French, Malian forces fight suspected Islamists in Gao

GAO, Mali (Reuters) - French and Malian troops fought Islamists on the streets of Gao and a car bomb exploded in Kidal on Thursday, as fighting showed little sign of abating weeks before France plans to start withdrawing some forces.

Reuters reporters in Gao in the country's desert north said French and Malian forces fired at the mayor's office with heavy machineguns after Islamists were reported to have infiltrated the Niger River town during a night of explosions and gunfire.

In Kidal, a remote far north town where the French are hunting Islamists, residents said a car bomb killed two. A French defense ministry source reported no French casualties.

French troops dispatched to root out rebels with links to al Qaeda swiftly retook northern towns last month. But they now risk being bogged down in a guerrilla conflict as they try to help Mali's weak army counter bombings and raids.

"There was an infiltration by Islamists overnight and there is shooting all over the place," Sadou Harouna Diallo, Gao's mayor, told Reuters by telephone, saying he was not in his office at the time.

Gao is a French hub for operations in the Kidal region, about 300 km (190 miles) northeast, where many Islamist leaders are thought to have retreated and foreign hostages may be held.

A Malian soldier in Gao who gave his name only as Sergeant Assak told Reuters he had seen at least seven Islamist gunmen.

"They are black and two were disguised as women," he said during a pause in heavy gunfire around Independence Square.

Six Malian military pickups were deployed in the square and opened fire on the mayor's office with the heavy machineguns. Two injured soldiers were taken away in an ambulance.

French troops in armored vehicles later joined the battle as it spilled out into the warren of sandy streets, where, two weeks ago, they also fought for hours against Islamists who had infiltrated the town via the nearby river.

Helicopters clattered over the mayor's office, while a nearby local government office and petrol station was on fire.

A Gao resident said he heard an explosion and then saw a Malian military vehicle on fire in a nearby street.

Paris has said it plans to start withdrawing some of its 4,000 troops from Mali next month but the rebel fightback comes as Mali's army remains weak and divided and African forces due to take over the French role are not yet in place.

Islamists abandoned the main towns they held but French and Malian forces have said there are pockets of Islamist resistance across the north, which is about the size of France.

CAR BOMB

Residents reported a bomb in the east of Kidal on Thursday.

"It was a car bomb that exploded in a garage," said one resident who went to the scene but asked not to be named.

"The driver and another man were killed. Two other people were injured," he added.

A French defense ministry official confirmed there had been a car bomb but said it did not appear that French troops, based at the town's airport, had been targeted.

Earlier this week, a French soldier was killed in heavy fighting north of Kidal, where French and Chadian troops are hunting Islamists in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, which border Algeria.

Operations there are further complicated by the presence of separatist Tuareg rebels, whose rebellion last year kick-started fighting in northern Mali but were sidelined by the better-armed Islamists.

Having dispatched its forces to prevent an Islamist advance south in January, Paris is eager not to become bogged down in a long-term conflict in Mali. But their Malian and African allies have urged French troops not to pull out too soon.

(Additional reporting by Emanuel Braun in Gao, Adama Diarra in Bamako, David Lewis and John Irish in Dakar; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Jason Webb)

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Nigerian troops surround French family's kidnappers: source

YAOUNDE/MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian security forces surrounded the kidnappers of a French family in northeast Borno state on Thursday in an operation to rescue the hostages, a Nigerian military source said.

French, Nigerian and Cameroonian officials earlier denied French media reports that the family, who were seized in Cameroon and taken over the border, had been freed.

The Nigerian military located the hostages and kidnappers between Dikwa and Ngala in the far northeast, the military source in Borno said, asking not to be identified.

Dikwa is less than 80 km (50 miles) from the border with Cameroon where the three adults and four children were taken hostage on Tuesday.

A senior Cameroonian military official declined to comment saying the matter was too sensitive.

Citing a Cameroon army officer, French media reported earlier on Thursday that the hostages had been found alive in a house in northern Nigeria.

"This is a crazy rumor that we cannot confirm. We do not know where is it coming from," Cameroon Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary told Reuters by telephone from the capital Yaounde.

"What is certain is that the French tourists who were abducted are no longer on our territory. However, we are in touch with the Government of Nigeria to intensify measures to continue the search for them along our common border," he said.

French gendarmes backed by special forces arrived in northern Cameroon on Wednesday to help locate the family, a local governor and French defense ministry official said.

Nigerian military spokesman Sagir Musa earlier also said the report on France's BFM television of the hostages being released was "not true," while Didier Le Bret, the head of the French foreign ministry's crisis center, said the information was "baseless."

The abduction was the first case of foreigners being seized in the mostly Muslim north of Cameroon, a former French colony.

But the region - like others in West and North Africa with porous borders - is considered within the operational sphere of Boko Haram and fellow Nigerian Islamist militants Ansaru.

On Sunday, seven foreigners were snatched from the compound of Lebanese construction company Setraco in northern Nigeria's Bauchi state, and Ansaru took responsibility.

Northern Nigeria is increasingly afflicted by attacks and kidnappings by Islamist militants. Ansaru, which rose to prominence only in recent months, has claimed the abduction in December of a French national who is still missing.

Three foreigners were killed in two failed rescue attempts last year after being kidnapped in northern Nigeria and Ansaru, blamed for those kidnaps, warned this could happen again.

The threat to French nationals in the region has grown since France deployed thousands of troops to Mali to oust al Qaeda-linked Islamists who controlled the country's north.

The kidnapping in Cameroon brought to 15 the number of French citizens being held in West Africa.

(Reporting By Emile Picy and Nicholas Vinocur in Paris; Additional reporting by Joe Brock in Abuja and Bate Felix and John Irish in Dakar; Writing by Bate Felix and John Irish; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Lawmakers target ECB to stop Iran from using euros

WASHINGTON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Lawmakers are crafting a bill aimed at stopping the European Central Bank from handling business from the Iranian government, a congressional aide said on Thursday, an attempt to stop Tehran from using euros to develop its nuclear program.

The bill, in the early stages of drafting, would target the ECB's cross-border payment system and impose U.S. economic penalties on entities that use the European Central Bank to do business with Iran's government, the aide said on condition of anonymity.

The central bank's so-called Target2 system is used to settle cross-border payments in Europe and processes around 350,000 payments daily, according to the most recent figures made available.

Although the ECB already complies with European Union sanctions against Iran, the proposed bill is aimed at pressing Europe to do more to prevent Iranian firms and banks from using the Target2 system to conduct transactions involving euros.

"The ECB ensures that no illegitimate transactions are cleared in Target2," a spokesman for the euro zone's central bank said. "But any sanctions are EU sanctions and not an ECB competence."

The ECB provision is part of a wider U.S. bill aimed at choking off funds to the Iranian government, which the West accuses of developing nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the charges.

It is unclear when the bill would be introduced or whether there would eventually be support in the U.S. Congress or by the Obama administration to enact another set of economic sanctions.

The United States and the European Union have worked mostly in tandem in imposing harsh economic sanctions against Iran, which have so far slashed the country's oil revenues, disrupted trade and weakened its currency.

ECB representatives are due in Brussels at the start of March for working discussions on various Iran sanctions issues, EU sources said, though the meetings were not specifically to discuss Target2.

Last year, U.S. lawmakers were successful in pressuring Belgium-based SWIFT electronic payment system to block Iranian transactions. SWIFT, which facilitates the bulk of global cross-border payments, disconnected designated Iranian financial firms from its messaging system after European regulators ordered the company to do so.

(Reporting by Paul Carrel in Frankfurt, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels and Rachelle Younglai in Washington. Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)

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Bomb blasts rock southern Indian city; at least 11 dead

HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - Two bombs placed on bicycles exploded in a crowded market-place in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Thursday, and the federal home minister said at least 11 people were killed and 50 wounded.

All major cities in the country were placed on high alert, television channels said, adding that as many as 15 people may have been killed in the explosions.

Hyderabad is a major IT center in India, only second to Bangalore. Microsoft and Google have major centers in the city.

"Both blasts took place within a radius of 150 meters," federal Home (Interior) Minister Sushil Shinde told reporters, adding the explosives were placed on bicycles parked in the crowded marketplace. "Eight people died at one place, three at the other."

The explosions come less than two weeks after India hanged a Kashmiri man for a militant attack on the country's parliament in 2001 that had sparked violent clashes.

Witnesses told Reuters they heard at least two explosions in the Dilsukh Nagar area of Hyderabad just after dusk but there could have been more.

TV showed debris and body parts strewn on the street in the area, a crowded neighborhood of cinema halls, shops, restaurants and a fruit and vegetable market.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called it a "dastardly attack".

"I appeal to the public to remain calm and maintain peace," he said in a Twitter message.

In July 2011, three near-simultaneous blasts ripped through India's financial capital, Mumbai. At least 20 people were killed and over 100 wounded in the blasts set off by Muslim militants, authorities said.

Last year, four small explosions occurred in quick succession in a busy shopping area of the western Indian city of Pune.

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy, Mayank Bhardwaj and Satarupa Bhattacharjya; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Jeremy Laurence)

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Bulgaria faces deadlock after government quits

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's parliament on Thursday accepted the government's decision to resign in the face of anti-austerity protests, opening the way for an early election that may benefit fringe parties and make it hard to form a stable government.

Outgoing Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, praised by investors for cutting the budget deficit, lost support from voters in the European Union's poorest state over his failure to raise living standards or stamp out graft.

