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Spanish hostages freed by al-Qaida-linked group following prisoner swap, allegations of ransom
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Two Spanish aid workers kidnapped almost nine months ago by an al-Qaida affiliate arrived Tuesday in Barcelona after a multi-million-dollar ransom was reportedly paid for their freedom — a sign of the terrorist group's growing sophistication in bankrolling operations through kidnappings, experts said Aid workers Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta were abducted last November when their convoy of 4-by-4s was attacked by gunmen on a stretch of road in Mauritania, They were whisked away to Mali, whose northern half is now one of the many stretches of remote desert where al-Qaida of Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, has stretched its tentacles ,Late on Monday afternoon, the pair stepped out of a helicopter that landed on the grounds of the presidential palace in Burkina Faso and were handed a cell phone.
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CCDH urges rights NGOs to intervene to ensure safe return of Mostafa Salma Sidi Mouloud to Tindouf
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The Moroccan Advisory Council on Human Rights (CCDH) urged, on Tuesday, all the national and international human rights organizations to do their best so that the senior polisario official, Mostafa Salma Sidi Mouloud, can return to Tindouf (south-western Algeria) safe and sound and defend his opinions freely,"CCDH urges all sister national institutions, including the National Consultative Human Rights Commission of Algeria, all international agencies and all national and international human rights associations to do their best so that Mr Mostafa Salma Sidi Mouloud can return to Tindouf safely and defend his opinions freely," The CCDH said in a statement The CCDH, which received a letter from Mostafa Salma Sidi Mouloud in which he expressed fear of "possible retaliation by the leadership of the Polisario Front," underlined that "given the deplorable state of human rights in the Tindouf camps, or even the illegal character of these camps under the international humanitarian law, the fear of retaliation expressed by Mr.
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Perfect timing means to stop waiting for it
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It bothers me when I hear people describe a personal set of conditions that need to be met before they can make the next move in their life Most often, they’re just making excuses — creating obstacles that aren’t actually there, placing the blame on some outside force they can’t control, and choosing to let day after day of inaction turn into many years of waiting for their cosmos to align.
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| Full Article Voice of the People |
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Polisario congress: 'Morocco reserves the right to take all necessary actions', FM
By MarocPost.net
December 13, 2007 12:00 AM
Morocco has made it clear that it will take "all necessary" actions in reaction to the Algerian-backed separatist movement "polisario" to hold its congress in the buffer Zone of Tifariti in the Moroccan Sahara,"The kingdom of Morocco reserves the right to take all necessary actions to react to this regrettable development that is rejected and denounced by the whole Moroccan people" Foreign
Minister, Taieb Fassi Fihri, said in a letter sent Wednesday to the UN Secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. He said the latest developments "seriously impair the climate of serenity that is essential to the process of negotiations and, thus, jeopardizes the chances of success of the 3rd round to which you have, last week, officially invited the parties".
Morocco and the Polisario are expected to hold a third round of negotiations (January 7-9) in Manhasset, New York, in a bid to reach an agreement to settle the 32-year old Sahara dispute. The two previous rounds were held respectively in June and August and were facilitated by the UN.
The Moroccan official also called on the MINURSO (UN peace-keeping mission in the Sahara) to react to "the serious violation of the ceasefire agreement" in the buffer zone of Tifariti, and to the increasing number of military incursions of other parties in this zone "from the Algerian territory without any reaction of the MINURSO”.
He dismissed the separatists’ allegations that the Tifariti zone is part of what they call + free territories+ or +zone under (their) sovereignty +”, while the truth is that it was set up to "avoid any new clashes, including with the Algerian army and to contribute to the consolidation of the ceasefire agreements", concluded in 1991.
On Wednesday, the two houses of the Moroccan parliament held a special session on the Sahara at the end of which they issued a declaration condemning the threat by the "Polisario" to resume armed struggle with Morocco, deeming it an "obstacle" to peace.
This is the first time in 16 years that the Polisario proposes to its congress the resumption of the armed struggle as a strategy since the 1991 UN-brokered ceasefire, at a time when the separatists are holding peace negotiations with Morocco.
Such a behavior, the declaration read, “not only stems from the bitter failure of the Polisario to face up the growing support of the International Community to Morocco’s autonomy proposal for the Sahara, but is an additional proof of its lack of care about peace and stability in the Maghreb region, part of which has become a breeding ground for terrorists activities with the complicity of the separatists leadership.”
A former colony, the Sahara was ceded by Spain to Morocco in 1975 by virtue of the Madrid Accords.
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