President Hamid Karzai said yesterday that a marathon constitutional council has overcome the chaos of an ugly boycott and is close to agreement on a draft installing the strong central government he is seeking.
Karzai declined to forecast when the constitution might finally be ratified.
But council spokeswoman Safia Saddiqi issued a ringing warning to the delegates, telling them that yesterday's session should be decisive.
"Don't let enemies celebrate the failure of this jirga. You have been elected by the people and hold the destiny of the country in your hands," she said. "I think in any case that today will be the last day."
But rebel delegates were holding out against a clause that allows dual citizenship for top officials -- an apparent shot at liberal ministers who have returned from exile in the US to take up key Cabinet posts, but have been unwilling to give up coveted American and European passports.
Some 500 members of a grand council, or Loya Jirga, have spent three draining weeks arguing over a new constitution that is supposed to lay the foundations for stability and reconstruction after more than 20 years of fighting.
The debate has exposed fault-lines between modernizers and Islamic conservatives and along the raw ethnic divisions left by the country's recent civil war.
Karzai had insisted that the constitution could be ratified even with a narrow majority. But with the powerful presidency he wants apparently secured, he adopted a more conciliatory tone yesterday.
"Lots of solutions have been found for the problems and there are one or two other matters that are going to be worked on this morning," he told reporters outside his palace in Kabul. "It is important to have a constitution that comes with near consensus if not total consensus."
In the huge jirga tent erected on a Kabul college campus, delegates milled around frustrated at the slow progress.
Mohammed Gul Yunisi, a prominent critic of the US-backed government's plans, said the citizenship issue was the last remaining stumbling block and accused ministers unwilling to give up their foreign passport of lacking patriotism.
"We say keep your Afghan passport and drop your foreign one," he told The Associated Press. "This is betrayal."
Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank official, and Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, once a Voice of America reporter, both spent many years in the US and are believed to still hold American passports.
Neither could be reached for comment yesterday.
THE TRAGEDY OF PUNCH: Footage of the seven-month-old Japanese macaque has gone viral online after he was rejected by his mother and formed a bond with a soft toy A baby monkey in Japan has captured hearts around the world after videos of him being bullied by other monkeys and rejected by his mother went viral last week. Punch, a Japanese macaque, was born in July last year at Ichikawa City Zoo. He has drawn international attention after zookeepers gave him a stuffed orangutan toy after he was abandoned by his mother. Without maternal guidance to help him integrate, Punch has turned to the toy for comfort. He has been filmed multiple times being dragged and chased by older Japanese macaques inside the enclosure. Early clips showed him wandering alone with
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday said he did not take his security for granted, after he was evacuated from his residence for several hours following a bomb threat sent to a Chinese dance group. Albanese was evacuated from his Canberra residence late on Tuesday following the threat, and returned a few hours later after nothing suspicious was found. The bomb scare was among several e-mails threatening Albanese sent to a representative of Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance troupe banned in China that is due to perform in Australia this month, a spokesperson for the group said in a statement. The e-mail
TENSIONS: The march went ahead without clashes, but arrests were still possible as police investigate suspects behind Nazi salutes, racist slurs and homophobic insults Thousands of people on Saturday marched in southeastern France under heavy security in tribute to a far-right activist whose killing, blamed on the hard left, has put the country on edge. The crowd — many wearing black and some covering their lower faces with masks — marched through the city of Lyon carrying flowers and placards bearing pictures of Quentin Deranque and the words: “justice for Quentin” and “the extreme left kills.” The 23-year-old died from head injuries following clashes between radical left and far-right supporters on the sidelines of a demonstration against a politician from the left-wing France Unbowed
‘OCCUPATION’: Hong Kong said it had lodged ‘stern protests’ with Panama’s consulate, and would ‘staunchly support’ the rights and interests of Hong Kong companies Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino on Monday ordered the temporary occupation of two ports run by a unit of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd following the Supreme Court’s ruling against the firm’s concession, escalating a dispute that has become a proxy battle between the US and China in Latin America. Mulino said in a speech that the administration and operation of the two ports on the strategic Panama Canal is to revert to the country’s National Maritime Authority to ensure their uninterrupted, safe and efficient operation. The occupation covers movable equipment at the ports and does not mean a definitive loss of
RSS