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AFP - President Asif Ali Zardari arrived here on Sunday in New Delhi, marking the first visit by a Pakistani head of state in India since 2005, for a day at the essentially symbolic showing a common desire to normalize diplomatic relations.

Accompanied by a large delegation, Mr. Zardari arrived at 12:15 local time (6:45 GMT) in the federal capital of India, before being received by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He was then to proceed in a hotbed of Muslim pilgrimage in Rajasthan (West).

After a brief meeting half an hour with the prime minister of India, Zardari spoke of "very productive discussions" and expresses its desire to maintain " ; better relations with India ".  

"We discussed all issues that we could," he added, hoping "a meeting on Pakistani soil very soon", an invitation that Mr. Singh said he accepted, without giving further details on the date.

The Prime Minister also assured that "relations between India and Pakistan should become normal, it is our common desire. We have a number of issues and wish to find pragmatic and tactical solutions to these issues, "he said.

The visit comes after the United States has offered a reward of $ 10 million for the capture of Pakistan Hafiz Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an Islamist group accused of for organizing the bloody Mumbai attacks in November 2008.  

Pakistani authorities believe they have not enough evidence against Hafiz Saeed, who lives and moves freely in Pakistan.

The latter has meanwhile challenged the United States, who placed second in the list of U.S. State Department terrorist suspects sought, to prove anything against him.

Several hundred demonstrators marched in cities across Pakistan on Friday to defend the Islamic leader and ask the Pakistani president to cancel his visit to India.

Before arriving in India, Pakistan's president has assured that his visit to India was "religious in nature". He has to go to Ajmer, about 350 km from New Delhi, on a sacred site consists of a set of mosques built around a tomb commemorating a holy death in 1236.

Analysts said the most sensitive issues between India and Pakistan, including strengthening the fight against Pakistani terrorist groups operating on its soil, are not the heart of this visit.

It is "a largely symbolic event and controversial issues will be avoided," summed Brahma Chellaney, expert at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.

G. Parthasarathy, retired diplomat and former ambassador of India to Pakistan, however, said he expected that the Prime Minister "refers to our concern about terrorism."  

Observers say the visit of Mr Zardari primarily reflects a desire to improve the difficult bilateral relations, suspended after the Mumbai attacks which caused 166 deaths. The last visit to India by a Pakistani head of state was made by Pervez Musharraf seven years ago.

India and Pakistan both have nuclear power, have fought three wars since their independence in 1947, including two on the territorial question of Kashmir, a region divided between the two countries but each claim in its entirety.

AFP - The Security Council of the United Nations on Wednesday urged a cease-fire immediately in northern Mali, where the secular component of the Tuareg rebellion, now supplanted by Islamist groups, has announced the end of its "military operations".

In a statement proposed by France, the 15-member Security Council

also called for a return to a legitimate government in Bamako, where a military junta overthrew President Amadou Toumani Toure two weeks ago.  

Taking advantage of the coup in Bamako, Tuareg rebels and Islamist groups have taken over the weekend checking the three cities of northern Mali, Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, without resistance from an armed e Malian under-equipped and disorganized, in fact cutting the country in two.

The Islamist Ansar Dine, led by Tuareg chief Iyad Ag Ghaly, and elements of al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have since taken over the National Movement for Liberation of Azawad (MNLA).

The rise of the Islamists, who have announced their intention to impose Sharia law in their area, has caused concern within the international community, especially from France who won Wednesday vote on a resolution of the Security Council of the UN.  

Council members were "concerned about the presence in the region of the terrorist group AQIM," which could "further destabilize the situation".

They invited the rebels to "immediately cease all violence and to seek a peaceful solution through political dialogue", and "strongly condemned the attacks, looting and confiscation of territories engage" these rebel groups.

From Bamako, the junta of Captain Amadou Sanogo denounced "grave violations of human rights" in the north, and more particulièrmeent Gao, since "fighters MNLA invasion, Ansar Dine and AQIM ".

"Women and girls are abducted and raped by the new occupants who dictate their law," said the junta.  

