Ivory Coast president plays for time in his bunker

Embattled Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo tried to hang on to power for one more day today inside a bunker encircled by troops loyal to his rival.

Diplomats said he had sent emissaries to negotiate, only to refuse the proposals put to him.

Forces backing democratically elected president Alassane Ouattara have received strict instructions to take Mr Gbagbo unharmed from his palace in Abidjan, the country's main city.

Last night Mr Ouattara's private TV station showed Downfall, a film which traces the last days of Hitler in his Berlin bunker.

France's foreign minister Alain Juppé said: "This stubbornness is absurd. Gbagbo has no other solution any more. Everybody has dropped him. There is only one legal and legitimate president today, it is Alassane Ouattara, and I hope that persuasion will win and that we will avoid having to resume the military operations."

"I won the election and I'm not negotiating my departure," Mr Gbagbo told French TV station LCI by telephone. "I find it absolutely incredible that the entire world is playing this game of poker."