Pro-Syrian Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami stepped down on Wednesday, raising doubts that parliamentary elections will be held before the end of next month, when the current legislature's term ends.
Karami said he had not been able to form a government that could call an election and supervise the polls. There were reports of a deadlock between the pro-Syrian leadership and the opposition, and later divisions within the pro-Syrian camp itself over Cabinet seats.
The process of calling elections and putting in place a new election law would take at least several weeks. The Lebanese Constitution says elections must be announced a month in advance. Unless a new government is appointed in the next few days, the earliest date for a vote would fall after May 31, when the parliament's term ends. The parliament, dominated by pro-Syrian members, could vote to extend its term.
PHOTO: AP
Karami announced his resignation on Wednesday evening at his Beirut home, saying he had failed to persuade both pro-Syrian and anti-Syrian members to cooperate.
"We have once again reached a dead end," he said.
But leaders of Lebanon's opposition movement say that his resignation was a delaying tactic, meant to keep power in pro-Syrian hands.
"The fact that we don't have a government and that the law is in the parliament awaiting a government says lots," said Jibran Tuweini, an opposition leader and the editor of the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar.
The resignation deepens a crisis set off by the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14, for which many Lebanese blame Syria.
Anti-Syrian sentiment grew rapidly in the weeks afterward, forcing Syria to promise to finally end the military occupation of Lebanon that began 29 years ago, in the midst of its civil war. Damascus has said it will withdraw its remaining troops and intelligence operatives by the end of this month.
Some said that the political stalemate was particularly dangerous at this time of foment.
"In the past, this sort of thing was par for the course in Lebanon's politics, but now there's a real sense of urgency," said Rami Khouri, an editor at the Daily Star.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS