A prediction by a hardline monks party that November’s Presidential election would be a referendum on the Norwegian peace process seemed to be borne out this week as Sri Lanka’s political parties began to polarise around the two leading candidates.

Whilst hardline Sinhala nationalists long ago threw their considerable weight behind Premier Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lanka’s minority parties have sat on the fence – whilst sometimes bargaining hard behind the scenes.

This week Rajapakse’s archrival, Ranil Wickremesinghe, secured the estimated 900,000 vote bank of the largest Estate Tamil party, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), and that of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), which, though beset by serious internal differences, is the island’s largest Muslim party.

Rajapakse, who is Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister as well the Presidential candidate of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), last month secured the backing of the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) and the monks’ party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) at the outset.

The backing of the JVP, Sri Lanka’s third largest party, and the small, but potent, JHU, had given Rajapakse a flying start in the race, but his hardline Sinhala nationalist platform alarmed the island’s Tamil, Estate Tamil and Muslim minorities – and moderates among the Sinhalese.

It also split the SLFP, producing divisions have been exacerbated by the long simmering, but now manifest, acrimony between Rajapakse and President Chandrika Kumaratunga, the SLFP leader.

Wickremesinghe’s supporters have exploited the rift, but had struggled against the Premier’s formidable coalition.

However, the UNP’s publication of a unabashedly populist manifesto last week, setting out a raft of subsidies to tempt the rural poor – the mainstay of the JVP and SLFP – as well as offers to draw in the minorities has swung the race Wickremesinghe’s way.

This week the CWC also pulled out of President Kumaratunga’s ruling coalition, which was already struggling with a Parliamentary minority after the JVP pulled out earlier this year in protest at her signing a tsunami-aid sharing pact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

“In coming to this decision [to back Wickremesinghe], we have considered the prospect for permanent peace and national development,” CWC leader Arumugam Thondaman told Associated Press.

The CWC had put forward a 19 point set of demands to which Wickremesinghe had reportedly acquiesced, reports said.

Rauf Hakeem, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress(SLMC) told The Associated Press that his party was supporting Wickremesinghe because of “his consistency in policies.”

The opposition SLMC claims to have 300,000 to 600,000 votes in its grasp and whilst three of its four MPs have rebelled and are supporting Kumaratunga’s government - as is the National Unity Alliance (NUA), a splinter from the SLMC – the party is optimistic of rallying them to Wickremesinghe.

Attention has now turned to the island’s Tamils, who, though critical of Rajapakse’s stances have not endorsed Wickremesinghe either.

The LTTE has already said it does not plan to rally their community for or against either Sinhala candidate, saying “both have victory as their objective and want to use the conflict of the Tamil people for their advantage - one wants to bash Tamils and get the (majority) Sinhala vote while the other wants to be seen as a moderate and win the minority vote.”

The LTTE’s political proxies, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) – a coalition of the island’s main Tamil parties – is also non-committal, insisting even this week that it will study both candidates’ manifestos before making a decision – Rajapakse is yet to publish his.

But the Premier’s electoral pacts with the JVP and JHU have already set out an uncompromisingly hard line on the peace process and, crucially, power-sharing and federalism.

The TNA’s prominent ambiguity is, however, likely to help the UNP – in two ways.

Given Rajapakse’s Sinhala hardline policies, Tamils are likely to gravitate to the Wickremesinghe, even without the LTTE’s endorsement of the former Premier.

An explicit LTTE nod towards Wickremsinghe would, furthermore, bolster the Rajapakse camp’s claim that the opposition leader was a Tiger sympathetic who would sell the Sinhalese out.

Wickremesinghe’s UNP-led government which signed a ceasefire with the Tigers in February 2002 and held peace talks with them was ousted in April 2004 by Kumaratunga’s SLFP-JVP combine which was campaigning on a platform of national security being weakened by the peace process.

This is not to say, this indicates Tamil confidence in Wickremesinghe. Indeed, whilst his manifesto sought to shift the debate to the economy from the ethnic question, it was, at the same time, making overtures to Sinhala nationalists.

