(Adds details, analyst) By Saliou Samb CONAKRY, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Guinea's unions suspended a strike threat on Thursday following eleventh-hour talks with President Lansana Conte's government, which pledged to honour a power-sharing deal that ended riots a year ago. The streets of the coastal capital Conakry were calm and banks and businesses opened normally. But uncertainty remained after the midnight agreement ducked the issue which triggered the latest tensions in the world's largest bauxite exporter. Unions in the West African country called the strike last week to protest at Conte's dismissal of a minister in a consensus government, an action they said violated the authority of independent Prime Minister Lansana Kouyate. Former diplomat Kouyate was appointed under a deal to end the anti-government riots of January and February last year in which more than 130 people were killed, most of them unarmed civilians shot by security forces. He was given a remit to tackle corruption and economic stagnation but has clashed with the political elite close to Conte. Union leaders called off Thursday's strike after the government agreed to a committee to monitor the implementation of the power-sharing deal. But they did not directly discuss the sacking of Communication Minister Justin Morel Junior. "The government has made a commitment and we have no reason to doubt it, and religious leaders will be in charge of monitoring the implementation of the agreement," union negotiator Boubacar Biro Barry told reporters. "POLITICAL SNUB"Once a bastion of stability in war-torn West Africa, concerns have mounted in recent years about rising instability in Guinea. The ailing, septuagenarian Conte has no official successor, and the powerful military remains fractious. The disturbances of early 2007, which came on the back of a union-led national strike, caused major disruption to shipments of bauxite, the ore used to make aluminium, hurting an already fragile economy. Support for a fresh strike had waned in recent days among opposition political parties, business leaders and Guineans struggling to make ends meet amid a prolonged economic downturn. With Guinea's opposition weak and fragmented after 24 years of Conte's rule, the unions have been at the forefront of forcing political change in the former French colony. But political analyst Madani Dia hailed the late night deal as a recognition by union leaders that they needed to cooperate with opposition parties and civil society in promoting reform. "Union leaders begin to understand that they cannot exclude them from the debate," he said, adding that the issue of Junior's sacking and replacement by a figure chosen by Conte could reemerge in the coming days. "How can the prime minister have a cabinet with a minister who he has not named," Dia told Reuters. "It's a political snub. It's an impasse." Kouyate was selected by Conte in February from a list of candidates for the premiership drafted by the unions, after they forced the dismissal of the previous consensus prime minister for being too close to the president. (Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)
Marie Eyeang carries her child as she stands before a hanging mosquito net in the village of Lybe, along Gabon's border with mainland Equatorial Guinea, December 6, 2007. Eyeang says she ...