"It's a reality here. At night they kidnap women, they take them, rape them, "said one resident told AFP Gao, ensuring that he is aware of" at least ten cases. "

Northern Mali has become a black hole, become totally inaccessible to the press and international organizations. Many residents reported looting and pillaging in Gao and Timbuktu.

Some 90,000 displaced people who were in Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal, are now "unassisted," said Caritas International.

Gao, "public buildings, private offices, banks, NGO seats, food banks, everything has been sacked" by the attackers, said a employee of humanitarian organization.  

Three distinct groups share control of the town, according to a local MP, Abdou Sidibé: MNLA the Tuareg, the Islamist Ansar Dine and a splinter group of AQIM, and Finally traffickers and criminal groups.

In Timbuktu, men of Ansar Dine and "mujahideen" to AQIM have driven the MNLA, of which only twenty men are stationed near the airport, and put an end to looting the name of their new Islamic order, residents said.

Ansar Dine has strengthened its military position in the city, by deploying armored vehicles.

More no services running, the city had no electricity since mid-Journé and water could soon be cut, according to a humanitarian source in Mali on site. The new masters of the city have asked people to stockpile water. The offices of the national telephone company (Sotelma) were burned, with a risk of breaking the phone.

Two leaders of AQIM have also given to a local association of multiple copies of the Koran and clothing, according to another witness.

Kidal, the leader of Ansar Dine, Iyad Ag Ghaly, originates, for its part has been spared the looting because it is essentially his fighters who captured the city.  

In Bamako, the coup leaders announced Wednesday the postponement of the "National Convention" which was to be open Thursday, at their initiative, the first step in a "transition" desired by the junta but they did not specify the duration.

They claim to have consulted various parties who wished to "better preparation material" and state that "the new date (…) will be announced by agreement with the all the sensitivities involved. "

A front anti-junta, bringing together fifty political parties and "hundreds" of associations and unions, has rejected any participation in such an agreement.  

A pro-junta coalition, the Popular Movement of March 22 (MP22), it has urged the junta "to stand firm and now entirely reject the dictates of Western and French imperialists" .

Subject to an embargo since Monday diplomatic, economic and financial embargo imposed by its neighbors, the junta was sentenced Tuesday new sanctions by the African Union (AU) and the United States.

It also remains under threat of a West African military intervention, while the Chiefs of Staff of ECOWAS are to meet Thursday in Abidjan to activate a regional force de ; ja alert.  

Negotiations continue, however, and the Burkinabe Minister of Foreign Affairs Djibril Bassole, was Wednesday in Bamako to meet the head of the junta.

Rick Santorum has overtaken the U.S. political analysts by announcing suddenly, Tuesday, April 10, its withdrawal from the race for the Republican nomination for president in November. His decision leaves the field open to Mitt Romney, who now has every chance of being invested in August by his party to go to challenge Barack Obama.

In announcing his withdrawal, Rick Santorum was careful to detail the reasons for his choice. He has only raised his daughter, Bella, suffers from a genetic disorder and has spent the last weekend in the hospital. One explanation that has not convinced most U.S. editorial writers.

The specter of defeat in Pennsylvania

"It just did not stand a chance of winning the nomination, assures Thomas Mann, a political scientist in the U.S. think-tank Brookings Institution interviewed by USA Today. It was likely to be swept by Romney in Pennsylvania. "

A crucial primary must be held within two weeks in Pennsylvania, a state Senator Rick Santorum was from 1995 to 2007. The wealthy Mitt Romney has already started to bomb the local television commercials, the child of the country was perceived to be a painful defeat on home soil. "If he had had a chance to win Pennsylvania, he would have stayed and would have hoped for a miracle," says Thomas Mann as well.

A setback in Pennsylvania could have meant the end of Santorum's presidential ambitions, especially since there is already weathered an affront to voters in 2006, when he was running for a third term Senator. A humiliation that still lingers today like a bullet and his opponents in the primary have been constantly remind him during the campaign.

Delegates too late and too little money

Regardless of the outcome of the next primary, the battle seemed lost anyway in advance for Rick Santorum, as its behind Mitt Romney is important. According to the website RealClearPolitics, the former Massachusetts governor now has 656 delegates, about 1,144 needed to win nomination, against 272 to Santorum.

