The world in brief

Vote tally finished; Karzai is elected

KABUL, Afghanistan - More than two weeks after Afghanistan's first presidential election, vote counting wrapped up Tuesday and interim leader Hamid Karzai emerged with a resounding victory.

With his inauguration to a five-year term a month away, the U.S.-backed Karzai already is under pressure to ditch his coalition with powerful warlords and tackle a booming narcotics industry that has become a major economic force in one of the world's poorest nations.

Officials declared the vote count complete Tuesday afternoon, giving some 1,500 weary staff at eight counting centers a well-earned rest in the middle of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Investigators were still examining about 100 suspect ballot boxes, but the election's chief technical officer, David Avery, said the count was effectively "over and done."

HAVANA - Cuba launched a two-week process Tuesday to eliminate the U.S. dollar from circulation in its stores and businesses.

A local currency known as the convertible Cuban peso will be the only money accepted at most businesses across the island of 11.2-million people beginning Nov. 8, President Fidel Castro announced Monday.

Castro is forcing Cubans in the United States to convert their dollars to euros or other foreign currencies before remitting them to relatives on the island. Beyond that, Cuban recipients of the foreign exchange will now have to re-exchange them for convertible pesos before using them on the local market.

Since the American dollar was legalized in Cuba in 1993, Cubans had used the U.S. currency to buy everything from refrigerators to daily necessities such as soap, cooking oil and other items not provided in monthly government rations. Probably half of all Cubans have access to U.S. dollars, mostly in remittances from relatives abroad.

GONAIVES, Haiti - A rebel leader said Tuesday that Haiti's U.S.-backed interim government must meet demands to rebuild the devastated city of Gonaives or face a revolt like that which drove out President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Rebel leader Winter Etienne also told the Associated Press that his men would try to help end turmoil by rooting out bandits who have hampered aid getting to the city, but said the government must start rebuilding.

Tropical Storm Jeanne killed some 1,900 people, left 900 missing and presumed dead, and 200,000 homeless in Haiti's third-largest city of Gonaives.

Etienne made a long list of demands, including the construction of up to 200,000 homes, rebuilding roads, rehabilitating blocked canals filled with contaminated water and sewage and giving each student $55 for uniforms, shoes and school fees.

VIENNA - European negotiators resume talks with Iran today on a last-chance offer of incentives aimed at getting the Tehran regime to stop enriching uranium and avoid the threat of possible U.N. sanctions.

The new round of talks comes as Iran hints it may voluntarily suspend some unspecified nuclear activities in an attempt to reach a compromise with the Europeans.

Britain, France and Germany have offered Iran a trade deal and peaceful nuclear technology - including a light-water research reactor - in return for assurances that the country will stop uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for both nuclear energy and atomic weaponry.

Diplomats called the package a "last chance" offer to Iran ahead of a key Nov. 25 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

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