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To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (47021)	10/10/2004 8:19:17 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

Afghan polls ‘fair’ despite multiple voting KABUL: Independent observers described Afghanistan’s historic presidential election as “mostly fair” on Sunday despite turmoil over multiple voting that led most of the candidates to call for a general boycott. Millions of Afghans turned out on Saturday to choose a leader for the first time, despite threats by Taliban rebels to sabotage the election. The largest group of independent poll observers, the Free and Fair Election Foundations of Afghanistan (FEFA), which is made up of 13 local non-governmental organisations, said the vote was fair despite the complaints. “The large participation of Afghans is an encouraging sign of people’s participation in the democratic process,” it said. But midway through Saturday, all 15 rivals of the US-backed interim president Hamid Karzai had announced they were boycotting the poll because a system to prevent voting fraud had failed. Many demanded a new vote but Karzai, the favourite to win, rejected the demand. At issue, was the indelible ink put on the finger of everyone who voted, to stop them from voting again. Some election workers used the wrong pen to mark voters, and the ordinary marker ink was quickly washed off. And with questions over the late and rapid registration of 10.5 million voter cards in a population of 28 million, there were accusations of illegal multiple voting. “While the reasons for the incorrectly applied indelible ink remain to be seen, a fairly democratic environment has generally been observed in the overall majority of polling centres,” FEFA said. Karzai said the wishes of the people had to be respected. “It is too late to call for a boycott now that millions of Afghans have come from their homes, despite rain and snow, and they have voted,” Karzai said. Before the election, the main worry had been the threat posed by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban guerrillas and their vow to sabotage the poll. But there was only some scattered election-related violence. The Interior Ministry said 10 members of the security forces had been killed in the violence and 25 militants were killed in a clash in the restive Uruzgan province. “The millions who came to the polls clearly wanted to turn from the rule of the gun to the rule of law,” said the Organisation for Security and Cooperation of Europe (OSCE), which had 40 experts accredited. “The validity of election results should be dealt with as the law provides. The candidates’ demand to nullify the election is unjustified,” the OSCE said. The joint election management body consisting of UN and Afghan experts were to investigate the irregularities over the ink. But it said vote counting, likely to begin on Monday after ballot boxes are collected on Sunday, would go ahead. US President George W Bush, facing his own election battle next month, has claimed the Afghan vote as a foreign policy success and is hoping it can be mirrored in Iraq. “Today is an appropriate day for Americans to remember and thank the men and women of our armed forces who liberated Afghanistan,” Bush said as he campaigned in St Louis on Saturday. He did not mention the poll boycott. But the wait for a ruling on irregularities will be worrying for a nation made up of a patchwork of ethnic groups and warring tribes. “The greater risk during the counting period is probably the danger of rumour and conspiracy theories taking hold,” said Thomas Muller, an analyst at the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit think tank. “And the problem with the ink yesterday is a prime example of where a problem occurs and it snowballs into a large issue,” he said. “If the candidates are serious about looking ahead to the parliamentary elections, or looking for a position in the cabinet, or looking to help Afghanistan in the future, there will have to be some compromise,” said Ahmed Rashid, Afghan affairs expert and author. reuters

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (47021)	10/10/2004 8:29:34 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