Of financial problems also handicapping the campaign of Santorum. Quoted by "The New York Times," Republican strategist and former campaign manager for Santorum, Vince Galko, wondered if it had enough money to continue. He said the candidate has come to realize that ending his campaign "was the smartest thing to do."

Candidate in 2016?

The withdrawal of Santorum, however, should not sign the end of his political career. There are a few more months, he was best known as an atypical candidate, often mocked for his sleeveless shirts and consistently placed at the end of the table during televised debates. Today is a respected politician who was able to rally the evangelicals and the most conservative fringe of the Republican Party.

"He started his campaign as an asterisk in the polls and he leaves having won three million votes and 11 primary or caucus," recalls Ralph Reed, a Conservative activist quoted by the "Washington Post" ;.

Santorum could benefit from this new stature to pose as a serious candidate and experienced in 2016 (it will be 58 years old). His new will it also integrates a list of potential candidates for the vice presidency when Romney will be invested. "I think we have not heard the last of Rick Santorum," predicts Ralph Reed.

The Tuareg rebellion has announced the continuation of his "offensive" in Mali, where uncertainty still reigned over the fate of President Amadou Toumani Toure, overthrown by the military Thursday already increasingly isolated by the many calls for a return to constitutional order.

Friday, contradictory information has circulated about the situation in Bamako, in connection with a brief interruption of the signal of public television under control of the coup leaders. The junta leader, Captain Amadou Sanogo, had been arrested or given to certain death.

"Rumors," responded the junta in a televised statement shortly after 7:30 p.m. (GMT), providing: "All is well" and the situation is under control .

Previously, Captain Sanogo gave the same assurances to an AFP correspondent on the leaders of the regime of President Toure: they are "safe" and will "soon returned to ; Malian justice ".

"For now, I will not tell you" where Toure, "he's fine, it is safe," Sanogo said, without raising uncertainty about its fate. 

In a BBC interview, he said he did not intend to stay in power and that he would retire when he is assured that the army will be able to secure the country.

France said Friday he had not managed to call President Toure and demanded respect for his physical integrity.

It is unknown if protected by military loyalists, as on Thursday assured his entourage or is a prisoner of the soldiers who took power following a mutiny marked by battles with loyalists and fired warning shots across the city. There were between three and four deaths, according to sources, and about 40 injured mostly gunshot, according to rescuers.

Many politicians were arrested, according to various sources, and after the mutiny, homes, government and service stations were looted, vehicles of individuals re quisitionnés by soldiers in Bamako. Captain Sanogo condemned the "atrocities" and pledged to end it.

Soumaila Cisse, party leader and former top regional official, said the men in fatigues had tried to arrest him on the night of Wednesday to Thursday. He got away through the intervention of supporters but his home was looted and vandalized, he said in a statement on the coup, that he described as "reactionary act Lowest of the political history of Mali" for two decades.

After the mutiny, soldiers engaged in looting in Bamako, acknowledged Sanogo.

In announcing the overthrow of his regime, the coup leaders accused President Toure, and their superiors, incompetence in the fight against Tuareg rebels in offensive since mid-January in northern Mali, which were already active Islamist groups including al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and other traffickers. 

The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA, Tuareg rebellion), which indirectly caused the coup soldiers angered by the lack of resources, has indicated a desire to continue " ; its offensive "and" dislodge the Malian army and administration of all the cities of Azawad "(north), birthplace of the Touareg.

He said he took a new location Friday, Anéfis (northeast).

At five weeks of the first round of presidential elections scheduled for April 29, the coup has been condemned in a joint statement by 12 of the main political parties in Mali, weakening the position of the coup. 

The African Union (AU) has decided to suspend the Mali from participation in its activities in Bamako and sending a joint mission with the Economic Community of African States West (ECOWAS).  

Senegal has said the same position and urged the West African "to undertake, with diligence, all necessary steps for recovery, as soon as possible, the constitutional order ", a situation that will be the agenda of an extraordinary summit of ECOWAS leaders scheduled for Tuesday in Abidjan.

