Sudan dismisses Israeli concerns on arms supplies

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan dismissed as "misleading" Israeli allegations it supplies arms to foes of the Jewish state and said there was no foreign involvement in a munitions factory Khartoum says was bombed by Israel.

The poor Muslim East African country has long been seen by Israel as a conduit for weapons smuggled to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, via the Egyptian Sinai desert.

Four people were killed after fire broke out a week ago at the Yarmouk arms factory in the south of Khartoum, and the following day Sudan said an Israeli air strike was responsible.

Israel has not commented on the fire.

But Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defense official, made clear that Sudan should be considered fair game - an enemy like Hamas and Iran - and that Cairo's interests were also at stake.

"It is clear that it (Sudan) supports the smuggling of munitions, or it helps Gaza. In actuality, these munitions pass through Egypt, so it is endangering its major neighbor, Egypt," Gilad told Army Radio.

A Sudanese foreign ministry statement issued late on Monday said: "We confirm what everyone knows - Iran is not in need of weapons made in Sudan, whether for itself or for its allies."

It said Israel was "trying hard to leak misleading information through various sources known to be connected to Israel in an effort to provide justifications and pretexts for its abominable action".

"This includes talk about an alleged relation between the Yarmouk compound production and Iran, Syria, Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon," the statement said.

Two Iranian warships that docked in Port Sudan on Monday were on a routine visit, Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti said, denying the ships' arrival had anything to do with the Yarmouk factory.

"The movement of the Iranian ships is a routine movement. Their entry to Port Sudan is well known and no secret," he told reporters in Khartoum.

On Monday, Iran's official news agency said the helicopter carrier Khark and destroyer Shahid Naqdi had docked in Sudan bearing a "message of peace and friendship," triggering speculation the visit was related to the fire.

The vessels will be open to the public for a full day during their stay from October 28 to 31, state media reported, quoting armed forces spokesman Al-Sawarmi Khalid, adding that Pakistani, Egyptian, Indian and other vessels had made similar visits.

(Reporting by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by William Maclean)

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Syrian air force on offensive after failed truce

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian warplanes bombed rebel targets with renewed intensity on Tuesday after the end of a widely ignored four-day truce between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and insurgents.

State television said "terrorists" had assassinated an air force general, Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi, in a Damascus suburb, the latest of several rebel attacks on senior officials.

In July, a bomb killed four of Assad's aides, including his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and the defense minister.

Air strikes hit eastern suburbs of Damascus, outlying areas in the central city of Homs, and the northern rebel-held town of Maarat al-Numan on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, activists said.

Rebels have been attacking army bases in al-Hamdaniya and Wadi al-Deif, on the outskirts of Maarat al-Numan.

Some activists said 28 civilians had been killed in Maarat al-Numan and released video footage of men retrieving a toddler's body from a flattened building. The men cursed Assad as they dragged the dead girl, wearing a colorful overall, from the debris. The footage could not be independently verified.

The military has shelled and bombed Maarat al-Numan, 300 km (190 miles) north of Damascus, since rebels took it last month.

"The rebels have evacuated their positions inside Maarat al-Numaan since the air raids began. They are mostly on the frontline south of the town," activist Mohammed Kanaan said.

Maarat al-Numan and other Sunni towns in northwestern Idlib province are mostly hostile to Assad's ruling system, dominated by his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.

Two rebels were killed and 10 wounded in an air strike on al-Mubarkiyeh, 6 km (4 miles) south of Homs, where rebels have besieged a compound guarding a tank maintenance facility.

Opposition sources said the facility had been used to shell Sunni villages near the Lebanese border.

"WE'LL FIX IT"

The army also fired mortar bombs into the Damascus district of Hammouria, killing at least eight people, activists said.

One video showed a young girl in Hammouria with a large shrapnel wound in her forehead sitting dazed while a doctor said: "Don't worry dear, we'll fix it for you."

Syria's military, stretched thin by the struggle to keep control, has increasingly used air power against opposition areas, including those in the main cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Insurgents lack effective anti-aircraft weapons.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said he will pursue his peace efforts despite the failure of his appeal for a pause in fighting for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

But it is unclear how he can find any compromise acceptable to Assad, who seems determined to keep power whatever the cost, and mostly Sunni Muslim rebels equally intent on toppling him.

