US overseer Paul Bremer and Iraqi officials were counting yesterday on the Madrid donors' conference to bring financial aid to help rebuild after decades of war and neglect under former president Saddam Hussein.
The conference, to be attended by a 100-strong delegation from Iraq, seeks US$36 billion dollars for the nation's ravaged infrastructure.
The funds are key to bringing long-term stability to a country where US forces come under daily fire from Saddam loyalists and now face a threat from Shiite fundamentalists.
"I think we're going to have a successful conference at Madrid. I think we'll find that a number of countries will make important contributions," Bremer said late on Tuesday, ahead of his departure for Spain.
"I think we'll find the international financial institutions will come forward, with pretty good contributions."
Although the World Bank and the UN estimate reconstruction needs through 2007 at US$36 billion dollars, opponents of the US-led war against Saddam, France, Germany and Russia, are shunning any large-scale contribution, dimming expectations for the conference.
The bulk of aid still looks to come to Iraq in the form of a US$20.3 billion US aid package.
But in defiance of a White House veto threat, the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to seek conversion of half the package into a loan, following the example of the Senate last week.
Bremer issued a direct plea to France on Tuesday, urging Paris to come in from the cold.
"I think it would be a sad thing if the French government could not find a way to participate in the reconstruction," he said.
"I think it's time for them to get beyond all of these discussions that took place back in February and March. It's time for them to recognize that we're going to reconstruct Iraq.
"There is a role for France and other great countries to play here," he said.
While Iraq has the world's second largest oil reserves, estimated at 112 billion barrels, its basic infrastructure atrophied under dictatorship, 13 years of sanctions and the war.
Ahead of the conference, Governing Council member Samir Sumaidy said Iraq's public institutions badly needed funding if the transition to democracy was to succeed.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
A US federal judge on Tuesday ordered US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt efforts to shut down Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the news broadcasts of which are funded by the government to export US values to the world. US District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is overseeing six lawsuits from employees and contractors affected by the shutdown of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), ordered the administration to “take all necessary steps” to restore employees and contractors to their positions and resume radio, television and online news broadcasts. USAGM placed more than 1,000
RSS