Author: xaurav

Detective ‘targeted Tony Blair’

Tony BlairNews International has denied allegations Tony Blair was targeted by a detective employed by them
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Former prime minister Tony Blair was targeted by a private detective who did work for a newspaper group, a Labour MP has claimed.

Tom Watson told MPs that Mr Blair was subjected to covert surveillance by private investigator Jonathan Rees.

Mr Watson said: “Jonathan Rees, a contractor to News International, targeted former prime minister Tony Blair for covert surveillance.”

News International said it believed the allegations were “wholly inaccurate”.

Mr Watson, MP for West Bromwich East, was speaking following a statement by Home Secretary Theresa May on the setting up of the National Crime Agency to replace the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Mrs May told the Commons the US-style agency will have sweeping new powers to step in and co-ordinate police forces in a bid to tackle organised crime and secure the UK’s borders.

News International apology

Mr Watson raised the allegations over Mr Rees and asked the home secretary: “It is likely that witness testimonies have been available to the Metropolitan Police for a number of years on this?

“Is this the sort of case that she would take from the Metropolitan Police and give to the new National Crime Agency?”

In response to the allegations, News International said: “It is well documented that Jonathan Rees and Southern Investigations worked for a whole variety of newspaper groups.

“With regards to Tom Watson’s specific allegations, we believe these are wholly inaccurate.

“The Met Police, with whom we are co-operating fully in Operation Weeting, have not asked us for any information regarding Jonathan Rees. We note again that Tom Watson MP made these allegations under parliamentary privilege.”

On Tuesday the News of the World’s owner, News International, formally apologised in court to the actress Sienna Miller for hacking into several of her mobile phones.

The 29-year-old actress, who was not at London’s High Court, formally settled for £100,000 damages and costs.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Hedge funds ‘grab’ Africa’s land

A worker on small-scale farm in Zimbabwe (archive shot)Foreign firms are snapping up farming land in Africa, a new report says
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Hedge funds are behind “land grabs” in Africa to boost their profits in the food and biofuel sectors, a US think-tank says.

In a report, the Oakland Institute said hedge funds and other foreign firms had acquired large swathes of African land, often without proper contracts.

It said the acquisitions had displaced millions of small farmers.

Foreign firms farm the land to consolidate their hold over global food markets, the report said.

They also use land to “make room” for export commodities such as biofuels and cut flowers.

“This is creating insecurity in the global food system that could be a much bigger threat than terrorism,” the report said.

The Oakland Institute said it released its findings after studying land deals in Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Mali and Mozambique.

‘Risky manoeuvre’

It said hedge funds and other speculators had, in 2009 alone, bought or leased nearly 60m hectares of land in Africa – an area the size of France.

In the field

When I visited Lungi-Lol in rural Sierra Leone I saw men hoeing thousands of hectares of farmland owned by Addax, a Swiss-based bio-energy company.

They are growing sugarcane to produce biofuels.

Campaigners say this contributes to food insecurity, but many people here welcome Addax’s presence.

Francis Koroma, who works on the farm, says: “We thank God for Addax. I am gainfully employed and I receive about $70 (£46) a month. Before, I spent a whole year without getting $50.”

Villagers are unaware of the controversy surrounding biofuels.

Abdulai Conteh, a local traditional leader, said: “Some people are doing business here but I have no idea what they are doing with our land. I see them growing sugarcane. That’s all I know.”

“The same financial firms that drove us into a global recession by inflating the real estate bubble through risky financial manoeuvres are now doing the same with the world’s food supply,” the report said.

It added that some firms obtained land after deals with gullible traditional leaders or corrupt government officials.

“The research exposed investors who said it is easy to make a deal – that they could usually get what they wanted in exchange for giving a poor tribal chief a bottle of Johnnie Walker [whisky],” said Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute.

“When these investors promise progress and jobs to local chiefs it sounds great, but they don’t deliver.”

The report said the contracts also gave investors a range of incentives, from unlimited water rights to tax waivers.

“No-one should believe that these investors are there to feed starving Africans.

“These deals only lead to dollars in the pockets of corrupt leaders and foreign investors,” said Obang Metho of Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia, a non-governmental organisation in Addis Ababa.