Big powers and Middle Eastern countries are divided over how to end the 19-month-old conflict which has cost an estimated 32,000 dead, making it one of the bloodiest of Arab revolts that have ousted entrenched leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The United Nations said it had sent a convoy of 18 trucks with food and other aid to Homs during the "ceasefire", but had been unable to unload supplies in the Old City due to fighting.

"We were trying to take advantage of positive signs we saw at the end of last week. The truce lasted more or less four hours so there was not much opportunity for us after all," said Jens Laerke, a U.N. spokesman in Geneva.

The prime minister of the Gulf state of Qatar told al-Jazeera television late on Monday that Syria's conflict was not a civil war but "a war of annihilation licensed firstly by the Syrian government and secondly by the international community".

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said some of those responsible were on the U.N. Security Council, alluding to Russia and China which have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad.

He said that the West was also not doing enough to stop the violence and that the United States would be in "paralysis" for two or three weeks during its presidential election.

(Additional reporting by Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Clinton: Bosnia risks being left behind on EU/NATO path

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Bosnia on Tuesday to overcome ethnic infighting and pursue constitutional reforms needed for any chance of joining NATO and the European Union.

"If you do not make progress you will be left behind," Clinton said at the start of a trip with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to three Balkan nations still coming to terms with the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

"We are here today to urge the leaders to put aside their political differences, put aside the rhetoric of dissolution, secession, denial of what tragically happened in the war, for the sake of the young people of this country," Clinton told a news conference after meeting Bosnia's tripartite presidency.

Bosnia remains deeply divided 17 years since the end of its 1992-95 war, which killed 100,000 people before the United States, under then President Bill Clinton, brokered peace at an air base in Dayton, Ohio.

Power is shared uneasily between Serbs, Croats and Muslims in an unwieldy state ruled by ethnic quotas. Bosnia lags behind its ex-Yugoslav neighbors on the road to the EU membership.

Croatia, already a member of NATO, is due to become the second country carved from Yugoslavia to join the EU in July next year. Slovenia did so in 2004.

Montenegro has started EU accession talks and Serbia and Macedonia are both official candidates for membership. Bosnia has yet to meet the conditions to apply. Clinton and Ashton were due in Serbia and its former province Kosovo later on Tuesday.

Clinton implored Bosnia's leaders to reach a deal on the ownership of defense property, the last condition of accession to NATO's Membership Action Plan (MAP), a stepping stone to joining the Western military alliance.

If they reach agreement, Clinton said, "I will personally go to the NATO ministerial in Brussels in December to push for MAP to be given to you."

Ashton said the 27-nation EU wanted to see "effective and determined action from the authorities."

That includes agreement on reforming the constitution to address a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that it discriminates against minorities.

The West invested heavily to cement peace and rebuild Bosnia, but people there have opposing visions of its future.

Bosnia's Muslims want the central state strengthened, but are opposed by leaders of the autonomous Serb Republic who frequently threaten secession.

Clinton said such notions were "totally unacceptable".

"Such talk is a distraction from the problems facing this country, and serves only to undermine the goal of European integration. The Dayton Accords must be respected and preserved - period."

(Additional reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Qatari draft media law criticized by rights group

DOHA (Reuters) - Qatar's draft media law came under fire on Tuesday from Human Rights Watch, which singled out "loosely worded provisions" penalizing criticism of the Gulf emirate and its neighbors.

The New York-based organization urged Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani not to approve the law as drafted, calling it "a commitment to censorship".

Qatari officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Freedom of expression is tightly controlled in the tiny autocratic Gulf state, with self-censorship prevalent among national newspapers and other media outlets.

A close U.S. ally that hosts a large U.S. military base, Qatar has escaped the unrest that has engulfed other parts of the region. It lacks any organized political opposition.

Qatar finances and hosts the pan-Arab satellite TV network al-Jazeera, which has closely covered Arab revolts elsewhere.

