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Karzai victory is certified in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai was formally announced the winner of the Oct. 9 presidential election by Afghanistan's electoral board on Wednesday after an international panel announced that irregularities it had investigated were not significant enough to change the overall result.

"The Joint Electoral Management Board announces His Excellency Hamid Karzai the winner of the elections of 1383" - the Afghan year corresponding to 2004 - "as the first elected president of Afghanistan, and we sincerely congratulate him and wish him big success in his affairs," Zakim Shah, president of the election board, told journalists.

Karzai won 55.4 percent, easily passing the necessary 50 percent threshold, and 39 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival, former Education Minister Muhammad Yunus Qanooni, who won 16.3 percent.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The U.S. military trial of an Australian accused of fighting for Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime was delayed Wednesday to allow his lawyers more time to interview witnesses and review evidence.

Army Col. Peter E. Brownback, the presiding officer for the first U.S. military commissions to be held since World War II, granted the delay to allow for "full and fair" proceedings for David Hicks. His Jan. 10 trial was delayed until March 15.

UNITED NATIONS - The United States demanded Wednesday that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan explain why he overruled an internal finding that the world body's refugee chief sexually harassed a female employee.

The U.N. watchdog agency had found that refugee chief Ruud Lubbers, a former Dutch prime minister, harassed the 51-year-old American woman last year. It recommended "appropriate action" be taken.

But after reviewing the evidence, Annan concluded that the allegations did not hold up and said Lubbers would not be punished.

TAIPEI, Taiwan - A lion mauled a man who jumped into its cage Wednesday at a zoo in Taiwan's capital, yelling religious slogans.

Cable TV stations captured the attack in which the man apparently escaped without being seriously injured.

The man, identified only by the last name Chen, then calmly stood with his arms outstretched in front of the animal. A second lion in the cage did not join in the attack.

Witness Hsu Li-jen told cable station CTI that the man shouted, "Jesus will save you!" at the animals.

Guards drove the lions away with water hoses, and police shot the animals with tranquilizer darts. The man then climbed out of the pen himself. He was taken to the hospital for tests.