UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday he hoped to report this week on a plan to transfer power from US-led occupation authorities to Iraqis.
UN officials have said elections, as preferred by Iraqi Shiite leaders, are not possible by the June 30 handover date and that a US-proposed system of selecting an assembly by caucuses was also not feasible.
UN officials also do not believe it wise to push back the June 30 date, set by Washington, as it struggles to contain attacks by anti-US groups. And they say the hope is that elections for a permanent government could be held at the end of this year or early in 2005.
Annan therefore has to recommend other options for a transfer of power before June, which could range from expanding the current Iraqi Governing Council to forming a new body, such as delegates to a conference on devising fundamental laws.
Asked when he would be able to complete the report, Annan said: "I will be able to do that before I travel," a reference to a trip to Japan on Friday.
"I hope we will be able to help break the impasse and steer things in the right direction," Annan said.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Bush administration was open to recommendations from the UN but was sticking to the July 1 deadline.
"We still believe that June 30 [is the] appropriate time to have a transition to an interim government of the people of Iraq," Powell said.
"We've got an open mind on it," he said, referring to Annan's report.
Powell also said no one believed elections were possible by June but said polls could be held at the end of this year or sometime next year.
Annan's special adviser, Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister, spent a week in Iraq studying the possibility of holding elections or coming up with an alternative.
He was expected to return to New York late yesterday having visited Kuwait and Abu Dhabi to consult regional leaders.
Brahimi has already said that organizing elections by June 30 would pose major difficulties in the current security climate.
He said the demand for a quick election was legitimate but that holding a credible poll was also important.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
RSS