ICC indicted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2009, though he has yet to be arrested.
"State policy was designed at the highest level of the state machinery, and aimed at quelling by any means, including by the use of lethal force, demonstrations of civilians against the regime of Muammar Muhammad Gaddafi," Monageng said.

Click here for more of Al Jazeera's special coverage

She stressed that the indictment and warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his military intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi were not proof of guilt, which must be proved at trial.
But she said the evidence submitted by ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo was enough to establish "reasonable grounds to believe" the three were guilty of murder and the persecution of civilians, or "crimes against humanity," and that they should be arrested.

Euro zone delays decision on Greek loans

Euro zone finance ministers have postponed a final decision on extending 12bn euros ($17bn) in emergency loans to Greece, until it introduces further austerity measures.
The ministers said on Monday that they expected to pay the next tranche of a 110bn-euro bailout package, backed by European Union and the International Monetary Fund, by mid-July.
Greece has said it needs the loans by then to avoid defaulting on its debt.
Keeping up their pressure on Athens, where public opposition to austerity has been growing, the ministers insisted that disbursement would depend on the Greek parliament first passing laws on fiscal reforms and selling off state assets.
"To move to the payment of the next tranche, we need to be sure that the Greek parliament will approve the confidence vote and support the programme, so the decision will be taken at the start of the month of July," Didier Reynders, Belgian finance minister, said after the meeting in Luxembourg.
Papandreou's warning
Jonah Hull, Al Jazeera's reporter in Luxembourg, said the decision was sending a message to Greece.
"If they want to continue getting money from the Euro zone they have to help themselves and enact these stiffer austerity measures and privatisation to raise money on their own behalf.

"Also there’s a message for the financial market, which is extremely jittery at the moment, to say 'look we are not just throwing good money after bad in helping Greeks but we are also trying very hard to keep their message on target in terms of bailout'."
The euro zone move came a day after George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, urged his people to support deeply unpopular austerity measures in order to avoid a "catastrophic" bankruptcy.
Addressing the Greek parliament, at the beginning of three days of debate leading up to a crucial parliamentary confidence vote on his new cabinet, he appealed for the nation to accept tax hikes, spending cuts and privatisation plans.
Papandreou said the country's problems would not be solved by asking the IMF to leave.
He said the country needed to be united on this issue, and called on the opposition to "stop fighting in these critical times, stop sending the image that the country is being torn apart".
"Showing that we are split is not helping us at all," he said.
Tim Friend, Al Jazeera's reporter in Athens, said: "The parliament voting is absolutely crucial because without this the Greek prime minsiter can't even get as far as getting an approval for the austerity package.
"The ruling party believes they can win the vote on Tuesday but they have a slim majority."
Facing public protests and dissent in his Socialist party, Papandreou reshuffled his cabinet last week and called a confidence vote for next Tuesday in an effort to push his reforms through the legislature this month.
Even then, the protests have continued outside the parliament against the proposed austerity measures. More than 10,000 people gathered on Sunday, chanting "We won't pay! We won't pay!"
'Anger is deep'
Riots erupted on the streets of Athens last week against the new round of austerity measures being demanded by the EU and the IMF.
Al Jazeera's Tim Friend, reporting from Athens on Sunday, said: "The anger is deep and [protesters] resent having to pay the price for the mistakes of others as they see it, the mistakes of banks and financiers.
"The problem for the politicians here is they're being dictated to by the International Monetary Fund and events now taking place elsewhere in Europe with the euro zone finance ministers.
"They are the ones now calling the shots. The Greeks really are having to simply comply and do what they say."
Antonis Samaras, the main opposition leader, has called on Papandreou to step down to pave the way for elections and renegotiation of the bailout.
"Why is the government insisting on us supporting the mistake? It does not want consensus but complicity," Samaras said.
The cabinet hopes to push the austerity package through by the end of June, but weeks of public rallies have created political uncertainty and scared investors who fear public rage may weaken the government's resolve.
Papandreou said the new Greek government would "correct injustices" that he said emerged with the implementation of the bailout deal, adding that he was ready to talk to the opposition regarding the issue of taxes.
He also called for a referendum to be held in the autumn on constitutional changes.
Euro zone plan
In a statement issued after a seven-hour meeting that ended in the early hours of Monday morning, the euro zone ministers announced they would put together a second bailout of Greece, which missed debt targets in the first rescue plan by big margins.
The new plan, to be outlined by early July, will include more official loans and, for the first time, a contribution by private investors.
According to this, private investors will be expected to maintain their exposure to Greece through voluntary purchases of new bonds as existing ones mature.
The statement did not say how large the new bailout would be, or give details of the private sector contribution beyond describing it as "substantial".
Euro zone official sources have told Reuters that the new plan is expected to fund Greece into late 2014 and total about 120bn euros: up to 60bn euros of fresh official loans, 30bn euros from the private sector, and 30bn euros from Greek privatisation proceeds.
The euro fell moderately against the dollar in early Asian trade on Monday because of the delay.
The euro eased 0.3 per cent to $1.4263, edging back in the direction of a three-week low of $1.4073 hit last Thursday on trading platform EBS.
Concerns that the crisis is spreading beyond Greece's borders were amplified by Moody's warning on Friday that it may downgrade Italy's credit ratings.