After mass protests set off by high energy bills, Borisov stepped down on Wednesday -- the latest administration to fall in Europe's four-year-old debt crisis.

Parliament voted on Thursday to accept the move and President Rosen Plevneliev will now ask the three biggest parties if they want to form a government to rule until a parliamentary election due in July.

But both Borisov's GERB party and the main opposition Socialists have said they do not want to participate in a caretaker cabinet, so Plevneliev could schedule an election for as early as April. Opinions polls put both parties on about 22-23 percent, suggesting no clear majority in the new parliament.

"We are open for dialogue with all parties but GERB, who ruined everything," said Socialist leader Sergei Stanishev, whose party was level in polls with Borisov's before the protests and may have benefited from the unrest.

The cabinet's departure brought some calm after a chaotic week of rallies against the government and foreign-owned power utilities and a threat by Bulgarian officials to strip one of them, Czech power group CEZ, of its license.

Boriana Dimitrova, an analyst with pollster Alpha Research, said it could push voters towards the political fringe.

"The two key political powers are not strong enough to form a stable government," she said. "The recent protests indicate there is growing support for radical, populist parties, which will also make it harder to form a cabinet."

CALM, FOR NOW

Borisov, a former guard to Soviet-era dictator Todor Zhivkov, won adoration from voters by building highways and improving roads so badly pot-holed that cars could lose wheels and travel across the small country could take up most of a day.

Around 2,000 Bulgarians waving GERB party flags, including farmers driving tractors and a truck full of pigs, cheered in front of parliament in support of Borisov.

"If all possibilities are exhausted...I will form an interim government, quickly and responsibly," said Plevneliev.

Borisov's administration also impressed foreign portfolio investors by freezing wages and pensions and cracking down on the grey economy by digitally linking firms ranging from the largest factory to the smallest kiosk to the tax office.

But those moves angered many in the Black Sea state of 7.3 million, who are also frustrated at his failure to make good on his 2009 election pledge to stamp out endemic corruption and reform inefficient healthcare and education systems.

"Am I pleased with Borisov's resignation? He's just the same as the ones before. They're all corrupt and they don't care about people," said Filip Ivanov, a 37-year-old taxi driver.

Borisov's popularity has suffered due to growing frustration over the slow plod from poverty of a country which has failed to grow convincingly since recession hit in 2009. Living standards are about 45 percent of the EU average, the bloc's lowest.

For many here, where wages average about 400 euros a month and pensions about half that, the final straw was winter power bills which at times exceeded incomes due to price rises that began to bite as temperatures fell.

In protests this month, tens of thousands blocked roads and some clashed with police and attacked offices of power distributors CEZ, Czech Energo Pro and Austrian EVN. The utilities say the increase was in line with a government approved hike in prices last year and said they had done nothing wrong.

Borisov's threat to strip CEZ of its power distribution license has also put Sofia at odds with fellow European Union member the Czech Republic and raised eyebrows over its adherence to the bloc's stipulation that its members follow due process.

But Bulgaria's power regulator appeared to soften its stance slightly on Wednesday, saying CEZ may be able to keep its license if it reverses violations of the public procurement law. CEZ shares fell 2.8 percent on Thursday to a four-year low and Prague urged the European Union to step in.

Before stepping down, Borisov tried to appease voters by sacking Finance Minister Simeon Djankov, a lightning rod for criticism for his leading the charge on belt tightening, and promising a cut in power bills as of March.

For their part, the Socialists have pledged to raise taxes on the rich and scrap a flat 10 percent income tax rate it introduced in 2009 They also want to raise the minimum wage, restart the Russian-backed Belene nuclear power project and to impose strict control on utilities and fight monopolies. that has been a draw for foreign investors.

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Car bomb kills over 50 near Damascus ruling party office

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A car bomb killed more than 50 people and wounded 200 in central Damascus on Thursday when it blew up on a busy highway close to ruling Baath Party offices and the Russian Embassy, state media and activists said.

Syrian television showed charred and bloodied bodies strewn across the street after the blast, which it described as a suicide bombing by "terrorists" battling President Bashar al-Assad. It said 53 people were killed.

Central Damascus has been relatively insulated from almost two years of unrest and civil war in which around 70,000 people have been killed across the country, but the bloodshed has shattered suburbs around the capital.

Rebels who control districts to the south and east of Damascus have attacked Assad's power base for nearly a month and struck with devastating bombs over the last year.

The al Qaeda-linked rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra, which claimed responsibility for several of those bombs, says it carried out 17 attacks around Damascus in the first half of February, including at least seven bombings.

Activists said most of the victims of Thursday's attack in the city's Mazraa district were civilians, including children, possibly from a school behind the Baath building.

Opposition activists reported further explosions elsewhere in the city after the explosion which struck shortly before 11 a.m. (0900 GMT).

One resident in the heart of the capital heard three or four projectiles whistling through the sky, followed by explosions. At least one of them landed in a public garden in the Abu Rummaneh district, she said, but no one was hurt.

EMBASSY DAMAGED

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors violence via a network of sources inside Syria, said the Mazraa car bomb was detonated at a checkpoint close to the Baath Party building, located about 200 meters (660 feet) from the Russian embassy.

It said 56 people were killed, of which at least 15 were from Syria's security forces and the rest civilians. Eight other people were killed by a car bomb in the Barzeh district of northeast Damascus, one of several explosions which followed the Mazraa attack.

Russia's Itar-Tass news agency quoted a diplomat as saying the Mazraa blast blew out windows at the Russian Embassy, but no employees were wounded. "The building has really been damaged ... The windows are shattered," the diplomat said.

The vehicle was carrying between 1 and 1.5 metric tons (1.65 tons) of explosives, Damascus Governor Bishr Sabban told Reuters.

A correspondent for Syrian television said he saw seven body bags with corpses at the scene. He counted 17 burnt-out cars and another 40 that were destroyed or badly damaged by the force of the blast, which ripped a crater 1.5 meters deep into the road.

Syrian TV said security forces had detained a would-be suicide bomber with five bombs in his car, one of them weighing 300 kg (440 pounds).

In the southern city of Deraa, where the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011, warplanes bombed the city's old district for the first time in nearly two years of conflict, killing 18 people, activists said.

A rebel officer in the Tawheed al-Janoub brigade which led a rebel offensive this week in Deraa said there were at least five air strikes on the city on Thursday.

"The (rebel) attacks on several major checkpoints in the Hay al-Saad neighborhood and its declaration as a liberated area have prompted this response," said Abdullah Masalmah, an activist from the city, via Skype.

Fighting has intensified in southern Syria in recent weeks, leading to a sharp increase in refugee flows to neighboring Jordan, according to officials. A Jordanian military source said 4,288 refugees arrived in the last 24 hours alone.

Nayef Hawatmeh, head of the Damascus-based Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was lightly wounded by an explosion in a mosque next to his office, a DFLP official said.

Talal Abu Tharifa told Reuters in Gaza that glass fragments had caused a slight wound to Hawatmeh's hand.

(Additional reporting by Marwan Makdesi in Damascus, Laila Bassam and Mariam Karouny in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Alissa de Carbonnel in Moscow; Editing by Andrew Roche)

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Italy election stalemate worst option for markets

LONDON (Reuters) - An inconclusive result in Italy's elections this weekend could prompt an even bigger sell-off in some markets than the return to power of scandal-mired Silvio Berlusconi, who led the country to the financial precipice in 2011.

Italian stocks, bonds and, to a lesser extent, the euro are all expected to rise if, as the latest polls suggest, the centre-left led by Pier Luigi Bersani wins a majority in the lower house and forms a stable pact in the Senate with outgoing centrist Prime Minister Mario Monti to head a reform-minded government.

But prices will fall if Italy, whose mountainous debts catapulted it to the forefront of the euro zone debt crisis under Berlusconi 15 months ago, emerges from the February 24-25 election with a hung parliament incapable of producing a stable administration, analysts say.

Italian debt and shares sold off sharply in recent weeks as Berlusconi made big gains in opinion polls. However, with his centre-right party lagging the centre-left by 4-5 points in the final polls before a pre-election blackout, markets have largely discounted the return to power of the media tycoon, who has been weakened by a string of sex and financial scandals.

"I am inclined to think the centre-left and centre will have control, but the marketplace as a whole is reasonably complacent about the risk we do not get that outcome," said UBS currency strategist Geoffrey Yu.

On the surface, markets appear calm just two days before voting. Italian stocks had regained half their 4 percent political risk-driven fall by Wednesday, and 10-year bond yields were off their recent highs.

Italy's blue-chip stock index, the FTSE MIB, having started 2013 strongly, is nursing losses for the year and lagging the pan-European Euro STOXX 50 and national indexes in France, Germany and Britain.

Antonin Jullier, global head of equity trading at Citi said a centre-left/Monti win could push shares higher.

"There is another 2 percent to grab in both the E-STOXX 50 and the FTSE-MIB if the result goes for Bersani-Monti," he said.

Aviva Investors reckon the gain under such a scenario could be as much as 5 percent, with the most market-neutral event being an outright Bersani win and the worst not a Berlusconi victory, which could prompt a 2 percent fall, but a hung parliament, which could see stocks fall 5 percent.

That fear has driven the cost of protection against a fall in the FTSE MIB to its most expensive since mid-September.

BOND YIELDS

Italy's borrowing costs have fallen sharply since Monti formed his technocrat administration in November 2011. This is in large part due to last year's pledge by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi to do "whatever it takes" to save the euro and subsequent offer to buy the bonds of struggling euro zone countries that seek help - the so-called 'Draghi put'.

