ANKARA, Turkey — Not since the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire — the seat of the 400-year old Turkish Muslim caliphate — have Europeans been so preoccupied with Turkey. As poor Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and Africa flood the gates of Europe in search of work, the prospect of Turkey’s accession into the EU has provoked the EU’s most heated existential crisis to date. Turkey, the gateway between Europe and the Middle East, began its Europeanizing mission well over half a century ago when it first applied to join what was then called the European Economic Community. Until [...]
UNITED NATIONS — South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon seemed assured of becoming U.N. secretary general Monday after emerging unscathed from an informal Security Council straw poll in which each of the other five remaining candidates were vetoed. Ban led the field with 14 out of a possible 15 “encouragements” and no “discouragements,” but one “no opinion” from a non-permanent council member. The five permanent members with veto power — the United States, Britain, Russia, China, and France — made no attempt to block his progress. Ban has led the field in all four straw polls the Security Council has [...]
UNITED NATIONS – A straw poll by the U.N. Security Council Monday could be decisive in selecting a successor to Secretary General Kofi Annan, who steps down Dec 31. The outcome hangs on whether the front runner, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon, is blocked by a negative vote from one or more of the five veto-wielding permanent Security Council members — the United States, Britain, Russian, China, and France. The soft-spoken, mild-mannered minister has led the field almost from the start of the council’s secret straw polls, in which the 15 members were asked which of the seven candidates [...]
