Fatah showing early victories
Bethlehem, West Bank Palestinians voted for local councils in 84 towns and villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza Thursday, and early returns showed the ruling Fatah might have overcome its corruption-tainted image to win some victories.
The local voting could indicate trends in advance of July parliamentary elections. Fatah, headed by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, has been expected to take a beating at the hands of the Islamic Hamas, which is running candidates for the first time.
But partial and unofficial results from the local voting gave Fatah some reason for optimism. An election official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that with 60 percent counted, Fatah candidates had 60 percent of the votes. A Hamas official said it was too early to call the elections. Results are expected Sunday.
Bush Baltic remarks upset Russians
Washington The White House on Thursday sought to calm Russian anger over the U.S. call for Moscow to renounce the Soviet Union’s 1940 annexation of Baltic states, even as President Bush promised to raise the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Soviet occupation of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia beginning during World War II has come to the fore ahead of Bush’s trip to Moscow for ceremonies celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe.
But for many in Central and Eastern Europe, the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 was not entirely a cause for celebration. So Bush is offering a public show of sympathy for the “very difficult period” the ceremonies recall. The president is making the spread of democracy the theme of a four-nation European trip that includes meetings with the leaders of the three Baltic states.
Poisons, explosives recovered in Moscow
Moscow Authorities have recovered a cache of poisons and a truck loaded with explosives they believe were intended to mount terrorist attacks during a visit here this weekend by President Bush and more than 50 other world leaders, police said Thursday.
Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for Russia’s regional counterterrorism headquarters in the North Caucasus, said the amount of liquid cyanide and another still-unidentified poison recovered during a law enforcement operation earlier this week near the border of Chechnya was sufficient to kill 3,000 to 4,000 people.
“The use of these strong-acting poisons in small doses in highly populated areas, key installations and in reservoirs could have caused a large numbers of victims,” said a statement by the Federal Security Service.
Authorities also said they seized a large truck Thursday near the Chechen capital of Grozny filled with about 2,600 pounds of explosives and detained two people.
Japanese birthrate continues to decline
Tokyo The number of Japanese children under 15 years old hit a post-World War II low this year as the nation’s birthrate continues to decline, the government said Wednesday.
As of April 1, the number of children in that age group was 17.65 million, 150,000 fewer than a year earlier, the Internal Affairs Ministry said in its annual survey. It was the 24th straight year of decline in the nation’s child population.
The ratio of children under 15 Japan’s total population of 127 million also fell to a low of 13.8 percent, down 1 percentage point from a year earlier, the ministry said in a report.
Japan’s falling birthrate is a national concern and it now stands at a record low of 1.29 births per woman. Officials say leading factors for the decline include improved career opportunities for women and married couples delaying having children. By contrast, the U.S. birthrate is 2.13 births per woman.