Charles Recknagel is standards editor for RFE/RL.
A uranium-conversion facility in Iran Nuclear proliferation was a hot issue in 2004 with world attention focused on suspicions that both Iran and North Korea were secretly pursuing atomic weapons programs. But the crisis over Iran took center stage as a trio of European countries repeatedly sought to persuade Tehran to abandon any plans to become a nuclear power. Meanwhile, the crisis over North Korea got little public attention as regional talks to solve it made no apparent progress.
Recent days have seen a mounting drumbeat of charges from Baghdad and Washington that Iran and Syria are actively seeking to undermine the creation of a new post-Saddam Hussein order in Iraq. The charges have been dramatic, but also vague, leaving observers uncertain of the evidence behind them. The latest charge came yesterday, as U.S. President George W. Bush warned both Iran and Syria not to interfere in Iraq as the country prepares for its 30 January elections.
Hussein in court after his capture When U.S. forces captured former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein a year ago, there was hope his arrest would help quell the insurgency in Iraq. It didn't happen. One year on, the insurgency appears to have multiple leaders, including former Iraqi Ba'ath officials believed to be sending money from Syria, home-grown nationalists, and foreign militants.
Powell called for an OSCE role in Iraq (file photo) U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has called on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to help supervise the 30 January poll in Iraq. The request comes as some in Europe question whether there can be a fair poll when security is provided by a foreign military power that is challenged in some parts of Iraq.
Shi'a Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani has endorsed the United Iraqi Alliance (file photo) Iraqis are due to go to the polls on 30 January to elect a new National Assembly. The National Assembly will choose a new interim government and appoint a body to write the country's first post-Saddam Hussein constitution. Ahead of the vote, hundreds of Iraqi parties are jockeying to form alliances to improve their chances of winning seats. Now, one of the biggest coalitions to date has emerged -- a United Iraqi Alliance endorsed by preeminent Sh'ia Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Its organizers officially announced yesterday that it will field 240 candidates for the National Assembly, saying the list represents "the birth of a new, democratic, and just Iraq."
Adnan Pachachi (file photo) Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is in Jordan for meetings with Iraqi Sunni leaders, including some opposed to U.S.-led efforts to build a new Iraqi society. The talks are part of efforts to encourage Sunni Muslims to participate in elections scheduled for 30 January, in the face of calls by some leading Sunni groups for a boycott.
Mohammad el-Baradei (file photo) The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution today endorsing Iran's freeze of uranium-enrichment activities that could lead to nuclear-reactor fuel or material for making nuclear bombs. The passage came after Tehran backed off an earlier demand to continue testing of 20 uranium-enrichment centrifuges despite a deal with three EU states to suspend such work.
Top U.S. and European officials are meeting with foreign ministers from many of Iraq's neighbors today to discuss Iraq's future. The meeting in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh comes one day after Iraq's major international creditors agreed to deep cuts in Baghdad's debt in an effort to boost the pace of the country's reconstruction.
Iraq is planning a first round of elections in January to choose a National Assembly that, among other things, will undertake the writing of the country's first post-Saddam constitution. There are many challenges to be met in the run-up to the poll. One of the biggest is securing restive areas of Iraq sufficiently enough to ensure full nationwide participation. But there are a host of other issues as well, ranging from forming candidate lists to informing voters about the polling process.
U.S. and Iraqi forces are advancing into Al-Fallujah in an operation intended to put the insurgent stronghold under government control ahead of the January 2005 elections. The military action is part of efforts to assure the national poll can be held over as much of the country as possible. But will a tough battle over Al-Fallujah help to calm restive central Iraq -- or stoke passions there further?
Iyad Allawi (file photo) Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has declared a state of emergency in Iraq that gives him the power to impose martial law in areas where he sees threats to national security. The declaration comes just ahead of an expected U.S.-led assault on insurgents in Al-Fallujah and a first round of national elections in January. But how much difference will declaring a state of emergency really make in improving Iraq's security situation?
A suspected nuclear facility in Iran Officials from Britain, France, and Germany are meeting with Iranian representatives in Paris today to discuss European incentives aimed at persuading Tehran to end activities that could lead to developing nuclear weapons. The efforts by the three EU powers are being closely watched by Washington. But it is far from clear whether any "grand bargain" to end the Iran nuclear crisis can be reached.
Bush declares victory on 3 November U.S. President George W. Bush has won a second chance to tackle the major foreign-policy challenges that characterized his first four years in office. They include rebuilding strained U.S.-European relations, the crises over Iraq and Iran, and growing U.S. concerns about Syria. Bush was much-criticized by challenger John Kerry for having a "go-it-alone" foreign policy. Many Europeans are now asking whether Bush will seek more multilateral strategies in a second term.
Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi says time is running out for Al-Fallujah residents to evict foreign fighters from the city of face a U.S.-Iraqi military operation to do so. The last-minute warnings come amid growing reports that U.S. troops who ring Al-Fallujah are preparing for hard fighting in the city and expect it to begin soon.
Insurgents have killed 49 recruits of Iraq's National Guard in an ambush as the men were traveling home to visit relatives after completing training. The ambush -- a well-coordinated operation in which the insurgents posed as policemen -- is the latest escalation in what is becoming a determined insurgent campaign against Iraq's still fledgling security forces. As they target the Iraqi government forces, the insurgents are seeking to undermine public confidence in the government ahead of the planned first round of elections in January.
President Khatami has said he is open to negotiations Prague, 21 October 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Britain, France, and Germany are offering a deal they say guarantees Tehran's ability to pursue a nuclear energy program while reassuring the world Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Kidnappers have seized a woman who many consider to be the unofficial head of the international humanitarian community in Baghdad. She is Margaret Hassan, a dual British-Iraqi national who has lived in Iraq more than 30 years and is the head of operations for the international charity CARE. Hassan, believed to be in her late 50s, was born in Dublin and married into a prominent Iraqi family. Throughout Iraq's past decades of crisis -- including UN sanctions and the war last year -- she stayed in Iraq, working on projects to bring water and health care to the poorest sections of society.
Washington has formally rejected a Saudi proposal for a Muslim force under UN control to guard UN election staffers in Iraq. The White House says U.S. commanders have strong reservations about such force because it would be outside the coalition command structure. But as Washington rejects the initiative, where does that leave U.S. hopes for convincing Muslim countries to take part in securing Iraq?
As Americans go to the polls to elect a president on 2 November, people throughout the Muslim world will be awaiting the results with keen interest. That is because the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush has put Washington's relations with the Muslim world at the top of America's foreign policy priorities. Under Bush, Washington declared war on Islamic terrorist groups in response to the 11 September 2001 attacks and launched the largest U.S. military operation ever in the Muslim world with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In the final part of a three-part series on the global impact of the U.S. election, RFE/RL reports that people from the Middle East to the Persian Gulf to Central Asia see the outcome of the U.S. election as directly influencing their lives. But while the choices of the past are clear, they are having a hard time differentiating between the two candidates' visions of the future.
Fuat Sezgin is one of the world's most prominent historians of science and technology in the Muslim world. The 80-year-old Turkish professor is the director of the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and a prodigiously productive writer. He has compiled a 13-volume history of Islam's Golden Age of Science, including three new books on the accomplishments of Arabic and Islamic cartographers. He says the cartographers not only opened much of the world to Muslim traders but also paved the way for European navigators, who later defined our modern view of geography.
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