Tellingly, the section that outlines the Wickremesinghe’s plans to resolve the island’s protracted conflict is titled ‘Defeat to Separatism’ and calls for a united Sinhala front between the SLFP and UNP to take on the LTTE.

But Rajapakse’s blatant embracing of Sinhala nationalism has made Wickremesinghe the de facto choice for Tamils - and, given that a viable peace process is crucial for economic and political stability, the UNP is seen by the Estate Tamil and Muslim parties as the more likely to deliver on their demands.

As the SLMC’s Hakeem put it: “we are looking at a leader who can take this country forward.” That means cementing a peace with the Tigers.

Even as the European Union declared the spread of bird flu from Asia into the EU a “global threat” requiring international cooperation, the UN’s health agency urged people to keep calm, saying the risk to human was low.

The World Health Organization has said although the arrival of the virus in a new location is worrying — because more virus means more opportunities for genetic mutations — it does not mean a human flu pandemic is closer.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said it was important to keep the risk to humans in perspective.

“People confuse it with pandemic influenza, but they’re very different diseases,” he said. “If people just paid attention to the human risk [from bird flu, they would understand that] the possibility of infection is very low.”

The WHO has also warned Europeans Tuesday against panic-buying the drug Tamiflu, used in treating avian flu.

Following reports pharmacies had experienced a run on the drug, the organization issued a statement cautioning it could reduce the effect of the illness but was not a vaccine to prevent it, the BBC reported.

EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said officials “hope (a pandemic) will never happen” but adds they “will prepare properly.”

Most of the 25 EU governments lack sufficient stocks of anti-viral drugs designed to boost the resistance to the common flu of such risk groups as the elderly, the young, diabetics and others, he said.

The H5N1 bird flu strain has swept through poultry populations in large swathes of Asia since 2003, jumping to humans and killing at least 60 people, more than 40 of them in Vietnam. It has resulted in the deaths of at least 140m birds.

Its spread westwards, thought to have been brought about by migrating wild fowl, has intensified European fears that it could mutate into a form easily transmittable among humans. Experts fear such a development could provoke a global epidemic, putting millions of lives at risk.

Greece has banned the export of live birds and poultry meat from its Aegean Sea islands, where the first case of bird flu in the EU was confirmed.

Tests were also being carried out on birds in Bulgaria and Croatia, while Romania confirmed that a swan with bird flu antibodies had been discovered near the Ukrainian border.

The EU has stepped up biosecurity measures and installed early detection systems along the migratory paths of birds in an attempt to prevent the contamination of domestic flocks.

The WHO recommends that governments keep enough stocks of anti-viral drugs and ordinary human flu vaccines to inoculate at least 25% of the population.

Meanwhile, Tamiflu manufacturer Roche has said it was willing to talk to governments or other manufacturers about sub-licensing manufacture of the drug.

But one Indian generic drugs maker, Cipla, has said that it wants to start supplying governments who are building stockpiles of the drug, while Thailand said it will bypass Roche’s patent to make its own version of Tamiflu by next October.

Away from the media glare of immediate mass disasters, more than 6 million people have already died this year from the little-noticed chronic disaster of hunger and related diseases, the head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned in an appeal to the global community to act now.

To save scores of millions of these lives would cost the developed world over a whole year far less than it spends each week on agricultural subsidies, WFP Executive Director James Morris said in a message marking World Food Day on October 12.

At a time when the world has been shocked by the horrific images of the earthquake in Pakistan, where some 20,000 lives were wiped out in a matter of a few seconds, the donor community must not to forget that away from cameras lurked the biggest killer of all, he noted.

“Few people realize that hunger and related diseases still claim more lives than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. What is worse, the number of chronically hungry is on the rise again, after decades of progress. We’re losing ground,” he added.

“We believe that solving the problem of child hunger is the key to ending world hunger. If we can all work together to give today’s children the chance to reach their full potential in adulthood and prepare them better as parents, we can actually break the inter-generational cycle of hunger and poverty.”

In an appeal to governments, aid organizations and the private sector to redouble their efforts, Mr. Morris estimated that more than 6,241,000 people will have already died of hunger and related diseases so far this year.

He contrasted developed countries with their social services, unemployment benefits, child allowances and income support, to the developing world, where there are very few safety nets, citing the current drought in Niger as an example.