"Our perception is that the Draghi put is working, and this has changed the game to the benefit of peripherals," Commerzbank fixed income strategist Michael Leister said.

But there's a lot of paddling beneath the calm surface, with volumes in Italian bond futures at their highest four-week moving average since the contract was launched in 2009, a Reuters analysis shows. That means there are still plenty of investors bailing out of Italian bonds, while others, reassured by the ECB's back-stop, have been snapping them up.

A hung parliament would see yields, which move inversely to prices, jump, with a knock-on effect in the rest of the euro zone periphery, especially in Spain.

William de Vijlder, chief investment officer of BNP Paribas Investment Partners, said a stable reformist government could see 10-year yields fall towards 4 percent from levels around 4.9 percent, while stalemate could push them up towards 5.2 percent.

Louis Gargour, CIO of hedge fund firm LNG Capital, said a Berlusconi win could push Italian yields up 75-100 basis points.

Even that would leave yields below the unsustainable levels above 7 percent hit in late 2011.

Hedge funds were also betting on an expected rise in volatility in the euro's exchange rate against the dollar early next week, a chief options trader at a large European bank said.

"People are definitely heading into the election a bit more cautious. There was a lot more selling last week and a defensive stance," UBS's Yu said, adding a shaky coalition could see the euro fall to $1.30 from current levels around $1.32.

Dagmar Dvorak, director of currency and fixed income at Barings Asset Management, said the fund was underweight the euro before the election.

She also said the euro could fall to $1.30, but expected more reaction in bond markets as the single currency was supported by the ECB's policy stance.

"I don't expect a sharp move down in the euro. It is still supported by (the ECB's) balance sheet contraction versus expansion elsewhere."

(This story corrects surname in 17th paragraph to read Gargour)

(Additional reporting by Anirban Nag, Nia Williams, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Toni Vorobyova, David Brett, Laurence Fletcher, Alistair Smout, Marius Zaharia, Sudip Kar Gupta, William James, Francesco Canepa and Annika Breidthardt; editing by Nigel Stephenson and Will Waterman)

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Iran installs advanced enrichment centrifuges: IAEA

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has begun installing advanced centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment plant, a U.N. nuclear report said on Thursday, a defiant step likely to anger world powers ahead of a resumption of talks with Tehran next week.

In a confidential report, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said 180 so-called IR-2m centrifuges and empty centrifuge casings had been hooked up at the plant near the central town of Natanz.

If operated successfully, such machines could enable Iran to significantly speed up its accumulation of material that the West fears could be used to devise a nuclear weapon. Iran says it is refining uranium only for peaceful energy purposes.

The report also said Iran had increased to 167 kg (367 pounds) its stockpile of uranium refined to a fissile purity of 20 percent - a level it says it needs for conversion into reactor fuel. About 240-250 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium is needed for one atomic bomb if refined to a high degree.

Iran resumed converting higher-grade enriched uranium for fuel production in December and had since fed 28.3 kg of the material for this stated purpose, the report added.

It further said that "extensive" activities - an allusion to clean-up and renovations - at Iran's Parchin military site would seriously undermine an IAEA investigation to determine whether explosives research relevant to nuclear weapons was done there.

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda to pick hardliner for PM

TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia's main Islamist Ennahda party will pick a hardliner to replace moderate outgoing Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali after he declined to head the next government, a party official said on Thursday.

Jebali, who is secretary-general of Ennahda, resigned on Tuesday after his plan for an apolitical technocrat cabinet to prepare for elections collapsed, largely because of opposition from within his own party and its leader, Rached Ghannouchi.

"Jebali declined to accept nomination (for next prime minister)," Ennahda said. "A new candidate will be presented to the president of the republic this week."

The assassination of opposition leader Chokri Belaid on February 6 plunged Tunisia into its worst political crisis in the two years since a revolt toppled President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and inspired Arabs elsewhere to rebel against autocratic rulers.

The secular leftist's killing sent protesters flooding into the streets, exposing the deep rifts between Tunisia's empowered Islamists and their liberal and secular-minded opponents.

Jebali had proposed forming technocrat cabinet to replace his Ennahda-led coalition, which included two secular parties, to spare the North African nation's nascent democracy and its struggling tourism-dependent economy from further strife.

But Ghannouchi blocked the moderate premier's plan and a senior Ennahda official told Reuters that the next prime minister would come from the party's hardline wing, which opposes any role for politicians linked with the Ben Ali era.

The official listed outgoing Justice Minister Nourredine Bouheiri, Health Minister Abdellatif Mekki, Agriculture Minister Mohammed Ben Salem, Interior Minister Ali Larayedh and Transport Minister Abdelkarim Harouni as the possible nominees.

"Ennahda will hold a meeting tonight to choose a candidate. The next prime minister will be one of the names on this list," said the official, who asked not to be named.

SECULAR PARTNER

Ennahda won Tunisia's first free election in October 2011 and controls 89 seats in the 217-member National Constituent Assembly assigned the task of drafting a new constitution.

Tunisian secular president, Moncef Marzouki, will ask the next prime minister to form his government within two weeks.

Ghannouchi has previously said it is vital that Islamists and secular parties share power now and in the future, and that his party was willing to compromise over control of important ministries such as foreign affairs, justice and interior.

Marzouki's secular Congress for the Republic party (CPR), which has 29 assembly seats and was part of Jebali's coalition, said on Thursday it was ready to join the next one.

"Our party will take part in the new government and will have an active role to play," the CPR's spokesman, Hedi Ben Abbes, said after a meeting with Marzouki.

Together, Ennahda and CPR would have 118 seats, wielding a majority in the assembly. It is not clear whether other secular parties would join such a coalition, particularly in the charged political atmosphere following Belaid's assassination.

Ennahda's own unity might also come under strain following the very public differences that have emerged between Ghannouchi and Jebali, who served as prime minister for 14 months.

Tunisia began a transition to democracy after Ben Ali's peaceful overthrow in January 2011, holding elections for the National Constituent Assembly and then forging a deal under which Ennahda agreed to share power with its secular rivals.

But disputes have delayed the constitution, and grievances over unemployment and poverty have led to frequent unrest.

"Today I cannot send a message of reassurance to investors abroad because local investors in Tunisia are not reassured and the outlook is not entirely clear," Wided Bouchamaoui, president of the Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said on Wednesday.

Negotiations on a $1.78 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund cannot be concluded amid the latest uncertainty.

Standard and Poor's lowered its long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit rating on Tunisia on Tuesday, citing "a risk that the political situation could deteriorate further amid a worsening fiscal, external and economic outlook".

(Reporting By Tarek Amara; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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NATO urges allies to reverse defense spending cuts

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged allies on Thursday to reverse damaging defense-spending cuts once their economies improve as U.S. officials warned of the impact that across-the-board U.S. budget reductions could have on the alliance.

"If defense cuts continue, it will have a negative impact on our ability to provide effective defense and protection of our populations," Rasmussen told reporters at the start of a NATO defense ministers' meeting.

He appealed to allies, many of which have slashed defense spending in response to the economic crisis, to stop defense cuts, use their resources more efficiently by working together, and to increase defense spending once their economies recover.

He declined to comment directly on $46 billion in U.S. budget cuts scheduled to take effect from March 1 that would slash nearly every U.S. military program or activity by a flat percentage unless Congress acts to avert them.

"But from an overall perspective it is of course a matter of concern that we have seen and continue to see declining defense budgets all over the alliance," Rasmussen said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta intends to warn NATO allies in Brussels that cuts under the "sequester" - as the mechanism for the across-the-board cuts is known - could impact U.S. contributions to NATO readiness, Pentagon spokesman George Little said.

"We think the alliance's readiness could be diminished if sequestration takes effect," he told reporters during Panetta's flight to Brussels on Wednesday.

In talks with his Italian counterpart in Brussels on Thursday, Panetta warned "how devastating sequestration would be for U.S. defense and national security", Little said.

While the Obama administration is pushing lawmakers to avert sequestration, Panetta formally notified Congress on Wednesday that the Pentagon plans to put civilian defense employees on unpaid leave this year if the cuts go ahead.

LION'S SHARE

President Barack Obama signed the Budget Control Act in 2011 requiring $487 billion in defense spending cuts over a decade. The law also put in place another $500 billion in mandatory, across-the-board Pentagon cuts.

The cuts were never meant to go into effect, but were intended to coerce Congress and the White House into agreeing on more selective budget reductions. That deal never happened.

The United States, which provides the lion's share of NATO's firepower, has been urging European allies for years to pick up more of the defense burden.

Washington has pressed European countries to take the lead in operations like the 2011 Libya campaign but the Europeans still need U.S. help with key capabilities like air-to-air refueling and intelligence.

The threat of U.S. cuts could give Washington another argument to press European allies to increase defense spending by showing the danger of over-reliance on the United States.

Only a handful of NATO's 28 allies - the United States, Britain and Greece - last year spent more on defense than the two percent of Gross Domestic Product target set by NATO.

Britain, which has cut defense spending to rein in a big budget deficit, also urged allies to commit to increase defense spending once their economies improved.

"I don't hear that commitment as clearly as I would like to hear it (from European allies)," British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond told reporters before the Brussels meeting, which is focusing on Afghanistan and improving NATO's capabilities.

British Prime Minister David Cameron raised the possibility on Thursday of diverting hundreds of millions of pounds from foreign aid to defense and security.