However, not all companies named in the report accept that their motives are as suggested and they dismiss claims that their presence in Africa is harmful.

One company, EmVest Asset Management, strongly denied that it was involved in exploitative or illegal practices.

“There are no shady deals. We acquire all land in terms of legal tender,” EmVest’s Africa director Anthony Poorter told the BBC.

He said that in Mozambique the company’s employees earned salaries 40% higher than the minimum wage.

The company was also involved in development projects such as the supply of clean water to rural communities.

“They are extremely happy with us,” Mr Poorter said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Cable threatens banks on lending

Business Secretary Vince CableMr Cable said the government was putting pressure on the banks to increase lending to SMEs

Business Secretary Vince Cable has said the government is willing to take “further action with tax on banks” if they do not increase lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Mr Cable told MPs on the Business Committee that the level of lending to SMEs was a “serious problem”.

Under the Project Merlin agreement, the UK’s four biggest banks are committed to lending £76bn in 2011 to SMEs.

Later, the bosses of the four biggest banks will also give evidence to MPs.

The Treasury Committee will hear first from Stuart Gulliver of HSBC and Stephen Hester of Royal Bank of Scotland, and then from Bob Diamond of Barclays and Antonio Horta-Osorio of Lloyds.

They will answer questions on the Independent Commission on Banking.

“The chancellor and prime minister have made it clear that if we don’t get results, they have said we should take further action with tax on banks,” Mr Cable said.

Under Project Merlin, the amount the banks agreed to lend to SMEs equates to £19bn a quarter, however, in the first three months of the year £16.8bn was lent.

Mr Cable acknowledged that while Project Merlin did not set specific quarterly targets, there was now a “catch-up element” involved.

He said there was a mixture of factors involved in why banks were not lending as much as the government wanted.

One was the level of demand – banks say it is weak, but businesses say they are being discouraged from applying in the first place.

The government’s requirement that the banks hold more capital was also having an effect, he said, as banks were being more cautious in their lending.

He also said that banks had gradually moved away from “relationship banking”, meaning that “at a time of crisis like this they don’t have the infrastructure in place to assess the risk of lending to small business”.

However, he did say he had anecdotal evidence that some banks were changing their behaviour, highlighting Lloyds as taking the issue very seriously and meeting their targets.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

New crime agency plan outlined

Policeman near parliamentThe new agency’s remit will include organised crime, border policing and child exploitation
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Details of how the proposed National Crime Agency will operate when it is set up next year are to be unveiled.

It will replace the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) covering drugs and gun crime, and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

Plans for it to absorb the Serious Fraud Office were reportedly dropped.

With policing devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the Home Office is expected to explain how the NCA will liaise with forces across the UK.

Last month BBC business editor Robert Peston reported that Home Secretary Theresa May had been forced by her cabinet colleagues to back down on her plans to break up the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

He reported that the home secretary wanted to put the lawyers who front the organisation into the Crown Prosecution Service and its investigators into the NCA.

But when she presented her proposals to cabinet colleagues the discussion that followed was “exceptionally difficult” and there was almost no support for the break-up of the SFO.

The NCA will have a chief constable and two key “commands” – one focusing on organised crime and the other on border policing.

‘Radical’ police reform

It will have its own officers but will also be involved in the “tasking” of local forces who are involved in the same kind of work. For instance, there are 3,000 officers around the UK involved in border work.

This model is considered to have worked successfully in counter-terrorism, where there is a national co-ordinator in the Metropolitan Police who draws on teams based in forces around the UK.

The home secretary told the BBC the new agency would be a “powerful crime-fighting body” able to help police to put a greater focus on organised crime – such as drugs, people trafficking and prostitution – at a regional, national and international level.

She said for too long there had not been “sufficient focus” on organised crime.

Guns

BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) was generally “supportive” of the move and saw it as an improvement on Soca, which was perceived to be “rather opaque and secretive”.

However, our correspondent said there were also “questions about resources at a time of budget cuts”.

Details of an extensive policing shake-up, which included the creation of the National Crime Agency, were unveiled last year by Mrs May in a Home Office consultation paper – Policing in the 21st century.

She described it as the “most radical reform of policing for 50 years”.

Peter Neyroud, former head of the National Police Improvement Agency, said he supported the principle of one body covering organised crime.

