Some want Iraqi Christian region as haven from violence; others want more visas

"Expatriate Iraqi Christians living in the United States disagree about how best to help their families in the Middle East, where they live under constant threat of sectarian violence.
. . . Some would like to see visa restrictions relaxed so their relatives can join them. Others hope for the creation of an independent administrative zone in the northern Nineveh area, the ancestral homeland of Iraq's Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians.
"As a people, we survived the Mongols, the Turks and the Arabs," said John Michael, a Chicago ophthalmologist whose cousins recently left for Syria.
. . . Christians have been targeted by militias for murder and kidnapping.
. . . About 40 percent of [about 3,000 people leaving daily] . . . are Christian, according to estimates from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Christians account for just 3 percent of Iraq's 26 million people.
. . . One Washington group, the Iraq Sustainable Democracy Project, is using the crisis to revive a proposal for creating an autonomous zone for Christians in the Nineveh plain, near Mosul, like that of the Kurds _ a dream long held by ethnic Chaldean and Assyrian politicians."

source
The Associated Press. U.S. Iraqi Christians Seek Help. December 15, 2006.

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A history of Iraq

posted: monday, december 18, 2006, 1:53 AM ET

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Ban Ki Moon sworn in as new U.N. secretary general

"South Korean diplomat Ban Ki Moon was sworn in Thursday as the United Nations' eighth secretary general in a ritualistic General Assembly ceremony as the United States and other countries praised Kofi Annan's 10-year stewardship of the world's premier political institution.
Ban, 62, said his priority when he takes office Jan. 1 is to restore public confidence and civility to a body that has been buffeted by corruption and sexual misconduct scandals, and has been riven by feuding over its future between its weakest and most powerful countries.
"You could say that I'm a man on a mission, and my mission could be dubbed Operation Restore Trust: trust in the organization and trust between member states and the secretariat," Ban said at a news conference after the ceremony. "I hope this mission is not mission impossible."
Ban's remarks constituted an implicit rebuke of Annan, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate whose legacy was tarnished by his mismanagement of the agency's $64 billion oil-for-food program in Iraq.
. . . He urged the international community to support Iraq's political transition, citing the 'inability' of Iraqi authorities and the U.S.-led multinational force to 'secure peace and security.' "

source
The Washington Post. Incoming U.N. Chief Ban Pledges to Restore Trust. December 15, 2006.

posting: sunday, december 17, 2006, 2:27 PM ET

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