Sri Lankan ruling party moves to impeach chief justice

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling party moved a motion in parliament on Thursday to impeach the chief justice for violating the constitution, signaling a deepening rift between the government and the judiciary.

Relations between Shirani Bandaranayake, Sri Lanka's first woman chief justice, and the government have been deteriorating over recent months.

Her supporters say she has been trying to preserve the independence of the judiciary in a highly politicized environment, and as the government faces international pressure over its human rights record.

The government disagrees.

"Government members believe that the judiciary is overstepping its limits and (she) violated the constitution," cabinet spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told reporters.

He did not elaborate on the accusations against Bandaranayake.

"We handed over the impeachment motion with 117 signatures to the speaker," Arundika Fernando, a member of Rajapaksa's ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) told Reuters.

Bandaranayake could be removed with 113 votes in the 225-seat parliament. Rajapaksa's ruling coalition holds a more-than two-third majority in the assembly.

The president appointed Bandaranayake in May 2011 and her terms could last another 11 years.

She has come under criticism from the government after she ruled against a bill in parliament proposing a budget of 80 billion rupees ($614.20 million) for development.

She said the bill had to be approved by the country's nine provincial councils, including the former war zone of the northern province, before being approved by parliament.

Bandaranayake's removal could take several months and Rajapaksa will have to address parliament to give reasons for the impeachment.

(Writing by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Expect feisty defense from China's disgraced Bo Xilai

BEIJING (Reuters) - Disgraced former top Chinese politician Bo Xilai can be expected to mount a feisty defense of himself when he finally comes to trial, but a guilty verdict is not in doubt, a lawyer who had a front seat at China's last major show trial said.

Zhang Sizhi was defense lawyer for Mao Zedong's widow, Jiang Qing, leader of the "Gang of Four" that wielded supreme power during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. She was given a suspended death sentence in 1981 for the deaths of tens of thousands during that period of chaos.

As such, Zhang was witness to Jiang's spirited though ultimately fruitless defense, and thinks Bo could do the same.

"Bo Xilai will be given the right to defend himself, but will he be able to use it? I cannot say for certain," the still sprightly Zhang told Reuters in an interview in his spartan apartment in central Beijing late on Wednesday.

"I would expect though that he will defend himself to the fullest extent, according to what I know about the man," said the 85-year-old.

There is little doubt about a guilty verdict.

"It will be another show trial," Zhang said.

Bo, 63, was widely seen as a contender for top leadership before his career unravelled after his former police chief, Wang Lijun, fled to a U.S. consulate for more than 24 hours in February and accused Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, of murdering a British businessman.

Gu and Wang have both been jailed over the scandal stemming from the murder of Neil Heywood. In September, the government accused Bo of corruption and of bending the law to hush up the murder.

While formal charges have yet to be filed, China's prosecutors and courts come under party control and are most unlikely to challenge the party's accusations.

The Bo scandal has rocked Beijing, exposing rifts within the party - elements of which are strong supporters of Bo's populist, left-leaning policies - at a time when the country is preparing for a once-in-a-decade leadership change.

"LITTLE GIRL"

Zhang said he did not expect Gu, 53, to try and kill herself like Jiang did in 1991.

"Her killing herself was a political act. She did not fear death," he said. "Gu is not like this. She's just a little girl."

Zhang, who was sent to toil on a farm during the Cultural Revolution, has never given up his fight for legal and political reform in China.

Zhang has campaigned against censorship and, more recently, lobbied for Wu Ying, a self-made businesswoman convicted in a multi-million dollar scheme to bilk investors, in a contentious fraud case that sparked sympathy for the peasant's daughter. Her death sentence was overturned this year.

With China approaching the leadership change at a Communist Party Congress which opens in Beijing next week, calls for reform have grown in state media and amongst government-linked academics.

But Zhang said he was pessimistic, especially for legal reform in a country where courts are controlled by the party.

"The most important reform China needs to become a country with rule of law is independence of the judiciary," he said.

"I don't talk about this very often for one reason - it will not happen ... It cannot happen as long as we live in a one-party state."

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

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China proposes new initiatives for Syria ceasefire

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Thursday it had proposed a new initiative to head off an escalation of violence in Syria, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the establishment of a transitional governing body.

The plan, proposed on Wednesday to Lakhdar Brahimi, the visiting United Nations-Arab League joint peace envoy on Syria, "is an extension of China's effort to push for a political resolution of the Syrian issue", a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

The 19-month-old revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad claimed at least six more lives on Wednesday in a bomb blast, state media and opposition activists said.

That followed the collapse of the latest ceasefire proposal, brokered by Brahimi in an effort to stop the fighting over the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

The conflict has left an estimated 32,000 dead.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news briefing that under Beijing's "new proposal there are constructive new suggestions such as a ceasefire region by region and phase by phase, and establishing a transitional governing body".

Brahimi met on Wednesday with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi who said the world should act with greater urgency to support Brahimi's mediation efforts.

"More and more countries have come to realize that a military option offers no way out, and a political settlement has become an increasingly shared aspiration," Hong said.

"China's new proposal is aimed at building international consensus and supporting Brahimi's mediation efforts ... and push forward for relevant parties in Syria to realize an early ceasefire and end of violence, and launch a political transition process led by the Syrian people at an early date."

China and Russia, both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad's government for the violence.

But China has been keen to show it is not taking sides and has urged the Syrian government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.

(Reporting by Terril Yue Jones; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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Strong Tanzania economy still blighted by poverty: World Bank

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Tanzania's economy is well placed to extend a run of strong growth, but the government should do more to ensure the extra wealth reaches its people, most of whom are mired in poverty, the World Bank said.

Given careful budgeting, gross domestic product should rise 6.5-7.0 percent this year as well as in 2013 and 2014, supported by the country's mining, telecommunications and banking sectors, the World Bank said on Thursday in a report.

The benefits of a rapidly developing natural gas industry should also kick in over the next seven to 10 years.

The growth rate matches a forecast from the International Monetary Fund, which said in March it expects east Africa's second-biggest economy to expand by 6.5 to 7 percent in 2012-13. It grew 6.4 percent in 2011 and 7 percent in 2010.

The World Bank said Tanzania would hit the target if it avoided major economic shocks and found the right balance between borrowing to finance infrastructure projects and ensuring it can manage its debts.

Tanzania's public deficit fell in 2011/12 for the first time in four years to 5.0 percent of GDP, Philippe Dongier, the bank's director for Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda, said at the launch of the report.

But mass poverty remained a major issue despite the improving economic picture.

"Growth in Tanzania has been concentrated in a few capital-intensive sectors such as mining and telecoms, and soon natural gas - failing to produce widespread job creation, failing to raise incomes of the masses, and failing to reduce poverty," he said.

"In macroeconomic terms, Tanzania is a success story. However, its success has not translated into improved conditions for a large proportion of rural households, who constitute ...about 75 percent of the total population."

The lack of inclusive growth threatened to undermine Tanzania's goal of becoming a middle-income country by 2025.

"Rather than minor adjustments, fighting rural poverty requires a major policy shift that involves agricultural commercialization, diversification and urbanization," it said.

The report added that income from agriculture, traditionally one of the biggest sectors, had stagnated, and agricultural production was barely growing faster than the population.

Tanzania last month raised its estimate of recoverable natural gas reserves to 33 trillion cubic feet (tcf) from 28.74 tcf following recent big discoveries offshore.

"With the recent discoveries of significant gas reserves in addition to its mineral resources, Tanzania's long-term economic prospects appear promising as these assets are already attracting potential foreign investors," the report said.

Tanzania attracted $3 billion foreign direct investment in the mining sector in 2011/12, up from $2.1 billion in 2010/11.

(Editing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by John Stonestreet)

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Syrian air force on offensive after failed truce

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian warplanes bombed rebel targets with renewed intensity on Tuesday after the end of a widely ignored four-day truce between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and insurgents.

State television said "terrorists" had assassinated an air force general, Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi, in a Damascus suburb, the latest of several rebel attacks on senior officials.

In July, a bomb killed four of Assad's aides, including his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and the defense minister.

Air strikes hit eastern suburbs of Damascus, outlying areas in the central city of Homs, and the northern rebel-held town of Maarat al-Numan on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, activists said.

Rebels have been attacking army bases in al-Hamdaniya and Wadi al-Deif, on the outskirts of Maarat al-Numan.

Some activists said 28 civilians had been killed in Maarat al-Numan and released video footage of men retrieving a toddler's body from a flattened building. The men cursed Assad as they dragged the dead girl, wearing a colorful overall, from the debris. The footage could not be independently verified.

The military has shelled and bombed Maarat al-Numan, 300 km (190 miles) north of Damascus, since rebels took it last month.

"The rebels have evacuated their positions inside Maarat al-Numaan since the air raids began. They are mostly on the frontline south of the town," activist Mohammed Kanaan said.

Maarat al-Numan and other Sunni towns in northwestern Idlib province are mostly hostile to Assad's ruling system, dominated by his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Two rebels were killed and 10 wounded in an air strike on al-Mubarkiyeh, 6 km (4 miles) south of Homs, where rebels have besieged a compound guarding a tank maintenance facility.

Opposition sources said the facility had been used to shell Sunni villages near the Lebanese border.

"WE'LL FIX IT"

The army also fired mortar bombs into the Damascus district of Hammouria, killing at least eight people, activists said.

