PERSIAN GULF

KURDS CELEBRATE TALABANI’S PRESIDENCY

After decades of repression under Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s Kurdish minority celebrated yesterday as their former rebel chief, Jalal Talabani, became the country’s new president.

Kurds in the north poured jubilantly onto the streets after watching his acceptance speech on television, their incredulity heightened by the knowledge that the same pictures had been beamed live into Mr. Hussein’s cell. The former dictator’s cousin Ali Hasan Majid, better known as “Chemical Ali,” was also made to watch proceedings, according to officials at the human rights ministry.

Paying tribute to “the martyrs of Kurdistan and the southern marshes,” a reference to Shias killed during a joint uprising against Saddam in 1991, Mr. Talabani promised to establish a government committed to democracy and human rights. “We will carry out our duties without any sectarian or racial issues and we will always comply with the demands of all Iraqi people,” he said.

Nine weeks after January’s election, Iraq’s bickering political factions are yet to name a new government. Mr. Talabani was appointed with two vice presidents, outgoing Shia finance minister Adel Abdul Mahdi and outgoing Sunni President al-Yawar. Their role will be largely ceremonial, but in the coming days, they will perform probably their most single important act: nominating a prime minister.

Shia politician Ibrahim al Jaafari is expected to be named in the coming days and will lead the country until new polls in December. His Shia-dominated United Iraqi Alliance won 146 of the 275 parliamentary seats in the January 30 election.

– The Daily Telegraph

WESTERN EUROPE

ADAMS CALLS FOR IRA TO GIVE UP ARMED STRUGGLE

Sinn Fein’s president, Gerry Adams, has called on the IRA to give up its armed struggle and find alternative means in its fight for a united Ireland. Mr. Adams said he had “defended armed struggle” in the past because “there was no alternative.” Now, he says, there is. “The struggle can now be moved forward by other means,” he said.

“The way forward is building political support.” He said the IRA had kept “every commitment made by its leadership” but had come up against recent vilification by the Irish government and intransigence from the Unionists. He accused them of using the IRA as an excuse for not building a lasting peace.

Sinn Fein has come under pressure because of its links to the IRA and was shunned by the White House during this year’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations. Instead, the sisters and partner of Robert McCartney, the Republican father of two murdered outside a Belfast pub, were invited. They have accused the IRA of obstructing the police investigation and criticized Sinn Fein candidates who were in the pub at the time of the stabbing for not giving details.

– The Daily Telegraph

SOUTHERN AFRICA

MUGABE ‘CONJURES UP’ WINNING VOTES

Zimbabwe’s opposition yesterday claimed to have found proof of “massive electoral fraud” carried out by the regime of President Mugabe.

The Movement for Democratic Change said that tens of thousands of votes appear to have been conjured from nowhere to guarantee victory for candidates from the ruling Zanu-PF party in last week’s parliamentary election. Mr. Mugabe has, say his critics, stolen victory in every national election since the formation of the MDC almost six years ago. Intimidation and violence were once the regime’s principal weapons against all opponents. But the opposition says that Mr. Mugabe also tries to avoid international criticism by relying on more subtle ways of holding power. Critics believe that he increasingly relies on outright ballot-rigging and electoral fraud carried out by pliant officials. The MDC claims this was the dominant feature of the last election. It points to glaring discrepancies between official voting figures issued after polls closed.

– The Daily Telegraph

WEST AFRICA

WARRING FACTIONS AGREE TO DISARM

Ivory Coast’s warring factions agreed yesterday to end hostilities, start immediate disarmament, and make plans for new elections in a bid to prevent a renewed explosion of violence in the world’s leading cocoa producer.

The agreement followed four days of talks in Pretoria mediated by South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, who summoned all sides to his country’s capital to try to rescue the peace process. The negotiations were the factions’ first face-to-face meeting since civil war flared up again last fall in the West African nation.

– Associated Press

SOUTH AMERICA

MARXIST REBELS KILL 17 IN AMBUSH

Marxist rebels ambushed a Colombian military convoy yesterday, killing 17 soldiers – the latest in a spate of bloody attacks that have undermined government claims the rebels are being defeated.

The troops were traveling in Arauca, an oil-rich state in northeastern Colombia used by the guerrillas to smuggle drugs and arms across the border in Venezuela, when they came under attack with explosives and gunfire, said Colombia’s army chief, General Reinaldo Castellanos, who blamed the attack on guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which has been battling to topple the government here for 40 years.

– Associated Press