Thousands protest neo-Nazis on May Day

More than ten thousand demonstrators demonstrated against neo-Nazi marches on Saturday across Germany. Around 200 extreme right wingers were detained. 

Fearing riots, police across Germany made efforts to separate leftist and neo-Nazi demonstrators in several cities across Germany. 

In Berlin, neo-Nazis and people from the far-left spent hours vying for control ofMay Day demonstration routes through the German capital, although by early evening on Saturday, confrontations had mostly ended peacefully.

Violence, with brawls between leftists and rightists, burning barricades and damage to banks and shops, has been an annual ritual on May Day for more than two decades in Berlin, Hamburg and other German cities. 

In Berlin, about 500 of the far-rightists marched through a northern district of the capital, although they were outnumbered by thousands of opponents. 

Police had expected around 3,000 neo-Nazis to march, and some 7,000 police were deployed along with a water cannon. 

Leftists claimed 10,000 people had turned up to confront the neo-Nazis. 

Their 6-kilometre route had been approved by police under German

laws protecting the constitutional right of everyone to demonstrate.

The far-right march began two hours late after leftists blocked the road. Riot police roughly handled some of those obstructing the route, among them the deputy speaker of the German parliament, Wolfgang Thierse, a Social Democrat.

But at one point, police made the right-wing marchers turn around after it became clear they could not clear the streets along the entire route.

Another 300 far-rightists, including people from Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic, suddenly showed up in western part of the city, apparently intent on an unauthorized march down Kurfürstendamm boulevard. Police reported the rightists harassed people who looked foreign and threw bottles and stones at officers. Around 250 of them were arrested.

More than 13,000 people protested in Würzburg and Schweinfurt against right-wing extremism. Some 800 neo-Nazis gathered in Schweinfurt. 

In Zwickau in Saxony, police reported several injuries after supporters of the far-right NPD party threw stones at leftists. Some 1,500 had gathered to protest the extreme right. 

DPA

The Local | Germany

CoE Human Rights Chief Visits Georgia

Council of Europe (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, arrived in Georgia as part of his efforts to help clarify fate of persons missing since the August, 2008 war and to resolve issue of detained persons.

Hammarberg, who is expected to hold talks in Tbilisi and also in Tskhinvali, has mediated release of several Georgian and South Ossetian detainees. He has also sent two experts to Georgia to oversee investigations to find out whereabouts of those persons from the both side, who are missing since the August war with focus made on three Ossetians missing since October, 2008.

In what Tbilisi said was "an expression of good will", the Georgian sidereleased on March 30 four residents of breakaway South Ossetia and two Russian citizens from North Ossetia detained by the Georgian police in a period between October 2008 and January 2010. With this release, Tbilisi has reportedly released all Ossetians detained after the August war. About dozen of Georgians remain held in Tskhinvali.

Civil Georgia

Messi double helps Barcelona bounce back from European exit

(CNN) -- Barcelona made a quick recovery from midweek European heartbreak with a 4-1 victory at Villarreal on Saturday night that put the Spanish champions four points clear of title rivals Real Madrid.

The Catalan giants, whose Champions League defense was ended by Inter Milan despite a 1-0 home win, put the pressure on Real to Osasuna on Sunday and cut the gap with three matches to play.

Guardiola responded to Wednesday's disappointing display by dropping $65 million striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and his side proved much more mobile up front without the big Sweden international.

World player of the year Lionel Messi broke the deadlock in the 18th minute as he ran onto Xavi's clever pass and fired a shot low into the net with a deflection which wrongfooted Villarreal goalkeeper Diego Lopez.

Midfield lynchpin Xavi doubled the lead in the 34th minute with a superb curling free-kick which gave Lopez no chance, and young striker Bojan Krkic made the most of his starting chance with a fine individual goal three minutes before halftime.

Sixth-placed Villarreal pulled a goal back through Joseba Llorente in the 67th minute after he was set free by strike partner Nilmar, but Messi made it safe for Barca with three minutes left when he coolly finished from Daniel Alves' pass for his 42nd goal of the season -- 29 coming in La Liga.

Villarreal retained Spain's second Europe League spot as Getafefailed to win at second-bottom Valladolid, drawing 0-0.

Valencia consolidated third place with a 2-0 victory at Espanyol as substitute striker Nikola Zigic netted both goals in the second half after coming on to replace David Villa, and also had a header ruled out for offside.

Zaragoza moved out of the relegation zone with a 1-0 victory at ninth-placed Deportivo La Coruna as striker Adrian Colunga scored the only goal 10 minutes after halftime.

That meant Tenerife stayed in the bottom three despite a 2-1 win at home to Racing Santander, who are now just a point above the drop zone.

But Tenerife are now level on points with Malaga, who drew 1-1 at home to Sporting Gijon

Xerez remained rock-bottom even after a 2-1 win over Almeria that keeps the visitors still unsure of their own safety and behind Gijon on goal difference.

CNN

Vale pays $2.5 bln for African iron ore deposits

By Brian Ellsworth and Saliou Samb

SAO PAULO/CONAKRY (Reuters) - Brazilian mining giant Vale bought a majority stake in a division of mining company BSG Resources in Guinea on Friday, spending $2.5 billion to tap what it called "among the best deposits" of iron ore in the world.

The move is significant for Vale, the world's largest iron ore miner that is aggressively seeking opportunities in Africa, and for Guinea, where a political crisis has largely discouraged major foreign investment.

"Guinea will be a player on the world iron market within four years and could be the No. 3 producer in six years," Mines Minister Mahmoud Thiam said. "This decision will also kick-start other mining projects in Guinea".