In a statement sent to AFP Friday, the African Assembly for the Defence of Human Rights (RADDHO, an NGO based in Dakar) "condemns in the strongest terms the coup State military deals a mortal blow to the democratic experiment in Mali. " 

Washington warned that the economic and military aid of $ 70 million (almost 53 million) paid in Mali might be compromised if leaders of the coup do not re-established constitutional order.

The European Union, a key partner in Mali, has "strongly" condemned the coup, called "the release of state officials", the "return of a civilian government "and respect the electoral calendar original. She decided "to temporarily suspend development operations" except humanitarian aid.

These positions are in addition to convictions neighbors, Algeria, Niger and Mauritania, where the impact of the crisis is strongly felt. The war in northern Mali has displaced more than 200,000 people, about half of these countries.

The land and air borders of Mali have been closed since Thursday and a curfew in effect from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 GMT. At the border Côte d'Ivoire-Mali dozens of trucks waiting in the heat of Friday to pass, some filled with perishables, according to an AFP journalist.

AFP - Several civilians and members of the security forces were killed in the attacks occurred early Saturday in Damascus, Syrian state television announced.

In several bands marching, marked as urgent, state television also said the two attacks had targeted the leadership of the criminal police and a center of information Aviation, causing casualties among civilians and members of security forces.

One of the explosions took place between the boulevard and the neighborhood of Baghdad al-Qasaa, while the second occurred in the district of al-Douar Jamarik (area of ​​customs ed), said the television.

The chain also claims that "according to initial reports it is car bombs". 

Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (OSDH) has in turn said in a statement that several members of the security forces were killed and others injured s in the blasts targeting security centers, but did not locate them.

Several attacks took place in Syria since the outbreak March 15, 2011 a popular revolt hostile to President Bashar al-Assad, who refuses to recognize the extent and the accused " armed terrorist gangs "to be the cause of violence that left over 9,000 dead in one year, according to OSDH.

March 3, two civilians were killed and 20 wounded in a suicide bombing in the city of Deraa, cradle of the protest in the south, was the official SANA news agency reported. 

On 6 January, a bomb struck the center of Damascus leaving dozens dead and wounded, two weeks after a similar attack blamed by the authorities to Al-Qaeda and the opposition to the regime of disputed Bashar al-Assad.

On 10 February, two suicide car bomb rocked Aleppo (north), the second city of Syria, killing 28 people and injured 235.

AFP - Osama bin Laden wanted her children and grandchildren go to study and live peacefully in the West, rather than engaging with him on the path of Jihad, said his brother-brethren ; re in a Sunday Times interview published Sunday.

"He told his children and grandchildren: + go to Europe or the United States and receive a good education, '" said the British newspaper Zakaria Al-Sadah, whose sister Amal, a Yemeni, was the fifth wife of the leader of Al Qaeda, killed nine months ago in Pakistan.

According to Zakaria Al-Sadah, bin Laden was determined that her children "do not follow him as the path of Jihad."

"You have to study, live in peace and not do what I do or what I did," bin Laden told them, according to his brother. 

The leader of al-Qaeda was killed in May 2011 by an American commando in the house where he hid for several years in Abbottabad, north-west Pakistan. In this interview, his brother explained that the three women and nine children who lived with him in the house are confined for months in a three-room apartment with no windows, Islamabad , under the constant supervision of Pakistani intelligence.

The Sunday Times published this interview with a photo of six children, taken by Zakaria Al-Sadah, who says he was allowed to see them several times since November, in the presence of guards. 

These children, "traumatized" by the attack of the commando, "need a different environment than a prison - whatever one thinks of their father and what he did," he thought. As for his sister Amal, injured during the raid, "it played no role in what was done and her husband should not be punished for it," he said .

According to him, Amal and other women of bin Laden began a hunger strike. Pakistani commission to investigate the presence of the leader of Al Qaeda in Pakistan and the circumstances of the American raid, in September banned all those she had heard of leave the country.

Tuareg rebels in northern Mali have captured the border town of Tinzawatene after two days of clashes with government forces in Mali, officials said Wednesday rebel and government sources.

The fighters of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), fighting for the independence of northern Mali, took control of two military camps in the city and seized several vehicles military, said one of their spokesman, Hama Ag Sid'Ahmed.

