Iraq's Shiite Alliance said yesterday it would ask President Jalal Talabani to postpone the opening of parliament "for a few days" to give them more time to break a deadlock delaying the formation of a new government.
Talabani, a Kurd, announced on Monday he would convene parliament on Sunday, just meeting a constitutional deadline for him to summon lawmakers following the final results of the Dec. 15 parliamentary election being certified.
But nearly three months after the election, Iraq's political leaders are still fighting over who should be the new prime minister in Iraq's first full-term, four-year government.
PHOTO: AFP
The Shiite Alliance, by far the biggest bloc in the new parliament, is facing mounting pressure from would-be partners to ditch Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whom critics say has failed to staunch sectarian violence that has killed hundreds and pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.
The political stalemate has complicated efforts to form a national unity government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds that Washington is promoting as the best hope of stabilizing Iraq and allowing it to begin pulling out its troops.
Iraq's Defense Ministry said the army was investigating how a gunman managed to kill Major General Mubdar Hatim al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Muslim who commanded the 10,000-strong 6th Division in Baghdad, on Monday.
The general was wearing body armor, a ministry official said. He opened the door of his four-wheel drive vehicle and a single bullet struck his head as he was putting on his helmet.
"The gunmen had very precise information," the official said.
Another Iraqi general said it was an assassination that needed inside information and proved the army, recruited by US officers over the past two years, had been infiltrated by factional militia groups ready to turn on fellow soldiers.
"The outsiders have hands on the inside," the general said.
The division, among the best equipped and strongest of Iraq's new forces, has been on the frontline of preventing a civil war after sectarian bloodshed erupted two weeks ago over the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the Sunni city of Samarra.
In the city of Hilla south of Baghdad, a car bomb wounded three police officers, police said, adding they imposed a ban on traffic in the center of the city after receiving information that suicide bombers were planning another attack.
Meanwhile, two Canadians and a Briton working for a Christian peace group who were kidnapped in Iraq three months ago issued a new plea for their release, according to a video broadcast on al-Jazeera yesterday.
The video was the first news of the men since late January, but conspicuously did not feature the US peace activist who had been kidnapped with them.
"Three hostages in Iraq pleaded with Arab Gulf leaders to help free them," the al-Jazeera news presenter said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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