Iraqi leaders must break deadlock on government, Rice says

Warren P. Strobel and Nancy… Iraqi leaders must break deadlock on government, Rice says

Warren P. Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef, Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Iraq Sunday and bluntly warned its bickering political leaders they must form a national government or risk losing the backing of the international community.

Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who accompanied her, were trying to break a 3 1/2-month political deadlock that has worsened the country’s slide into sectarian violence.

After spending the day huddled with Iraqi politicians, Rice said she told them the deadlock must end and that the country’s tenuous democracy might not survive another crisis like the bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra in February, which touched off a round of ethnic and religious killings.

“The Iraqi people are losing patience,” Rice said she told Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders. “Your international allies want to see this get done because you can’t continue to leave a political vacuum.”

Transgender candidate challenging Missouri Republican

Eun Kyung Kim, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Hours before the start of the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, Midge Potts wore only a form-fitting corduroy jacket against blustery winds and temperatures hovering in the mid-40s. The coat was hot pink, like her jeans, her boots and the pair of ponytails in her hair. Her only green was the carnation in her lapel.

Potts is running for Congress. Downtown, in Park Central Square, she felt a bit self-conscious as she approached people with copies of her campaign literature. She said she was never sure when strangers would react to her with hostility. But she was pleased at how receptive the crowd here was. So far, she’s heard only a few derogatory comments.

“I know other people get offended when that happens, but I’m not offended,” she said. “I’m like, ‘Oh, whew. Thanks for not kicking my butt.'”

What Potts is referring to are the people who react coarsely to the fact that, until a little more than two years ago, she was known by her legal name, Mitchell. Whereas Potts was born a man, she now lives her life as a woman.

Potts, the state’s first openly transgender candidate, is one of the Republican challengers to incumbent Roy Blunt in Missouri’s 7th Congressional District race.

“Part of my reason for running is, not so much to make transgender or gay issues the centerpiece of my campaign, but to show that we are all Americans and that anybody can run for any office,” Potts said. “America was built out of diversity, and people need to stop being afraid and feel like we have to limit ourselves based on our gender or color or gender preference.”

Although Potts considers herself an independent, she says she is running as a Republican because she believes in the party’s traditional platform of financial conservatism, states’ rights and a strong national defense. She is pushing for term limits, debt reduction and building up the National Guard.

She also wants an end to U.S. involvement in Iraq. Potts was arrested twice last year at war protests, one on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court and the other in front of the White House with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan.

Model community points way to peace

Mike Kelly, The Record (Hackensack N.J.)

NEVE SHALOM, Israel — The voting station looked like hundreds of other polling places, from the Galilee hills to the Negev desert. There was an Israeli flag, a blue ballot box and a team of election officials.

But Election Day in this tiny Israeli town midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv was significantly different from what it was in the rest of the nation: Jews and Arabs voted together.

There were many places in Israel to measure the emotional significance of last Tuesday’s pivotal Knesset elections. But one of the most unusual was this model community on a lush hillside where the coastal plain rises into the Jerusalem hills.

Here, Jews and Arab citizens of Israel not only live in the same town, they are allowed to move in only if they promise to participate in programs aimed at finding common ground and working out their differences.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Neve Shalom — Hebrew for “Oasis of Peace” — did not support the victorious Kadima Party, which is trumpeting a plan to set up a security border to separate the Palestinian-dominated West Bank from the Jewish homeland.

“We tend to go for liberals, even communists,” Rita Boulos, a Palestinian Christian, said after dropping her ballot into a box at the town’s community center.

“We are trying to live together,” she added. “We don’t always succeed. You don’t have to be in love with everyone here. You just have to understand and respect them.”

Founded in the 1970s by a Roman Catholic Dominican brother, the town’s charter calls for equal numbers of Jewish and Arab residents. It now has about 25 families from each group, with Arab families almost evenly divided between Christian and Muslim. In keeping with the inclusive attitude, many residents not only recite the town’s Hebrew name when saying where they live, but go out of their way to include an Arabic translation as well — Wahat al-Salam.

On road signs, however, Israel’s government just sticks with the Hebrew name. Indeed, the town’s mayor said no Israeli prime minister has ever visited his community, even though it has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and praised by such luminaries as Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.