Ron Synovitz is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL.
Prague, 4 January 2005 -- Iraqi Interior Ministry officials say Baghdad Governor Ali Radi al-Haydari was killed today in a roadside ambush as his three-car convoy was passing between the city's western districts of Al-Adl and Al-Hurriyah.
President Stipe Mesic participating in an online chat session at RFE/RL (file photo) Official results from Croatia's presidential election show incumbent President Stipe Mesic narrowly missed clinching an outright first-round reelection victory yesterday. The results set the stage for a 16 January runoff between Mesic and Jadranka Kosor -- the candidate of the once hard-line nationalist Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ). Analysts predict that Mesic will win the runoff vote to become the president who overseas Croatia's efforts to join the European Union by 2009.
France's foreign minister says improving U.S.-European relations will depend on efforts by the Bush administration to revive the Middle East peace process. Michel Barnier made his remarks yesterday after meeting briefly in Washington with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. His comments came as many see a new chance to revive the peace process after the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
The freshly inaugurated president, Hamid Karzai, declared a "jihad" against the drug problem The past year has been an historic one for Afghanistan with the country successfully carrying out its first direct presidential election. The ballot followed three years of post-Taliban reforms mapped out at the UN-sponsored Bonn conference in December 2001. President Hamid Karzai, winner of the 9 October vote, said strong turnout by men and women voters shows that Afghans prefer the rule of law to the rule of the gun. But despite the progress, there are difficult challenges ahead in Afghanistan. In his inauguration speech in early December, Karzai said central government security forces need to expand further across the country. He said militia factions must be disarmed and demobilized, with militia fighters reintegrated into civilian life. Karzai also has launched what he calls a "holy war" against the growing influence of Afghan drug lords. In the year ahead, one final goal of the Bonn process still must be reached. A legislative branch of government needs to be created through parliamentary elections scheduled for April.
Ukraine's opposition presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko has said he is certain that authorities in Ukraine poisoned him. Yushchenko made the remarks in Kyiv late yesterday after returning from a Vienna clinic where doctors confirmed the cause of his mysterious illness as dioxin poisoning. The doctors said the toxic substance probably was put into Yushchenko's food. In his remarks, Yushchenko did not specify who he thinks poisoned him. But both Yushchenko and his American-born wife have spoken in recent weeks about a dinner he had with Ukrainian security officials just hours before he became ill. Ukrainian authorities have denied any involvement.
Karzai takes the oath of office Hamid Karzai was sworn in as Afghanistan's first directly elected president today at an inauguration ceremony in Kabul's presidential palace. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were among the scores of foreign dignitaries in attendance as Karzai took an oath of allegiance to both Islam and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The ceremony follows Karzai's outright first-round election victory on 9 October -- a ballot that Karzai praised in his inauguration speech as a sign of great progress and hope. But Karzai also warned that there is still cause for concern about terrorism, religious extremism, warlords, illegal drug production, and drug smuggling.
It has been 20 years since the world's deadliest industrial chemical accident occurred in the central Indian city of Bhopal. Thousands of residents died in their sleep on the night of 2 December 1984, when toxic clouds of methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a pesticide plant. The Indian government says at least 15,000 people have died since then as a result of the accident. The owner of the pesticide plant at the time of the accident -- U.S.-based Union Carbide Corporation -- carried out an initial cleanup operation and made payments to the Indian government of $470 million. New Delhi, however, has yet to disburse two-thirds of those funds, which were meant to help victims. Meanwhile, chemicals from the plant continue to contaminate drinking water.
Some predict Afghanistan will be cleared of mines in a decade Kenya today officially launched a weeklong international conference toward the goal of eradicating land mines around the world. Held under the auspices of the United Nations, the conference gathers representatives of more than 140 governments that have ratified the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines. Hundreds of anti-mine activists and land-mine victims also are attending the Nairobi conference.
New Delhi began pulling a small percentage of its troops out of Indian-administered Kashmir yesterday. An Indian military officer said the withdrawal will eventually involve at least 20,000 soldiers. Up to 500,000 Indian troops are estimated to be in the Muslim-majority state, where they are trying to quell a 15-year-old separatist rebellion. RFE/RL reports on the impact the troop withdrawals may have on the troubled region and on relations between India and Pakistan.
