Iraqi forces surrounded a neighborhood in Baghdad yesterday, searching cars and houses for militants behind a rocket attack that killed two UN contractors, officials said.
Security forces searched cars leaving the al-Amin neighborhood and distributed flyers requesting information on two men suspected of firing the rocket, which struck near the UN compound in the heavily fortified Green Zone on Saturday.
“Security forces are looking for wanted individuals and the people are supplying the forces with information on the gang that has been firing rockets,” said Major General Qassim Atta, the military’s Baghdad spokesman.
Meanwhile, influential Iraqi Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has reservations about a pact allowing US troops to stay for three more years, but politicians must decide its value, a source said on Saturday.
Iraq’s parliament passed a law approving the long-awaited security pact on Thursday, paving the way for US forces to withdraw by the end of 2011 and taking the country a step closer to full sovereignty. They agreed it should be put to a national referendum by the end of July next year.
The cleric’s acceptance of the pact is crucial for it to be accepted by Iraq’s mostly Shiite population.
Sistani signaled the week before the vote that he would abstain from judging the pact and leave it to lawmakers to decide on two conditions: that it does not violate Iraq’s sovereignty and that it gets consensus from all of its communities.
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
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