He said Soca had a “tight focus” and other bodies, particularly in the field of economic crime, had “grown up in parallel”, so he could understand the need to create a new, single body.

Flip-flopping fear

However, Mr Neyroud said it was important that the National Crime Agency remained in place for some time.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It is absolutely critical that this is a stable organisation which will last more than four or five years.

“Otherwise, how do you build international relationships with agencies across the world in order to tackle serious and organised crime if we keep flip-flopping from one organisation to another?”

He said constant changes were demoralising for staff and the cost attached to changing from Soca could cost about £20m.

Soca was criticised in 2009 when figures showed that for every £15 of public money it spent, just £1 was recovered from criminals.

Child protection ‘dilution’

Ceop was set up in 2006 to help find and convict paedophiles and work to keep young people safe from predators when they are online.

Earlier this year, Jim Gamble, the former head of Ceop, suggested children could be put at risk by the planned reforms.

He said the plans were driven not by what was best for children but by the drive for a “bonfire of the quangos”.

And Claude Knights, from child protection charity Kidscape, also expressed concerns about the new body, saying she was concerned by what she considered to be a “dilution” of the child protection strategy.

“We have had some brilliant results over the last five years. The tireless efforts have led to the saving of over 1,000 children from paedophiles and the busting of many paedophile rings because of that very, very focused approach,” she said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Mexican ex-mayor on gun charges

Jorge Hank Rhon in 2007 (file photo)Jorge Hank Rhon said the weapons seized at his home were not his
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Prosecutors in Mexico have charged former Tijuana mayor Jorge Hank Rhon with illegal weapons possession.

Mr Hank Rhon, a wealthy businessman, was arrested on Saturday after soldiers found 89 weapons at his home in Tijuana, on the US-Mexico border.

Mr Hank Rhon, 55, insists the weapons are not his and says he had never seen them before.

Officials say they will investigate him for possible links to the Tijuana drug cartel, charges which he denies.

Soldiers found 40 rifles and 48 handguns, ammunition and a grenade at Mr Hank Rhon’s home.

Deputy Attorney General Patricia Bugarin said 10 of the weapons were licensed, but not to Mr Hank Rhon or any of his bodyguards.

Ms Bugarin said the remaining 78 weapons had not been registered.

Political ambitions

A court in Mexico City charged Mr Hank Rhon with stockpiling weapons.

He has since been transferred to El Hongo prison in Tecate, in the state of Baja California.

Supporters of Mexican gambling tycoon Jorge Hank Rhon protest against his arrest in Tijuana on 7 June, 2011Several thousand people came out in support of Mr Hank Rhon in Tijuana

A gambling magnate, Mr Hank Rhon served as mayor of Tijuana from 2004 to 2007.

He ran for governor of Baja California in 2007 for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) but was defeated by the candidate from the National Action Party (PAN).

Reports say he was considering running again in 2013.

Mr Hank Rhon was arrested in 1995 for allegedly smuggling endangered ocelot skins, but was acquitted of the charges.

Ten people, believed to be his security staff, were arrested alongside Mr Hank Rhon, also on weapons charges.

On Tuesday, several thousand supporters of the former mayor protested against his arrest, which they say is politically motivated.

Some wore T-shirts emblazoned with “Todos Somos Hank” or “We are all Hank”.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Ten farm workers ‘escape tornado’

Barn and The barn and car were badly damaged

Ten people working at a farm in County Londonderry had a lucky escape after what they described as a tornado struck it on Wednesday afternoon.

It ripped the roof off the barn. A car was also destroyed when a wall collapsed on it.

Farmer Fergie Kelly, said the workers were trimming cows’ feet in the barn near Eglinton, when they heard a bang.

“We thought there was a bomb that went off. We ran out of the shed.

“The cows all stampeded … We saw a tornado going down through the field. The tin was hurled into the air, along with the roof trusses and blocks and a lot of other debris. It was quite a scary experience.”

Mr Kelly said no-one was hurt but they were “totally scared” by their experience.

“The shed roof started to lift and all of a sudden the shed roof lifted off into the air,” he said.

“The only good thing about today is everyone got out without being hurt.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Southern Cross to cut 3,000 jobs

Southern Cross signSouthern Cross said the quality of care provided to its 31,000 residents would not be jeopardised
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Southern Cross, the troubled care home provider, has announced proposals to cut 3,000 jobs out of its workforce of 44,000 staff.

The company said home managers, deputy managers, relief managers, activity co-ordinators and administrators would not be directly affected.

Southern Cross said it expected the cuts to be completed by October, after a period of consultation with unions.

Unions called for the government to step in with financial support.

Southern Cross has already deferred 30% of its rent to landlords of its 750 homes as it tries to avoid bankruptcy.

The Darlington-based company’s current rent payments total about £180m a year.

Last month, it reported half-year losses of £311m and warned that it was in a “critical financial condition”.

“In today’s announcement we are engaging with colleagues to put in place the best possible staffing model for our future needs, and one which fully embraces the best practice available to us,” said Southern Cross chief executive Jamie Buchan.

The company said the job reductions were part of an ongoing programme of change, instigated by its senior management team 18 months ago.

It said the cuts would not jeopardise the quality of care provided to its 31,000 residents, but this was disputed by unions.

“The care sector is hugely labour intensive, and there is no doubt that job losses on this scale will mean elderly people in Southern Cross homes get a lower standard of care and some homes may be at risk of closure,” said Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison.

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said: “This is the start of a disaster for the residents as well as a kick in the teeth for the staff.

“The is the trigger for the government to step in with immediate financial support to ensure that Southern Cross continues to operate and continues to provide a home for 31,000 elderly and vulnerable residents.”

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Hearts made to repair themselves

Man having heart attackMore people are surviving heart attacks, but that means more are living with heart failure
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A drug that makes hearts repair themselves has been used in research on mice.

The damage caused by a heart attack had previously been considered permanent.

But a study in the journal Nature showed the drug, thymosin beta 4, if used in advance of a heart attack, was able to “prime” the heart for repair.

The British Heart Foundation described repair as the “holy grail of heart research”, but said any treatment in humans was years away.

Due to advances in health care the number of people dying from coronary heart disease is falling.

But those living with heart failure are on the rise – more than 750,000 people have the condition in the UK alone.

The researchers at University College London looked at a group of cells which are able to transform into different types of heart tissue in an embryo.

UK Heart statistics

Deaths from coronary heart disease

1961 – 165,2162001 – 117,7432009 – 80,223

Estimated people living with heart failure

1961 – 100,0001971 – 300,0002010 – 750,000

Source: British Heart Foundation

In adults epicardium-derived progenitor cells line the heart, but have become dormant.

Scientists used a chemical, thymosin beta 4, to “wake them up”.

Professor Paul Riley, from the University College London, said: “The adult epicardial cells which line the muscle of the heart can be activated, move inward and give rise to new heart muscle.”

“We saw an improvement in the ejection fraction, in the ability of the heart to pump out blood, of 25%.”

As well as pumping more blood, the scar tissue was reduced and the walls of the heart became thicker.

Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said he was “very excited” about the research but warned the scale of improvement seen in animals was rarely seen in humans.

HeartEpicardium derived progenitor cells (in red) lining the heart

However, he argued that even a small improvement would have a dramatic impact on people’s quality of life.

“A normal heart has lots of spare capacity. In patients with heart failure it is working flat out just to sit down [and] it’s like running a marathon,” he said.

“You could turn a patient from somebody who’s gasping while sitting in a chair to somebody who can sit comfortably in a chair.”

The mice needed to take the drug in advance of a heart attack in order for it to be effective. As the researchers put it, “the priming effect is key”.

If a similar drug could be found to be effective in humans, then the researchers believe it would need to be prescribed in a similar way to statins.

Professor Riley said “I could envisage a patient known to be at risk of a heart attack – either because of family history or warning signs spotted by their GP – taking an oral tablet, which would prime their heart so that if they had a heart attack the damage could be repaired.”

He said this could be available in 10 years.

The British Heart Foundation, which funded the study, said repairing a damaged heart was the “holy grail” of heart research.

The results strengthened the evidence that drugs could be used to prevent the onset of heart failure, it said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Murder resort ‘cut guard numbers’

Ben and Catherine MullanyThe newly-weds were on the final day of their Caribbean honeymoon when they were shot
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The owner of a security firm which provided services for a hotel where a honeymoon couple were murdered, told a trial its staff numbers had been cut.

