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.
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
‘POLITICAL LOYALTY’: The move breaks with decades of precedent among US administrations, which have tended to leave career ambassadors in their posts US President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered dozens of US ambassadors to step down, people familiar with the matter said, a precedent-breaking recall that would leave embassies abroad without US Senate-confirmed leadership. The envoys, career diplomats who were almost all named to their jobs under former US president Joe Biden, were told over the phone in the past few days they needed to depart in the next few weeks, the people said. They would not be fired, but finding new roles would be a challenge given that many are far along in their careers and opportunities for senior diplomats can
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
RSS