Incumbent likely winner of election

Congo’s incumbent president has won a tense runoff, nearly complete election results showed Tuesday. He now has to make order out of the chaos that long has plagued a country bursting with natural resources and former warlords.

First, Joseph Kabila, 35, must placate rival Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel leader whose fighters have clashed with his in downtown Kinshasa twice over election results.

Bemba’s supporters issued a bellicose statement Tuesday saying their count gave Bemba a lead of more than 52 percent, which would mean he had won, and calling the official vote count an “electoral holdup.”

They threatened to tear up accords promising not to use military force to resolve disputes about the Oct. 29 runoff.

Kabila’s lead seemed insurmountable, with results from 90 percent of votes published on the election commission Web site giving him nearly 60 percent to Bemba’s 40 percent.

United Nations

U.N. to propose joint Darfur force

The United Nations said Tuesday it will propose a program to strengthen African peacekeeping efforts in conflict-wracked Darfur, culminating in a joint African Union-U.N. operation.

In an attempt to give new momentum to the stalled peace process in Darfur, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is convening a meeting Thursday in Ethiopia of senior officials from the African Union, the Arab League, Sudan, the European Union, the United States, China, Russia, France and half a dozen African countries.

A U.N. Security Council resolution has called for U.N. peacekeepers to take over for the 7,000 poorly equipped and underfunded AU peacekeepers in Darfur who have been unable to quell a war that has left more than 200,000 dead since 2003. But Sudan’s government has firmly opposed the takeover.

Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno outlined the new three-step proposal to the Security Council in a closed meeting.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Anne Frank house tree to be felled

The old chestnut tree visible from Anne Frank’s attic window that comforted the Jewish teenager as she hid during the Nazi occupation of Holland is rotten and must be cut down, the City Council said Tuesday.

The tree in the courtyard behind the canal-side warehouse where the Frank family took refuge for more than two years has been attacked by an aggressive fungus and a moth, called the horse chestnut leaf miner, the council said.

The tree’s condition has rapidly deteriorated in recent years, the city said. The inner wood is rotten, and the dying roots and bark are not regenerating. Experts estimate the tree’s age at 150-170 years.

The Anne Frank House Museum, where the tiny apartment has been preserved, said grafts and a sapling from the original chestnut have been taken and it hopes to replace the once-towering tree with its progeny.

“It’s very sad, but the decision has been taken,” said museum spokeswoman Patricia Bosboom.