PERSIAN GULF

RICE REFUSES TO PRESS SAUDI RIGHT-TO-DRIVE ISSUE

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Secretary of State Rice said yesterday she had no interest in promoting the high-profile cause of giving women in Saudi Arabia the right to drive, saying the administration’s push for democracy needed to respect cultural traditions.

“It’s just a line that I have not wanted to cross,” Ms. Rice told reporters traveling with her as she flew from Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to attend an international conference on Iraq here in the Belgian capital today. “I think it is important that we do have some boundaries about what it is we are trying to achieve.”

In a major speech in Cairo yesterday, Ms. Rice strongly criticized Egypt and Saudi Arabia for democratic failings and urged both long-time American allies to make significant changes in their political systems to allow opposition parties and nongovernmental groups to have a greater voice. After the speech, she flew to Riyadh to raise some of those issues directly with the Saudi government.

Ms. Rice told reporters it was more important to focus on giving political rights to women, because then they would have a means to challenge and possibly change the political and cultural calculus of their nation. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy which only recently held municipal elections. Women do not have the right to vote, but the Saudi government has made vague statements about hoping to eventually grant women voting rights.

“I am quite certain that when women are able to express their aspirations and their views in the political system, which is how human beings connect with their government … that we will see what is really custom and what really does matter to Saudi women,” Ms. Rice said.

– The Washington Post

IRAQI MINISTER ACCUSES U.S. OF DELAYING INTERROGATION OF SADDAM

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Iraq’s justice minister accused America yesterday of trying to delay Iraqi efforts to interrogate Saddam Hussein, saying “it seems there are lots of secrets they want to hide.”

Justice Minister Abdel Hussein Shandal also said he was confident Saddam’s trial on war crimes charges would be finished by the end of the year, underlining the Iraqi government’s determination to try the ousted leader soon.

“This trial will be accomplished within 2005 – and this will only be in Iraqi courts,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of an international conference on his country’s future. American officials had no immediate comment on Mr. Shandal’s remarks but privately have urged caution about rushing into a trial, saying the Iraqis need to develop a good court and judicial system – one of the main topics of discussion at the conference. An official at the press office of the Iraqi Special Tribunal said no date had been set for Saddam’s trial.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

U.S. EPISCOPAL CHURCH’S SUPPORT FOR GAY MARRIAGE CREATES SCHISM

NOTTINGHAM, England – The American Episcopal Church affirmed its support for gay clergy yesterday and appealed for the contentious issue not to split the 77 million-strong Anglican Communion. Some Anglican conservatives said that stance made a schism inevitable. “There’s going to be a divorce,” the president of the traditionalist American Anglican Council, the Reverend Canon David Anderson, said. “The question is whether it’s going to be a strictly North American divorce or whether it’s going to be Communion-wide.”

The issue of homosexuality has opened a rift between Anglican liberals – many of them in North America – and conservatives, who are strongest in Africa and Asia but include many North American traditionalists. Many fear it is unbridgeable.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

PROTESTERS CONDEMN NORTH KOREAN LEADER ON VISIT TO SOUTH

SEOUL, South Korea – A high-level North Korean delegation arrived in Seoul for talks yesterday amid renewed optimism over reconciliation between the two Koreas, but the visit got off to a rocky start when protesters displayed banners condemning the North’s leader. This week’s North-South meetings are aimed at improving ties and elaborating on agreements made during a surprise meeting in Pyongyang last Friday between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and the South’s top envoy to the North. Although the South is expected to raise the international standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, the communist North is likely to focus on aid for its impoverished economy and maintain its insistence that the nuclear issue can only be resolved with America.

– Associated Press