Although the draft calls for abolishing criminal penalties for media law violations, it contains some sweeping provisions.

Article 53 prohibits publishing or broadcasting information that would "throw relations between the state and the Arab and friendly states into confusion" or "abuse the regime or offend the ruling family or cause serious harm to the national or higher interests of the state".

Violators would face fines of up to 1 million Qatari riyals ($275,000).

The draft approved by the emir's advisory Shura Council in June would be the first change to Qatar's media law since 2008, when the government set up the Doha Centre for Media Freedom.

"Qatar's commitment to freedom of expression is only as good as its laws, which in this case do not meet the international standards it professes to support," Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

"Instead of supporting press freedom, this draft media law is a commitment to censorship."

The imprisonment of Qatari poet Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami, who faces charges of "inciting the overthrow of the ruling regime," provides further evidence of Qatar's double standard on freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said.

The charge Ajami faces carries the death penalty. In his poetry, Ajami has praised the revolutions that have swept the Arab world and has criticized the emir of Qatar. His next court hearing is scheduled for November 29.

Qatar's penal code provides sentences of five years in prison for criticizing the country's ruler. Both the penal code and the proposed media law violate international freedom of speech standards, Human Rights Watch said.

"If Qatar is serious about providing regional leadership on media freedom it should remove the problematic provisions from its draft media law and drop all charges against Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami that solely relate to his exercise of free speech," Stork said.

(Reporting by Regan Doherty; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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Kurdish leaders eat kebab while followers hunger strike: Erdogan

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday accused Kurdish leaders of hypocrisy by ordering jailed militants to go on hunger strike while they feasted on kebabs.

Some 900 people, most of them imprisoned in more than 50 jails, have refused food for 49 days now against a backdrop of increased violence between Turkish troops and the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the United States and European Union list as a terrorist organization.

In his first public remarks on the hunger strike, Erdogan told his parliamentary party the protesters were being manipulated by "merchants of death", a reference to the PKK leadership and its political allies. He said he would not be pressured into giving into their demands for more rights.

"As if the cruelty they commit outside isn't enough, the terrorist organization and groups under its control are now turning to the prisons. It is instructing sympathizers in prison to (join) a death fast to achieve its political demands," he said. "We will not be coerced by hunger strikes."

The PKK has staged some of its bloodiest attacks in more than a decade this year as tensions grow between Turkey and its neighbor Syria. Turkey has accused Syria of arming the PKK to punish Erdogan for criticizing President Bashar al-Assad's bloody crackdown of a 19-month popular uprising.

Turkish and Syrian forces have been shelling each other's territory at the border for the past month in reprisal attacks.

'EATING LAMB'

Erdogan said members of parliament from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party were carrying out the PKK's wishes in encouraging Kurds in jails to protest.

"On one hand you are eating lamb kebab, on the other you are telling those in prison, 'Die on hunger strike,'" he said.

Erdogan has repeatedly said the BDP is tied to the PKK, but the party denies an outright link, saying instead the two groups share common support.

The hunger strikers are mostly serving sentences for membership of the PKK or an allied group, the Ankara-based Human Rights Association has said.

The inmates are demanding better conditions for Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK's incarcerated leader, the right to testify in courtrooms in Kurdish, their first language and for the government to cease arresting and prosecuting Kurdish activists.

The PKK has called the strike an "honorable resistance" but does openly claim to be behind the action.

The PKK took up arms against Turkey in 1984 demanding self-rule for the mainly Kurdish southeast. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. It has stepped up violence in recent months with a series of attacks on military targets.

While Erdogan's government has introduced several reforms to grant greater Kurdish cultural rights since taking power a decade ago, it has also detained and prosecuted thousands of Kurdish lawyers, academics, activists and politicians in recent years on suspicion they have links with the PKK.

The hunger strikers are consuming sugar, water and vitamins which would prolong their lives and the protest by weeks.

But Mehmet Emin Aktar, head of the bar association in Diyarbakir, the southeast's largest Kurdish city, said in a statement that prisoners could start dying at any moment.