Ben and Catherine Mullany, both 31, from Pontardawe, Swansea Valley, were attacked at the Cocos Hotel and Resort in Antigua in July 2008.

Robin Roberts told Antigua’s High Court the hotel had the number of guards cut from five to three on duty each night.

Avie Howell, 20, and Kaniel Martin, 23, deny the murders. The trial continues.

The pair also deny killing local shopkeeper Woneta Anderson, 43.

Jurors heard Gridlock Security, which had provided security to Cocos since 2006, had their services terminated by the hotel two weeks after the murders of the Mullanys.

Mr Roberts told the court he was woken at around 5am on 27 July by a phone call from security guard Brinsley Barry.

Mr Barry informed him that an incident had occurred at Cocos and that he was needed. He said he got dressed and went to the hotel immediately.

Mr Roberts told the court, when he reached the hotel he made his way to Cottage 15 – where the Mullanys were staying.

On his way he identified himself to two police officers before being allowed to go into the cottage.

Murder scene

Jurors were told when he looked inside he saw Mrs Mullany lying on the floor next to the bed.

“She was very still,” he said.

Mr Roberts said he also saw Mr Mullany sitting on a chair next to the bed along with another female who was attending to him.

He also told the court he noticed a white Toyota Corolla parked by Sugar Ridge Resort, the hotel across the road from Cocos.

The police had shown interest in the vehicle that morning and Mr Roberts stated that the vehicle remained parked on the road for another two to three days.

The trial, now in its second week, has already heard evidence from a doctor that Mrs Mullany had tried to fend off the attack

The couple were on the final day of their honeymoon when at least one gunman burst into their room at the hotel.

Dr Mullany died at the scene of what appeared to have been a botched robbery.

Her husband, who was a physiotherapy student, was critically injured.

He was flown back to Britain for treatment but was pronounced dead a week later at Morriston Hospital in Swansea.

The trial continues.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Bit of a scrap

 
Stephen HesterMr Hester told MPs that the size of the bank didn’t matter, it was the size of the risks banks took

The bosses of Britain’s biggest banks are often viewed as hunting in a pack, of showing too many of the characteristics of a cosy cartel.

Not today, in front of the Treasury Select Committee.

On the proposal from the Independent Commission on Banking, that was set up by the government, for giant banks to put in place internal firewalls separating investment banking from retail banking, Stephen Hester, the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, said he feared that could actually increase the riskiness of the banking system and put up costs for banks and their customers (you and me, as if you didn’t know).

By contrast, the chairman of HSBC, Doug Flint, said this so-called ring-fencing was required. And he submitted a proposal for making such a reform work – which would be to use current accounting conventions to put all trading activities into one part of the bank, and all lending into a protected separate subsidiary.

Then there was the contentious question of the value to the mega banks of the implicit guarantee from taxpayers that they will be bailed out in a crisis.

This allows banks to borrow more cheaply than would otherwise be the case.

Lloyds’ new boss, Antonio Horta-Orsoria, said these cheaper funds could be of benefit to big banks’ investment banking operations.

But Barclays chief executive, Bob Diamond, denied this was so for his investment bank, which is one of the world’s largest.

As for Mr Hester, he conceded that there could be “leakage” from this taxpayer subsidy into bonuses paid to bankers – which some will see as a statement of the obvious, and some will see as a scandal.

Was there nothing that united the banking quartet?

Well, none of them are prepared to quantify the size of the taxpayer subsidy (which the Commission puts at more than £10bn a year, and the Bank of England believes to be nearer to £30bn).

And they all think it would be completely brilliant if effective procedures could be put in place which could eliminate this subsidy, by allowing their businesses to go bust like any other company that mucks up.

Yes, some will see those who run our biggest banks as turkeys who desperately want Christmas to come as soon as possible.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Rethink on prison sentence plan

 
Ken ClarkeMr Clarke says early guilty pleas save victims from having to relive their ordeals
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Controversial plans to reform sentencing in England and Wales may be shelved by the government.

Prime Minister David Cameron met the Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke, for more than half-an-hour on Tuesday to discuss the sentencing proposals.

They include halving the prison term for those who plead guilty early, up from the present reduction of a third.