"True, the army withdrew from the camp (of Tinzawatene) and was down on the Algerian side of the border, but it is a strategic withdrawal, "said a source at the Malian Ministry of Defence, requesting anonymity. A little later, the Malian government confirmed in a statement withdrawing Tinzawatene.

A rebel was killed and another wounded in the fighting, said Hama Ag Sid'Ahmed.

Capture Tinzawatene is a major strategic gain for the MNLA, because this place gives them control of an important route of transit and smuggling into the desert.

The rebels, strengthened by the return of veterans who served the regime of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, launched an offensive on three fronts in the north in mid-January.

In a statement, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the violence and called the rebels "to immediately stop their attacks." 

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the number of Malians displaced by the fighting inside the country stands at 30,000 and 15,000 others have refugee ; s in Niger.

At least five thousand went to Mauritania.

AFP - Thousands of supporters of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, presidential candidate of March 4th, demonstrated on Saturday in several Russian cities, attempting to thwart the protests of opponents.

Over 20,000 people participated in demonstrations in the Russian Far East and Siberia, before a similar event planned in St. Petersburg, police said.

The Russians are becoming more and more before the presidential election, with each side trying to pass each other by the scale gatherings.

12,000 people demonstrated in Khabarovsk (Far East), chanting "We have something to protect," according to police quoted by Russian news agencies.

Some 3.000 people attended a pro-Putin meeting in Vladivostok, Pacific Port, 7000 in Irkutsk (Siberia) and 3,000 braved the cold to do the same in Novosibirsk.

A giant rally in support of Putin is scheduled Feb. 23 in Moscow under the slogan "We protect the country" and the organizers hope to gather 200,000 people .

The opposition will meet in the capital on February 26, hoping to gather tens of thousands of protesters form a human chain around the Moscow Ring Road.

Vladimir Putin has faced since December in an unprecedented protest movement since his arrival at the head of Russia in 2000. He remains the favorite in the polls on March 4, which should allow his return to the Kremlin, the Russian presidency he had to leave for constitutional reasons after two terms (2000-2008).

Attention football can harm the health of financial markets. This is essentially the conclusion of a very serious study of the European Central Bank (ECB) published in early February. Dubbed "The pitch injustement Than the pit" ("The field rather than the trading room"), this analysis reflects the impact of World Cup football 2010 on volume of financial transactions at that time. "After observing the activity during this period of 15 financial centers worldwide, it appears that football games have distracted traders enough to affect the process price formation, "write the two authors of the study.

"I remember we had fought for so that retransmit television matches," said FRANCE 24 Eric Valatini, trader for a French bank established in Asia . Specifically, the study of the ECB shows that the number of orders placed during each game of the World had declined by 45% on average compared to normal. Better: each goal was still plunging 5% the volume of financial transactions …

The paper is also fun to meet the financial centers more "addicted" to football. Argentina and arrived well ahead with a number of trades 75% below average during the games played by the Albiceleste, followed by Mexico and Chile. Traders in the UK, yet historic land of football, were they, the less distracted (23% only) in this sporting event. France, meanwhile, is in the middle with a 30% drop in trading activity.

Questioning of conventional models remains a question: these findings certainly entertaining, they can be of practical value in these times of questioning of the market frenzy? Half-serious, half-ironic, the Wall Street Journal wonders if multiply and the World Cups of football would not reduce the volatility of financial transactions. "It will not work because the impact on the number of transactions is just the fact that these high masses sports are exceptional," retorted Eric Valatini, who also considered and the question on the blog in Finance MarginCall.

He considers however that this study is a good illustration of the imperfection of the classical theory of markets based yet many mathematical models used by financial traders to decide whether to place an order. "These models assume that markets are efficient and rational at all times and this study proves that this is not the case," said Eric Valatini. Who estimated that during events like the World Cup soccer, traders have nothing rational actors and all of "mindless animals gathered in a great locker room. " The question is how to integrate these "animals" in a mathematical model …

AFP - The Italian Senate on Friday passed a plan to the EU pledged to reduce debt and boost growth, in a race to reassure the markets before the start of Silvio Berlusconi, while Greece was waiting for the composition of its new government.

The vote went smoothly, as requested by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to the Senate.