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Kirkuk dispute fuels ethnic tensions in Iraq
KIRKUK, Iraq -- Minutes after a suicide bomber killed 25 people, hundreds of angry Kurds stormed the headquarters of an ethnic Turkish group in this northern Iraqi city and torched the building and nearby parked cars.
The Kurds blamed Turkomen, the city's ethnic Turkish minority, for the bombing. Weeks later, the husks of eight burned-out cars bear witness to the ferocity of emotions generated by the crisis over who will run Kirkuk, the center of Iraq's northern oil fields.
The fate of Kirkuk, where an estimated 850,000 Kurds, Turkomen and Arabs uneasily coexist, is a litmus test for the ability of Iraq's ethnic and sectarian leaders to compromise on critical issues. At stake is the country's ability to preserve its recent decline in violence with genuine national reconciliation.
"Kirkuk is a test case for a stable Iraq," Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Friday. "If Kirkuk remains stable, Iraq will become more stable. If Kirkuk blows up, Iraq might fracture along ethnic and sectarian lines."
The Kurds want to annex Kirkuk and surrounding Tamim province into their self-ruled region in northern Iraq.
Most Turkomen and Arabs want the province to remain under central government control, fearing the Kurds would discriminate against them.
Musharraf feels the heat as impeachment looms
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- With impeachment proceedings looming, the pressure on President Pervez Musharraf to quit built Friday as both his rivals and allies confirmed back-channel talks were under way that could ease him out.
Musharraf's spokesman said reports the former army chief's resignation was imminent were "baseless" but it was clear he has little support. The last of Pakistan's four provincial assemblies passed a resolution against him and a key ally acknowledged the president lacks the support to survive a vote in parliament.
The political uncertainty adds to an already volatile situation in Pakistan. Officials said Friday that 10 days of fighting in a tribal region near the Afghan border have killed hundreds and displaced more than 200,000. It was one of the bloodiest episodes since Pakistan deployed troops along the border in support of the war on terror nearly seven years ago.
Coalition officials said they could present an impeachment motion to parliament as early as next week and the process could be over by month's end. But officials in the president's office say impeachment could drag on for months because the procedure is not laid out in the constitution.
London's Walthamstow greyhound track closes
LONDON -- The finish line is looming for the greyhounds of Walthamstow Stadium, a London landmark frequented by everyone from Winston Churchill to Brad Pitt and where David Beckham worked as a teenager.
Today sees the end for the 75-year-old temple to the archetypal British sport of greyhound racing. Famed for its heady atmosphere and pink-and-green neon sign, the track is closing after the owners agreed to sell the site to developers.
New ways of gambling, animal rights pressures and rising property prices in an area near the site of the 2012 Olympic Games have all contributed to the demise of the stadium, and the decline of this quintessential working-class sport. London once had more than 30 greyhound tracks; after today, there will be just three.
"I'm sick as a pig. It's a terrible shame," said Barrie Clegg of the Walthamstow Owners' and Welfare Association, who has been coming to the stadium for more than 25 years.
"It is to Walthamstow what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. It's absolutely unique -- the heart of the community."
Russia: Poland risks attack because of U.S. missiles
MOSCOW -- Russia warned Poland on Friday that it is exposing itself to attack -- even a nuclear one -- by accepting a U.S. missile interceptor base on its soil, delivering Moscow's strongest language yet against the plan.
American and Polish officials stuck firmly by their deal, signed Thursday, for Poland to host a system that Washington says is meant to block missile attacks by rogue nations like Iran.
Moscow is convinced the base is aimed at Russia's missile force, however, and the deal comes as relations already are strained over the fighting between Russia and U.S.-allied Georgia over the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia.
"Poland, by deploying [the system] is exposing itself to a strike -- 100 percent," Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff of Russia's armed forces, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying. |