(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek, Francesco Guarascio, Erik Matzen; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Teen killed in protests on Bahrain revolt anniversary

DUBAI (Reuters) - Bahraini security forces killed a teenager and injured dozens more protesters on Thursday, an opposition website said, during clashes on the second anniversary of an uprising to demand democratic reforms in the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state.

Several hundred demonstrators, mostly youths from largely Shi'ite villages, blocked roads around the capital Manama and hurled stones and fire bombs at police, who responded with birdshot and tear gas, witnesses said.

Security forces confirmed they had fired warning shots at the crowds and one young man had been killed in the protests, which began in the early morning and lasted almost all day.

The clashes were the most violent in recent months and could mar talks that began on Sunday between mostly Shi'ite Muslim opposition groups and the Sunni-dominated government to try to end political deadlock in Bahrain, which is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

Bahrain has seen almost daily demonstrations in the run-up to the anniversary of the revolt, which has put the kingdom on the front line of a region-wide tussle for influence between Shi'ite Muslim Iran and Sunni Arab states such as Saudi Arabia.

Mass protests that erupted in February 2011 at the height of the Arab Spring were crushed, but small demonstrations demanding greater rights for Bahrain's Shi'ite majority and an end to the absolute power of the Sunni ruling family have continued.

Bahrain's chief of public security, Brigadier-General Tariq Al Hassan, said police had fired warning shots on Thursday to disperse a crowd that had attacked them with fire bombs, stones and iron rods, injuring several, some seriously.

"Officers discharged birdshot to defend themselves. At least one rioter was injured in the process. A short time later, a young man was pronounced dead at Salmaniya Medical Center," he said in a statement.

He said several members of the force involved in the incident were being investigated to determine the circumstances of the death.

The main opposition group Wefaq named the youth was Ali Ahmed Ibrahim al-Jazeeri, a 16-year-old Shi'ite, and said he had been killed in the village of Diya, near Manama.

"DOZENS" HURT

It said dozens of others had been hurt, some seriously, and posted pictures of casualties, including a photograph of the dead youth with bandages on his abdomen.

Wefaq said there had also been a confrontation on Sitra island, south of Manama.

"Large numbers of armored vehicles, police cars and buses, convoys of military vehicles and troops deployed in the areas ... to face the peaceful protests demanding freedom and democracy," it said.

The state news agency BNA said masked people had forced a number of schools to close down and chained their doors shut to prevent students and staff getting in.

A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said news of the protester's death was "disquieting".

"We call on all parties to exercise restraint, avoid provocations, and reject violence, especially during the demonstrations today," he said.

An international inquiry commission said in a November 2011 report that 35 people had died during Bahrain's uprising. The dead were mainly protesters but included five security personnel and seven foreigners. The report said five people had died from torture. The opposition puts the death toll at more than 80.

Bahrain's opposition and government resumed reconciliation talks on Sunday for the first time since July 2011.

Officials said delegates had agreed at Wednesday's session on some ground rules for the talks, including the role of government representatives and mechanisms for implementing any agreement, paving the way for further sessions next week.

(Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Jon Hemming and Michael Holden)

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Ecuador's Correa favored to easily win re-election

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, one of Latin America's most outspoken leftist leaders, is almost certain to win re-election on Sunday thanks to heavy state spending that has benefited the poor.

The pugnacious and combative U.S.-trained economist has won strong support by using windfall oil earnings to give cash handouts to some 2 million people and expand access to healthcare and education.

Correa has a lead of as much as 50 percentage points over the nearest of his seven rivals in opinion polls.

"I notice the changes. I've benefited from initiatives to help small companies. My relatives are getting subsidies for the handicapped. Those are facts, not words," Luis Paredes, a 38-year-old who runs a small business repairing office furniture, said at a Correa rally in Quito.

Correa's confrontation with oil companies and Wall Street investors has helped him drum up nationalist fervor, but his impulsive outbursts and refusal to brook dissent have also led critics to describe him as a power-hungry authoritarian.

He took a leave of absence from the presidency to focus on campaigning, and for the past six weeks he has been tirelessly visiting windswept Andean hamlets, sweltering Amazon towns and urban slums in the country of 15 million.

"We already have a president, we have Rafael!" is a common chant at his campaign rallies. His rivals mostly drive through shantytowns in convoys, while saturating local media with campaign ads.

Three respected pollsters show the 49-year-old Correa, who caught the world's attention last year by granting asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as the clear front runner.

The Perfiles de Opinion polling firm recently showed him with 62 percent support. To avoid a second round, Correa needs to win 50 percent of the vote or 40 percent with a lead of 10 percentage points over the second-placed candidate.

Correa has been in power for six years and a victory on Sunday would give him another four years. In the decade before he came to office, three presidents were ousted by military coups and street protests.

His re-election could help shore up the ALBA bloc of left-wing leaders in Latin America. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been the anti-American group's undisputed leader, but he is fighting cancer and may not be able to hang onto power.

Supporters admire Correa's unflinching style of government, but others are put off by his impetuous manner and his penchant for confrontation with reporters and bankers.

"People say he's arrogant and mean, but he gets things done," said political science professor Franklin Ramirez. "The key is that people can see the difference between political instability and a paralysis of the state in the past, with the extraordinary dynamism they see nowadays."

BANKER LEADS CHALLENGERS

Guillermo Lasso, a former banker and Correa's closest rival, has tried to woo voters with promises that he will lower taxes and foster private-sector growth.

Lasso, who as a teenager worked at a local stock exchange to pay for school and went on to lead one of Ecuador's largest banks, calls Correa a follower of "franchise socialism" that copies policies that Lasso says have failed in Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America.

But the recent poll by Perfiles de Opinion showed Lasso has failed to cut into Correa's support and he is expected to win just 9 percent of the vote.

The six other opposition candidates run the gamut from former Correa ally Alberto Acosta, a leftist with a strong environmental agenda, to banana magnate and five-time presidential candidate Alvaro Noboa.

Adversaries say constitutional changes that Correa pushed through in 2008 allowed him to reshape state institutions to boost his power while placing allies in key posts. They accuse him of using a referendum to bypass a hostile Congress on an overhaul of the justice system.

Opponents also allege that Correa has accumulated power and persecuted private media in an ongoing dispute that has included launching several libel suits against critical newspapers and reporters. Correa insists he is a victim of the media.

He ended a 2012 interview by WikiLeaks' Assange with the phrase "Welcome to the club of the persecuted," comparing his own experience with the media to the former computer hacker's battle to avoid extradition from Britain.

Correa granted Assange political asylum to help him avoid being sent to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning in a sexual assault case. Assange is still holed up in Ecuador's embassy in London, unable to leave.

If Correa wins on Sunday, his main challenge will be to win over investors who have turned their backs on Ecuador. In 2008, Correa's government defaulted on $3.2 billion in foreign debt and in 2010 he forced oil companies to sign new contracts giving more revenue to the government.

As a result, direct foreign investment has generally been less than $1 billion a year, whereas neighboring Peru and Colombia received $7.7 billion and $13 billion respectively in 2011.

A major test will come this year in negotiations with Canada's Kinross to develop a large gold deposit, which could kick-start Ecuador's nascent mining industry.

Successfully navigating that deal would prove Correa is sufficiently pragmatic to reach a compromise with foreign companies, despite his anti-business rhetoric.

In the long term, Ecuador needs to reduce its reliance on oil revenue. For decades its economy has been at the mercy of crude prices.

Bernardo Acosta, an economics professor at the state-run San Francisco University, says Ecuador is even more vulnerable now because Correa has been spending too heavily.

"There's social progress, but citizens and businesses in Ecuador should think about the future, not only the present," Acosta said. "State spending and economic growth still depend on something we can't control: oil prices. If oil prices were to fall, Ecuador will be in economic dire straits."

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Editing by Brian Ellsworth and Kieran Murray; desking by Christopher Wilson)

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Maldives ex-president to stay in Indian embassy: party

MALE (Reuters) - Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed will stay in the Indian embassy in Male until a caretaker government is formed, his party said on Thursday, despite a government assurance he would not be arrested if left.

Nasheed, the Maldives' first democratically elected leader, who left office last year in contested circumstances, entered the Indian High Commission in the capital on Wednesday as police tried to arrest him in connection with a court case.

His supporters, who say Nasheed was ousted last February in a coup, clashed with police outside the mission, the latest such unrest in the Indian Ocean archipelago which is best known as a luxury holiday destination.

A court had ordered Nasheed's arrest after he missed a February 10 court appearance in a case relating to accusations that he illegally detained a judge during the last days of his rule.

But a government spokesman said on Thursday Nasheed no longer faced arrest.

"Nasheed's arrest warrant has ceased and he won't be arrested," Imad Masood, spokesman for President Mohamed Waheed Hussain Manik, told Reuters.

"The court will now announce a fresh date for the hearing and Nasheed can appear without being arrested," Masood said.

However, Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said he would remain in the embassy because of the danger he faced.

"Until we find a transitional arrangement, he will be there," MDP spokesman Hamid Abdul Gafoor told Reuters.

If Nasheed is eventually found guilty in the case he faces, he could be barred from standing in a presidential election on September 7. His party says the trial is an attempt to exclude him from the contest and has challenged the court's legitimacy.

India's External Affairs Ministry on Wednesday expressed concern over instability and called on the government of the Maldives "to adhere strictly to democratic principles and the rule of law".

Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said he had a "useful conversation" with his counterpart in the Maldives about what he described as a "situation of unusual nature", though he offered no suggestion the deadlock had been resolved.

Nasheed says he was forced from power at gunpoint after opposition protests and a police mutiny. A national commission last August said the toppling of his government was not a coup, a ruling that triggered several days of demonstrations.

"An interim, caretaker government should be established that can lead the Maldives to genuinely free and fair elections," Nasheed said in a statement, calling for President Waheed to resign.

The Maldives held its first free elections in 2008. Nasheed defeated Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had ruled for 30 years and was accused by opponents and international human rights groups of running the country as a dictator.

(Additional reporting Shihar Aneez in COLOMBO and Annie Banerji in NEW DELHI; Writing by Henry Foy; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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German airports disrupted by security staff strike

DUESSELDORF (Reuters) - A strike by security guards over pay has disrupted travel for thousands of passengers passing through two of Germany's busiest airports, the airports and service workers trade union Verdi said on Thursday.

Around 400 workers walked out of Duesseldorf airport in western Germany, according to Verdi. That resulted in 183 flights being postponed until Friday, the airport said.

At the northern airport of Hamburg 103 flights were canceled, affecting more than 17,000 passengers.

Verdi had called on the private sector security workers to strike from the start of the morning shift until midnight.

A spokesman for Verdi said the union was trying to force employers to put a "negotiable" offer on the table and warned that further strikes would follow if this was not achieved.

Verdi is calling for wage rises of between 2.50 and 3.64 euros per hour for 34,000 security workers in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Duesseldorf airport is located.

In Hamburg the union is calling for a wage hike of 2.70 euros for around 600 security workers.

Works councils estimate that more than 70 percent of the employees work in the lowest wage group, earning just 8.23 euros gross ($11.06) per hour.

($1 = 0.7442 euros)

(Reporting by Matthias Inverardi in Duesseldorf, Writing by Michelle Martin in Berlin, Editing by Noah Barkin)

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Israeli lawyer sheds some light on Australian spy mystery

JERUSALEM/CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian immigrant, reported to have been recruited by Israel's Mossad spy agency, was charged with grave crimes before he committed suicide in an Israeli jail, one of his lawyers said on Thursday.

The closely guarded case has raised questions in Australia and Israel about the suspected use by the Mossad of dual Australian-Israeli nationals and the circumstances behind the 2010 detention and death of 34-year-old Ben Zygier.

Israel on Wednesday broke its silence over an Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) report which said that Zygier, who moved to Israel, was jailed in isolation over suspected misconduct while spying for the Mossad.

Partially lifting a gag order on the case, an Israeli court said a dual-nationality citizen had been imprisoned secretly under a false name for "security reasons", and found dead in his cell in what was eventually ruled a suicide.

Israeli criminal attorney Avigdor Feldman said he met with the man, dubbed "Prisoner X", a day before his death.

"I met with a balanced person, given the tragic outcome, who was rationally weighing his legal options," Feldman told Channel 10 Television.

He said the detainee was charged with "grave crimes" and that there were ongoing negotiations for a plea bargain. The attorney did not elaborate on the allegations, which he said the prisoner denied. Reporting in Israel on the case is still subject to strict government censorship.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida quoted on Thursday unidentified Western sources as saying Zygier took part in the killing by a Mossad hit-team of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mahbouh in Dubai in 2010.

Zygier, the newspaper reported, offered Dubai information about the operation in return for the emirate's protection.

Offering a different version, Australia's Fairfax Media said Australian security officials suspected Zygier may have been about to disclose Israeli intelligence operations, including the use of fraudulent Australian passports, either to the Canberra government or to the media before his arrest.

"His interrogators told him he could expect lengthy jail- time and be ostracized from his family and the Jewish community," Feldman said. "There was no heart string they did not pull, and I suppose that ultimately brought about the tragic end."

In a separate interview Feldman appeared to inadvertently confirm the man was a Mossad spy.

"The Mossad liaison I was in touch with informed me that, unfortunately, my client was no longer alive," Feldman told Kol Barama Radio. Israel has neither denied nor confirmed that "Prisoner X" was a Mossad officer.

The jailhouse suicide of Zygier has focused attention on the agency's recruitment of foreign-born Jews who could spy under cover of their native passports.

SUSPICIONS

Australian media have reported that Zygier had been one of at least three Australian-Israeli dual nationals under investigation by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation over suspicions of espionage for Israel.

Australia complained to Israel in 2010 after Dubai said forged Australian passports were used by the Mossad squad. Mahbouh's killers, authorities in the emirate said, also had also had British, Irish, French and German passports.

Mossad is widely reputed to have stepped up its shadow war in recent years against Iran's nuclear program, Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, suspected nuclear procurement by Syria and arms smuggling to Palestinians through Dubai, Sudan and Egypt.

In an apparent reversal from previous statements, Australian Foreign minister Bob Carr said on Thursday his ministry had known about Zygier's jailing in Israel as early as February 2010. On Wednesday he said Australian diplomats in Israel only found out about the detention after his death in custody later that year.

Israel's Justice Ministry said a court has ordered an inquiry into possible negligence in Zygier's death.

Zygier, who came from a prominent Jewish family in Australia and was also known as Ben Alon and Ben Allen, was buried in Melbourne. He had been married with two young children. His relatives have declined all comment on the case.

(Writing by Maayan Lubell and Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller/Mark Heinrich)

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"Blade Runner" Pistorius charged with murdering girlfriend

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee who became one of the biggest names in world athletics, was charged on Thursday with shooting dead his girlfriend at his upscale home in Pretoria.

Police said they opened a murder case after a 30-year-old woman was found dead at the Paralympic and Olympic star's house in the Silverlakes gated complex on the capital's outskirts.

Pistorius, 26, and his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, had been the only people in the house at the time of the shooting, police brigadier Denise Beukes told reporters, adding witnesses had been interviewed about the early morning incident.

"We are talking about neighbors and people that heard things earlier in the evening and when the shooting took place," Beukes said outside the heavily guarded residential complex.

Police said a 9mm pistol had been found at the scene.

Beukes said police were aware of previous incidents at the Pistorius house. "I can confirm that there has previously been incidents at the home of Mr Oscar Pistorious, of allegations of a domestic nature," she said.

Pistorius, who uses carbon fiber prosthetic blades to run, is due to appear in a Pretoria court on Friday.

"He is doing well but very emotional," his lawyer Kenny Oldwage told SABC TV, but gave no further comment.

A sports icon for triumphing over disability to compete with able-bodied athletes at the Olympics, his sponsorship deals, including one with sports apparel group Nike, are thought to be worth $2 million a year.

South Africa's M-Net cable TV channel said it was pulling adverts featuring Pistorius off air immediately after blanket coverage of the arrest in a country more used to honoring Pistorius as a national hero.

"WE ARE ALL DEVASTATED"

Steenkamp's colleagues in the modeling world were distraught. "We are all devastated. Her family is in shock," her agent, Sarita Tomlinson, tearfully told Reuters. "They did have a good relationship. Nobody actually knows what happened."

Pistorius, who was born without a fibula in both legs, was the first double amputee to run in the Olympics and reached the 400-metre semi-finals in London 2012.

In last year's Paralympics he suffered his first loss over 200 meters in nine years. After the race he questioned the legitimacy of Brazilian winner Alan Oliveira's prosthetic blades, though he was quick to express regret for the comments.

South Africa has some of the world's highest rates of violent crime, and many home owners have weapons to defend themselves against intruders, although Pistorius's complex is surrounded by a three-meter high wall and electric fence.

In 2004, Springbok rugby player Rudi Visagie shot dead his 19-year-old daughter after he mistakenly thought she was a robber trying to steal his car in the middle of the night.

Before the murder charge was announced, Johannesburg's Talk Radio 702 said the athlete may have mistaken Steenkamp for a burglar.

Pistorius was arrested in 2009 for assault after slamming a door on a woman and spent a night in police custody. Family and friends said it was just an accident and charges were dropped.

OLYMPIAN UNDERGOES POLICE TESTS

Steenkamp, a regular on the South African social scene, was reported to have been dating Pistorius for several months.

In the social pages of last weekend's Sunday Independent she described him as having "impeccable" taste. "His gifts are always thoughtful," she was quoted as saying.

Some of her last Twitter postings indicated she was looking forward to Valentine's Day on Thursday. "What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow???" she posted.

Pistorius was on Thursday being processed through the police system. "At this stage he is on his way to a district surgeon for medical examination," the police brigadier said.

"When a person has been accused of a crime like murder they look at things like testing under the finger nails, taking a blood alcohol sample and all kinds of other test that are done. They are standard medical tests," Beukes said.

Pistorius is also sponsored by British telecoms firm BT, sunglasses maker Oakley and French designer Thierry Mugler.

"We are shocked by this terrible, tragic news. We await the outcome of the South African police investigation," a BT spokeswoman said before Pistorius was charged.

A Nike spokesman in London said before hearing of the murder charge that the company was "saddened by the news, but we have no further comment to make at this stage".

Pistorius also has a sponsorship deal with Icelandic prosthetics manufacturer Ossur.

"I can only say that our thoughts and prayers are with Oscar and the families involved in the tragedy," Ossur CEO Jon Sigurdsson told Reuters. "It is completely premature to discuss or speculate on our business relationship with him."

Neighbors expressed shock at the arrest of a "good guy".

"It is difficult to imagine an intruder entering this community, but we live in a country where intruders can get in wherever they want to," said one Silverlakes resident, who did not want to be named.