Deal forces Somali PM out of office

Somalia's prime minister has resigned, giving in to pressure from the country's president and the parliamentary speaker.
Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed's resignation follows a deal between the president and the speaker to oust him while extending the troubled administration's term.
"Considering the interest of the Somali people and the current situation in Somalia, I have decided to leave my office," Mohamed told reporters in the capital, Mogadishu, on Sunday.
Protests in support of Mohamed erupted in Mogadishu as the word of his resignation got out. Hundreds marched through the streets saying that Mohamed was the only honest politician in the government.
Reports suggest some soldiers also joined the protests and abandoned their posts.
Deal suspected
Earlier this month, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, the Somalian president, and Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, the speaker, agreed to dismiss Mohamed after only eight months as prime minister as part of their deal to extend the transitional government.
Some analysts believe members of the ethnic Darood tribe from the Puntland region pressured the president and the speaker to replace the prime minister, an ethnic Ogadeni, with one of their own. Others suggest the speaker wants to replace Mohamed with a close associate. The president went along in order to keep his own job.
Mohamed initially rejected the deal and threatened to call people to the streets. Some analysts believe Yoweri Museveni, the Ugandan president, played a role in bringing about his eventual resignation.
With several thousand Ugandan peacekeepers guarding Somalian officials, the Ugandan government is influential in shaping Somalia's internal politics.

North and South Sudan sign pact over Abyei

North and south Sudan have signed an agreement to demilitarise the disputed Abyei region and allow in Ethiopian peacekeeping forces, former South African president Thabo Mbeki said on Monday.
South Sudan is due to break off into an independent country in less than three weeks and the question of who should control the fertile, oil-producing region has been one of the most contentious unresolved issues ahead of the split.
Khartoum seized Abyei's main town on May 21, causing tens of thousands of people to flee the area, triggering an international outcry and raising fears the two sides could return to open conflict.
Representatives of the south's dominant party, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), and the Sudanese government have been meeting in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa for more than a week in an attempt to hammer out a deal.
"The SPLM and the Sudanese government have signed an agreement on Abyei," Mbeki, who has been helping guide talks between the two sides, told reporters in Addis Ababa.
"It provides for the demilitarisation of Abyei so that the Sudanese armed forces would withdraw and for the deployment of Ethiopian forces."
He said the northern Sudanese military, the south's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) and Ethiopian officials would now meet to settle on a mandate for Ethiopian peacekeeping forces who will be deployed in the region.
The peacekeepers would go to Abyei as soon as they are authorised by the United Nations and would replace all military forces in the area, he said.
A police service would be established for the region, with the size and composition determined by a joint committee co-chaired by northern and southern officials, Mbeki added.
Southerners voted overwhelmingly to secede from the north in a January referendum that was the culmination of a 2005 peace deal ending decades of civil war.
Some 2 million people died in the conflict, fought over religion, ideology, ethnicity and oil

Protests follow Syrian president's speech

Protesters have taken to the streets across Syria to denounce a speech by President Bashar al-Assad, saying his address did not meet popular demands for sweeping political reform.
Rallies were held in major cities including Homs, Hama, Latakia and in Damascus suburbs.
In the Sleibeh and Raml al-Filistini districts of the coastal city of Latakia, protesters chanted "liar, liar".
"People were still hoping he would say something meaningful that would result in tanks and troops leaving the streets. They were disappointed and started going out as soon as Assad finished talking," one activist in the city said.
"No to dialogue with murderers," protesters chanted in the Damascus suburb of Irbin.


Demonstrations also took place in the eastern city of Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq, the southern city of Deraa and other towns in the Hauran Plain, cradle of the uprising, now in its fourth month.
Activists said dozens of students were arrested in a protest at the campus of Aleppo University.
Meanwhile, state television aired footage from a pro-Assad rally at the Aleppo citadel. Along with the Syrian flag, demonstrators held the Russian flag.
Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, told the Financial Times on Thursday that his country would use its veto to block any United Nations Security Council resolution that could justify military intervention in Syria

Gaddafi son offers Libya elections

Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi's son has announced that his father is willing to hold elections and step aside if he loses, an offer which could test the unity of the Western alliance trying to force him out.

The proposal, which follows a string of concessions offered by Gaddafi - that Western powers have dismissed as ploys - came on Thursday, as frustration is mounting in some NATO states at the progress of the military campaign.
Four months into the Libya conflict, rebel advances towards Tripoli are slow at best, while weeks of NATO air strikes pounding Gaddafi's compound and other targets have failed to end his 41-year-old rule over the oil-rich country.
"They (elections) could be held within three months. At the maximum by the end of the year, and the guarantee of transparency could be the presence of international observers," Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
'No exile'
He said his father, who came to power in the same year that humans first set foot on the moon, would be ready to step aside if he lost the election but would not go into exile.
"I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority of Libyans stand with my father and sees the rebels as fanatical Islamist fundamentalists, terrorists stirred up from abroad," the newspaper quoted Saif al-Islam as saying.
It was not clear what form the proposed vote would take. Libya has never held elections under Gaddafi and has no elected institutions.

