Voters in divided Sudan go to polls despite continuing controversy

Word from Sudan is that voters are jamming polling places in the country's first multiparty election in 24 years in the face of an unsettled political situation, calls for boycotts and allegations of fraud. The landmark election implements another requirement of a 2005 agreement that ended, at least temporarily, a decades-long civil war but left the oil-rich country divided between the government-controlled Muslim north and the Christian- and Animist-controlled south. The election is a prelude to the unification vote planned for 2011, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Voting continues through Tuesday. Reports of irregularities poured in from all over the country, despite the presence of 750 international monitors, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and 18,000 Sudanese monitors, CNN said. But some problems were expected "in a country that hasn't had an election in 23 years or so," Carter said. "Most of the problems I saw this morning were logistical in nature and have already been corrected, at least around Khartoum," he said. But he said some problems were expected "in a country that hasn't had an election in 23 years or so." Many reports of irregularities were coming from the south, the stronghold of the opposition Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement. In fact, complaints about fraud by the ruling National Congress Party caused the withdrawal of its candidate from the presidential race against President Omar al-Bashir, who took power in a 1989 military coup and implemented Islamic law, CNN said. In Juba, Southern Sudan's president, Salva Kiir, called the balloting a significant milestone for the country and said he had voted for the first time in his life. SPLM spokesman Yein Matthew told CNN that it was documenting incidents in the region and would present a list of them on Monday. "There are so many, and we are still tracking them down," Matthew said. More than 2 million people died in the civil war, not including the conflict in the western Sudan region of Darfur. That conflict, which received broad international media coverage, was between the government militias and ethnic rebels and resulted in genocide charges being filed against al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, CNN said. Al-Bashir denies the charges.

Isn't it time to get tough with Iran?

Does the United States really think additional economic sanctions will force Iran to come to the conclusion that its future depends on peaceful relations with Western nations? That years of international economic pressure -- which so far have only made Tehran more belligerent -- can be raised to a level that Iran cannot continue to ignore with impunity? Just hearing the words out loud makes it easy to see how preposterous that is. Yet Washington is at it again, trying to convince reluctant allies that depend on Iran for oil to power their economies to comply with stricter economic sanctions. "We have already begun discussions with our partners and with like-minded nations about pressure and sanctions," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters Monday at a news conference in Washington, according to the Reuters international news service. "Our goal is to pressure the Iranian government, particularly the Revolutionary Guard elements, without contributing to the suffering of the ordinary (people), who deserve better than what they currently are receiving." If this sounds familiar, it should. Every president since Jimmy Carter has tried some measure of the same tactic to influence Tehran but has failed. There is no reason to think the strategy will succeed this time. Look at the way Iran's government is trying to repress the reform movement -- arrests and mistreatment of detainees. If this also sounds familiar, it should. But making things a little more difficult for Iran will not be good enough -- things have to be a lot more difficult before Tehran will be forced to care. Iran has obviously realized that despite all the rhetoric, Western nations do not actually want to cut their crippling dependence on oil from the Middle East -- even though that has always been the only way to get Tehran to take notice.