The acquisition will give Vale access to properties with high-quality iron reserves that include the Simandou South property known as Zogota as well as exploration blocks Simandou North 1 and 2, the company said.

Output will begin in 2012 with 10 million tonnes of iron ore and reach 50 million tonnes by 2015, Vale said.

It will pay $500 million up front for a 51 percent stake in BSG Resources (Guinea) Ltd. and the remaining $2 billion in subsequent payments over an unspecified period.

"This project is yet another indication of Vale's bullish views on the longevity of the iron ore pricing cycle, and the structural iron ore story," Barclay's capital analysts said in a research note, adding "Given the massive infrastructure requirements...we are skeptical on the time-to-market of these projects..."

AFRICA STRATEGY

The joint venture will renovate 660 kilometers (410 miles) of railway on which Vale plans to export the ore via Liberia.

BSG Resources, with oil and gas projects in Russia and Nigeria, copper, diamonds and iron ore mines in Africa, and an engineering arm, is controlled by Israeli billionaire diamond trader Beny Steinmetz.

Vale is making a big push into African iron ore.

In addition to the Guinea deal, Vale is in talks with Liberia, Guinea's southern neighbor, about a possible concession there, and may seek a stake in the Belinga iron ore project in Gabon.

The Belinga concession was awarded to a Chinese firm ahead of Vale in 2006, but Gabon is reviewing the deal. Analysts believe a Chinese company will lead the project and they expect Vale to take a technical or environmental role.

In March, Chinese metals group Chinalco signed a joint venture agreement with Rio Tinto to develop another iron ore project in Guinea.

The West African country is due to hold elections in late June as part of its transition from military rule to democratic government. Soldiers took power in Guinea in December 2008.

Reuters Africa

Facebook efforts hint at growing ad clout

(Reuters) - Facebook's move to export its social networking features across the Internet could bolster the company's advertising business and pose an increasing threat to the Web's reigning advertising giants.

Facebook, which has more than 400 million registered users, is the No. 1 website in the United States by page views, according to comScore. But it is a relatively small player in the online ad market, where Google Inc's (GOOG.O) paid search business dominates, and a variety of Web portals and ad networks battle over billions of dollars in graphical display advertising.

With its new initiative to expand beyond the borders of Facebook.com, however, Facebook has created the framework for a new generation of highly targeted ads.

The so-called Open Graph project weaves Facebook's popular social networking capabilities directly into third-party websites. A visitor to CNN.com, for instance, can click a button to "like" certain news articles, and see which of their Facebook friends have endorsed content on other websites.

"Having all this data and all this time from consumers almost can't help but to position Facebook in a very strong way for online advertisers," said Gartner analyst Augie Ray.

In the first week, 50,000 websites signed up to provide Facebook features on their sites, according to the company. The "like" button was served up to Web surfers visiting third-party sites more than 1 billion times in the first 24 hours.

All that social activity vastly expands Facebook's trove of data about users -- information that can improve marketers' ability to reach consumers that share specific interests or traits.

"The field in which they (Facebook) can now play, it went from a 10-yard field to a full football field," said Michael Lazerow, the CEO of Buddy Media, a firm that helps companies advertise on Facebook.

Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Altimeter Group, believes Facebook will not only collect more data, but expand its inventory of ad space by eventually serving ads to the websites offering Facebook's social networking features.

"This is definitely the precursor to a larger advertising opportunity," said Owyang, though he said it will take some time for Facebook to roll out the full panoply of ad features.

PRIVACY HURDLES

Facebook, which was started by Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, makes money primarily by selling ads on the Facebook.com site. Its investors include Accel Partners, Microsoft Corp and Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing.

As a private company, Facebook does not disclose its financials, though industry estimates for its 2009 revenue range from $500 million to $650 million -- still just a fraction of the nearly $24 billion at Google or the $6.5 billion at Yahoo Inc.

Facebook has sharpened its ad focus and hired some of the people who had a hand in developing Google's advertising network, including David Fischer, who joined Facebook as vice president of advertising and global operations this month.

"The more time that people spend away from Yahoo and Google, the more that ad dollars will flow away from Yahoo or Google," said Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney, though he noted that Google's paid search business remains the most effective advertising tool on the Internet.

But before Facebook can transform its advertising business, it may need to quell growing privacy concerns. Four U.S. senators this week took issue with Facebook's automatic integration of user preferences with a trio of websites.

Privacy concerns have doomed previous attempts by the company to develop new forms of advertising, notably its 2007 Beacon project that published a person's online purchases to their Facebook news feed.

"Facebook has had these grandiose visions before and not all of them come to fruition," said RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross Sandler.

"When you talk about re-purposing or using consumer data, that kind of draws a red flag," said Sandler. Facebook and advertisers, he said, will need to tread cautiously.

Facebook spokesman Larry Yu said the Open Graph efforts will not bring about any changes for advertisers. "Facebook's ad policies remain unchanged. 'Likes' and interests from people's profiles are aggregated and, as they have always been able to do, advertisers can target ads on Facebook with this anonymous information," Yu said in an emailed statement.

Kevin Lee, the CEO of search engine marketing firm Didit, said social networking sites have historically proven to be challenging advertising environments, with consumers engrossed in interacting with their friends.

But with improved ad targeting and the potential for ads to appear on other websites, Facebook could play a much greater role in the ad industry, creating the initial demand for a product that eventually triggers a Web search, he said.

"I don't think it's going to displace it (search advertising), but it's going to be a great adjunct," Lee said about Facebook.

Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic, editing by Matthew Lewis

Reuters