There was no immediate reaction to the offer from the NATO military alliance or rebels.
Saif al-Islam is one of three Libyan leaders wanted by an international war crimes prosecutor, but before the conflict he had frequent contacts with western governments and helped negotiate the end of international sanctions seven years ago.
The offer was made as Mikhail Margelov, the envoy leading Russia's efforts to end the conflict, arrived in Tripoli for talks wtih Gaddafi's government.
The Kremlin, which says Gaddafi should quit but opposes NATO's action in Libya, has said it is ready to help negotiate the Libyan leader's departure.
"Clearly the talks in Tripoli will not be easy," Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Margelov as saying before he left for Tripoli.
"In the Arab world there is a tradition of forgiveness and conciliation, and many formerly odious leaders of regimes in the region continue to live in their countries ... despite having been overthrown," he was quoted as saying.
More blasts in the capital
A series of loud blasts rocked Tripoli earlier on Thursday morning and smoke could be seen rising above the fortified compound of the embattled Libyan leader.
It was not clear what was hit, and there was no word on casualties, as government officials did not immediately comment on the strike.
NATO warplanes have repeatedly targeted the area in and around the Bab al-Aziziya compound, Gaddafi's command centre.
The North Atlantic alliance launched its air campaign nearly three months ago under a UN resolution to protect civilians after Gaddafi's troops used force to put down a rebellion against his rule in February.
The Libyan leader has described the rebels as "rats" and says NATO's campaign is an act of colonial aggression aimed at stealing Libya's oil.
Rebel forces are now fighting Gaddafi's troops on three fronts: in the east of the country around the oil town of Brega; on the edge of rebel-held Misurata, Libya's third-biggest city, and in the western mountains south-west of Tripoli.
'Mixed messages'
Rebels in the western mountains said on Wednesday they had taken control of two villages from pro-Gaddafi forces, building on gains which in the past few days have seen them advance to within about 100km of Tripoli.
But rebel forces show no signs of being able to break through to the capital soon.
In the meantime, the strains of the operation - which has now gone on for longer than its backers anticipated - are showing within the NATO alliance.
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, rounded on European allies last week for failing to back the mission the alliance took over in late March.
Republicans in Congress have demanded that US president Barack Obama urgently explain the legal grounds for US military involvement in Libya, prompting the White House to urge them not to send "mixed messages".
Speaking in London on Wednesday after meeting the British prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO Secretary General, said NATO would stay the course.
"Allies and partners are committed to provide the necessary resources and assets to continue this operation and see it through to a successful conclusion," Rasmussen said

Blast rocks police headquarters in Nigeria

A powerful blast triggered by a suspected suicide bomber has struck Nigeria's police headquarters in Abuja, the country's capital, killing at least two people.
Olusola Amore, spokesman of the national police, said two people were confirmed dead after a car blew up in the parking lot outside the headquarters building on Thursday.
The suspected suicide bomber and a traffic officer, who rode in the loaded vehicle to show the driver where to park, were both killed in the attack, Amore said.
"The body of the suicide bomber has been recovered and full investigation has commenced," he read from an official statement.
The exact cause of the blast was not immediately clear, but Amore said the Boko Haram - a group that calls for a wider application of Islamic law in Nigeria - is suspected to be responsible for the attack.
"They have been issuing threat upon threat,'' he said.
Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege, reporting from the blast site, called it "quite a horrific scene" where at least 30 to 40 vehicles were completely burnt and "bodies - pieces of mutilated bodies" were being carried out from charred vehicles.
Umar Mairiga, a spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross, said that seven injured people were taken to a hospital for treatment and two had already been discharged. Mairiga said it was difficult to confirm how many people had died.
Police said 33 cars had been damaged beyond repair and 40 more had been partially damaged by the explosion, though the building was not affected.
A series of explosions and attacks targeting police and fire service headquarters rocked northeastern Nigeria last week, and the Boko Haram were assumed to have been behind it.
It has warned that it will carry out further attacks across the country if its demands are not met

Weiner 'to quit' US congress

US Representative Anthony Weiner has told his friends that he plans to give up his seat amid growing pressure to leave Congress for his inappropriate relationships with women on the internet, The New York Times has reported.
Weiner reached the decision to resign after speaking with his wife, Huma Abedin, an aide to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who returned from an overseas trip on Tuesday, the Times reported without citing sources on Thursday.
He is scheduled to announce his supposed resignation later on Thursday in Brooklyn, New York, the Times cited two people who have been made aware of Weiner's plans.
The New York congressman said he would seek treatment and was granted a "short leave" of absence from the House.
Weiner, who represents New York, was a leading liberal voice in the US House of Representatives, and had been expected to run for mayor of New York City in 2013.
His scandal began more than two weeks ago when Weiner denied tweeting a photo of a man's bulging boxer briefs to a 21-year-old female student in Washington state, insisting his account had been hacked.
He admitted to his online affairs a week after the controversy broke but refused to resign

