Libya’s transitional government on Sunday postponed the first national election since the ouster of former leader Muammar Qaddafi, changing it to July 7 from the previous date of Tuesday next week.
The announcement is official confirmation of an open secret: Libya’s transitional authorities have not yet completed the list of candidates or other arrangements for the election. Voter registration is behind schedule and officials of the interim government have hinted for weeks that they could not fulfill their promise of a vote by June 19.
Voters will choose a national assembly, whose members will govern while drafting a new constitution. Libyans are hoping an elected government will have the legitimacy to control the rival militias that have established competing fiefs around the country and in the capital, Tripoli, sometimes battling one another, hunting down suspected Qaddafi loyalists to exact vengeance or even kidnapping foreign journalists and government officials.
It is unclear whether the interim authorities can enforce the stability required to hold a free and fair vote by the new deadline. Disputes over the distribution of delegates have aggravated deep-seated regional tensions. Some districts, including the city of Bani Walid and certain neighborhoods of the capital, remain hostile to the new authorities, if not loyal to Qaddafi. Militias have already displaced members of tribal and ethnic groups considered loyal to Qaddafi, forcing them into refugee camps and raising questions about their voting rights as well.
In the latest evidence of lawlessness, Libyan officials acknowledged over the weekend that a local militia whose members have held captive one of Qaddafi’s sons, Saif al-Islam, in the city of Zintan had also detained four staff members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) without further explanation. The group, which was detained on Thursday, includes a court-appointed defense lawyer — an Australian citizen — a translator, a citizen of Lebanon and two other court officials — a former Russian diplomat and a Spanish lawyer.
Libyan authorities have rebuffed requests by the court to turn Saif al-Islam Qaddafi over for trial in The Hague on war crimes charges. A court spokesman in The Hague, Fadi el-Abdallah, said in a telephone interview that no explanation or details had been given about the detention.
“The four ICC staff members continue in illegal detention,” he said. “We’ve lost all contact with them since Thursday and they are held incommunicado. We have had contacts with the Libyan authorities in Tripoli to request their release.”
He said the four were visiting Zintan to carry out an order by the court’s judges “to arrange for a confidential meeting between the lawyer and the suspect. Such a meeting would include the right to exchange or discuss relevant documents.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia