Bahrain commission to investigate army, torture claims, Posted by Meosha Eaton

(Reuters) - A commission tasked by Bahrain to investigate weeks of protests that rocked the Gulf island kingdom said Sunday it would look at the role of the security forces in the unrest and examine charges of torture.

At a news conference marking the launch of the five-member panel's investigation, chairman Cherif Bassiouni said his team would look at 30 police officers being investigated by the Interior Ministry for allegedly not following procedures.

He said the army would also be investigated.

Gbagbo negotiating exit from Ivory Coast, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* Gbagbo negotiating exit, spokesman says

* France says crisis over in hours

* Fighting in Abidjan eases after days of heavy firing

* Gbagbo troops to surrender arms to UN

(Adds Gbagbo troops to surrender arms to UN, Gbagbo spox)

By Tim Cocks and Ange Aboa

ABIDJAN, April 5 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo was negotiating the terms of his departure from power on Tuesday following a fierce assault by forces loyal to his presidential rival backed by U.N. and French helicopter airstrikes.

France said it expected a swift exit by Gbagbo, who had clung to power since refusing to concede he lost last November's presidential election to Alassane Ouattara, plunging the world's top cocoa-growing nation into renewed civil war.

"We are on the brink of convincing him to leave power," French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told parliament in Paris.

A Gbagbo spokesman said the incumbent was negotiating the terms of his departure based on the recognition of Ouattara as president. The spokesman said the negotiations covered security guarantees for Gbagbo and his relatives.

"If everything goes well, we will have a declaration soon," Ahoua Don Mello told Reuters.

Ouattara was said to be Abidjan, with some media reports saying he was in a bunker below his residence.

Gbagbo's forces called for a ceasefire after being comprehensively outgunned in the end, and French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said the West African country's crisis could soon be over.

"We are in a situation where everything could be resolved in the next few hours," Longuet told a news conference.

U.S. President Barack Obama called on Gbagbo to stand down immediately and order his fighters to lay down their arms.

The United Nations mission in the country said Gbagbo's army chiefs had asked their men surrender their arms to U.N. forces and seek protection.

Over the past week, forces loyal to Ouattara had launched a major assault on Gbagbo's last strongholds in Abidjan, driving home their campaign to oust him.

A Reuters eyewitness said on Tuesday that calm had returned to the area surrounding the presidential palace after days of fierce machinegun and heavy weapons fire.

The U.N. peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast, supported by the French military, had targeted Gbagbo's heavy weapons capabilities on Monday with attack helicopters after civilians were killed in shelling.

Attacks centred on military bases in the city, but also on rocket launchers "very close" to Gbagbo's Cocody residence, U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said on Monday. "It looks like Gbagbo is trying to negotiate his way out. What he can offer is another matter ... his negotiating position is much weaker than a couple of weeks ago," said Hannah Koep, Ivory Coast analyst at London-based consultancy Control Risks.

The conflict pushed cocoa prices lower on Tuesday as dealers bet on a swift end to Gbagbo's rule and a resumption of exports. The country's defaulted $2.3 billion Eurobond rose as the assault raised expectations for repayment.

FINAL ASSAULT

In the north of Abidjan, bullet-riddled bodies lay by the side of the main motorway near the largely pro-Gbagbo neighbourhood of Yopougon, evidence of recent fighting between Ouattara and Gbagbo forces, a Reuters witness said.

An armoured personnel carrier was pushed across the roadway, still in flames, and residents who had emerged from their houses to find water said they had heard machinegun and heavy weapons fire through the night.

The United Nations human rights office in Geneva on Tuesday expressed concern over the killings of dozens of civilians in Abidjan, amid reports of heavy weapons used in populated areas.

Gbagbo has defied international pressure to give up the presidency after an election last November that U.N.-certified results showed Ouattara won, rejecting the results as fraudulent and accusing the United Nations of bias.

More than 1,500 people are reported to have died in the standoff that has rekindled the country's 2002-3 civil war, though the real toll is likely much higher.

Several thousand pro-Ouattara fighters had entered Abidjan from the north on Monday in a convoy of transporters, pick-ups mounted with machineguns, and 4x4s loaded with fighters bearing AK-47s and rocket launchers -- in a "final assault".

(Additional reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly and Mark John in Abidjan, Carolyn Cohn in London, and John Irish, Catherine Bremer and Vicky Buffery in Paris; Writing by Richard Valdmanis and Bate Felix; editing by Giles Elgood)

Jordanians protest against slow pace of reforms, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* Protestors say government procrastinates over reforms

* Islamists say protests to continue until demands met


By Suleiman al-Khalidi

AMMAN, March 18 (Reuters) - More than a thousand Jordanian activists staged street protests on Friday urging King Abdullah to accelerate the tempo of promised political reforms, saying procrastination would only fuel growing dissent.

The pro-democracy protestors who marched in downtown Amman, mainly supporters of the mainstream Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and leftist allies, said they would continue weeks of street protests inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, until their demands are met.

"This is a continuation of the movement to demand reforms and to accelerate it, especially since the steps taken so far are worrying and do not inspire confidence," said Jamil Abu Bakr, a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, told Reuters.

While the U.S. ally has faced nothing like the mass uprisings that toppled veteran authoritarian leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, dissent has built up and the opposition has become more vocal in its slogans and calls for change.

"We want to reform the regime," chanted the crowd, urging the monarch to introduce constitutional changes that curb his executive powers and to provide fair representation under a new electoral law.

Many also chanted calls to dissolve parliament, a rubber-stamp assembly that ensures a comfortable government majority to pass unpopular laws.

Opponents say the election law gives a bigger voice to less heavily populated tribal areas in the provinces that are considered the backbone of support for the monarchy, at the expense of urban areas where the opposition is stronger.

Islamist, leftist, liberal and even tribal figures have called for constitutional reforms that would curb the monarch's sweeping executive powers, demanding a government elected by a parliamentary majority rather than appointed by the king.

The Islamic Action Front -- the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm and Jordan's largest party -- said this week it would not join a 52-member government-appointed panel to discuss reform because its remit did not include constitutional changes to curb the monarch's powers.

The composition of the panel has dismayed many Jordanians already angered by last month's appointment of a government led by Marouf al-Bahkit, a former military intelligence general who oversaw elections in 2007 which were marred by allegations of vote-rigging.

(Writing by Suleiman al-Khalidi; Editing by Peter Graff)