“With any luck, next year will be a good year for Niger,” he said. “Maybe the rains will come on time, the locust swarms will be manageable and no other unexpected disaster will occur. If that happens, and it’s a bit of a long shot, we can look forward to only about 450 of Niger’s children dying every day of hunger related causes during the lean season. And that’s the good news.”

Mr. Morris said that of the total number of hungry children in the world, about 100 million were currently getting no assistance at all. To provide them and the estimated 15 million under-nourished expectant and nursing mothers who are also without support, would cost about $5 billion a year. Some $2 billion could be provided by the developing countries, leaving $3 billion for the developed world to provide.

“A lot of money? Not when you consider that between them, the developed countries spend far more than that every week on agricultural subsidies,” he added.

Reactions to the European Union’s condemnation of the Liberation Tigers and its bar on LTTE officials visiting its member states, have fallen on either side of Sri Lanka’s ethnic divide: whilst Tamils are dismayed, Sinhalese are delighted.

The EU’s harshly worded statement last Monday had been preceded by weeks of speculation in Sri Lanka that it was considering a ban on the LTTE.

Whilst Tamil media had urged the EU to desist, the Sinhala – and Sinhala-owned English language – media had clamoured for the ban.

Last week, although the EU stopped short of a formal proscription, it declared “delegations from the LTTE will no longer be received in any of the EU Member States until further notice.”

Each member state, moreover, would “take additional national measures to check and curb illegal or undesirable activities of the LTTE, its related organisations and known individual supporters” the EU said.

These curbs, along with the EU’s condemnation of “violence and terrorism by the LTTE” amounted to an effective European ban.

The official reactions from both sides were predictable. Sri Lanka’s government welcomed the EU ban while the LTTE criticized it.

The head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan, described the EU move as a “serious setback to the peace process,” pointing out it would “appease and give moral support” to Sinhala nationalists.

On the other hand, the Sri Lankan government said the EU move would “influence the LTTE to resume the stalled peace talks” and claimed credit for lobbying several states to its side.

These official positions aside, the reaction amongst Sri Lankans was sharply polarised.

“The EU’s failure to hear our appeal for our rights and instead placing their confidence in the false propaganda of the [Sri Lanka] government and ban our sole representatives has shocked us,” the Jaffna University Student’s Union said, for example.

The dismay laced the atmosphere at the massive rally in Jaffna last week attended by over a hundred thousand Tamils from across the peninsula, with speaker after speaker denouncing the EU’s “one-sided punitive measures.”

Rather than contributing to a solution to the ethnic question during what Tamils see as a critical and historic juncture in their struggle, blaming the LTTE for the current state of affairs is unwarranted and a great tragedy, the Tamil National Alliance, a coalition of Sri Lanka’s four largest Tamil parties said.

Expatriate Tamils also decried the EU ban. The International Federation of Tamils, headquartered in Geneva, warned the Sinhala nationalists “are going to misconstrue the EU Declaration as a vicarious moral support for [them].”

The Sinhala reaction was exactly the reverse.

The Island, a staunchly Sinhala nationalistic newspaper gloated “it is a matter for happiness that the EU is beginning to see the LTTE for what it really is.”

Describing the EU’s action as “timely and salutary,” the paper said these measures should have been adopted earlier. “The EU has at last spoken the language that the LTTE understands.”

The Daily Mirror hailed the EU move was “commendable, though belated” and said it “serves the cause of democracy and human rights.”

However, for the Mirror’s sister paper, the Sunday Times, the EU’s actions did not go far enough. The publication dismissed the EU’s ban as a “sop” and said “ad-hoc, stop-start measures … which mean very little to the LTTE which has its tentacles spread throughout the world.”

The ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) welcomed the EU ban and urged the arrest of LTTE Chief Negotiator Anton Balasingham and “hundreds of other LTTE activists engaged in terrorist activities” in the EU member states.

JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe said EU had implicitly recognised the LTTE as a “sinister force.”

The hardline monks’ party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), also echoed these sentiments, saying the EU should proceed to a “total ban” of the LTTE.

There were some contrary positions on the fringes of both sides. Amongst the Sinhalese, the New Left Front said the EU was seeking to “suppress the Tamil people’s real struggle.”

On the Tamil side, the paramilitary Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) welcomed the crackdown on the LTTE. Its leader, Douglas Devananda, declared: “The LTTE has been saying that the international community recognizes their cause. But the EU decision has clearly given an answer to the LTTE’s false propaganda.”

Multi-lateral military exercises canvassed

The special forces of the United States, India, Russia and the United Kingdom will hold multilateral land and air exercises on the Russian soil for the first time next year.

“Russia hopes to organise and host the exercises,” Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov told reporters during his visit to India.

Though most of these countries have held bilateral exercises between the special forces, this would be for the first time that such a large scale war games would be held, the Minister said.

He was speaking after the defence forces of India and Russia held their first-ever joint airborne military exercise Sunday. The objective of the exercise was to strengthen cooperation between the countries to counter terrorism, press reports said.

Russian-Indian-Chinese military exercises also could be held in the future as part of the cooperation between the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), he said, although he tossed aside any possibility that a military bloc was forming.

"The time of military blocs and alliances of this kind is fading away," Ivanov told journalists. Ivanov also said that India was a SCO observer at the Peace Mission-2005 Russian-Chinese military exercises.

India and China are Russia's strategic partners, and "cooperation with those countries covers the entire spectrum of military and military-technical partnership and cooperation in the energy sector, culture and other spheres. This suits everyone," he said.


Israel restricts Palestinian travel

Israel suspended contacts with the Palestinian Authority and slapped tough travel restrictions on the West Bank Monday after Palestinian gunmen killed three young Israelis and wounded five in two drive-by shooting near Jewish settlements.

The Palestinian attack near the Gush Etzion block of settlements on Sunday was the deadliest since July. It followed Israeli intelligence warnings that Palestinian militants, who claim they drove Israel out of Gaza by force, would now shift their focus to the West Bank.

The shootings, the restrictions and Israel's suspension of talks with the Palestinian Authority deflated hopes that Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip and months of relative calm would create a new atmosphere of trust and revive peace efforts after five years of bloodshed.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas condemned the shootings. "These events harm the cease-fire and the calm that we have respected," he said.

The effects of the new restrictions were immediately felt across the West Bank, where dozens of new checkpoints appeared on major roads overnight and Palestinian drivers were forced onto smaller back roads.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group with ties to Abbas' Fatah party, claimed responsibility. However, Kamel Ghanam, an Al-Aqsa leader in Ramallah, said his group was not behind the attack, and Israeli security officials said they believed the Islamic militant group Hamas was involved.

The attacks renew international pressure on Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to
crack down on militants.


Chechen claims responsibility for Nalchik attack

Chechnya's top warlord said Monday he was behind last week's deadly assault in southern Russia, but added it was carried out by regional fighters - indicating an increasingly organized effort to set up militant cells in the area.

Shamil Basayev, who is the author of Russia's worst terrorist attacks, claimed responsibility for the assault in the city of Nalchik that officials say left at least 137 dead.

"I carried out the general operative management," Basayev said, according to the statement on the Web site of Kavkaz Center, seen as a mouthpiece for the Chechnya's Islamic separatist rebels.

Basayev said the attacks on police and government buildings in Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkariya republic, were done by militants affiliated with the Chechen rebels, but that Chechen fighters were not involved. He said they were launched by the republic's section of the so-called Caucasus Front, believed to include militant cells throughout the region.

The leader of Kabardino-Balkariya front is "busy preparing other work that I have assigned him," Basayev was quoted as saying, apparently referring to new terrorist actions he has often threatened.

Basayev has claimed responsibility for organizing last year's hostage-taking at a school in Beslan, which ended in the deaths of more than 330 people. He also said he planned the 2002 seizure of some 800 hostages in a Moscow theater. (Associated Press)


Turkey's losing patience over Iraqi haven for Kurds

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed a call for the United States and the Iraqi authorities to curb Turkish Kurd rebels based in northern Iraq, warning that his government's patience was running out.

"Turkey has been patient and prudent so far. But no one has the right to ask for more patience from Turkey when martyred soldiers are buried every day in another town, when mothers cry and babies become orphans," Erdogan said in a speech to his parliamentary group, Anatolia news agency reported.

"Everyone, and particularly those who are responsible for the region (northern Iraq), should know that our people are expecting them to take efficient steps to purge the region of terrorists," he said.

Ankara has several times warned of a possible Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq to hit back at armed militants from the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have found refuge in the region since 1999.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey as well as both the United States and the European Union. PKK militants began sneaking back into Turkey after calling off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004, and have significantly stepped up violence in the country's mainly Kurdish southeast, which borders Iraq, since early this year.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed some 37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK took up arms to fight for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast. (AFP)


Clashes in Sudan claim civilian lives

Rebels and Sudanese forces have clashed in North Darfur with artillery fire killing a number of civilians, the Sudanese government said Monday.

The African Union, which is monitoring a shaky cease-fire deal between rebels and the government in the crisis-wracked Darfur region, said rebels attack attacked an army outpost early Sunday, which was followed by "heavy bombardment" apparently from Sudanese soldiers.

The fighting took place southeast of the town of Kutum before Sudanese soldiers chased the rebel fighters from the Sudan Liberation Army into the nearby villages of Kenin and Nadi, the AU said in a statement.

But the Sudanese government accused "a group of armed movements in Darfur (of launching) waves of indiscriminate shelling" on Kutum, which resulted in "human and material damage" on Sunday and Saturday.

"The outcome was the death and injury of a group of children, women and elderly citizens," said a statement issued by a Sudanese government delegation at Darfur peace talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. No casualty figures were provided.

The delegation said the rebel attack breached all peace agreements aimed at curbing the Darfur conflict, which began in February 2003.

The AU also condemned the violence and urged restraint and cooperation from the warring sides to help it investigate the incident.

The United Nations estimates the fighting has resulted in the deaths of more than 180,000 people through violence, disease or malnutrition. (Associated Press)


Kurds mourn dead from Saddam era

The bodies of more than 500 Iraqi Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s have been returned to the north of the country for burial. A ceremony was held to mark their return on Monday.

One by one, more than 500 coffins draped in the Kurdish flag were carried solemnly passed a guard of honour on the tarmac at Irbil airport. It is believed the remains belong to members of the Barzani clan.

Eight thousand of them were rounded up by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1983 in reprisal for a Kurdish guerrilla attack near the Iranian border. They were trucked away to the south. Their bodies were discovered in a mass grave in the desert near the Saudi border.

This was the first time that some of the thousands of Kurds who disappeared under Saddam Hussein's rule have been brought home for burial.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, according to Mohammed Issan, minister for human rights in the Kurdistan regional government. "The minimum picture, without any exaggeration, is 350,000 missing Kurds," he said.

"I think all these numbers we are going to find in mass graves because we've managed now to identify 284 sites of all the Kurdish mass graves inside the country now." (BBC)


"Complete success" of Chinese space flight hailed

People's Daily, China's leading newspaper, carried an editorial Monday celebrating the "complete success" of China's second manned space flight.

The editorial, titled "Great milestone of Scientific Exploration - Congratulations on Complete Success of China's Shenzhou-6 Space Mission", said that the successful flight of Shenzhou-6, following the first manned flight of Shenzhou-5 in 2003, once again demonstrates that the Chinese people have the resolve, confidence and ability to climb up scientific heights one after another.

Shenzhou-6 spacecraft landed safely in north China's Inner Mongolian grasslands early Monday morning after a five-day flight with two astronauts on board.

According to the editorial, the successful mission of Shenzhou-6 mission represents a significant progress in China's space exploration and a great milestone in hi-tech development.

Under generations of the Chinese government and Communist Party leadership, china's manned space program has made great breakthrough in "greatly promoting China's economic, scientific, national defense strength and national cohesiveness".

It stressed that China carries out space-based scientific and technological experiments out of purely peaceful purposes and such experiments are contributions to human science and peace cause.

"China is ready to work together with the world to make peaceful use of space resources and will as always stick to the right direction of peaceful tapping of the outer space," the editorial said. (Xinhua)

A left-of-centre coalition took power as Norway’s first majority government in 20 years on Monday, aiming to ensure jobs for all, raise welfare spending and ease social inequality.

New Prime Minister and leader of the Labour party, Jens Stoltenberg, 46, presented a 19-strong cabinet, which includes nine women, to King Harald.

The New Norwegian Foreign Minister is Jonas Gahr Støre, 45, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Red Cross and a close confidante of Mr. Stoltenberg.

Erik Solheim, 50, the Special Envoy to Sri Lanka is the new Development Minister.

Mr. Solheim belongs to the Socialist Left Party (SV), the second largest party in the new coalition. He served as the leader of SV between 1987-1997.

The new Norwegian Foreign Minister, Mr. Støre, has served under four Norwegian Prime Ministers including Kjell Magne Bondevik, under whom Oslo’s initiative in Sri Lanka began.

Mr. Støre has also served as the Director of World Health Organisation (WHO) prior to his assignment in the Norwegian Red Cross in 2003.

The government is the first with a majority in Norway’s parliament since a Conservative-led coalition from 1983-85. All governments since have been fragile minority coalitions. And it is the first coalition to include the Labour party since just after World War Two.

Hopes for Iraq’s new constitution rose this week as last minute talks between the country’s main groups produced changes that increased chances of Sunni support in an imminent referendum.

Iraqi leaders reached a breakthrough deal on last minute changes in the constitution Tuesday, and at least one Sunni Arab party said it would reverse its rejection of the document and urge its supporters to approve it in next weekend’s referendum, AP reported.

The constitution was meant to unite postwar Iraq, but the referendum could bring outright civil war closer if Sunni Arabs are left feeling alienated and disenfranchised.

The Sunni insurgency has escalated its attacks in the run up to the referendum, killing hundreds in suicide bombings that many believe are intended to trigger sectarian conflict. Scores have died this week.

A rash of abductions and killings of Sunnis and Shiites by gunmen believed to be from the other community have also been reported.

The deal this week boosts the chances for a constitution that Shiite and Kurdish leaders support and the United States has been eager to see approved in Saturday’s vote to avert months more of political turmoil, delaying plans to start a withdrawal of US forces.

US officials have pushed the three days of negotiations between Shiite and Kurdish leaders in the government and Sunni Arab officials, that concluded with marathon talks at the house of President Jalal Talabani late Tuesday.

The sides agreed to a measure stating that if the draft constitution is passed, the next parliament will be able to consider amendments to it that would then be put to a new referendum next year, AP quoted Shiite and Sunni officials as saying.

There was no agreement, however, about precisely how the constitution might be amended, leaving the Sunni minority still at risk of being disappointed in next year’s negotiations, Reuters reported.

However a top Sunni negotiator, Ayad al-Samarraie of the Iraqi Islamic Party, said that if the current parliament approves the measure, “we will stop the campaign rejecting the constitution and we will call on Sunni Arabs to vote yes.”

Some other major Sunni parties were not present at the negotiations and it was not clear if they too would be willing to reverse their “no” campaigns.

But the announcement was the first break in the ranks of Sunni Arab leaders, who have been campaigning hard to defeat the constitution at the polls.

The central addition allows the next parliament, which will be formed in Dec. 15 elections, to form a commission that will have four months to consider changes to the constitution. The changes would be approved by the entire parliament, then a referendum would be held two months later.

Sunni Arabs are hoping to have a stronger representation in the next parliament and want to make major amendments to the constitution, particularly to water down the provisions for federalism, which Shiites and Kurds strongly support.

Iraqi officials expect Sunnis, who boycotted a January election that then sapped their power to influence negotiations on the constitution in parliament, to take part in large numbers in the election expected on December 15.

The other additions to the constitution include a statement stressing Iraqi unity and another states that the Arabic language should be used in the Kurdistan region, along with Kurdish - issues important to the Sunni Arabs.

Iraqi officials preparing for the vote announced that the first ballots in the referendum would be cast on Thursday as early polling is permitted at hospitals and detention centers.

While Sunnis are a majority in at least three provinces, they are not expected to be able to raise enough votes to defeat the charter. If they fail to do so, that may end up fuelling the insurgency raging across the country for more than two years.