The proposals are aimed at cutting the 85,000 inmate population and reducing the £4bn prison and probation budget.

BBC political correspondent Gary O’Donoghue said the government was due to publish firm plans on sentencing shortly, but this rethink was likely to delay the process for some time.

He said halving sentences for those criminals who pleaded guilty at the earliest possible opportunity had provoked concern on the Conservative backbenches and that idea might be shelved.

“But Whitehall sources have told the BBC that nothing is settled and if Downing Street insists on scrapping the sentencing reforms, then ministers would have to find another way of plugging a £130m hole in the Ministry of Justice budget,” he added.

The plan to halve sentences for some criminals who plead guilty early has been criticised by top judges and the Victims Commissioner, Louise Casey.

Last month, Mr Clarke got into trouble after he appeared to suggest that some rapes were less serious than others during an interview about the reductions.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 live’s Victoria Derbyshire, he talked about “serious rape with violence and an unwilling woman”, but the justice secretary later clarified his comments by saying that “all rape is a serious crime”.

The whole package of proposals was outlined by the justice secretary last year in a Green Paper on sentencing in England and Wales.

Launching the paper, Mr Clarke said the present criminal justice system “falls short of what is required” – with around half of those released from prison going on to reoffend within a year.

He has set a target of cutting the number of inmates in English and Welsh jails by 3,000 from its current 85,000 level, reducing the budget by 20% over four years.

Other plans to reduce prison numbers include allowing some foreign criminals to leave Britain for good instead of going to prison and to give judges more discretion over sentencing in murder cases – although there is no intention to scrap the mandatory life sentences.

It also promises more help to deal with inmates’ drug and alcohol addiction problems and mental illness, and a toughening up of community sentences.

At the time of its launch, Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust, said it was a “blueprint for moderate and sensible reform and should mark the end of sterile debate on toughness or softness on crime”.

Meanwhile, a report by the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prison Governors’ Association has found “the potential deterrent effect of serving a short prison sentence is lost” on repeat offenders.

“Those serving their first prison sentence were unanimous that this was their first and last prison sentence,” the report said.

“Those who had served several prison sentences were unanimous that this prison sentence had not been a shock. Many also indicated that they would rather serve a short prison sentence than complete a community order.”

Interviews with 44 prisoners in three jails holding criminals serving less than 12 months showed many repeat offenders felt community sentences could “drag”.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Tunisia announces election delay

Caid Essebsi Mr Essebsi said the rest of the world was watching Tunisia and they had to get the vote right

Tunisia’s interim government has said elections, due to be held in July, will be postponed for three months.

The Tunisian electoral commission had asked for the delay, saying it needed more time to prepare a credible vote.

The country’s interim Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi said the vote will now take place on 23 October 2011.

Critics say that elections should go ahead soon to bring an end to the instability following the overthrow of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

But many recently formed political parties say they need more time to prepare.

Last month, the electoral commission sought a delay, saying that it needed more time to organise the vote, including putting three million Tunisians into the electoral database and ensuring hundreds of thousands of others get valid identity cards.

Reputation

“There are parties who did not agree, even the government did not agree, but our mission is to hold free and transparent elections,” said Mr Essebsi, adding that Tunisia and its revolution “have a reputation that we must protect”.

The date was the result of several weeks of negotiations between political groups to establish a date for the first election since the popular uprising which brought about the fall of Mr Ben Ali, forced to cede power on 14 January after 23 years in power.

Mr Essebsi said that Tunisia’s fledgling experiment with democracy – which triggered a series of pro-democracy revolts across the Middle East – was being closely observed.

“The world is watching us. Tunisia today has an extraordinary image because its revolution happened peacefully, without weapons,” he said, adding: “The wind of freedom has blown through other countries… but we will be the only ones to succeed in putting into place a democratic government.”

October’s vote is for a constituent assembly to write a new constitution that would pave the way for legislative and presidential elections.

The new assembly will decide whether the country gets a presidential or parliamentary system, and whether a separation of religion and state becomes law.

Under Mr Ben Ali’s 23-year rule, a single party – now officially dissolved – controlled the country and opposition parties in parliament were largely symbolic.

Since his overthrow a total of some 81 new parties have been officially registered.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.