"Oscar is a good guy, an upstanding neighbor, and if he is innocent I feel for this guy deeply," he said.

(Additional reporting by Sherilee Lakmidas, David Dolan, Ed Cropley, Jon Herskovitz, Keith Weir and Kate Holton; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Will Waterman)

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Arabs rap Iranian call for atom talks to take in Bahrain,Syria

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Gulf Arab governments dismissed as "interference" an Iranian suggestion that unrest in Syria and Bahrain be discussed at nuclear talks between world powers and Iran, accusing Tehran of trying to dodge the main agenda.

The secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) said the bloc "categorically rejected" Iran's proposal, saying it was further evidence of Iranian meddling in the region, the Bahraini news agency BNA reported on Thursday.

"This confirms Iran's clear interference in the domestic affairs of Arab countries, and its continuous efforts to destabilize the security of some of these Arab countries," Abdulatif al-Zayani was quoted by BNA as saying.

Arab popular uprisings since 2011 have kindled increased strife between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims that Sunni-ruled Gulf states with restive Shi'ite communities blame on incitement from regional Shi'ite power Iran, which denies the accusation.

The GCC is a U.S.-allied, political and economic bloc comprising Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

The GCC is not represented at the intermittent and so far inconclusive talks six world powers are conducting with Iran to try to get it to rein in its disputed nuclear energy program.

BNA further quoted Zayani as accusing Iran of trying to manipulate the negotiations "by mixing political cards" and continuing "procrastination and non-seriousness on reaching a final solution to alleviate regional and international fears regarding its controversial nuclear program".

Zayani, according to BNA, urged the six powers to "reject these provocative Iranian attempts".

DISPUTES OVER AGENDA

Western diplomats have accused Iran in the past of avoiding the main point of the negotiations by trying to have the agenda widened to cover general security and economic issues.

The next negotiating session is to be held in Kazakhstan on February 26. The West fears Iran is pursuing the means to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says it seeks only civilian atomic energy.

The semi-official Iranian news agency Mehr said on Tuesday Tehran had proposed including Bahrain - which is grappling with unrest by majority Shi'ites - and Syria - where an increasingly sectarian civil war is raging - in the talks with world powers.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has proposed as a suggestion to Western countries that the crisis in Syria and Bahrain be among the issues discussed in negotiations in Kazakhstan," Mehr quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying.

Bahrain had summoned Iran's charge d'affaires over the statement, BNA said.

The GCC routinely accuses Iran of interfering in the region, primarily in Bahrain where the Sunni-dominated government has been struggling since 2011 to suppress pro-democracy agitation led mainly by the kingdom's Shi'ites.

Iran denies trying to stir trouble in Bahrain or to subvert any of its other wealthy Gulf Arab neighbors. Tehran also says it regards the Gulf as its geo-political backyard and that it has a legitimate right to advance its interests there.

(Reporting By Raissa Kasolowsky; Additional reporting by Zahra Hosseinian, Editing by William Maclean and Mark Heinrich)

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Iran denies shipping arms to Islamist militants in Somalia

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran has denied allegations that it has been supplying Islamist militants in Somalia with weapons, describing the charges as "absurd fabrications," according to a letter obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

As the United States pushes for an end to the U.N. arms embargo on Somalia, U.N. monitors following Somalia sanctions warned that Islamist militants in the Horn of Africa nation are receiving weapons from distribution networks linked to Iran and Yemen, diplomats told Reuters.

According to the latest findings by the U.N. Security Council's monitoring group, which tracks compliance with U.N. sanctions on Somalia and Eritrea, most illicit arms are coming into northern Somalia - that is, the autonomous Puntland and Somaliland regions - after which they are moved farther south into strongholds of Islamist al Shabaab militants.

"The allegations of arm transfers from Iran to Somalia are absurd fabrications and have no basis or validity," Iran's U.N. mission wrote to the U.N. Security Council. "Thus, it is categorically rejected by the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

"It is unfortunate that the Monitoring Group has, in an obvious irresponsible manner, put such unfounded allegations and strange fabrications in its report, without first bothering itself to communicate them to my Government," Iran's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee wrote to the council.

"It is further regrettable that the content of the report is leaked to the media for propaganda purposes," he wrote. "This malicious campaign, which is done in the name of the United Nations, endangers the credibility of the Security Council along with that of the United Nations."

SOMALI NETWORKS

The monitoring team's concerns about Iranian and Yemeni links to arms supplies for al Shabaab militants come as Yemen is asking Tehran to stop backing armed groups on Yemeni soil. Last month the Yemeni coast guard and the U.S. Navy seized a consignment of missiles and rockets the Sanaa government says were sent by Iran.

According to the monitoring group, the supply chains in Yemen that provide al Shabaab with arms are largely Somali networks, council diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

Yemen is just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia's northern coast, making it easy to move all kinds of goods - legal and illegal - from the Middle East into Somaliland and Puntland.

Iran's U.N. mission also wrote to the council regarding the allegations about the ship containing arms bound for Yemen. It denied responsibility for those weapons.

"It has been further claimed that the items seized on board ... the ship were produced in Iran," Khazaee wrote in a separate letter to the council. "Even if some of these items were made in Iran, this does not provide any evidence that Iran was involved in the shipment of arms to Yemen."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said the 15-nation council should consider lifting the arms embargo to help rebuild Somalia's security forces and consolidate military gains against the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants.

It is a position that has the strong backing of the United States, which is pushing for an end to the 21-year-old U.N. arms embargo. The Security Council imposed it in 1992 to cut the flow of arms to feuding warlords, who a year earlier had ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and plunged Somalia into civil war.

France and Britain oppose lifting the arms embargo for the government, U.N. diplomats say, and would prefer a more gradual easing of the restrictions on arms sales to Somalia's government.

Somali Foreign Minister Fawzia Yusuf Haji Adam appealed to the Security Council on Thursday to lift the arms embargo for the government while maintaining restrictions that would keep weapons away from al Shabaab, which the Somali government and African Union peacekeepers have dislodged from key regions.

"The lifting of the arms embargo is a prerequisite for attaining this goal (of consolidating peace)," she said.

"The Somali government reiterates its request for throwing of the arms embargo," she told the council. "The Somali government will put in place the necessary mechanisms to ensure that armaments do not fall into the wrong hands."

(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Patrick Graham and Jackie Frank)

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French government suspects firm sold horsemeat labeled beef

PARIS (Reuters) - A French investigation into how horsemeat found its way into ready meals in Europe found that a French processing company called Spanghero sold as beef what could have been horsemeat, the government said on Thursday.

"It would seem that the first agent in this chain to label the meat 'beef' was indeed Spanghero," Consumer Affairs Minister Benoit Hamon told a news conference of the company based in the southwestern town of Castelnaudry.

"The investigation shows Spanghero knew the meat labeled as beef could be horse. There was a strong suspicion," he said, arguing that Spanghero could also not have failed to notice that the meat in question was much cheaper than beef.

In an emailed statement, Spanghero denied the accusations and said it firmly believed that what it was selling was beef.

Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll said the government was considering withdrawing Spanghero's operating license.

The investigation found the company had generated a profit of 550,000 euros ($733,800) over six months by selling cheap horsemeat as beef, Hamon said.

(Reporting by Sybille de la Hamaide and Nicholas Vinocur; Writing by Catherine Bremer)

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Kenya presidential contender wants Hague trial postponed

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Kenyan presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta has asked for his trial on crimes against humanity charges to be delayed to allow time to prepare his defense given prosecutors' late disclosure of evidence, his lawyers said on Thursday.

Kenyatta, a former finance minister and the son of his country's founder president, is one of four accused at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of orchestrating bloody clashes in which 1,200 people died and thousands were uprooted from their homes after disputed elections in December 2007.

While his lawyers said a trial delay was needed to let them respond to evidence disclosed at the last minute by prosecutors, many analysts say Kenyatta would benefit if the trial were postponed until well after the March 4 presidential election.

Speaking at a hearing in The Hague, they said that stalling by ICC prosecutors had left them with only a hazy idea of the charges Kenyatta and his co-accused faced.

They also requested that suspects be allowed regularly to attend via video link, and asked judges to explore moving the trial location to Arusha in neighboring Tanzania, where there is an existing United Nations court trying suspects in the Rwandan genocide.

"Let us investigate these allegations properly," said Steven Kay, the British lawyer representing Kenyatta. "I have not even been able to read the evidence."

Also accused is Kenyatta's one-time political rival and now running mate, ex-higher education minister William Ruto. Kenyatta is running a close second to Prime Minister Raila Odinga in election polls.

Kenyatta and Ruto, who followed Thursday's hearings by video link from Kenya, spoke once each, both confirming they understood they were still subject to the judges' court summons.

Two other accused, Francis Mathaura and Joshua Arap Sang, came to The Hague for the hearing.

Lawyers for Muthaura accused prosecutors of summoning witnesses who had lied to the court.

"The prosecution have an ethical obligation, if they have an interest in a fair trial and not a win at all costs, to disclose their evidence," said Karim Ahmad Khan, his lawyer.

"We have a cabal of witnesses coming to court to lie, and we need time to expose these lies."

Asked by judge Chile Eboe-Osuji if he meant to make this "very serious allegation", Khan said he did.

Ruto's lawyer demanded access to recordings of the prosecution's interviews with witnesses.

"They would show if witnesses had been led on by their interrogators - something we have seen time and time again at this court," said David Hooper, who asked for the trial to be postponed for up to four months.

