NORTH AMERICA

PRESIDENT CLINTON WANTS TO BE U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL

President Clinton, associates say, dreamed of becoming secretary-general of the United Nations after the end of his presidency and today considers that hope more than just a flight of fancy, the Washington Post reported.

Mr. Clinton first told an aide that leading the world body was his next dream job in his first months after leaving the White House in 2001. He had acknowledged that the goal might not be realistic, but several people who know him say, even in recent months, he has not abandoned the idea.

As one aide said, being the “president of the world” seems a natural ambition for the ex-president. In some respects, Mr. Clinton has already made progress as a political force on the world stage. He was recently appointed as the U.N. Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery. In September, world leaders will attend the first Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York. Mr. Clinton, the Post reported, modeled the three-day conference after the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The meeting will focus on issues of fighting poverty, religious conflict, and environmental degradation. Prime Minister Blair of Britain, King Abdullah of Jordan, U.N. Secretary-General Annan, and Governor Schwarzenegger of California are among those planning to attend.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

WESTERN EUROPE

CHIRAC FIRES PRIME MINISTER

PARIS – President Chirac fired his prime minister yesterday and built a new government around two men – one an unelected loyalist, the other an ambitious rival – who could one day fight to succeed him as France’s leader. Mr. Chirac’s unlikely and potentially explosive pairing of Dominique de Villepin and Nicolas Sarkozy was a measure of the crisis Sunday’s humiliating referendum defeat caused to his 10-year presidency. The reply from voters – a strong “Non!” – was as much a repudiation of Mr. Chirac’s domestic policies as it was a refusal of the proposed European Union constitution.

Messrs. Villepin and Sarkozy are unnatural allies. Just last week, in thinly veiled criticism, Mr. Sarkozy said only people who have held elected office “have the right to speak in the name of France.” Mr. Villepin, 51, is a long-trusted Chirac aide who, as foreign minister from 2002-04, passionately made France’s case against the Iraq war. His political weakness is that he has never been elected to office. Mr. Chirac named him prime minister, promoting him from the Interior Ministry to replace the unpopular Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

– Associated Press

SOUTH ASIA

PAKISTANI PRESIDENT WILL HAND OVER AL QAEDA SUSPECT

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan’s president said yesterday he will hand over senior Al Qaeda terrorist suspect Abu Farraj al-Libbi to America for prosecution, even though the man is believed to be behind two assassination attempts against him and could have received the death penalty here. President Musharraf said Mr. al-Libbi was cooperating but had not provided any useful information on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, and that Pakistan has no interest in keeping him. Mr. al-Libbi was arrested May 2 after a shootout in northwestern Pakistan.

– Associated Press

KARACHI ON ‘HIGH ALERT’ AFTER RIOTING MOB KILLS SIX IN FIRE

KARACHI, Pakistan – A mob angered by an Al Qaeda-linked suicide bombing in a Shiite mosque set a KFC restaurant on fire in overnight rioting, killing six employees and bringing the day’s overall death toll to 12, police said yesterday. Security in Karachi shifted into “high alert,” said Rauf Siddiqi, home minister of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital.

– Associated Press

NEWSPAPER EDITOR STABBED TO DEATH BY UNIDENTIFIED ATTACKERS

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Unidentified assailants stabbed to death a newspaper editor in eastern Bangladesh, police and his colleagues said yesterday. The editor of the Comilla Muktakantha daily, Golam Mahfuz, was attacked Monday at his home in Comilla, a town 50 miles east of the capital, Dhaka. He was 39.

“We are trying to understand whether it happens for journalism or for any personal cause,” an intelligence official, Mozammel Haque, said by phone.

Police detained four people for questioning, he said.

– Associated Press