World briefs 1/22/04

Shiite leader may be ready to soften election demand

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's leading Shiite Muslim cleric is willing to compromise on his demand for early elections if U.N. experts tell him they are not feasible, a Shiite politician said Wednesday. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani's insistence that Iraqi voters choose a transitional legislature has jeopardized a U.S. plan to transfer power to Iraqis and end the U.S. occupation of Iraq by July 1. The American plan involves choosing lawmakers in 18 regional caucuses to be held across the country in May. The assembly would then appoint a provisional government that would govern until elections in 2005.

Approval of election team in Iraq expected soon

UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations is close to backing an American and Iraqi request to deploy experts who would assess whether Iraq could hold elections by May for a transitional government, U.N. diplomats told the Associated Press. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan received the request during a Monday meeting with leaders of the U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. He said he supported the idea but reiterated that security for such a team was a key concern. On Tuesday, one U.N. diplomat said approval for an election team could come by week's end. Another agreed that was a possibility, but said the decision might not be announced until a few days later.

AP: Drug 'microcartels' targeted by new DEA head

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Big criminal gangs specializing in the cocaine and heroin trade, crushed by the government with U.S. help, have spawned what the new top American drug agent in Colombia, David Gaddis, calls "baby poisonous snakes" -- microcartels specializing in individual sectors of the narcotics business. In his first interview since taking over the Drug Enforcement Administration's operations in Colombia at the turn of the year, Gaddis said many smaller criminal cells -- subcontractors of a sort -- have taken control of phases of the drug business once handled as a whole by the huge Medellin and Cali drug cartels.

Some calling Muslim head scarf debate absurd

PARIS -- France's fight to keep religion out of schools has entered new -- and some say absurd -- territory. Teachers and some religious leaders fumed Wednesday over a government minister's call to ban beards and bandannas from classrooms along with Islamic head scarves, Jewish skullcaps and Christian crosses. Muslim leaders were divided. Others said street protests against the planned law had rattled the government and provoked a crackdown. The latest twist in France's controversial plan to ban religious symbols from classrooms came Tuesday, when Education Minister Luc Ferry said the planned ban on religious symbols could also cover facial hair and bandannas, sometimes worn as a discreet alternative to the traditional Muslim head scarf.

-- From wire reports