Police in Diyarbakir detained a dozen or so protesters who announced a "day of resistance" and threw rocks and Molotov cocktails, security sources said. At least one person was taken to hospital with injuries resulting from the skirmishes.

Parents also kept children home from school, and businesses shuttered shop windows to protest the government's handling of the hunger strike. Garbage piled up on street corners as city workers refused to work.

In central Istanbul, police fired teargas canisters and sprayed water cannons to break up a small demonstration by supporters of the hunger strikers.

Turkey has a history of deadly prison hunger strikes.

A hunger strike that began in 2000 claimed the lives of 122 people, and hundreds more were permanently crippled. Another 30 prisoners and two prison guards were killed when security forces stormed jails to end the hunger strike, an effort organized by far-leftists to protest isolation in Turkish cells.

(Additional reporting by Seyhmus Cakan in Diyarbakir and Osman Orsal in Istanbul; Writing by Ayla Jean Yackley; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Netanyahu says strike on Iran would be good for Arabs

PARIS (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought on Tuesday to convince Arab states that an Israeli military strike on Iran would benefit them, removing a potential threat and easing tensions across the Middle East.

Netanyahu has made a number of veiled threats to attack Iran's nuclear program and has appealed to the United States and the United Nations to set a limit for Tehran on its further development.

In an interview published on Tuesday with French magazine Paris Match, Netanyahu said such a strike would not worsen regional tensions, as many critics have warned.

"Five minutes after, contrary to what the skeptics say, I think a feeling of relief would spread across the region," he said.

"Iran is not popular in the Arab world, far from it, and some governments in the region, as well as their citizens, have understood that a nuclear armed Iran would be dangerous for them, not just for Israel," he said.

Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, believes Tehran intends to build atomic weapons and has consistently urged the West to increase up sanctions. Iran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful energy purposes only.

The United States and other Western countries have rejected Netanyahu's demand to set a limit for Iran and have urged him to refrain from military action to give diplomacy and sanctions a chance to work.

Netanyahu, who is running for re-election in January at the head of the right-wing Likud party, told the United Nations last month that a strike could wait until spring or summer when he said Tehran might be on the brink of building an atomic bomb.

During his two-day visit to France, Netanyahu will travel to the southern city of Toulouse with President Francois Hollande for a ceremony of remembrance for the victims of an Islamist gunman who killed seven people there in March, including three Jewish children.

(Reporting By Nicholas Vinocur; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Ukraine's Yanukovich shrugs off criticism of election

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich shrugged off international criticism on Tuesday of an election which showed his party on a winning course, while opposition nationalists alleged vote-rigging and threatened possible street protests.

With the count from Sunday's vote nearing its end, Yanukovich's Party of the Regions and its communist allies were set to retain a comfortable majority in the 450-seat parliament to cement his grip before he seeks a second term in 2015.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sent 600 observers, called the election a "step backward" for Ukraine's democracy. It said state resources were misused to support the ruling party and media were biased, and noted that Yanukovich's main rival, ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is in jail. It did not however criticize the voting itself.

"The observers gave a positive assessment to the process of voting," Yanukovich said in a statement that ignored the OSCE's critical comments about the election campaign.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton backed the OSCE criticism and called on Yanukovich to free Tymoshenko.

"We share the view of OSCE monitors that Sunday election constituted a step backward for Ukrainian democracy," Clinton said, adding that "politically motivated convictions" of opposition leaders like Tymoshenko had kept them from standing.

Tymoshenko has announced a hunger strike in protest against what she called electoral fraud. Her party has yet to make a statement on results that show it placing second and losing about a third of its parliamentary representation.

The election will bring two other opposition parties into parliament for the first time, making the fractious body even rowdier - a liberal bloc led by world heavyweight boxing champion Vitaly Klitschko, and a far right group. Each looked set to secure about 35-40 seats, enough to make them viable fixtures on Ukraine's political scene.

The communists invoked Ukraine's pre-World War Two past to condemn the arrival of the far-right Svoboda (Freedom) party, whose showing was surprisingly strong.

