Rebel forces supporting the internationally recognised leader of Ivory Coast have seized the strategic cocoa-exporting port of San Pedro, residents said.

The United Nations Security Council has demanded an immediate end to the escalating violence in Ivory Coast and imposed sanctions on Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused to relinquish the presidency, and his inner circle.

HEAVY fighting erupted in western Ivory Coast between rebels and forces loyal to incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, sources along the Liberian border told Reuters yesterday.

African leaders were under fire today after choosing Equatorial Guinea’s coup plotter and dictator of 31 years as their ceremonial leader for this year.

AFRICAN mediators have offered Ivory Coast’s embattled leader Laurent Gbagbo incentives to stand down after disputed polls, using the threat of military action as the only alternative.

Allies of the man who the world says won Ivory Coast's disputed presidential election called for a immediate general strike from today until his defiant rival conceded defeat and left office.

Ivory Coast state television disappeared from the airwaves outside the nation's largest city, in a blow to the incumbent president's attempts to cling to power in the bloody aftermath of an election most of the world says he lost.

Angry youths took to the streets in Ivory Coast’s main city Abidjan, burning tyres, hurling chunks of concrete and tearing down billboards after election results were reversed.

UN peacekeepers battled attackers today before withdrawing from a western Ivory Coast town along with military observers and other UN staff.

Hard-liners urged loyalist mobs on to more violence today, after a day of mayhem in which French and Ivory Coast forces battled in the air and on the ground and machete-waving throngs hunted down French citizens in the largest city.