Anti-Syrian candidates lose Lebanese vote
By wire services
Published June 13, 2005
ALEY, Lebanon - A popular former general emerged from exile to deliver a dramatic setback to powerful anti-Syrian groups Sunday in the most crucial stage of the Lebanese multipart parliamentary elections.
Early returns indicated that Christian leader Michel Aoun and his allies had won at least 15 of 35 seats being contested in the Christian heartland, and later results were expected to show he had won additional seats.
Meanwhile, in the eastern Bekaa Valley, the pro-Syrian militant group Hezbollah and its allies picked up at least 10 seats, thanks to an alliance with Christian and Druze candidates.
Fifty-eight seats in the 128-seat legislature were up for grabs Sunday. Forty-two seats were selected in the previous two rounds of voting. The final stage of the staggered elections takes place next Sunday in northern Lebanon.
Aoun, for years the most vocal critic of Syrian interference in Lebanon, returned last month after 15 years of Syria-imposed exile. Uncompromising in his search for running mates, the general was eventually shunned by other Christian leaders, and his movement joined tickets led by candidates with very close ties to Damascus.
As many as 54 percent of voters turned out in the Christian-dominated Mount Lebanon province, the country's most populous, according to Lebanese interior ministry figures released late Sunday.
Turnout also was high in the heavily Shiite Muslim section of Haret Hreik.
Kuwait appoints first female Cabinet memberKUWAIT CITY - An American-educated professor and women's rights activist was named Kuwait's first female Cabinet minister Sunday, a month after lawmakers in this oil-rich nation granted women the right to vote and run for Parliament.
Massouma al-Mubarak was given the planning and administrative development portfolios, Prime Minister Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah told the Kuwait News Agency.
"This honor is not bestowed on my person but on every woman who fought to prove that Kuwaiti women are capable," Mubarak, 54, told the Associated Press.
The appointment needs to be approved by the ruler, Sheik Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah, and issued in a decree. The final steps are procedural; the emir has been a strong proponent of women's rights.
Mubarak holds a doctorate in international relations from the University of Denver, in Colorado. She has taught political science at Kuwait University since 1982 and writes a daily column for Al-Anba newspaper.
Palestinians hold first executions since 2002GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Palestinian authorities carried out their first executions since 2002 on Sunday, killing four convicted murderers in a campaign meant to halt a growing wave of lawlessness but which drew swift condemnation from human rights groups.
Sunday's executions appeared to be an attempt to deter criminals and send a message to the public. None of the executed men was believed to be affiliated with any of the major militant groups. Their crimes date to the mid 1990s.
Three of the men were hanged, and the fourth was shot by firing squad, in line with the sentences handed down at their trials.
The Palestinian Authority has had the death penalty in place since its establishment in 1994. However, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat halted the death penalty in 2002 after criticism by European countries and human rights groups.
Bomb derails Russian train, injuring 15 peopleMOSCOW - A bombing derailed a train traveling between Grozny, the capital of the restive Chechen republic, and Moscow on Sunday, injuring 15 people.
The explosion, which occurred about 90 miles south of Moscow, came as Russians were enjoying a long weekend marking the Russian parliament's declaration of sovereignty from the Soviet Union on June 12, 1990. Chechen separatists have staged terrorist attacks on Russian holidays in the past, but officials said they had no information on who organized this bombing.
A spokeswoman for the Federal Security Service, the domestic successor to the KGB, said a bomb containing the equivalent of about 6 pounds of TNT was detonated under the train's locomotive.
Officials said they found wires attached to a rail and to a location about 50 yards from the tracks where the bomb might have been remotely triggered.
Six cars fell off the tracks, but none overturned. Four passengers, including an 18-month-old girl with second-degree burns, were hospitalized and about 40 other people sought medical care, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.