One video showed a young girl in Hammouria with a large shrapnel wound in her forehead sitting dazed while a doctor said: "Don't worry dear, we'll fix it for you."

Syria's military, stretched thin by the struggle to keep control, has increasingly used air power against opposition areas, including those in the main cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Insurgents lack effective anti-aircraft weapons.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said he will pursue his peace efforts despite the failure of his appeal for a pause in fighting for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

But it is unclear how he can find any compromise acceptable to Assad, who seems determined to keep power whatever the cost, and mostly Sunni Muslim rebels equally intent on toppling him.

Big powers and Middle Eastern countries are divided over how to end the 19-month-old conflict which has cost an estimated 32,000 dead, making it one of the bloodiest of Arab revolts that have ousted entrenched leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The United Nations said it had sent a convoy of 18 trucks with food and other aid to Homs during the "ceasefire", but had been unable to unload supplies in the Old City due to fighting.

"We were trying to take advantage of positive signs we saw at the end of last week. The truce lasted more or less four hours so there was not much opportunity for us after all," said Jens Laerke, a U.N. spokesman in Geneva.

The prime minister of the Gulf state of Qatar told al-Jazeera television late on Monday that Syria's conflict was not a civil war but "a war of annihilation licensed firstly by the Syrian government and secondly by the international community".

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said some of those responsible were on the U.N. Security Council, alluding to Russia and China which have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad.

He said that the West was also not doing enough to stop the violence and that the United States would be in "paralysis" for two or three weeks during its presidential election.

(Additional reporting by Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Myanmar opium output rises despite eradication effort

(Reuters) - Opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar has risen for the sixth consecutive year despite a state eradication campaign, a United Nations report said on Wednesday, throwing doubt on government assertions the problem would be over by 2014.

Unprecedented eradication efforts managed to destroy almost 24,000 hectares (59,280 acres) of poppy fields in the 2012 season, running from the autumn 2011 to early summer this year, more than triple the previous year's total.

But the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said land used for cultivation in Myanmar, the world's second top producer of opium after Afghanistan, still increased 17 percent to its highest level in eight years.

Myanmar is forecast to produce 690 tonnes of opium in 2011/12 according to the report, up from 610 tonnes - about 10 percent of the world's opium - the previous year, the UNODC said. Afghanistan produces around 90 percent.

Land in the Burmese part of the Golden Triangle - a lawless region of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos home to vast drug trafficking operations - is scarce and many poor farmers opt to use it for poppies, which earn them 19 times more per hectare than rice, according to the UNODC report.

Four out of every ten households surveyed in poppy-growing villages grew the crop themselves, but other households participated in the cultivation and harvesting, making it vital to the economies of whole communities.

Production of opium is closely linked to ethnic insurgencies inside Myanmar, said Gary Lewis, UNODC regional representative.

"There is no question that there is a strong connection between the conflicts in the country and the most immediate sources of revenue to purchase weapons, and in many instances this is both opium and heroin and methamphetamine pills," Lewis told Reuters.

"The areas of highest cultivation intensity are also the areas of ongoing or suspended conflict. The emergence of peace and security is therefore an essential ingredient in tackling the poppy problem."

The government of President Thein Sein, in power since March 2011, has reached ceasefire agreements with many of the ethnic minority rebel groups that had fought central government for decades, but full resolution of the conflicts is some way off.

Sit Aye, legal adviser to Thein Sein, told Reuters in February that the government wanted to wipe out the opium problem by 2014.

Neighbouring Laos has also seen an increase in cultivation. The UNODC report estimated that land dedicated to growing poppies jumped 66 percent from the 2011 season.

But output in Laos, at 41 tonnes, pales in comparison to that of Myanmar. The UNODC also believes that most of the Laos opium is intended for domestic consumption.

The vast majority of regional demand comes from China, helped by porous borders in the country's southwest.

China accounts for more than 70 percent of all heroin consumption in East Asia and the Pacific. The number of registered users has risen at least 22 percent since 2002, standing at 1.1 million by 2010, according to UNODC.

With China's demand for opium increasing and driving up production in Southeast Asia, it is becoming ever more important for governments to find realistic ways to curb cultivation and bring farmers out of poverty, Lewis said.

"Eradication alone is not the answer," he said. "The real answer is to provide sustainable alternative livelihoods."

(Reporting by Paul Carsten in Bangkok; Editing by Alan Raybould)

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Afghanistan presidential election set for April 2014

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan will hold its next presidential election on April 5, 2014, the Election Commission announced on Wednesday.

President Hamid Karzai, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, had denied speculation that security problems and the exit of foreign troops that year would delay the poll.

The credibility of the vote will be vital to the security and stability of Afghanistan after the final foreign combat troops have left by the end of 2014. Karzai's re-election in 2009 was blighted by allegations of fraud.

(Reporting by Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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