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After defeat, German leader plans early election

By wire services
Published May 23, 2005

BERLIN - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called Sunday for early elections this fall - a year ahead of time - after his party suffered a crushing defeat in Germany's most populous region, saying he lost the mandate he needs to fix the country's struggling economy.

A somber Schroeder made the announcement after his Social Democrats did far worse than expected in local elections in their former stronghold of North Rhine-Westphalia, which they had governed since 1966. Schroeder became the first incumbent chancellor in postwar Germany to propose early elections.

Early elections would cut short by a year the second term he narrowly won in 2002, helped by his opposition to the American-led war in Iraq. Schroeder became chancellor in 1998 by ousting long-serving conservative Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

MONGOLIA: A candidate from Mongolia's former Communist Party, Nambariin Enkhbayar, won the presidency, government radio reported early today, in an election that drew nomadic herders who arrived on horses at polling stations on the country's vast steppe. The Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, the former Communist Party, was voted out in 1996 but elected in 2000, and now appears to be riding new popularity.

KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. airstrikes and ground troops killed 12 insurgents who had attacked a coalition patrol in eastern Afghanistan's border region in the latest wave of fighting with Taliban-led rebels, the U.S. military said Sunday.

The United Nations called for Afghan human rights investigators to be allowed into Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, after the New York Times reported that poorly trained U.S. soldiers had repeatedly abused prisoners.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, on the eve of his meeting today with President Bush in Washington, said he was angry about the reported abuse and called for more Afghan control over the operations of the 16,700 U.S. troops in his country as well as punishment for any U.S. soldiers who mistreat prisoners.

Karzai also sharply rejected reported U.S. claims that he had not worked strongly enough to curtail production of opium, the raw material for heroin.

MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox on Sunday defended his commitment to minorities and human rights on a U.S. radio program, in his first public response to his controversial comment that Mexicans take the U.S. jobs that "not even" blacks want.

U.S. civil rights activist Jesse Jackson pressed the Mexican president for an apology for the remark that has strained already tense relations between U.S. blacks and Hispanics, during an interview on a Chicago gospel station.

"I very much regret the misinterpretation," said Fox, touting laws created under his administration that outlaw discrimination and protect minorities.

CAIRO - Egyptian authorities arrested the fourth-highest official in the powerful Muslim Brotherhood early Sunday, one of 25 members of the outlawed movement detained in a crackdown ahead of a referendum on presidential election rules the group opposes.

Mahmoud Ezzat, secretary-general of the Islamist group and head of its Cairo operations, is the highest-profile Brotherhood arrest since 1996, the Associated Press reported, quoting a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

INDIA BLASTS: Bombs exploded inside two movie theaters showing a controversial Hindi-language film in New Delhi on Sunday, killing at least one person and injuring dozens, officials said. At the time of the explosions, both theaters were showing the movie Jo Bole So Nihal, a Hindi-language film condemned by Sikh religious leaders for denigrating their faith by depicting a Sikh character being chased by scantily clad women.

[Last modified May 23, 2005, 01:24:11]