Arias has slim lead in Costa Rica race

A Nobel Peace Prize winner who supports a free-trade agreement with the United States held a narrow lead in early results in Costa Rica’s presidential election on Sunday. He faced an unexpectedly strong rival who says the pact would hurt farmers.

Turnout was 66 percent, a historic low for Costa Rica that apparently stemmed from indifference following scandals involving three former presidents.

Oscar Arias, who won the 1987 peace prize for working to end Central American civil wars during an earlier term as president, had been expected to win easily, according to pre-election polls. But with 27 percent of the vote counted, Costa Rica’s election tribunal gave him 41.4 percent to 40.1 percent for Otton Solis, his nearest rival.

The winner needs at least 40 percent of the votes to win outright and avoid an April runoff.

SEOUL, South Korea

Scientist may have misspent funds

Hwang Woo-suk, the disgraced South Korean cloning scientist accused of faking his research results, may also have misspent government funds, South Korea’s state auditor said today.

The Board of Audit and Inspection said it would refer its findings from a three-week probe into Hwang’s use of government and private funds to prosecutors, who are conducting a broad investigation into the scandal.

Through last year, Hwang received $31.8 million in government funds for his research as well as $6.2 million from private donations, the board said. It was unable to account for $2.6 million of those funds. Separately, Hwang was also found to have personally received an additional $3.5 million in unaccounted for private donations, the auditor said.

Hwang, once hailed as a national hero and pioneer in the field of embryonic stem cells – which scientists hope will help treat diseases such as Alzheimer’s and diabetes – was found last month to have fabricated landmark papers published in the international journal Science, according to a Seoul National University investigation.

Vatican city

Pope urges respect for all life

In a strong condemnation of abortion, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday urged the faithful to develop a new respect for life even when it is “sick or damaged.”

Marking the Italian Catholic Church’s “Day for Life,” Benedict stressed the need to protect all human life.

“We know well that this truth risks being contradicted by the hedonism of the so-called well-off societies: Life is exalted as long as it’s pleasant, but one tends to not respect it any more when it is sick or damaged,” Benedict told pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday blessing.

The description “sick or damaged” life in the church’s teaching commonly refers to situations in which life is in particular need of being defended, including deformed fetuses, the severely disabled, terminally ill patients or people in vegetative states.

ANKARA, Turkey

Teen shoots priest at church in Turkey

A teenage boy shot and killed the Italian Roman Catholic priest of a church in the Black Sea port city of Trabzon on Sunday, shouting “God is great” as he escaped, police said.

Officers were searching for the boy aged around 14 or 15, according to a police official.

The official would not say if the attack might be linked to the printing in European newspapers of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, which has caused anger in Muslim countries.

The priest, 60-year-old Andrea Santoro, was shot hours after Mass at Santa Maria Church.

– Compiled from wire reports