Al-Zawahiri named new al-Qaeda chief

Al-Qaeda has named Ayman al-Zawahiri as its new chief following the killing of Osama bin Laden, the group has said in a statement issued in the name of the group's general command.
"The general command of al-Qaeda announces, after consultations, the appointment of Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri as head of the group," the statement, posted online on Thursday, said.
US special forces killed bin Laden in a raid on the Pakistani city of Abbottabad on May 2.
Al-Qaeda under the new leadership of al-Zawahiri will pursue its fight against the US and Israel, the group said in the statement.
"We seek with the aid of God to call for the religion of truth and incite our nation to fight ... by carrying out jihad against the apostate invaders ... with their head being crusader America and its servant Israel, and whoever supports them," it said.
Al-Zawahiri has been al-Qaeda's number two for years.
$25m bounty
His whereabouts are unknown but he is widely believed to be hiding along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States is offering a $25m reward for any information leading to his capture or conviction.
"Only a few weeks ago when the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was here in Pakistan she reportedly gave Pakistan what's been described as a hitlist", Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Islamabad, said.
"It listed five names and Zawahiri's name was on the list. Whether that means the new al-Qaeda leader is here we don't know for sure, but it certainly raises some questions".
Believed to be in his late 50s, al-Zawahiri met bin Laden in the mid-1980s when both were in Pakistan to support fighters battling the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
Al-Zawahiri, who was born in Egypt, vowed earlier this month to press ahead with al-Qaeda's campaign against the US and its allies, in what appeared to be his first public response to bin Laden's death.
"The Sheikh [bin Laden] has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr, and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice," he said in a video message posted online.
"Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or a group ... but a rebelling nation which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance challenging it wherever it is."
In Thursday's statement, al-Qaeda voiced its "support [to] the uprisings of our oppressed Muslim people against the corrupt and tyrant leaders who have made our nation suffer in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya Yemen, Syria and Morocco."
The group urged those involved in the uprisings to continue their "struggle until the fall of all corrupt regimes that the West has forced onto our countries."
But Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Cairo where a popular uprising toppled longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February, said the so-called "Arab Spring" has undermined al-Qaeda in many Arab countries.
"This has been a significant blow to the ideology of al-Qaeda", he said. "Many believe al-Qaeda has lost a great deal of momentum and support across the Arab world because these revolutions were able to deliver change without the use of violence."
Al-Qaeda has named Ayman al-Zawahiri as its new chief following the killing of Osama bin Laden, the group has said in a statement issued in the name of the group's general command.
"The general command of al-Qaeda announces, after consultations, the appointment of Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri as head of the group," the statement, posted online on Thursday, said.
US special forces killed bin Laden in a raid on the Pakistani city of Abbottabad on May 2.
Al-Qaeda under the new leadership of al-Zawahiri will pursue its fight against the US and Israel, the group said in the statement.
"We seek with the aid of God to call for the religion of truth and incite our nation to fight ... by carrying out jihad against the apostate invaders ... with their head being crusader America and its servant Israel, and whoever supports them," it said.
Al-Zawahiri has been al-Qaeda's number two for years.
$25m bounty
His whereabouts are unknown but he is widely believed to be hiding along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States is offering a $25m reward for any information leading to his capture or conviction.
"Only a few weeks ago when the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was here in Pakistan she reportedly gave Pakistan what's been described as a hitlist", Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Islamabad, said.
"It listed five names and Zawahiri's name was on the list. Whether that means the new al-Qaeda leader is here we don't know for sure, but it certainly raises some questions".
Believed to be in his late 50s, al-Zawahiri met bin Laden in the mid-1980s when both were in Pakistan to support fighters battling the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
Al-Zawahiri, who was born in Egypt, vowed earlier this month to press ahead with al-Qaeda's campaign against the US and its allies, in what appeared to be his first public response to bin Laden's death.
"The Sheikh [bin Laden] has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr, and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice," he said in a video message posted online.
"Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or a group ... but a rebelling nation which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance challenging it wherever it is."
In Thursday's statement, al-Qaeda voiced its "support [to] the uprisings of our oppressed Muslim people against the corrupt and tyrant leaders who have made our nation suffer in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya Yemen, Syria and Morocco."
The group urged those involved in the uprisings to continue their "struggle until the fall of all corrupt regimes that the West has forced onto our countries."
But Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Cairo where a popular uprising toppled longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February, said the so-called "Arab Spring" has undermined al-Qaeda in many Arab countries.
"This has been a significant blow to the ideology of al-Qaeda", he said. "Many believe al-Qaeda has lost a great deal of momentum and support across the Arab world because these revolutions were able to deliver change without the use of violence."

New documentary shows Sri Lanka 'war crimes' - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English

Watch the Video here New documentary shows Sri Lanka 'war crimes' - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English

US Fed chief urges raising of debt ceiling

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In recent weeks Bernanke said he believes job creation and overall economic growth will soon rebound [AFP]

Failure to raise the US debt ceiling in a timely manner could sink investors' confidence in the economy, the US Federal Reserve chief warned on Tuesday.
Ben Bernanke called the impasse in Congress over raising the $14.29 trillion borrowing cap understandable but ill-advised.
"I fully understand the desire to use the debt limit deadline to force some necessary and difficult fiscal policy adjustments, but the debt limit is the wrong tool for that important job," Bernanke said in a speech in Washington.
"Failing to raise the debt ceiling in a timely way would be self-defeating if the objective is to chart a course toward a better fiscal situation for our nation."
Unprecedented deficits
The US has never defaulted on its debt but is edging dangerously close. The government will run out of room to spend more on August 2 unless Congress bumps up the debt ceiling.
But Republican lawmakers, especially in the House of Representatives, are refusing to support such a move until the White House agrees on huge cuts to spending.
Joe Biden, the US vice president, says he's confident budget talks he's leading will produce deficit cuts "well beyond" $1tn.
Biden says he hopes his group, which includes top lawmakers of both parties, will have a tentative agreement by Congress' July 4th recess.
Bernanke said that putting in place sustainable fiscal policies was a "daunting" challenge "crucial for our nation".
"History makes clear that failure to put our fiscal house in order will  erode the vitality of our economy, reduce the standard of living in the United States, and increase the risk of economic and financial instability."
However, he said, "In debating critical fiscal issues, we should avoid unnecessary actions or threats that risk shaking the confidence of investors in the ability and willingness of the US government to pay its bills."
Economic disaster
President Barack Obama earlier on Tuesday warned of a new economic meltdown if the ceiling is not lifted in time.
"We could actually have a reprise of a financial crisis, if we play this too close to the line," Obama told the NBC television network on Tuesday.
"We're going be working hard over the next month. My expectation is we're going to get it done in a sensible way. That's what the American people expect."
Timothy Geithner, the US treasury secretary, met with Republican and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday to try to find an exit to the impasse.
Republicans back trillions of dollars in spending cuts and oppose tax increases to put the economy on a sustainable track after the worst recession in decades resulted in ballooning budget deficits and public debt.
Obama's Democrats are open to spending cuts as long as they do not harm the social safety net, such as social security and Medicare programmes, and keep on track the weak economic recovery.
Negative outlook
Meanwhile, Jim Flaherty, Canada's finance minister said he had spoken with his US counterparts in Congress and budget officials in the Obama administration to encourage them to "work something out".
"This is not just a procedural matter. This has some consequences," Flaherty said when asked about the possibility of the US missing a debt payment.
"We don't need any more disruptions in the world economy these days," he said.
Bernanke also hit out at recent suggestions that the Treasury could avoid a technical default by juggling principal and interest payments on debt outstanding.
"Even a short suspension of payments on principal or interest on the Treasury's debt obligations could cause severe disruptions in financial markets and the payments system, induce ratings downgrades of US government debt, create fundamental doubts about the creditworthiness of the United States, and damage the special role of the dollar and Treasury securities in global markets in the longer term."
He said interest rates would likely rise, slowing the recovery and deepening the deficit problem by increasing required interest payments on debt.
The Treasury estimates that a financial crisis resulting from a default would have catastrophic economic consequences and could potentially cost millions of American jobs, at a time of high unemployment that hit 9.1 per cent last month.
Fitch Ratings last week warned the United States could lose its gold-plated credit rating if it fails to raise its debt ceiling to avoid defaulting on loans.
Similar alarms have come from Standard & Poor's and Moody's.
China, by far the top holder of US debt, has expressed concern that the massive US stimulus effort launched to revive the economy has led to mushrooming debt that erodes the value of the dollar and its Treasury holdings.
China cut its holdings of US Treasury securities in March for the fifth month in a row, to $1.145tn, a 2.6 per cent decline from an October peak, US data showed last month

Eritrea volcano ash cloud hits flights

A volcano in Eritrea has erupted for a third day but with reduced intensity, its ash cloud spreading out over Sudan, southern Egypt and towards Saudi Arabia and forcing the cancellation of some regional flights.
Emirates, the flagship carrier of Dubai, said it was cancelling its flight transiting through the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Tuesday due to airspace restrictions around Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Airlines officials told the Reuters news agency they had cancelled flights to the Sudanese capital Khartoum, neighbouring Djibouti as well as several domestic flights to Ethiopia's north.
Kenya Airways said it had cancelled a flight from Addis Ababa to Djibouti but that otherwise all its flights were operating as usual.
The Nabro volcano began hurling plumes of ash at about midnight on Sunday after a string of earthquakes.
Scientists initially wrongly identified the source of the eruption in the region close to the Ethiopian border as the nearby Dubbi volcano.
"The ash's direction and its intensity were very high on Sunday, but this morning the Modis [monitoring] satellite shows a weakening," Atalay Arefe, natural sciences professor at Addis Ababa University, said.
Satellite images on the France-based Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre's (VAAC) website showed the cloud heading towards Saudi Arabia.
Not known to have previously erupted, Nabro burst into life after a string of earthquakes, the biggest of which measured 5.7, according to the US Geographical Survey. VAAC said the initial eruption threw an ash cloud 13.5km high.
The online Earthquake-Report also said the intensity of the eruptions appeared to be subsiding.
"Based on the data from VAAC, we can clearly see that the eruption is winding down. There is some remaining activity as ash clouds are still [being] blown in the atmosphere (up to) an altitude of 6,096 metres," Earthquake-Report said.
Authorities in Ethiopia and Eritrea reported no casualties around the volcano. It was hard to verify these reports because of the difficulty accessing the arid region.
Hilary Clinton, the US secretary of state, had cut short her stay in Africa by a day on Monday because the ash cloud risked leaving her stranded

Greek protesters clash with riot police

Hundreds of protesters have clashed with riot police in Athens, the Greek capital, as thousands of demonstrators rallied against new spending cuts being pushed by the government.
Small groups of youths threw stones and petrol bombs at police cordons, and smashed the windows of a luxury hotel on Syntagma square, outside the parliament building on Wednesday.

Police responded to the violence with tear gas.
Protesters chanted "thieves, traitors" and asked "where did the money go?" as they amassed in central Athens.

"I feel rage and disgust," Maria Georgila, a 45-year old public sector workers and mother of two, told the Reuters news agency.
"These are very tough measures and they won't get us out of the crisis. I can't believe they have no alternative."

Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Athens, said: "There is undoubtedly anger on the streets ... we've also seen people wearing entirely black, putting on masks and goggles."

According to police, 20,000 people turned out for the demonstration, organised by two major unions, although local media put the figure at 40,000.

Another 20,000 people demonstrated in Greece's second city of Thessaloniki, authorities said.

Junk status
The government on Wednesday is debating fresh austerity measures that would extend beyond its term in office.
It has to pass a 2012-2015 austerity programme worth $40.5bn by June-end or face being cut off from rescue funding by European countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The measures including a five-year campaign of tax hikes, spending cuts ans sell-offs of state property.

However some politicians in the governing party have publically criticised the new cuts, with one of them defecting on Tuesday, reducing Prime Minister George Papandreou's parliamentary majority to five.
With its credit rating deep in junk status, Greece is being kept afloat by a $159bn EU-IMF rescue loan program and will need additional support to cover financing gaps next year.
To meet its commitments, Papandreou's Socialists abandoned a pledge not to impose new taxes and drew up a four-year privatisation programme worth $72bn. This has fuelled ongoing protests against austerity by public utility employees and other affected groups.
US-based financial services company, Standard & Poor's, slashed Greece's rating to CCC on Monday, dropping it to the lowest of 131 states that have a sovereign debt rating.
This indicates that Greece's creditors may have less chance than Pakistan, Ecuador or Jamaica of getting their money back.
This is a surprising low for Greece as the country still had a stellar A-rating despite a hefty debt burden in January 2009

S Africa bids farewell to anti-apartheid icon

South Africans mourned the loss of a woman celebrated for her role in the fight against apartheid, and for her nurturing of a new generation of leaders.
Crowds singing hymns and songs from the anti-apartheid era gathered hours before Albertina Sisulu's funeral on Saturday,  eventually filling about a quarter of a 40,000-seat soccer stadium in Soweto.
Nelson Mandela's tribute, read by his wife Graca Machel during the official funeral listed several of his friends and colleagues that have passed in recent years. He said he felt Sisulu's loss especially deeply.
"I would have loved to be here today to pay my personal respects but it would be too painful for me to see you go," said Mandela, who at 92 rarely makes public appearances due to his own frail health.
In his eulogy, President Jacob Zuma said Albertina Sisulu struggled for the unity black and white South Africans showed during the World Cup.
"As a nation, we made our mother very proud," he said. "We learned from her that we are one people."
The service followed a week of national mourning during which flags were flown at half-mast across South Africa and at its foreign missions.
Officials of the governing African National Congress (ANC) lead a series of memorial services in every province.
Zuma earlier declared Saturday an official funeral with military honours - as close as possible to a state funeral reserved for presidents - saying it should be "befitting for a leader of her stature".
Albertina collapsed and died at her Johannesburg home June 2 at the age of 92.
Her husband, former ANC general secretary Walter Sisulu, was given a similar funeral after his death in 2003. Their love endured 26 years of separation while he was imprisoned for his anti-apartheid activities.
Albertina was buried next to her husband at a cemetery on the edge of Soweto, the black township synonymous with resistance to apartheid.
'Big void'
"For many South Africans, this leaves a big void," Na'eem Jeenah, a political analyst and former anti-apartheid activist told Al Jazeera.
"The title by which she was known, Ma Sisulu, Mother Sisulu, Mother of the Nation, is one that many people say with great sincerity. So it really does leave a big void in the lives of not just activists but generally South Africans for the icon that she had become, as a champion of the oppressed, of the down-trodden."
Nelson Mandela, who was best man at the Sisulus' 1944 wedding, wrote in his autobiography about Albertina's "wise and wonderful presence'' in a Soweto house full of people and of fervent political talk.
Walter Sisulu spent most of his time in prison on Robben Island alongside Mandela, whom he had brought into the ANC.
While Albertina and Walter Sisulu lived their last years in a leafy Johannesburg neighbourhood reserved for whites under apartheid, Saturday's funeral cortege started at their old house in Soweto.
The hearse and its convoy made its way to Orlando Stadium, built in 1959, that has hosted sporting events, such as the 2010 Football World Cup.
Soccer officials postponed one-year World Cup commemoration ceremonies to next month because of Albertina's death.
Role model
Albertina, who trained as a nurse, campaigned against apartheid and for the rights of women and children. She was a leader of the United Democratic Front, a key anti-apartheid coalition in the 1980s that brought together religious, labour and community development groups.
Her activism led to months in jail and restrictions on her movements. She also served in parliament, taking a seat after the first all-race elections in 1994.
She was given the honour of nominating Mandela for the 1994 parliamentary vote that made him South Africa's first black president.
Albertina's death was followed by a debate over whether her model of sacrifice and discipline has been abandoned in South Africa.
"I don't know that we have role models of that calibre in South Africa anymore," Jeenah told Al Jazeera.
"We really as a nation are preparing to live in an age beyond theirs, to live in an age where they don't exist. And we need to create people of the kind of moral stature and morality and commitment to humanity that these people represented, which is a difficult task today in South Africa."

