Preval may win without runoff

Rene Preval took a strong lead Thursday in Haiti’s presidential election, with most of the first votes counted going to the former president who is seen as a champion of the poor.

Preval, the former protégé of deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, won 61.5 percent of 282,327 votes counted, Haiti’s electoral council said. The council said of the next two highest vote-getters, Leslie Manigat had 13.4 percent and Charles Henri Baker had 6.1 percent.

Election authorities said it might be Saturday until enough ballots are counted to draw conclusions about the race.

Manigat, however, said early returns tallied by his party members showed Preval might win a majority of votes that would give him outright victory. If the winning candidate lacks a majority of votes, he and the second-place finisher would go against each other in a March runoff.

Beirut, Lebanon

Protests over cartoons subside

Many Arab governments, Muslim religious leaders and newspapers have been calling for calm in the protests over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, fearing the violence of the past weeks has only reinforced Islam’s negative image in the West.

No major demonstrations took place in Middle East and North African cities Thursday, suggesting the fervor was easing. But it wasn’t clear whether the calm would last. A test may come after weekly Muslim prayers today, when at least one large protest is planned, in Morocco.

Kabul, Afghanistan

Sectarian violence leaves 34 dead

At least 34 people were killed and more than 130 injured Thursday in Afghanistan and Pakistan in sectarian violence that coincided with a Muslim holy day especially revered among Shiites.

In Iraq, the observance of the Ashura holiday was made remarkable by the absence of violence for the first time since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

The day’s deadliest attacks occurred in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier province, where hundreds of Shiites in the town of Hangu had turned out to participate in a procession marking Ashura, which commemorates the martyrdom in 680 of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

Before sermons by local clerics could begin, police said, at least one suicide bomber, who may have been disguised as a mourner, detonated himself. The blast killed at least 27 people and wounded approximately 30.