PROSECUTION DENIES STALLING

The prosecution said all evidence would be disclosed by March, a month before the trial's planned start date.

"The defense has been receiving a steady flow of evidence," said Lucio Garcia for the prosecution. "They know exactly what the case is."

Kenyatta and Ruto would prefer that the trial start once the election is out of the way.

But ICC judges, already dealing with a heavy workload, might also welcome a delay to the trial. The court also faces financial constraints that could lead it to hold the linked but separate trials of Kenyatta and Ruto consecutively.

Kuniko Ozaki, the Japanese judge who chairs the panel of three, is also hearing the concurrent trial of Jean-Pierre Bemba, a Congolese politician, for crimes against humanity.

Her colleague, Christine van den Wyngaert, is also still writing the verdict in the war crimes case against the Congolese warlord Germain Katanga, due in the first part of this year.

Court officials said in a filing that the ICC, which has an annual budget of around 100 million euros, would need to call four new judges and recruit 40 new members of staff if the trials were held at the same time.

RISK TO WITNESSES

Lawyers for Ruto and his co-accused, the radio broadcaster Joshua Arap Sang, said the Tanzanian government would be happy to host the trial.

While this would be more convenient for the accused, the prosecution has previously warned that Arusha's proximity to Kenya could make it easier for witnesses to be threatened.

If the trial were held in The Hague, they asked the court to intercede with the Dutch government to allow the two men to travel within a 60 kilometer radius of the city while in attendance.

"If they were here for some time, then they would be in reach of Amsterdam and Rotterdam," Hooper said.

If Kenyatta wins the election, Kenya would become the second country after Sudan to have a sitting president facing trial at the International Criminal Court.

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Islamic summit urges dialogue on Syria transition

CAIRO (Reuters) - Leaders of Muslim nations called on Thursday for a "serious dialogue" between Syria's government and an opposition coalition on a political transition to end nearly two years of civil war, but pinned most of the blame for the bloodshed on the state.

A two-day summit of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation backed an initiative by Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia to broker negotiations to stop the fighting in which at least 60,000 people have died.

"We all agreed on the necessity to intensify work to put an end to the tragedies which the sisterly Syrian people are living through," Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi told the closing ceremony.

The final communique, issued hours after the summit ended because of last-minute wrangling over the wording, said President Bashar al-Assad's government was most to blame.

"We stress that the primary responsibility is on the Syrian government for the continuation of violence and destruction of property, and we express our deep concern at the deterioration of conditions and the spread of killings that led to the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and the Syrian authorities' commission of massacres in cities and villages," it said.

The statement made no mention of Assad but called for talks between the opposition Syrian National Coalition and "representatives of the Syrian government who are committed to the political transformation of Syria and those who have not been involved directly in any form of oppression".

It also urged all other opposition groups to join the SNC.

SNC leader Moaz Alkhatib made a surprise offer last weekend of talks with Assad's ceremonial deputy, Farouq al-Shara, on a transition that would guarantee Assad safe passage into exile.

The presidents of Egypt, Turkey and Iran met on the margins of the summit to discuss ways to support this initiative. Mursi said more details of their plan would be announced within days.

The secretary-general of the OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, said the initiative "focuses on the unity of the Syrian lands, comprehensive dialogue between the Syrian factions and responding to any country that wants to join in this dialogue".

Syria was not represented at the summit after it was suspended from the OIC last August, nor was the Syrian opposition present.

Iran is one of Assad's last allies and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, making the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian leader since 1979, reveled in the opportunity to play mediator. The Iranians registered reservations about the communique, OIC officials said.

SYRIA SILENT

There has been no official response from Damascus to Alkhatib's offer, but fighting has intensified on the ground after a relative lull.

It is unclear how much influence Alkhatib and his Cairo-based Syrian National Coalition, some members of which were surprised and angered by his offer, have on the rebels fighting inside Syria.

The rebels battled army units for control of districts of Damascus for a second day on Thursday, part of a rebel offensive which aims to shake Assad's hold on the capital, a rebel captain and opposition activists said.

Units of Assad's elite Republican Guard based on the imposing Qasioun Mountain overlooking the city fired artillery rounds and rockets at the eastern neighborhood of Jobar and at the southern ring road, where rebels have overrun roadblocks and army positions, the sources said.

Assad, has lost control of large parts of the country but his forces, backed by air power, have so far kept rebels on the fringes of the capital.

Many of the Islamic heads of state and government left Cairo on Wednesday after the first day of the summit, leaving their foreign ministers and diplomats to haggle over the communique.

In an interview with the BBC Arabic service, Alkhatib said the Syrian government had until Sunday to release all women detainees, otherwise he would regard his offer for dialogue as having been rejected by Assad.

Alkhatib was quoted as saying that "the initiative would be broken" if the detainees were not released.

He also said the Damascus government was letting Iran make decisions for it and rejecting his proposal for dialogue with Shara, a Sunni Muslim former foreign minister who is not a member of Assad's Alawite-dominated inner circle of power.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Alexander Dziadosz, Shaimaa Fayed and Asma Alsharif; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Russia's Putin sacks Olympic official over Games delays

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin fired a top Russian Olympic official on Thursday after publicly ridiculing him on a visit to half-finished sports complexes planned for a winter Olympics dogged by reports of corruption and construction delays.

The humiliation of Akhmed Bilalov, 42, stamped President Putin's authority over the 2014 Sochi Games and underlined the importance he attaches to a global event he hopes will show how far Russia has come since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

In a vintage performance, reminiscent of an all-powerful tsar sweeping through town in imperial times, Putin became angry when he heard of the rising costs and construction delays at the ski-jump complex Bilalov has been involved in.

Unsmiling and sarcastic, Putin unceremoniously scolded Bilalov in front of television cameras at the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Wednesday, then sacked him as vice president of Russia's Olympic Committee.

"How is it possible that the vice-president of the Olympic Committee is delaying development?" Putin said after touring Sochi, which has become a huge construction site with the concrete carcasses of unfinished buildings hugging the skyline.

With Bilalov squirming in the background, he added: "Well done. You are really working well."

Bilalov's dismissal overshadowed a day of festivities as Russia unveiled huge diamond-shaped clocks in Moscow, Sochi and six other cities counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds to the opening of the Games a year from now.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak made clear Bilalov was also likely to lose his job on the board of the Resorts of the North Caucasus, a state firm created to develop luxury resorts.

"People who do not fulfill their obligations on such a scale cannot lead the Olympic movement in our country," Kozak told reporters in Sochi, a popular tourist destination for Russians in summer and winter.

FESTIVITIES OVERSHADOWED

In Sochi, the din of the heavy trucks and diggers did not stop as the day's countdown festivities began. Large areas are fenced off in the city center and many of the roads are closed.

The ski resort of Krasnaya Polyana, which looks down on Sochi, is still a muddle of fences, cranes, trucks and unfinished buildings. There is little snow but plenty of mud.

Putin had warned officials on Wednesday not to let corruption push up the costs of the Games, already expected to reach $50 billion, or five times more than the initial price tag. This would make them the costliest Games so far.

The Olympics are a priority for Putin in his third term as president, a chance to show Russia is a modern democracy capable of organizing global events, 13 years after he rose to power.

"The main thing is that no one steals anything, so there are no unexplained increases in costs," he said on Wednesday as he went rapidly from one venue to another.

Russia has been trying to shed its reputation for corruption, which has long put off foreign investors. But fears of foul play prompted then-President Dmitry Medvedev to order an investigation in 2010 into a senior Kremlin official accused of extorting bribes over Games construction work.

The price of building one less than 50-km (31-mile) stretch of road for the Games has been estimated at $7.5 billion, a figure so high that it fuelled more corruption allegations.

SECURITY THREAT

There is also a security threat from an Islamist insurgency raging nearby, concerns about environmental damage, allegations that some workers have been underpaid and residents are grumbling about the state of the city.

"It's good they are building new roads here, but the benefits of all of that will not be felt soon and people are getting upset," said Vladimir, a taxi driver in his mid-30s.

Approaching a new roundabout, he said: "This roundabout is a good example of how things work here. It's broad and smooth but it's surrounded by narrow roads, so there's no real point in it. There's traffic jams all around it anyway."

Thirteen official sites are being built, including a stadium that can house 40,000 people, plus facilities for ice hockey, skiing, snowboarding and skating. About 120,000 visitors are expected during the Games.

But beneath the slopes, Sochi has palm trees and a sub-tropical climate. The temperature on Thursday was around 13 degrees Celsius (55 Fahrenheit). Some Russians wonder why and how a Winter Olympics can be hosted by such a warm city.

The rising costs have also brought grumbles from wealthy Russian businessmen who have invested in the Games and want the government to provide more help with the funding.

At least half the money for the Games is coming from the state and private Russian businessmen or state-controlled companies are making up the rest, Russian Olympic officials say.

(Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Timothy Heritage; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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Japan says Russia intruded air space; Russia denies charge

TOKYO (Reuters) - Two Russian fighter jets briefly entered Japan's air space near disputed islands and the northern island of Hokkaido on Thursday, prompting Japan to scramble combat fighters and lodge a protest, Japan's Foreign Ministry said.

Russia, which is currently holding military maneuvers around the disputed Kurile islands, denied any such intrusion took place.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is expected to visit Moscow later this month to discuss territorial matters.

