Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission on Monday declared incumbent Hamid Karzai “the elected President of Afghanistan” for a second five-year term. The announcement comes one day after rival Abdullah Abdullah announced his withdrawal from a runoff planned for November 7. The second round balloting was canceled Monday morning after Abdullah withdrew. The number two finisher in the initial balloting on August 20 said he did not consider the Independent Election Commission to have been sufficiently reformed that a fair runoff could be guranteed, free from the widespread fraud that marked the first election round. The United States, Britain, and the United Nations each promptly issued congratulatory statements to President Karzai as the elected head of state, and others are expected to follow. Analysts believe, however, that American officials will continue to lead an intense diplomatic effort to reconcile the two candidates’ supporters and unify the country, perhaps through Karzai offering Abdullah a senior office in his administration. In a surprise visit to Kabul Monday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon exhorted Karzai to "move swiftly to form a government that is able to command the support of both the Afghan people and the international community." Speaking at his home after the press conference, Dr. Abdullah rejected any suggestion of joining Karzai’s administration—he had formerly served as Karzai’s Foreign Minister but left after a bitter falling out—and said of his withdrawal, "I did it with a lot of pain, but at the same time with a lot of hope for the future. Because this will not be the end of anything, this will be a new beginning." President Obama is scheduled to lead two National Security Council meetings at the White House on Afghanistan this week as he further considers his administration’s policy and further troop commitments. These deliberations had been clouded by uncertainty over the Afghan administration that would emerge from the election process.
The Pakistani military announced Monday it has captured the towns of Kaniguram, Cheena, and Makeen, strategic Taliban strongholds in the South Waziristan region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The military, which began its current offensive on October 17, has reportedly cleared the captured areas of all insurgents, mines, and improvised explosive devices. The Pakistani government is now offering rewards totaling $5 million for information leading to the capture of Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, and 17 other Taliban leaders. Meanwhile, bombings continued to shake Pakistan on Monday, largely in response to the ongoing military offensive, as one bomb near military headquarters in Rawalpindi killed 30 people, including military officers and some civilians, in a crowded pedestrian area; and. Additionally, two suicide bombings at a security checkpoint in Lahore, Pakistan’s cultural center, killed a policeman and injured 25 civilians. A series of ten bombings have killed more than 300 Pakistani civilians since mid-October.
North Korea again pressed the United States to open direct bilateral talks, warning that it was prepared to "go its own way" with its nuclear program should Washington remain unresponsive. "It’s time for the United States to make a decision," an unidentified spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry told the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Monday. "We have made it clear that we are ready to take part in multilateral talks, including the six-party talks, depending on the results of talks with the United States . . . If the United States is not ready to sit down face-to-face with us for talks, we cannot but go on our own way," he added. The statement follows a rare meeting between Ri Gun, North Korea’s deputy nuclear envoy, and Sung Kim, the American special envoy on the North’s nuclear disarmament, in New York and San Diego last week. After months of defiance, North Korea has recently signaled a willingness to return to disarmament negotiations. Last month, it reaffirmed its invitation for Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, to visit Pyongyang. Leader Kim Jong-Il also told Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last month that his country would consider a return to multilateral negotiations, which stalled in April after Pyongyang quit the forum and later conducted nuclear and long-range missile tests. But the North maintained that any return to the six-party framework; which brings together envoys from North Korea, the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea; depended on the progress of bilateral talks with Washington. to amend "hostile relations." North Korea’s spokesman reiterated this on Monday, saying "the direct parties, which are the North and the United States, must first sit down and find a rational solution . . . [If the two countries] end the hostile relationship and build trust, there will be a meaningful step toward the denuclearizing of the Korean peninsula." But whether this will be enough to convince the Obama administration to meet one-on-one is unclear; Washington has said it will only agree to direct talks as part of a resumption of the broader, six-party dialogue.
The UN suspended its support for army units operating in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, accusing the Congolese army of deliberately killing more than 60 civilians this year. After a tour of the region, UN peackeeping chief Alain Le Roy said the army had "clearly targeted" civilians, and that the United Nations mission in DR Congo (MONUC) would "immediately suspend its logistical and operational support to the army units implicated" in civilian killings between May and December. Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende objected to the decision, saying the investigation was still ongoing. "We are surprised that the United Nations has announced sanctions against these units even before the conclusion of their investigation," he said on Monday, warning that a withdrawal of support could destabilize the army. MONUC has backed the Congolese army in its military operations against Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels since January, and has provided logistical assistance in the east since a joint Rwandan and Congolese military operation was launched against against the rebel group in March. But the operation has come under widespread criticism for human rights abuses. According to human rights groups, more than 1,000 civilians have been killed, more than 7,000 women and girls raped, and more than 900,000 people forced to flee their homes since operations began in January.
Delegates from 180 countries are gathered in Barcelona today for five days of negotiations toward drafting a successor treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol in advance of the symbolic Copenhagen Conference to be held December 7-18. The Barcelona preparatory round is aimed at reconciling an apparent impasse over the contentious issue of technology financing to developing nations. Strains were evident last week when the European Commission agreed that the cost of helping developing nations to reduce carbon emissions by 2020 would total about $150 billion, but talks became stalemated over the question of which nations would pay which proportion of those costs. Central and Eastern European nations, for example, which depend heavily on coal-fired power generation, warned they could not afford to pay in proportion to their emissions. Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said that a full legally-binding treaty is unlikely at Copenhagen, but he noted that he was still convinced a political deal was possible. Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard noted wryly, "Failure is the only thing we can’t afford."