SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Labourers digging on a construction site in northern Iraq uncovered human skulls and bones on Tuesday, which interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said were part of a mass grave believed to contain some 500 bodies.
If spirited civic debate is a sign of a healthy city, then Kirkuk is in good shape. At a meeting last week of the interim council that governs Kirkuk and its surrounding province, its members shouted and called one another names. Various groups stormed out in protest. "But no one got shot," said Army Lt. Col. Richard White, who works frequently with the council.
The renewal of Iraq as a state is more often than not seen in economic and political terms, but it is also diplomatic. For decades, thanks to the Baathist regime, Iraq was an international pariah, regarded as a lucrative market and an occasionally useful tool in the realpolitik games of cynical powers. Iraq's vast oil resources certainly created wealth, for arms dealers and the corrupt minority that held sway over the rest of the country.
Iraqi labour unions making their global debut at a conference in Japan are seeking tips on their tough task -- how to make workers aware of rights suppressed for years by Saddam Hussein.
Numerous hurdles make Palestinian elections more difficult to stage than most others in the world, the most obvious of which continues to be the illegal and prolonged Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and people. The international community would do well to remember that in light of the circumstances facing the Palestinian people as a whole, they deserve the utmost recognition and credit for their democratic ideals, structures, institutions and, above all, the Palestinian multi-party system which can only be compared with highly developed democracies such as those in Europe.
"The elections should not be postponed," he said. "It's time for the Iraqi citizens to go to the polls and that's why we are very firm on the Jan. 30 date." ....Bush predicted that Iraq's elections would leave the world "amazed that a society has been transformed so quickly."
"The Kurds have forgotten their differences to defend the common interest," said Salahuddin Bahaeddin, head of one of the 17 factions that signed the election accord announced on Wednesday, the Kurdistan Islamic Union
Of course, what really has the armchair lawyers riled up is that Iraqi authorities have decided that those convicted of the gravest offenses - war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and a small number of egregious domestic offenses - can be sentenced to death. Just as at Nuremberg, the death penalty is available in Iraq because no one can figure out what other punishment fits such crimes.
The West Australian Senator Ross Lightfoot has championed some unexpected causes before, but nothing quite like this. Following a visit to northern Iraq in July this year, Senator Lightfoot is calling for an independent state of Kurdistan.
All Iraqis over 18 years of age on January 1 can vote -- perhaps some 15 million of an estimated population of 26 million. All those with a valid ration card -- relics of U.N. sanctions -- can vote and have until December 15 to amend details of their registration. Seats will be allocated by proportional representation. So a list that wins, say, 20 percent of the vote will receive 55 seats, attributed to the top 55 names on its list of candidates.
Once Joan finished her minstrelsy riff, the audience, in which I did not see a single black person, went wild with applause and hoots and hollers. I have never felt so embarrassed for a bunch of "liberals" in my life. I wonder where Baez got her notions of how poor black country folk talk—she couldn't be stereotyping, could she?
To behave, act and think like a European takes centuries. It would be a tall order and implausible demand, however desirable and beneficial that maybe, to ask Turkey to enrol en-masse all of its military and civilian leaders in courses ranging from studies in European history, human rights, multi-ethnic societies in democracies and rights of nations for self-determination. They even may find it useful to enrol in courses in basic decorum such as tolerance and respect towards others.
In the first round of talks the two main Iraqi Kurdish political parties said to have reached common grounds regarding the promised national and regional Iraqi elections set for January next year.
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