Thursday was Japan's "Northern Territories Day", when rallies are traditionally held calling for the return of the disputed islands it calls the Northern Territories.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had told a rally he was determined to press ahead with negotiations with Russia for the return of the islands.

"I had telephone talks with President (Vladimir) Putin in December, and told him I would like to work to find a mutually acceptable solution to this last-remaining major problem between Japan and Russia," Abe said.

"The government intends to follow its basic policy of settling the territorial issue and then sign a peace treaty. We will press ahead with negotiations with strong will so that progress will be made towards the conclusive resolution of the territorial problem."

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev landed on the remote island chain in July, prompting protests from Tokyo.

Unlike Japan's dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea, which are near potentially vast maritime oil and gas reserves, the feud with Russia has more to do with the legacy of World War Two.

Soviet soldiers seized the islands at the end of the war and the territorial row has weighed on diplomatic relations ever since, precluding a formal peace treaty.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Writing by Nick Macfie)

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Iraqi Kurds press on with oil pipe to Turkey despite U.S. fears

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdistan will press ahead with building its own oil export pipeline to Turkey, the region's energy minister said on Thursday, despite U.S. objections due to fears the project could lead to the break-up of Iraq.

The autonomous Kurdish region is locked in a turf war with the central government in Baghdad over how to exploit Iraq's hydrocarbon riches and divide up the proceeds.

Baghdad says it alone has the authority to control exports of the world's fourth largest oil reserves, while the Kurds say their right to do so is enshrined in Iraq's federal constitution, drawn up following the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

"We want to have an oil pipeline to ourselves," Iraqi Kurdish Minister for Natural Resources Ashti Hawrami said at a news conference in the regional capital Arbil. "It is currently in the works and we will continue until it is completed."

Crude from the Kurdistan region used to be shipped to world markets through a Baghdad-controlled pipeline to Turkey, but exports via that channel dried up in December, from a peak of around 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) due to a row over payments with Baghdad.

The United States says the solution lies in a national hydrocarbons law that has been delayed for years by a power struggle between Iraq's Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish factions, which has intensified since U.S. troops withdrew a year ago.

"The Iraqis have been struggling to pass a hydrocarbons law. It is very important that they succeed in that," U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis J. Ricciardone said in Ankara on Tuesday.

Reluctant to wait, Kurdistan has been looking to resource-hungry Turkey for answers. A broad energy partnership between them ranging from exploration to export has been in the works since last year.

Majority Sunni Turkey's deepening ties with the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq have heightened tensions between Ankara and the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad.

"If Turkey and Iraq fail to optimize their economic relations... There could be more violent conflict in Iraq and the forces of disintegration within Iraq could be emboldened," Riccardione said.

Kurdistan is already bypassing the federal pipeline network by trucking small quantities of crude over the Turkish border in exchange for refined oil products.

"The issue is that we are entitled to 17 percent of (Iraq's)refined products, but the central government sends us only 3 percent and our refining capacity is not enough to satisfy domestic demand," Hawrami said.

(Reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil and Nick Tattersall in Ankara; Editing by Anthony Barker)

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Libya must hand over Gaddafi spy chief: Hague judges

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - International Criminal Court judges ordered Libya on Thursday to hand over Muammar Gaddafi's former spy chief and let him see his lawyer, raising the stakes in a dispute over who has the right to try the deposed strongman's top lieutenants.

The statement placed the Hague-based court on a collision course with Libya's new rulers, who say Gaddafi-era leaders in their custody should face local justice over charges of mass killings and other atrocities.

The ICC judges said Libya must extradite Abdullah al-Senussi over his alleged role in orchestrating reprisals against the protesters in the 2011 uprising that overthrew Gaddafi.

"Libya remains under obligation to comply with the surrender request," the judges said in their statement.

They would decide later how to respond if the North African state continues to hold Senussi, the judges added. The court has the power to refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council.

"The ICC has ordered an immediate halt to Libya's unseemly rush to drag Mr. Al-Senussi to the gallows before the law has taken its course," said Ben Emmerson, Senussi's lawyer before the ICC.

Judges also ordered Libya to grant Emmerson access to his client.

Libya has become a test case of the effectiveness of the 10-year-old court, which relies on the cooperation of member countries to arrest suspects and enforce its orders.

A court-appointed lawyer for Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam was detained in Libya for a month alongside three other court officials when she attempted to visit her jailed client. Since, court officials and defense lawyers have had no contact with either Saif al-Islam or Senussi.

Most recently, allegations have surfaced that Libya paid Mauritania $200 million to ignore the ICC arrest warrant last year, sending Senussi to Tripoli rather than to the ICC's detention center in The Hague.

(Reporting By Thomas Escritt; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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Nigeria opposition merge to challenge president's party

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's four main opposition movements announced a merger, posing the sternest threat in years to President Goodluck Jonathan's ruling party ahead of elections in 2015.

Supporters said the new All Progressive Congress (APC) - made up of four regional parties - was the most significant effort to date to form a national opposition group in a country riven by geographic rivalries and an Islamist insurgency.

Past, smaller, attempts at opposition alliances have fallen apart amid infighting and analysts said, judging by past form, the new party might struggle to agree on a single presidential candidate for the vote.

"At no time in our national life has radical change become more urgent," said a statement signed on Wednesday by representatives of the four parties - the ACN, ANPP, APGA and CPC.

"(We are) determined to bring corruption and insecurity to an end, to grow our economy and create jobs in their millions ... and stop the increasing mood of despair and hopelessness among our people," they added.

President Jonathan's People's Democratic Party (PDP), which has won every presidential election since Africa's biggest oil producer returned to civilian rule 14 years ago, dismissed the new union.

"They are not a threat at all ... PDP is Messi in that contest," the party's national chairman Bamanga Tukur told reporters, likening his movement to the all-conquering Argentina and Barcelona soccer player Lionel Messi.

The PDP controls around two-thirds of the states and has a healthy majority in both houses of the national assembly.

The four merging parties control almost all the remaining seats and marginally reduced the PDP's majority in both the states and parliament in elections in 2011.

INFIGHTING

Opposition attempts to form an alliance before that vote failed after the parties did not manage to agree on a single presidential candidate.

Analysts said the squabbling was typical of a system were politicians were often accused of putting personal and regional gains ahead of party loyalty and voters' interests.

"Policy and ideology do not feature prominently in a political discourse in Nigeria that is principally about winning or losing - and personal rivalries," said Nigeria analyst Antony Goldman, head of Africa-focused PM Consulting.

"The challenge will be translate such common purpose from principle to practice," Goldman added.

Tightly fought elections in Africa's second biggest economy can often stoke violence. Hundreds were killed in riots in the mostly Muslim north when Christian southerner Jonathan won the presidential vote two years ago.

Jonathan has not said whether he will run again.

The APC merger was brokered this week by 10 opposition state governors, many of whom will end their terms in 2015 and are looking for new roles.

It was not clear whether the merger was backed by all the four parties' state governors and lawmakers.

Official changes of party will have to be agreed with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The INEC spokesman did not respond to calls for comment.

(Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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Khamenei rebuffs U.S. offer of direct talks

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's highest authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Thursday slapped down an offer of direct talks made by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden this week, saying they would not solve the problem between them.

"Some naive people like the idea of negotiating with America, however, negotiations will not solve the problem," Khamenei said in a speech to officials and members of Iran's air force carried on his official website.

"If some people want American rule to be established again in Iran, the nation will rise up to face them," he said.

"American policy in the Middle East has been destroyed and Americans now need to play a new card. That card is dragging Iran into negotiations."

Khamenei made his comments just days after Joe Biden said the United States was prepared to meet bilaterally with the Iranian leadership. "That offer stands but it must be real and tangible," Biden said in a speech in Munich.

With traditional fiery rhetoric, Khamenei lambasted Biden's offer, saying that since the 1979 revolution the United States had gravely insulted Iran and continued to do so with its threat of military action.

"You take up arms against the nation of Iran and say: 'negotiate or we fire'. But you should know that pressure and negotiations are not compatible and our nation will not be intimidated by these actions," he added.

Relations between Iran and the United States were severed in 1979 after the overthrow of Iran's pro-western monarchy and diplomatic meetings between officials have since been very rare.

ALL OPTIONS STILL "ON THE TABLE"

Currently U.S.-Iran contact is limited to talks between Tehran and a so-called P5+1 group of powers on Iran's disputed nuclear program which are to resume on February 26 in Kazakhstan.

Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said he was skeptical the negotiations in Almaty could yield a result, telling Israel Radio that the United States needed to demonstrate to Iran that "all options were still on the table".

Israel, widely recognized to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, has warned it could mount a pre-emptive strike on Iranian atomic sites. Israel sees its existence as directly threatened by the prospect of an nuclear-armed Iran, given Tehran's refusal to recognize the existence of the Jewish state.

"The final option, this is the phrasing we have used, should remain in place and be serious," said Meridor.

"The fact that the Iranians have not yet come down from the path they are on means that talks ...are liable to bring about only a stalling for time," he said.

Iran maintains its nuclear program is entirely peaceful but Western powers are concerned it is intent on developing a weapons program.

Many believe a deal on settling the nuclear issue is impossible without a U.S.-Iranian thaw. But any rapprochement would require direct talks addressing many sources of mutual mistrust that have lingered since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and the subsequent U.S. embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.

Moreover, although his re-election last November may give President Barack Obama a freer hand to pursue direct negotiations, analysts say Iran's own presidential election in June may prove an additional obstacle to progress being made.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams; Editing by William Maclean and Jon Boyle)

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