Iraq
Aide to Grand Ayatollah Sistani says new Iraqi government is sub-standard
An aide to Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric slammed the country’s political blocs on Friday for forming a government that is “not up to the required standards.”
Sheikh Abdel-Mahdi al-Karbalaei, a confidant of influential Shiite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said that the new cabinet is “below the standards” Iraqi citizens had hoped for and suggested it could prove to  be weaker than the previous government.
“We do not want to leave the people in a state of frustration, but we are concerned that such standards will have negative effects on the ministries’ performance,” al-Karbalaei told thousands of peopel attending a Friday sermon in Imam Hussein mosque in Karbala.