A coalition of human rights groups and developmental organizations released a report today about how children around the world are being encouraged, recruited, or even forced to join military units that do battle in armed conflicts. The Coalition to Stop The Use of Child Soldiers has compiled three years of research by groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, World Vision, and the Save the Children Alliance. The report concludes that at least 10 governments -- most of them in African countries -- continue to use children under the age of 18 as combat troops, scouts, messengers, or spies. Outside of Africa, the report says governments that do not directly recruit children sometimes support paramilitary groups or local militias that employ child soldiers. It says scores of armed political groups across the world also continue to recruit children and force them into combat -- subjecting them in the process to rape, violence, hard labor, and other forms of exploitation. RFE/RL speaks with the project's research coordinator, Victoria Forbes-Adams, about the aim of the study and what it reveals about conditions for children in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Chechnya.
The U.S. military says it has occupied positions across most of Al-Fallujah after a one-week ground assault there. A senior U.S. field commander says it will be days before the last pockets of resistance have been eliminated so that coalition forces can claim total control of the city. But the assault is now in its final stages. Today, fresh U.S. strikes were called in against an insurgent tunnel network. U.S. Marines also continue house-to-house fighting in what they call "clearing operations."
A key member of Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's party says the kidnapping of Allawi's relatives in Baghdad yesterday is a clear political attack and apparently is aimed at forcing a halt to the U.S.-led offensive in Al-Fallujah. A group claiming to hold the three hostages says it will kill them in 48 hours unless Allawi orders an end to the Al-Fallujah offensive and the release of prisoners. U.S. troops today were continuing to fight street-by-street for control of Al-Fallujah. By midday, Iraqi government troops fighting alongside the Americans had raised the Iraqi flag over a police station in the city center. U.S. military officials say they have moved into 70 percent of Al-Fallujah and expect to flush out the remaining insurgents in the next two days. Correspondents embedded with troops in the urban battle report that resistance by snipers and small squads of insurgent fighters remains stiff.
U.S. troops and allied Iraqi government forces were advancing toward the center of Al-Fallujah today after launching a long-expected assault against insurgents the night before. Resistance was said to be fiercest in the northwestern district of Jolan. Meanwhile, militants elsewhere in the country have struck back with a series of attacks against police stations and an Iraqi National Guard base.
There was heavy fighting today on both the eastern and western fringes of Al-Fallujah as U.S. forces encircled the insurgent-held city over the past 24 hours. Al-Fallujah's main hospital was seized overnight by U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies. Intense U.S. air and artillery strikes continue to target suspected insurgent positions in what is being described as a "preparatory phase" of for a ground assault that the Iraqi interim prime minister now says he has authorized.
Premier Allawi (file photo) Iraq's interim government declared a state of emergency for 60 days across the country except in Kurdish-controlled areas of the north. The statement from Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi comes as U.S. troops intensify air and artillery strikes on Al-Fallujah ahead of a long-expected ground assault there. U.S. military officials say more than 10,000 U.S. and allied Iraqi troops are poised on the outskirts of the insurgent enclave.
Hamid Karzai has been officially confirmed as Afghanistan's new president. With the announcement of the official election results from the 9 October ballot, Karzai is now set to be inaugurated by the end of November. But first, he must name his cabinet.
A complete version of Osama bin Laden's latest videotaped message has been released through an Islamist website. In it, the Al-Qaeda leader makes remarks about the U.S. invasion of Iraq that had not been previously aired by the Arabic television station Al-Jazeera. RFE/RL speaks with a leading expert on Al-Qaeda -- correspondent Jason Burke of the London-based newspaper "The Observer" -- about the significance of the Internet release.
International observers have arrived in several U.S. states for the presidential election on 2 November. Independent nongovernmental organizations and foreign diplomats will be scrutinizing activities in Florida, Ohio, and several other closely contested states. But in many states, those observers will not be allowed inside the actual polling stations. That task is reserved for official "monitors" -- such as those the U.S. State Department has invited from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The latest official preliminary results from Afghanistan's 9 October presidential election show transitional leader Hamid Karzai has won the clear majority needed for an outright first-round victory. The announcement yesterday of the election results was made with about 95 percent of the ballots counted. The final official result is not expected until the end of October, when the remaining 5 percent of the ballots have been counted. Karzai's closest rival, former Education Minister Mohammad Yunos Qanuni, appeared to concede defeat through a spokesman, although he also said he wants to see the conclusions of a probe into alleged electoral fraud.
Much attention has been focused on international efforts to bolster Afghanistan's national army and national police. But as the central government in Kabul begins to extend its influence into provincial regions, another essential operation is receiving less media attention -- the work of customs agents within the Afghan Finance Ministry. From Kabul, RFE/RL reports on how the U.S. government is helping Afghan customs officials to collect revenues and deprive warlords of illicit funds from smuggling operations.
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