Donors pledge $4.3bn towards child vaccines

Donors from around the world have pledged $4.3bn for a programme that aims to vaccinate 250 million of the world's poorest children against lifethreatening diseases.

The pledges surpassed the $3.7bn target set by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), which says it could prevent more than 4 million premature deaths by 2015.
"We have exceeded the figure that we set ourselves and we have received firm pledges for a sum of $4.3bn," Andrew Mitchell, Britain's International Development Secretary announced at the end of the conference in London on Wednesday.

Britain and Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman jointly committed $2.3bn to help vaccinate more than 80 million children in impoverished countries.
David Cameron, Britain's prime minister, said the $1.3bn donated by his country would help save 1.4 million lives over the next five years.

"Today we come together because we have the chance to save another four million lives in four years," he said.
"Frankly the idea of children dying from pneumonia and diarrhoea should be absolutely unthinkable in 2011.

Helen Evans, CEO of GAVI, discusses the vaccinations

"But for many parents in the developing world it is a devastating reality."
Gates, a billionaire and philanthropist who helped set up the alliance, said his charitable foundation would commit an additional $1bn over five years.
"It's not every day you give away $1bn but for a cause like this it's exciting to be doing this," he said.

Their announcements came a day after Kevin Rudd, Australia's foreign minister, said his country would commit $211m to GAVI.
"What I see across the international community is a growing commitment to vaccinations ... as one of the most effective forms of aid delivery," Rudd told the Reuters news agency. "This is a good investment."
GAVI, a non-profit organisation which funds bulk-buy vaccination programmes for poor nations that cannot afford Western prices, is seeking an extra $3.7bn in funds to prevent four million child deaths by 2015 with immunisation campaigns reaching more than 240 million children.
The alliance has already vaccinated 288 million children in 19 countries, but wants to extend the vaccination programme to another 26 countries
Pneumonia and diarrhoea kill three times as many children under the age of five as HIV/AIDS even though vaccines are available to prevent such deaths.
Many developing countries cannot afford the vaccines.

Vietnam to hold naval drill amid China rift

Vietnam has announced it will hold a live-fire naval drill next week in the South China Sea as an escalating maritime dispute fuels tensions with Beijing.

Relations between China and Vietnam are at their worst in years as the two countries trade accusations over recent confrontations between their ships in potentially energy-rich contested waters.
A Vietnamese naval officer told the AFP news agency on Friday that the six hours of exercises would be held on Monday around Hon Ong island, about 40km off Quang Nam province in central Vietnam.
The officer declined to give the reason for the night drill or say how many vessels would be involved.
Nguyen Phuong Nga, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, said the exercises were part of routine annual training.
Tensions between the communist neighbours have risen sharply after Hanoi accused Chinese marine surveillance vessels of cutting the exploration cables of an oil survey ship in May inside its exclusive economic zone, where the drill will be.
On Thursday, Vietnam alleged a similar incident in the zone, saying a Chinese fishing boat rammed the cables of another oil survey ship in its waters, describing it as a "premeditated" attack.
Beijing countered by warning Vietnam to halt all activities that it says violate its sovereignty in the disputed South China Sea waters.
Long-standing dispute
The two countries have a long-standing dispute over the potentially oil-rich Paracel and Spratly archipelagos and surrounding sea.
The area where the live-fire exercise is planned is about 250km from the Paracels and almost 1,000km from the Spratlys.
Carl Thayer, a veteran analyst of Vietnam and the South China Sea, said the drill would be a way for Vietnam to send a message, after China on Thursday also said it would conduct naval exercises.
Thayer said Vietnam was firing "a soft warning shot across the bow, rather than a real one".
But he added such drills were not unprecedented as Vietnam held an air-defence drill on land about two months ago.
In a sign of how seriously Hanoi views the situation, Nguyen Tan Dung, the prime minister, this week vowed to protect Vietnam's "incontestable" sovereignty of the Paracels and Spratlys.
Vietnam said it has since deployed eight boats to "escort" the ship involved in the May incident, without saying what kind of vessels. Analysts say the move raises the stakes in the dispute.
Beijing says it is committed to peace in the South China Sea, but its more assertive maritime posture has caused concern among regional nations.
Tensions have also risen this year between China and the Philippines, another claimant to the Spratlys, where Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also say they have a stake.
"Nobody wants war but when there is an escalation we will act," Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh, the vice defence minister, told local media earlier this week.
Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, warned last weekend that clashes may erupt in the South China Sea unless nations with conflicting territorial claims adopt a mechanism to settle disputes peacefully.
Anti-China protests
Hundreds of people held a peaceful anti-China protest outside Beijing's embassy in Hanoi on Sunday, the largest action of its kind since 2007. Protests are rare in authoritarian Vietnam.
Tensions have also spread to the internet. More than 200 Vietnamese websites have been attacked and some defaced with Chinese flags, an internet security firm said on Friday.
The ministries of agriculture and foreign affairs are among those targeted since the beginning of June, Nguyen Minh Duc, director of the state-linked Bach Khoa Internetwork Security Centre, said.
"We don't yet know if it concerns Chinese hackers," Duc said

Fighting erupts in Sudan's Kordofan region

Fighting in Sudan's volatile oil-producing border state of South Kordofan has left several people dead and wounded, the UN has said.
"We know that more people have been killed overnight this morning in the state capital, Kadugli. But we don't have casualty figures," Hua Jiang, a spokeswoman for the UN mission in Sudan (UNMIS), told the AFP news agency on Wednesday.
Jiang said the fighting, which started on Sunday between Sudanese armed forces and northern elements within the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the former southern rebel group, was currently most fierce in Kadugli.
But the army had also been shelling SPLA positions in the mountains of South Kordofan, she added.
"The IDPs (internally displaced persons) are now our main concern," she said.
Ceasefire call
Tension has been escalating in South Kordofan, the north's only oil-producing state, which borders the south.

The state is home to many fighters who sided with the south against the north during decades of civil war and fear being isolated after the south officialy declares independence next month.
The fighters are still referred to as members of the SPLA, although south Sudan says they are no longer part of its army.
Khartoum has repeatedly ordered about 40,000 northern SPLA troops, which it says are illegal, to either disarm or redeploy south of the 1956 borders before southern independence.
The fighting started after northern forces attempted to disarm some of the armed groups, Yasir Arman, who heads the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement's [SPLM] northern wing, the political wing of the SPLA, said.
"We call for an immediate ceasefire, and to start dialogue immediately," Arman told Reuters.
A spokesman for the northern forces was not immediately available to comment, though Khartoum has previously said the region was stable.
UN staff evacuated
Kouider Zerrouk, another UN spokesperson, said that between 6,000 and 7,000 civilians were in and around the UNMIS peacekeeping compound, near Kadugli's airport, seeking protection.
All UN agencies and international NGOs have suspended their operations in Kadugli since Monday and their staff evacuated to the UNMIS base.
On Tuesday, the UN reported at least six casualties from clashes in the state capital, four of whom where Sudanese police officers.
South Kordofan is awash with weapons and retains strong links to the south, especially among the indigenous Nuba peoples who fought on the side of the southern rebels even though their homeland, the Nuba Mountains, lies in the north

Syrian army starts crackdown in northern town

Syrian state television says the country's army has begun operations in Jisr al-Shughur, a restive northern town near the Turkish border, as anti-government protests are held in cities across the country.
The government said the operation on Friday aimed to restore security in the town, where authorities said 120 security personnel were killed by "armed groups'' last week.
"Our correspondent in Jisr al-Shughur told us now that in response to people's calls, units from the Syrian Arabic Army started its duties in Jisr al-Shughur ... to arrest armed members," the television report said.


The reporter accompanying the army said troops backed by tanks were on the outer edges of the town, ready to enter.
A resident of Jisr al-Shughur who fled the town on Friday morning, making his way towards the Turkish border to seek refuge, denied the government's claims that there were armed gangs in the town.
"All the accusations of residents sheltering gangs are false," he told Al Jazeeera. "And we never asked the army for help or to enter our city. It is them firing on us."
The resident said he had seen the army shooting at fleeing villagers with machine guns.
"They have burned down all the crops in surrounding fields and the villagers are fleeing to the nearby mountain."
Deaths reported
Protests erupted in many cities across Syria after Friday prayers.
Security forces shot dead at least two protesters when they fired at a rally in the Qaboun district of Damascus, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"It seems that it was a big demonstration, given the direct use of live ammunition," the group's director Rami Abdelrahaman said, adding that the information came from witnesses.
Other activists said security forces fired automatic rifles, some from rooftops, at the demonstration, which demanded the removal of President Bashar al-Assad.
Security forces also shot dead two civilians in a village in the southern Hauran Plain, residents said.
"There was a demonstration of 1,000 people when the 'Amen' [security police] fired from their cars," one of the residents of Busra al-Harir village said, giving the names of the dead protesters as Adnan al-Hariri and Abdelmuttaleb al-Hariri.
Syrian state television said a member of the security forces, whom the television described as "preservers of peace", was shot dead by gunmen in Busra al-Harir, but residents say no policemen were killed and that the demonstration was peaceful.
A fifth protester was shot dead in the Mediterranean port city of Latakia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
In the north of the country, more than 8,000 protesters marched through three Kurdish towns to demand political reform and in solidarity with Jisr al-Shughur, activist Hassan Berro said.
"With our blood and our soul, we sacrifice ourselves for Jisr al-Shughur," the demonstrators chanted in Ras al-Ain on the border with Turkey. Protests were also taking place in Qamishli and Amuda