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Haiti to put off election, again

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Preparations for Haiti's national elections are behind schedule and the vote scheduled for Nov. 20 will likely be postponed again for up to a month, the country's top elections official said Saturday.

With Cabinet members, senior advisers and national elections organizers excluded from elected office for five years, none of them has been moving with much enthusiasm to arrange a vote to choose a new president or Parliament.

The election, which will require a runoff if no one gets at least 50 percent of the vote, will be Haiti's first since the rebellion that forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile in South Africa in February 2004.

Officials next week plan to announce a new schedule for balloting to replace the interim government, said Max Mathurin, chairman of the Provisional Electoral Council.

Mathurin, who spoke in separate interviews with the Associated Press and Radio Vision 2000, said the delay would allow the council to distribute voter ID cards and make other preparations.

The campaign officially began Saturday, with some of the 32 candidates for president holding rallies around the country.

The first round of voting was originally scheduled for Oct. 15 and postponed so more people could register.

More than 3-million people have registered to vote, and the electoral council is struggling to produce and distribute identification cards, hire election workers, prepare ballots and set up voting sites - a major challenge amid the chaos and insecurity of Haiti.

JERUSALEM - Israel and the Palestinians were moving toward agreement on new security arrangements for Gaza's border with Egypt, officials from both sides said Saturday, a deal that could allow Palestinian residents of the coastal strip relatively free movement for the first time.

The signs of progress came days before Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas were to meet for the first time since Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Also Saturday, the Palestinians broke ground on their first major development project in Gaza since the withdrawal - a $100-million complex that will provide housing for 25,000 people.

A deal to reopen the terminal will have to address the security concerns of Israel, which fears militants and weapons will reach Gaza more easily without the Israeli inspectors who once operated Rafah.

Under a compromise proposal brokered by international mediator James Wolfensohn, Palestinian travelers and exports leaving Gaza would go through foreign inspectors in Rafah.

Incoming goods would be rerouted through Kerem Shalom, an Israeli-run inspection point in the area where Gaza, Egypt and Israel converge.

BALI, Indonesia - Police took to the air Saturday to press the search for the suspected masterminds of the Bali terror bombings, using a helicopter to scatter 10,000 fliers of the fugitives on another island where at least one of the pair was thought to be hiding.

Although they expressed confidence in the first days after the Oct. 1 bombings, Indonesian investigators have not announced any major breakthrough. The manhunt focused on two of Southeast Asia's most-sought fugitives - Noordin Mohamed Top and Azahari bin Husin - who are alleged to be the leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah, a terror group that wants to establish an Islamic state across the region. Authorities say it has links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

The men are suspected of planning the suicide attack on three packed restaurants on Bali, which killed 23 people, including the bombers, and wounded about 100.

MIAMI - A subtropical depression formed Saturday in the open Atlantic, prompting Bermuda to issue a tropical storm watch.

The system could strengthen into Tropical Storm Vince later in the day, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Vince would be the 20th named storm in one of the busiest hurricane seasons on record.

At 8 p.m. EDT, the depression's center was about 265 miles southeast of Bermuda. It was moving toward the west near 20 mph. The storm had top sustained winds of about 35 mph and was expected to strengthen even if it did not become a tropical storm, forecasters said.

Long-term forecasts showed the system either reaching the United States mainland in about five days, or curving farther out to sea after passing Bermuda. But hurricane specialist Jack Beven said it appears the system might not survive if it gets closer to the United States because of other weather in the area.