Preval claims lead in Haiti’s election
A spokesman for former Haitian President Rene Preval said Wednesday that unconfirmed early results showed him with a wide lead in the country’s presidential race – even though many ballots were still being carried in from remote polling places.
The claim from Preval’s team could not be verified, and the first official results were not expected to be released until today, said Jacques Bernard, director general of Haiti’s electoral council. Final results could come on Friday or Saturday.
Tuesday’s elections were the first since the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in a bloody revolt two years ago. Officials said tabulating the results would take several days.
But some polling stations posted unconfirmed local results outside. These showed strong early support for Preval, a shy and soft-spoken 63-year-old agronomist widely supported by Haiti’s poor masses.
San Juan, Puerto Rico
4 still protesting at Guantanamo
Four detainees remain on hunger strike at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, the fewest since the protest began last summer, the military said Wednesday.
Three are being force-fed with nasal tubes, said Lt. Col. Jeremy Martin, a spokesman for the detention center at a U.S. base in eastern Cuba.
All four are in stable condition, according to Martin, who did not speculate about why detainees dropped out of the protest.
“We haven’t changed anything. Our processes and procedures are the same,” he said. “But the numbers have fluctuated.”
Katmandu, Nepal
Threats limit turnout in Nepal
Rebel attacks, soldiers shooting protesters and low turnout tainted Nepal’s first election in seven years Wednesday, dealing a blow to the king who seized power a year ago.
Six people were killed in violence Wednesday when Nepal held municipal elections that the United States has called a “hollow attempt” by King Gyanendra to legitimize his power. One of the dead was a protester shot by soldiers.
Voters trickled into schools, Buddhist shrines and Hindu temples to cast ballots in the municipal election. But many people said they were scared away by a rebel threat to kill anyone who took part and a government warning it would shoot anyone caught disrupting the polls.
Chief Election Commissioner Keshav Raj Rajbhandari said a preliminary estimate put turnout at more than 20 percent. Electoral officials said that they planned to release some results today.
Cairo, Egypt
Ferry rescue took 12 hours
It took about 12 hours for a rescue vessel to reach the first group of survivors from the Red Sea ferry disaster, officials said Wednesday, raising further questions on the handling of the sinking.
The revelation from Transport Minister Mohammed Mansour into the accident that claimed some 1,000 lives followed word that the ferry’s owner didn’t notify authorities until hours after the ship was lost.
The Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98 sank around 2 a.m. Friday after a fire broke out in a vehicle in its parking bay early in its journey from the Saudi port of Dubah to the Egyptian port of Safaga. It went down about 60 miles off the Egyptian coast.
Mansour told reporters Wednesday that “efforts to rescue people started at afternoon, about 2 p.m. or 3 p.m.”
The first vessel to pick up survivors was the Elnora, a ship owned by the same company that owned the Al-Salaam 98. It rescued about 125 passengers.