Since coming to power in February 2010, Yanukovich, whose power base lies in the Russian-speaking areas of the east and south, has pressed ahead with policies which opponents say favor the big business industrialists who back him.

The former Soviet republic of 46 million has become increasingly isolated because of the jailing of Tymoshenko, with the European Union refusing to settle a major free trade pact.

COST OF PROMISES

Corruption is a big concern in Ukraine and many ordinary Ukrainians suffer economic hardship. Voters were frustrated with the performance of the established political parties.

Even in areas that traditionally support the Party of the Regions, some voters said they were disillusioned by government policies on tax and pensions. But public sector wage increases, welfare handouts and promises to boost the status of the Russian language appeared to have won over many waverers.

Those election-driven economic policies have had a cost. The state budget deficit reached almost $1 billion in September and the hryvnia slipped to an eight-week low on Tuesday as people expect depreciation after the vote.

Half of seats are allocated to candidates who win the most votes in individual constituencies, and half to parties by proportional representation. With 87 percent of votes counted, figures from the Central Electoral Commission showed the Regions had won 117 constituency seats and 75 from party lists.

Though this was short of the outright 226-seat majority, the Regions should easily make up the shortfall by cutting deals with their traditional communist allies, who placed third in the party list tally, and independents.

Tymoshenko, 51, is serving a seven-year jail sentence for abuse of office over a gas deal she brokered with Russia in 2009 when she was prime minister. She is an old enemy of Yanukovich's going back to 2004 when she led the "Orange Revolution" protests which doomed his first bid for the presidency.

The leadership of her Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) bloc has yet to make a declaration on the election. The count showed it with an estimated 103 seats, down from 156 at the last election.

The Ukrainian nationalist Svoboda party, which is allied to other far-right groups in Europe, said votes had been stolen from its candidates and its leader threatened street action alongside Batkivshchyna and other opposition groups.

"We have evidence of large-scale theft of votes from Svoboda," leader Oleh Tyahnybok told journalists, saying that 3 percent of Svoboda's vote in the party lists and 4 seats in the single-mandate constituencies had been "stolen" from it.

"We have agreed with our partners Batkivshchyna that if there is any call for people to turn out on the streets in mass demonstrations then we will do this only together," he said.

Communist leader Petro Symonenko called Svoboda's arrival in parliament "a tragedy for Ukraine", harking to European fascism: "I refer you to the history of the 1920s and 1930s."

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Olzhas Auyezov)

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Europe rights court condemns Poland in abortion rape case

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday condemned Poland for the inhumane and degrading treatment of a 14-year-old rape victim whom the authorities tried to stop having an abortion.

The girl's right to a private and family life had been flouted in 2008, the court ruled, saying she had been arbitrarily detained after being briefly placed in a home to separate her from her mother, who favored an abortion.

"The court was particularly struck that the authorities started criminal proceedings for illicit sexual relations against the adolescent who, according to the prosecutor and medical reports, should have been considered the victim of sexual abuse," the Strasbourg judges said in their verdict.

It said that Poland had violated article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights - "prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment".

A staunchly Catholic country, Poland's legislation on abortion is amongst the strictest in Europe and the Strasbourg court has already twice condemned it for failing to ensure the law on the subject is respected.

The hospitals in the southeastern city of Lublin did everything to dissuade the girl from having an abortion, sending her to see a priest before refusing to carry out the operation. Officials alerted local media to the story, prompting harassment of the girl by anti-abortion campaigners.

The abortion was finally carried out by a hospital in the northern port city of Gdansk, some 500 km (310 miles) from the girl's home.

In its ruling, the court said the case highlighted the huge gap in Poland between the statute book - which should have allowed the girl an abortion under a 1993 family planning law - and how doctors and local officials behave.

Although the case against the girl for illegal sexual relations was eventually dropped, so was the one against her alleged rapist, the court said.

The court, which has jurisdiction in the 47 countries of the Council of Europe and is not part of the European Union, awarded the girl 30,000 Euros in damages and her mother 15,000 euros.

(Reporting By Gilbert Reilhac; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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Support for Hungary's ruling party, opposition, up in October

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Public support for Hungary's ruling Fidesz party and its main opposition rivals, the Socialists, increased in October, a survey by pollster Tarki showed on Tuesday.

