HARARE, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe's political party clinched a parliamentary majority Friday, but the opposition said the vote was stolen and urged Zimbabweans to protest the outcome.
Mugabe, one of Africa's longest-serving leaders and the last on the continent who has ruled his country since the departure of a colonial power, had hoped Thursday's poll would give a stamp of legitimacy to his increasingly isolated and autocratic regime. But Western diplomats and independent rights groups said it was skewed by Mugabe's long history of violence.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the election was neither free nor fair, saying the "playing field was heavily tilted in the government's favor."
Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front won 69 of Parliament's 120 elected seats, compared with 35 for the main opposition and one to an independent candidate, according to partial results announced Friday.
Local and international rights groups, the United States and the European Union said five years of brutality had tilted the electoral playing field in favor of Mugabe's party.
Mugabe said the accusations were "nonsense," saying Thursday that no other country had polls as free as this one.
Brazilian police may have killed 30 as reprisal
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - At least 30 people were killed in drive-by shootings in two working-class suburbs late Thursday night and early Friday, in what the local authorities described as perhaps the worst bloodbath in the history of the often-violent metropolis.
At a news conference Friday, the secretary of public security for the state of Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Itagiba, suggested the shooters were military police officers angered by a recent campaign to crack down on police violence and corruption. Arrests of rogue officers may have incited others to take reprisals against the civilian population they are supposed to defend, he said.
"We have an operation to weed out bad cops," Itagiba said. "If this was the police, they will be the first ones to be exposed and unmasked, because they are not police officers, they are beasts."
Jordan expects Israel to release prisoners
AMMAN, Jordan - Jordan's Foreign Ministry said Friday that Israel will release several Jordanian prisoners detained in Israeli prisons next week.
Jordanian officials have said more than 20 prisoners are in line to be released by Israel. Officials at Israel's Foreign Ministry and embassy in Jordan did not confirm the claims, but Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesman Rajab al-Sukayri said his government had been notified by Israel of imminent releases.
Also Friday, members and supporters of the militant Islamic Hamas group demonstrated in central Gaza against a planned rally at a disputed Jerusalem holy site by Israeli opponents of the planned Gaza Strip evacuation.
Jerusalem police Chief Ilan Franco has said he would block the April 10 rally at the site, known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Muslims as Haram as-Sharif, because the protesters posed a security risk.
American, 6 others hurt in Lebanon bombing
BEIRUT, Lebanon - A bomb damaged a shopping center in a Christian area northeast of Beirut Friday, the fourth attack against an anti-Syrian target in two weeks. The blast lightly injured seven people, one of them an American, police said. The explosion was at a posh complex in the resort town of Broummana, 10 miles northeast of the Lebanese capital.
Bodies recovered from Albania plane wreck
TIRANA, Albania - Search teams recovered the bodies Friday of nine Americans killed when a U.S. military aircraft crashed in mountainous southern Albania during a joint exercise, Albanian military authorities said.
The C-130 airplane crashed Thursday night in the Drizez Mountains, 60 miles southeast of the Balkan country's capital. No one on board survived.
The U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, said the cause was being investigated.
Political prisoner to run for Kyrgyz presidency
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - An opposition figure jailed by ousted President Askar Akayev said Friday he would run for Kyrgyzstan's presidency.
Felix Kulov, who was released from prison last week, was widely seen as a political prisoner and is among the best-known opponents of Akayev. He said he expects to be cleared soon of the charges against him, allowing him to enter the June 26 presidential race.
Acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev also has announced plans to run.
Kulov said Akayev remains the legitimate president, which could call the vote into question unless he returns to Kyrgyzstan to resign. Bakiyev, however, has warned Akayev not to return from Russia, where he sought refuge, and said his security cannot be guaranteed.
Earthquake aid for Indonesia shifts to relief
GUNUNG SITOLI, Indonesia - The focus of international aid on earthquake-devastated Nias Island shifted Friday from rescue to relief.
A total of 455 people - 424 on the island and 31 in Aceh province - were confirmed dead from Monday night's 8.7-magnitude earthquake. The government said the final death toll will be about 500, lowering earlier estimates of 2,000.
Olaf Lingjerde, a U.N. official, said there was little hope anyone else would be found alive.
