This week, Mr. Ashcroft said, he had ordered monitors to observe an election in St . Louis
Mr. Arafat said today that the situation remained very difficult for Palestinians, and he asked Mr. Annan to send in international monitors to observe the cease-fire.
Most notable among them was the Carter Center, which has sent monitors to observe the Egyptian presidential election.
He was referring to a decision last week to scale back the size of the protection force being formed to accompany 550 military monitors to observe the withdrawal of foreign troops.
But in studying the agents -- a suggestion from her husband -- "we are able to use ambulatory blood pressure monitors to observe the effects of real-life conflicts under relatively consistent circumstances," she said.
This time, the government was keen to ease those resentments, and it allowed international monitors to observe an election for the first time.
The senators proposed that Field Marshal Tantawi allow international monitors to observe Egypt's parliamentary and presidential elections, which are scheduled for this fall.
But at the State Department, Mr. Boucher took some pains to note that, with expectations nonexistent, neither the United States nor the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was bothering to send monitors to observe the Sunday referendum that is expected to extend the term of Mr. Karimov.
For the vote to have any hope of legitimacy, Mr. Musharraf must now release jailed democratic activists and lawyers, lift press restrictions, allow international monitors to observe the polling, and permit Nawaz Sharif, now the country's most prominent opposition leader, to stand for election.
