As president, he will have to lift up a country prostrated by a 2010 earthquake and decades of poverty and corruption, chained to foreign aid and mined by explosive politics.Buy nike running shoes online
This will require a performance of a lifetime from a 50-year-old iconoclastic entertainer and political outsider with no government experience who won a landslide run-off victory, according to preliminary results on Monday.
These results are subject to possible legal challenges before they can be declared definitive later in April.
"Martelly has asked Haitians to take a tremendous leap of faith that he can transform himself from entertainer to national leader," said Robert Maguire, director of the Haiti Program at Trinity University in Washington.
"Apparently, a significant majority of voters are willing to give him that chance," he added.
Analysts believe the margin of Martelly's victory -- nearly 68 percent of the March 20 vote compared to just under 32 percent for his rival, former first lady Mirlande Manigat -- will head off the threat of violent protests against the election outcome.buy Reebok ZigTech online
This is good news for the United Nations, with its more than 12,000-strong peacekeeping mission in Haiti, and for the United States, which does not want an imploding Caribbean state on its doorstep spilling more poor migrants on Florida shores.
Washington welcomed Monday's results as an "important milestone" for Haiti as it moved to rebuild from the quake.
Martelly's forceful head-on message promising change -- hammered home by his Creole campaign slogan "Tet Kale" meaning both "shaved head" and "all the way" -- scored with voters.
But he may need a more conciliatory approach as president.
HE CAN ENTERTAIN, BUT CAN HE NEGOTIATE?
Outgoing President Rene Preval's INITE party, irked by the removal through international pressure amid fraud charges of their candidate from the March 20 run-off, looks set with allies to maintain a dominant position in Haiti's parliament.shoes Buy nike cheap mens acg sandals black
"(Martelly's) task will be especially difficult since he will have to get support from a Parliament that is chiefly loyal to Preval," said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington.
"The risk of ungovernability is high, so Martelly will have to strike deals, forge alliances and produce results," he added. The negotiation may have to start immediately, over the choice of prime minister to lead the government.
A former Libyan prime minister said Muammar Qaddafi’s regime is open to talks with the U.S., France and the U.K.nike running shoes online to find an end to the conflict there as rebels advanced after calling for a cease-fire.
“We are trying to talk to the British, the French and the Americans to stop the killing of people,” Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi, told Britain’s Channel 4 News yesterday. “We are trying to find a mutual solution,”
Libyan rebels recaptured the oil city of Brega as allied warplanes bombed targets in the port, Al-Jazeera reported, citing witnesses. Libyan rebels have appointed the nation’s former interior minister, Abdel Fattah Younis, as the head of the insurgency’s military efforts, Al-Jazeera reported yesterday, without saying how it obtained the information.
In London, Mohammed Ismail, a senior aide to one of Qaddafi’s sons, has held talks with British authorities in recent days, the New York Times reported, citing an unidentified friend of the aide.
British officials also are interviewing Moussa Koussa, the Libyan foreign minister and former intelligence chief who flew to London on March 30. Koussa may offer extensive knowledge of three decades of terrorist acts and the finances of Qaddafi’s regime.
Koussa’s Secrets“He certainly knows backward and forward what Libyan intelligence has been doing for the last several decades,” said Bruce Riedel, a former U.S. intelligence officer who negotiated with Koussa to dismantle Libya’s nuclear and chemical weapons programs.
As a condition of the cease-fire, Libyan rebels called for Qaddafi’s fighters to retreat from cities and nearby areas, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the rebel Interim National Council, said in a news conference televised yesterday from the insurgent stronghold of Benghazi.
He said rebel demands for freedoms must also be met. There was no immediate response to the offer from Qaddafi officials. Al Arabiya reported that the Libyan government rejected the offer.
The rebels’ call for a cease-fire comes one day after Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. attack aircraft won’t be flying with NATO forces over Libya after April 2. Mullen said the warplanes would be made available only when requested by NATO. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Congress the U.S. will “significantly ramp down our commitment” to Libya except for electronic warfare, aerial refueling and surveillance. shoes Buy nike cheap mens acg sandals
Qatar Oil DealAn agreement for Qatar to market oil from territory held by Libyan rebels covers crude from the country’s southeast and excludes the areas of Brega and Ras Lanuf, said Ali Tarhuni, a member of the rebel council responsible for oil and economics, at a press conference in Benghazi.
Crude oil fluctuated after climbing to a 30-month high in New York. Futures rose above $107 a barrel for the first time since 2008. Crude oil for May delivery rose $1.22 cents to $107.94 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil is up 26 percent from a year ago.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said in a statement it has 205 alliance jets and 21 naval vessels involved in the Libya operation.
Allied StrikeEarly today, Al-Jazeera reported that 13 rebels were killed when their convoy was mistakenly hit by allied bombing in West Ajdabiya.
A Libyan government spokesman, Mussa Ibrahim, said yesterday that the coalition air strikes constituted a “crime against humanity,” saying at least six civilians were killed in an attack on a village in the east of the country, Reuters reported from Tripoli. Mussa said six civilians were killed and dozens wounded in an attack on a village near Brega on March 31.
There was heavy fighting yesterday in the western city of Misrata, residents said.
“A number of tank shells were fired at the port area of the city in the afternoon and the rebels inside responded to the attacks,” Reda Almountasser said in the telephone interview from the city, whose residents rose up against Qaddafi and have defied efforts by his forces to regain control.
Hospitals in Misrata are “reportedly overflowing with severely injured patients,” Doctors Without Borders said in an e-mailed statement.
