Alberto Gonzales

WASHINGTON, May 21--The US Senate was preparing to take the almost unprecedented step of a no-confidence vote on US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, ramping up pressure on President George W. Bush to sack his unpopular longtime aide.
After weeks of allegations of politicizing the justice system and, in his earlier position as White House counsel, trying to strong-arm his predecessor at the Department of Justice, Gonzales could face the extremely rare vote in the coming week, AFP said.
It would be only symbolic, but with several Republicans likely to support the measure, one key lawmaker spoke Sunday of “the likelihood of a very substantial vote of no-confidence“ against Gonzales.
“You already have six Republicans calling for his resignation,“ said Republican Senator Arlen Specter on CBS television Sunday.
He added that the desire to avoid a political spectacle may convince Gonzales to resign.
A vote against one of the president’s closest confidants--Gonzales advised Bush when he was Texas governor in the 1990s--could deliver yet another heavy blow to the White House.
It would come in the wake of the Bush-chosen World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, who helped plan the war in Iraq earlier as Deputy Secretary of Defense, being ousted in a rebellion by bank staff.
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, a key Gonzales opponent, rejected criticism that the no-confidence vote amounted to a political stunt, and said it reflected the will of the US public.
“The only person who thinks the attorney general should remain the attorney general is the president,“ he told Fox News television Sunday.
Gonzales’s troubles began in February because of his firings last year of eight federal prosecutors, allegedly for partisan political reasons, and revelations that as many as 30 had been considered for dismissal.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 21--Exiled former Pakistani premiers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, vowed to return home regardless of President Pervez Musharraf’s refusal to let them in the country before a general election due later this year.
“No matter what, I’m going back this year,“ Bhutto told Britain’s Daily Telegraph in an interview published on Sunday.
Sharif, who is living in exile in London, said he was also planning to return to Pakistan in the near future, as challenges to General Musharraf’s authority are mounting, Reuters said.
“The iron is hot, but after a few weeks or months it will start melting and I will go when it starts melting,“ said Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf ousted in a widely popular military coup in 1999.
Musharraf last week ruled out the possibility of allowing either exiled former prime minister to return to Pakistan to take part in elections expected in December or January.
Speculation has been rife that Musharraf and Bhutto, who lives in self-imposed exile to avoid a raft of corruption cases against her, could overcome mutual distrust to strike some kind of power-sharing deal ahead of the election.
But the chances of that happening have receded following the political violence on May 12 in Karachi, when around 40 people were killed during gun battles between pro-government activists and opposition party workers.
Bhutto, who served twice as prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s, said Musharraf should call a round-table meeting with opposition leaders, including her and Sharif to steer the country out of the crisis brought on by Musharraf’s attempt to sack Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Regarded as an attack on the independence of the judiciary, Musharraf’s move sparked country-wide protests by lawyers and the opposition, and the clashes in the southern city of Karachi, were the worst political violence seen in Pakistan in years.
Bhutto warned that Musharraf, an important ally in the US-led war on terrorism, might lose support from foreign allies and his own military unless a brewing political crisis was resolved.

SOFIA, Bulgaria,
May 21--Bulgaria’s ruling Socialists narrowly lost the country’s first European parliamentary elections to a new center-right party amid unprecedented voter apathy after a campaign dogged by corruption scandals.
Barely 28.6 percent of voters in the Balkan state, that joined the European Union only five months ago, took part in the first elections to the European parliament on Sunday, first official results showed Monday, AFP reported.
The turnout confirmed a common tendency among all post-communist EU newcomers.
“We cannot be satisfied with such a low turnout. It seems that the political parties failed to convince the Bulgarians of the importance of these elections and the role of European institutions for each member state,“ Socialist Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev said late Sunday.
His Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) narrowly lost the vote with 21.41 percent to the new centre-right party, GERB, of Sofia mayor Boiko Borisov which won 21.69 percent, first official results showed.
The Turkish minority Movement for Rights and Freedoms party (MRF), a government coalition partner, finished third with 20.26 percent.
The ultra nationalist Ataka party of Volen Siderov won 14.22 percent.
The third smaller member of the ruling coalition, the National Movement Simeon II party of former king Simeon Saxe Coburg, won 6.26 percent.
Election officials were waiting for a second count to apportion the 18 seats the country has at the European Parliament, with the first three parties largely expected to each win five seats.

LONDON, May 21--Serbia’s government will fall if Kosovo gains independence, the country’s new foreign minister Vuk Jeremic was quoted by a British newspaper as saying Monday.
“Whoever gives up Kosovo--implicitly or explicitly--will instantaneously and forever lose the capacity to govern this country with a democratic mandate,“ Jeremic told the Financial Times business daily.
He insisted however that the new government in Belgrade would not slip back into the “traumatic isolation“ of the 1990s under Slobodan Milosevic, AFP reported.
Though still technically Serbian territory, Kosovo has been run by a United Nations mission since NATO bombing drove out Belgrade-controlled forces in 1999 over a brutal crackdown on the province’s ethnic Albanian majority.
United Nations envoy Martti Ahtisaari has proposed internationally supervised independence for Kosovo, a move backed by the United States and the European Union but adamantly opposed by Serbia and its traditional ally Russia.
The UN Security Council is due to debate a resolution based on Ahtisaari’s proposal later this month, but Russia has threatened to wield its UN Security Council veto to block any resolution unacceptable to Serbia.
The Serbian foreign minister meanwhile indicated that Belgrade might yet hand over Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect General Ratko Mladic to the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Jeremic, a former advisor to pro-EU President Boris Tadic, said Tadic’s party had secured an “absolutely iron-clad commitment“ from Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica that he would meet EU demands.
The EU has insisted that Belgrade secure the handover of Mladic and Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic if it hopes to pursue progress towards one day joining the currently 27-nation bloc.

Russian opposition movement activists hold their flags during a rally in Samara, May 18.

MOSCOW, May 21--Kremlin critics including chess legend Garry Kasparov said Monday they would hold more street protests despite what they called a campaign by Russia’s secret services to stifle dissent. Kasparov, one of the leaders of The Other Russia coalition, said marches would be held in the southern city of Voronezh on May 29, in Saint Petersburg during a major economic conference on June 9, and in Moscow on June 11, reported AFP.
“The marches will continue,“ Kasparov told journalists in Moscow.
Kasparov and other top figures in The Other Russia were prevented from attending a demonstration in Samara over the weekend when police confiscated their tickets at a Moscow airport for hours of extra checks.
“Of course the operation was not carried out by the police; it was a special operation by our special services,“ Kasparov said, adding that The Other Russia was filing a lawsuit charging violation of constitutional guarantees to free movement and the right to protest.
Fewer than 500 people attended the Samara rally, which was timed to coincide with an EU-Russia summit taking place at a resort nearby.
Previous protests by The Other Russia in Moscow and Saint Petersburg have been violently dispersed by riot police.
Kasparov said the pressure put on his small movement showed the authorities were scared.

Hans Blix

SYDNEY, Australia, May 21--Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, who opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq, was named Monday as the winner of the 2007 Sydney Peace Prize.
According to AFP, Blix led the hunt for Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction and argued against the 2003 invasion--which was joined by Australia--saying the United Nations should be allowed to continue inspections instead.
The citation for the 50,000 Australian dollar (US $41,000) award noted his “principled and courageous opposition to proponents of war in Iraq,“ his life-long advocacy of non-violence and his leadership of disarmament programs.
Blix, a Swede, said he heard the news of his award with “surprise, gratitude and pride.“ He will travel to Australia in November to receive the prize.
The award is presented by the Sydney Peace Foundation, a not-for-profit organization which aims to promote “a way of thinking and acting which promotes non-violent solutions to everyday problems.“
Blix is now chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC), an independent body which works to limit the dangers posed by WMD.

BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS, May 21--Israel’s parliament will elect a new president on June 13 to replace Moshe Katsav, currently suspended from public duty over allegations of rape, sources in parliament said on Monday.
According to AFP, Lawmakers approved the date fixed by parliament’s constitution committee earlier this month, given that Katsav’s seven-year term in office is due to expire in July.
The final date to submit candidacies for the largely ceremonial post is June 3. So far, only MP Reuven Rivlin, from the main right-wing opposition Likud, party has openly announced his intention to run.
Veteran statesman Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres is also expected to run and enjoys the declared support of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, his centrist Kadima party and several MPs from the main coalition partner Labour.
It would be the second time the 83-year-old politician is making a bid for the position after he lost the vote to Katsav seven years ago.
Other possible candidates are Labour MP Colette Avital and Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi Meir Lau.
Katsav took a leave of absence in January after the attorney general said he intended to indict him over a slew of charges that include rape, sexual harassment, abuse of power, breach of trust and accepting bribes.