Word: ghosts
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...Fathi, U.S. program director at Human Rights Watch in Washington, urges caution in the rush of states moving into the business of transporting prisoners. "There's a risk that conditions will deteriorate as corners are cut to make more money," he says. (See TIME's graphic "Detroit: Now a Ghost Town...
...Ghost Vote Afghans perpetrated the fraud, and they are, of course, ultimately responsible for the consequences. They include the local election staff, government officials and local warlords and power brokers. Afghanistan's Independent Elections Commission (IEC), a seven-member board appointed by Karzai to supervise the elections, was anything but independent. Its head met weekly with Karzai (but not with the other candidates), and the commission consistently made decisions that benefited the Karzai campaign. (See more pictures from Afghanistan's presidential election...
Along with ambassadors from the U.S., NATO, the E.U. and the U.K., I urged the election commissioners and the Afghan Ministers of Defense and Interior to close down these ghost polling centers. Serving a President who was to benefit from the fraud, the Afghan ministers complained about my approach to my boss, Eide, and he ordered me to stop. On election day, these ghost polling centers produced hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes for Karzai. (After controversy erupted over my dismissal, the U.N. told some reporters that I wanted to disenfranchise voters by closing polling centers; this was absurd...
There is no easy solution to Afghanistan's election mess. If the ECC removes enough fraudulent votes, Karzai will fall below 50%, and there will be a second round of voting. However, the factors that caused problems on Aug. 20 - ghost polling stations, corrupt election staff and a partisan commission - are still present. Dealing with those factors will require leadership that the head of the U.N. mission has yet to demonstrate. If Karzai emerges the winner of the rushed and incomplete audit process now under way, Afghanistan's internal peace will depend on Karzai's opponents accepting - or at least...
...mall; and an 18-hole golf course (unfinished) in the middle of the desert that will slurp down a million gallons of water a day. But the dozens of giant cranes that once littered the skyline have migrated elsewhere. Dubai today has the feel of a futuristic, five-star ghost town blasted by sandstorms...