In 1683 Turkey was the invader. In 2004 much of Europe still sees it that way As one of the EU's biggest decisions nears, old prejudices are coming to the fore Ian Traynor in Vienna Wednesday September 22, 2004 The Guardian Sipping red wine on a hillside terrace high above Vienna, Helmut pointed to the Polish church next door, convinced that the epic drama played out here in 1683 still spoke to central Europeans down the centuries. "I know one Turkish bloke," said the Viennese social worker. "He's got two wives. Neither of them can speak a word of German. He beats them up. He's got two sons as well. They're terrified of him. They're just different from us. We're Christians. They're Muslims. And these Muslims are getting more and more extreme. It's time to make a choice. I'm against it." What Helmut is against, like two out of three Austrians, is Turkey joining the European Union. Gerhard, the landlord serving him his wine, joined in eagerly. "This is Europe and we're in danger of losing our identity with all these people from Turkey and Africa. We Christians are losing our faith while the Muslims are getting more fundamentalist." Christendom Neither man wanted to give his full name. Both were keen to dwell on history. The place they were sitting, a hillside north-east of Vienna, was where 321 years ago last week the Polish king, John III, after a plea from the Vatican, marshalled a huge Roman Catholic army and went galloping down the mountain to save Christendom, Europe and Austria, routing the Turks, raising the 61-day Ottoman siege of Vienna, and halting the Turkish advance into the European heartland. The legacy of the Turkish attempt to take the Hapsburg capital includes the greatest of Viennese institutions, the coffee house, for the Turks brought the bean to Austria, as well as a dread of the Muslim invader that is branded into folk memories across large swaths of central Europe and the Balkans. Advertiser links Internaxx, International Investing Internaxx offshore broker. Real-time access to major stock... internaxx.lu Trade Your Own Foreign Currency Account Invest in the global foreign exchange markets with Gci. Try... gcitrading.com Artemis International Investment Service Artemis is a dedicated active investment house specialising... artemisonline.co.uk In neighbouring Hungary, which was under the Turks for 150 years, the national gallery near Buda castle is dominated by a giant canvas illustrating the mass slaughter that accompanied the fall of the town of Szigetvar to the Turks in 1556. When the Serbian general Ratko Mladic supervised the massacre of 7,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995, he relished the mass murder as Serbian revenge. Slovenia, the poster boy of post-Yugoslav success, is integrated into the EU and Nato as a stable and prosperous democracy. But the uglier, intolerant aspect is that Ljubljana is the sole EU capital city without a mosque. For decades, Slovene Catholics have thwarted attempts by the country's 50,000-strong Muslim community to build a mosque, although the constitutional court earlier this year finally threw out demands for a referendum that would have banned building one. Turkey's Islamist prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, goes to Brussels tomorrow to argue for Ankara's seat at the EU table. An EU commission report in two weeks will set the scene for a formal EU summit decision in December on whether Turkey will be admitted to talks to join the union. And as crunch time nears for one of the EU's biggest-ever decisions, Turkophobia is sweeping the region, deep-seated European prejudice is showing its true colours, and political elites are panicking. Deliberately recalling the "clash of civilisations" of 300 years ago, the liberal Viennese news weekly Profil this week headlined its editorial The Turks at the Gates of Vienna, contending that Turkey's accession was "not so much a risk as a danger". The outgoing Dutch European commissioner, Frits Bolkestein, delivered his parting shot a fortnight ago by warning of the "Islamisation of Europe" should Turkey join the union. "The relief of Vienna in 1683 will have been in vain," he declared. The outgoing Austrian commissioner, Franz Fischler, stirred up more strong feeling by asserting that broad anti-Turkish public opinion across the EU should not be ignored. "The EU can't just be a construct of diplomats." In Germany last week, the opposition Christian Democrat leader, Angela Merkel, who bids fair to be the next chancellor of the EU's biggest power, came out categorically against Turkish membership, urging all her fellow centre-right leaders in the EU to form an anti-Turkish bloc. In Austria, the far-right leader and chief mischief maker, Jörg Haider, is threatening to bring down the centre-right government if it gives a green light to Turkish entry talks. The government is in any case against, as are the opposition social democrats. Austrian opinion polls show two-thirds against admitting Turkey and only one in five in favour. In Germany, home to 2.5 million Turks, the country's biggest ethnic minority, a poll last week showed 55% against Turkey joining. Ambivalent A detailed survey of public opinion in Europe and the US, published last week by the German Marshall Fund of the US, found Europeans deeply confused at the prospect of a Muslim country of 70 million joining the union. A pan-European survey issued last week found that 40% were not sure whether Turkey's membership was good or bad "Many Europeans are ambivalent," the survey noted. "Although there is no European consensus on Turkey's membership, the fact that many Europeans have not made up their minds creates the prospect for a constructive debate in Europe over Turkey's future." In France, meanwhile, the polls show a slim majority in favour of Turkey joining "eventually" despite strong opposition from much of the French elite. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the architect of the new European constitution, which some claim is specifically designed to keep Turkey out, said last year that Turkish membership would signal "the end of the EU". Turkey was "not a European country". It had "a different culture, a different approach, and a different way of life". Both France's President Jacques Chirac and Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schröder support Turkey's bid. Turkish membership is even more strongly supported by Britain. Amid the fears, the Poles, eternally proud of saving Christendom from Islam in 1683, are magnanimous in victory. The Polish priest tending the Vienna church dedicated to the raising of the siege says: "Back then, the Turks had to be defeated. It was necessary. Now it's different. We need to be all one big family. Of course Turkey is European. Of course they should be in the EU." For Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ireland Against Austria, Luxembourg Divided Germany (government for, opposition and public opinion against), France, Denmark, Hungary, Greece (government for, public opinion strongly against), Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, Slovenia, Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia Additional reporting: Jon Henley in Paris