Backing for Prime Minister Viktor Orban's governing party rose three points month-on-month to 18 percent, while at 15 percent support for the Socialists was four points higher, the survey published on the pollster's website said.

Meanwhile, the proportion of undecided voters dropped to half the electorate, down from 56 percent in September, the survey said.

Since its landslide victory in 2010, Orban's conservative Fidesz has shed about half its supporters.

The economy is in recession and the government's talks with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union on financial aid are deadlocked.

The country's deep political divisions came to the fore last week at rival rallies marking the failed 1956 revolution against Soviet rule as Orban derided EU policies and a leading opponent announced he would run to unseat him.

The next parliamentary elections are due in 2014. All voters (figures in percentages of those polled):

DATE POLLSTER FIDESZ MSZP LMP JOBBIK Undecided/

will not vote

Oct 10-17 Tarki 18 15 4 10 50

Oct Ipsos 20 16 3 7 51

Sept 12-18 Tarki 15 11 5 9 56

Sept Ipsos 19 15 2 8 52

Aug 12-19 Ipsos 17 14 3 8 53

July 12-17 Tarki 18 12 5 10 52

July 11-18 Ipsos 16 14 4 10 51

June Median 21 15 6 10 44

June Tarki 18 14 5 11 48

June 1-6 Ipsos 17 15 6 9 49

May 18-22 Median 22 16 5 11 43

May Tarki 16 15 5 11 49

May Ipsos 16 13 4 9 54

Apr. 11-18 Tarki 21 13 5 9 45

April 6-13 Ipsos 17 12 4 10 51

March Median 26 16 6 12 38

March Tarki 25 12 4 11 43

March 7-14 Ipsos 19 14 5 7 52

Feb Tarki 20 13 3 11 47

Feb 10-14 Median 25 13 6 14 38

Feb Ipsos 18 13 4 8 53

Jan Tarki 18 11 4 11 50

Jan Median 26 15 4 10 41

Jan Ipsos 16 11 4 8 57

Dec Tarki 19 12 4 10 51

Dec 5-12 Ipsos 18 11 3 10 54

Nov 11-15 Median 26 12 5 12 42

Nov 10-15 Tarki 23 10 3 11 48

Nov 7-14 Ipsos 19 12 4 9 54

Oct Tarki 23 11 5 10 50

Oct Median 31 17 5 11 33

Oct 10-17 Ipsos 20 11 3 9 55

Sept Ipsos 22 13 5 7 52

Sept Tarki 24 10 3 10 51

Sept Median 31 12 6 12

Aug Ipsos 24 13 3 7 49

Aug Median 33 14 5 11 35

July Median 35 16 4 9 33

July Ipsos 22 14 4 8 50

July Tarki 30 11 5 9 44

June Median 33 15 5 8 36

June Tarki 27 12 3 8 44

June Ipsos 23 13 4 7 51

May Tarki 26 14 4 9 44

May 2-9 Ipsos 24 12 3 7 53

--------

March 2010 Ipsos 38 12 3 8 36

March 2010 Tarki 42 13 5 8 30

March 2010 Median 41 15 1 11 29

NOTES - The last election was held on April 11 and 25, 2010.

FIDESZ: Fidesz-Christian Democrat Alliance

MSZP: Hungarian Socialist Party

Jobbik: Movement for a Better Hungary

LMP: Politics Can Be Different

(Reporting by Sandor Peto; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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Burundi gets $2 billion aid pledge, U.N. says

GENEVA (Reuters) - Donors have committed more than $2 billion in pledges to back Burundi's development strategy for 2012-2015 and help the central African nation rebuild after civil war, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

"We ended up with more than $2 billion registered commitments at the conference," Pamphile Muderega of the National Aid Coordination Committee said in a statement issued by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) at the end of two days of talks in Geneva.

Burundi's poverty-reduction strategy focuses on growth, job creation and development of the private sector, with agribusiness, tourism and mining in particular showing strong potential as key drivers of growth.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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