Arms DeliveriesRebel leader Abdel Jalil said opposition forces would request arms deliveries if Qaddafi loyalists continue to attack. cheap nike mens sandals
“Our aim for a cease-fire is primarily to end Libyan bloodshed, but the Qaddafi regime will have to leave,” he said. “We’re confident of our forces and resolve to unseat Qaddafi’s regime.”
The conflict in Libya, which began as a wave of anti- government protests similar to those in Egypt and Tunisia, escalated into armed conflict as the country’s army split and some soldiers joined the rebels.
U.K. and U.S. officials say Koussa’s defection is evidence Qaddafi’s regime is in disarray.
While dozens of Libyan diplomats have quit since the uprising against Qaddafi began, Koussa is one of the most senior officials to flee. Libya’s former deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, said more diplomats and senior-ranking Libyans are likely to defect from the Qaddafi regime “within days,” Sky News reported, adding that as many as 10 top Libyan officials may abandon the regime.
Colonel Gaddafi's regime has sent one of its most trusted envoys to London for confidential talks with British officials, the Guardian can reveal.nike running shoes online
Mohammed Ismail, a senior aide to Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, visited London in recent days, British government sources familiar with the meeting have confirmed. The contacts with Ismail are believed to have been one of a number between Libyan officials and the west in the last fortnight, amid signs that the regime may be looking for an exit strategy.
Disclosure of Ismail's visit comes in the immediate aftermath of the defection to Britain of Moussa Koussa, Libya's foreign minister and its former external intelligence head, who has been Britain's main conduit to the Gaddafi regime since the early 1990s.
A team led by the British ambassador to Libya, Richard Northern, and MI6 officers embarked on a lengthy debriefing of Koussa at a safe house after he flew into Farnborough airport on Wednesday night from Tunisia. Government sources said the questioning would take time because Koussa's state of mind was "delicate" after he left his family in Libya.
The Foreign Office has declined "to provide a running commentary" on contacts with Ismail or other regime officials. But news of the meeting comes amid mounting speculation that Gaddafi's sons, foremost among them Saif al-Islam, Saadi and Mutassim, are anxious to talk. "There has been increasing evidence recently that the sons want a way out," said a western diplomatic source.
Although he has little public profile in Libya or internationally, Ismail is recognised by diplomats as being a key fixer and representative for Saif al-Islam. According to cables published by WikiLeaks, Ismail represented Libya's government in arms purchase negotiations and as an interlocutor on military and political issues.
"The message that was delivered to him is that Gaddafi has to go, and that there will be accountability for crimes committed at the international criminal court," a Foreign Office spokesman told the Guardian , declining to elaborate on what else may have been discussed.
Some aides working for Gaddafi's sons, however, have made it clear that it may be necessary to sideline their father and explore exit strategies to prevent the country descending into anarchy.
One idea the sons have reportedly suggested – which the Guardian has been unable to corroborate – is that Gaddafi give up real power. Mutassim, presently the country's national security adviser,Buy nike cheap mens acg sandals would become president of an interim national unity government which would include the opposition. It is an idea, however, unlikely to find support among the rebels or the international community who are demanding Gaddafi's removal.
The revelation that contacts between Britain and a key Gaddafi loyalist had taken place came as David Cameron hailed the defection of Koussa as a sign the regime was crumbling. "It tells a compelling story of the desperation and the fear right at the very top of the crumbling and rotten Gaddafi regime," he said.
Ministers regard Koussa's move to abandon his family as a sign of the magnitude of his decision. "Moussa Koussa is very worried about his family," one source said. "But he did this because he felt it was the best way of bringing down Gaddafi."
Britain learned that Koussa wanted to defect when he made contact from Tunisia. He had made his way out of Libya in a convoy of cars after announcing he was going on a diplomatic mission to visit the new government in Tunis.
It was also reported that Ali Abdussalam Treki, a senior Libyan diplomat, declined to take up his appointment by Gaddafi as UN ambassador, condemning the "spilling of blood". Officials were checking reports that Tarek Khalid Ibrahim, the deputy head of mission in London, is also defecting.
The prime minister insisted that no deal had been struck with Koussa and that he would not be offered immunity from prosecution. "Let me be clear, Moussa Koussa is not being granted immunity. There is no deal of that kind," Cameron said. Within hours of his arrival in Britain, Scottish prosecutors asked to interview Koussa about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The Crown Office in Edinburgh has said that it is formally asking for its prosecutors and police detectives to question him.
But government sources indicated that Britain does not believe Koussa was involved. He was at the heart of Britain's rapprochement with Libya, which started when Tripoli abandoned its support for the IRA in the early 1990s.
He was instrumental in persuading Gaddafi to abandon his weapons of mass destruction programme in 2003. One source said: "Nobody is saying this guy was a saint, because he was a key Gaddafi lieutenant who was kicked out of Britain in 1980 for making threats to kill Libyan dissidents. But this is the guy who persuaded Gaddafi to buy Reebok ZigTech onlineabandon his WMD programme. He no doubt has useful and interesting things to say about Lockerbie, but it doesn't seem he said 'go and do it'."
However there is unease among Tories about Britain's involvement in Libya. Underlining those concerns, Boris Johnson, the London mayor, told BBC Question Time that a continued stalemate in Libya could "have terrible consequences". Johnson said; "I do worry that if we get into a stalemate; and if, frankly, the rebels don't seem to be making the progress that we would like, we have to be brave, to say to ourselves that our policy is not working, and encourage the Arabs themselves to take leadership in all of this."
William Hague, the foreign secretary, said he had a sense that Koussa was deeply unhappy with Gaddafi when they spoke last Friday. "One of the things I gathered between the lines in my telephone calls with him, although he of course had to read out the scripts of the regime, was that he was very distressed and dissatisfied by the situation there," Hague said.