Negative Blogs

MOSCOW — After a day of bloody protests forced Kyrgyzstan’s president to flee the capital, a transitional government led by a former foreign minister said Thursday that it had taken power, dissolved Parliament and would remain in office for six months.

The unrest, which spread across the capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday, seemed to pose a potential threat to a critical American air base supporting the NATO campaign in nearby Afghanistan. But Roza Otunbayeva, a former foreign minister who has emerged as head of a coalition of opposition groups, said Thursday that the supply line would not be immediately affected.

“Its status quo will remain in place,” she said at a news conference in the Parliament building. But she warned: “We still have some questions on it. Give us time and we will listen to all the sides and solve everything.”

Opposition politicians, speaking on state television after it was seized by protesters Wednesday, said they had taken control of the government after a day of violent clashes that left 68 people dead, officials said, and more than 400 wounded.

Ms. Otunbayeva said an interim government would rule for six months to replace the repressive rule of Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

“You can call this revolution,” she said. “You can call this a people’s revolt. Either way, it is our way of saying that we want justice and democracy.”

There was no immediate public response from Mr. Bakiyev to an offer by Ms. Otunbayeva to negotiate his formal departure from power. She insisted that, with several provinces under the opposition’s control, Mr. Bakiyev’s rule was over. “His business in Kyrgyzstan is finished,” she said.

The unrest threatened to have regional consequences; neighboring Uzbekistan closed its border with Kyrgyzstan.

Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke with Ms. Otunbayeva on Thursday morning, expressing the hope that order would be established there. Ms. Otunbayeva said “the people’s government created by her is fully in control of the situation in Kyrgyzstan, as well as the law-enforcement agencies and armed forces,” Mr. Putin’s office said. “At the same time, she said that the situation in the country remains complicated, and Kyrgyzstan needs economic support.”

Television footage broadcast on Thursday by the BBC showed evidence of widespread looting in Bishkek overnight with storefronts in a shopping mall smashed and shelves stripped of just about anything that could be carried away. The footage showed what was said to be extensive damage to the ransacked home of Mr. Bakiyev, whose whereabouts remained unclear.

On Wednesday, riot police officers fired into angry crowds of demonstrators who had gathered around government buildings to rally against what they termed the government’s brutality and corruption, as well as a recent decision to increase utility rates sharply. Witnesses said that the police seemed to panic, and that there was no sign of supervision. In several cases, demonstrators wrested their weapons away from them.

By early Thursday morning, opposition officials occupied many government buildings in Bishkek and were demanding that the president sign a formal letter of resignation. Mr. Bakiyev has issued no public remarks since the protests began. An official at the Bishkek airport said Mr. Bakiyev had flown to Osh, a major city in the southern part of the country.

Ms. Otunbayeva was quoted in news reports as saying Mr. Bakiyev was seeking to marshal support among his followers in the south.

A coalition of opposition parties said Wednesday that Ms. Otunbayeva would head the transition government.. “Power is now in the hands of the people’s government,” she said in a televised address on Wednesday evening.

Those same opposition leaders were angered last spring when Obama administration officials courted Mr. Bakiyev — who they admitted was an autocrat — in an ultimately successful attempt to retain rights to the military base, Manas, used to supply troops in Afghanistan. President Obama even sent him a letter of praise.

Russia had offered Mr. Bakiyev a sizable amount in new aid, which the United States interpreted as an effort to persuade him to close the base in order to limit the American military presence in Russia’s sphere of influence. After vowing to evict the Americans last year, Mr. Bakiyev reversed course once the administration agreed to pay much higher rent for the base.

An American official said late on Wednesday that flights into the base at Manas had been suspended. Lt. Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a spokesman for United States Central Command, said late Wednesday that some troops and equipment scheduled to transit from Manas to Afghanistan were likely to be delayed because of the government upheaval and that the military was preparing to use other routes. Flights to Afghanistan were still suspended on Thursday, Reuters reported, quoting a NATO official in Kabul, Afghanistan.

People entered through a gate of Kyrgyz government headquarters in Bishkek on Thursday.

Personal data including the signatures of recipients has been exposed to those tracking deliveries on the Parcelforce website, the BBC has discovered.

A failure in the system allowed people using the mail tracing service access to the name, postcode and signature of various addressees.

The breakdown put Parcelforce at risk of breaching data protection rules.

The delivery service, part of the Royal Mail Group, apologised. It said the problem had been resolved.

Fail track

Customers sending a package with Parcelforce Worldwide are given a reference number which allows them to track the progress of the delivery.

However, when the BBC News website entered reference numbers into the “track and trace” feature on the Parcelforce website, a series of unconnected deliveries was revealed.

Although the same reference number was typed in, the specifics of parcels with other reference details were displayed.

Within the space of 30 minutes, the system handed out details of parcels in Cleveland, Swansea and even awaiting customs clearance en route from Shanghai.