Main Page «
Front Page «
Metro «
Business «
Sports «
National «
Editorial «
Op-Ed «
Home «
Timeout «
Letters «

Archive «
Launch Supplement «
Special Supplement «

Some 1,300 Indonesian soldiers have been pulled out of Aceh province, the first major step by Indonesia to begin implementing a historic peace deal struck last week with separatist rebels.
   Two battalions from the army’s Kostrad strategic reserve, about 1,300 men, left on board a navy ship from Krueng Geukueh port in North Aceh early Monday, military deputy spokesman Ahmad Yani Basuki said.
   ‘The pull out is part of our commitment to the peace agreement,’ Basuki said, declining to give details on how many troops were left in the resource-rich province at the northern tip of Sumatra island.
   Indonesia and rebels from the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) signed a historic peace pact in Helsinki last Monday, agreeing to end hostilities after a 29-year conflict which has left around 15,000 dead, mostly civilians.
   Under the accord, GAM dropped its long-held demand for independence for a form of local self-government and agreed to disarm and demobilise its 3,000 fighters.
   Indonesia promised to withdraw its non-local security forces by the end of the year, offer amnesties to rebels, and allow the creation of political parties in the province.
   About 14,000 military and 7,000 police are expected to remain in Aceh after the pullout is completed. GAM complained shortly after the pact was signed that the figure was too high.
   The rebels have also alleged that 10,000 proxy militias belonging to the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) were active in Aceh and had threatened to kill rebels after they disarm under the pact.
   Indonesia has in response pledged to protect the rebels.
   The departing troops were given a farewell ceremony attended by Aceh’s military commander and a member of the Initial Monitoring Presence, a precursor of the international Aceh Monitoring Mission, Basuki said.
   The mission will eventually comprise at least 200 unarmed monitors from the European Union and Southeast Asia, who will oversee the implementation of the pact. Their work officially begins on September 15.
   Basuki added that the troops had served for about one year in Aceh and would be returned to their respective battalion bases in West Java province.
   Separately justice minister Hamid Awaluddin said more than 90 per cent of nearly 1,500 rebels detained on politically-related charges would be eligible for an amnesty to be announced later this month.

Israel was bringing down the curtain Monday on its 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip as police and troops evicted the last remaining settlers from the Palestinian territory.
   While bulldozers were demolishing empty settler homes in other parts of Gaza, thousands of soldiers were taking up positions around two hardline settlements in the West Bank for the next phase of the historic operation to withdraw from land that should form part of a future Palestinian state.
   As hundreds of Israeli forces moved into Netzarim, arguably the most hardline of all the 21 Jewish communities in Gaza, workers and orange-clad settlers were seen hard at work on a half-built house, hauling concrete blocks and cement.
   Commanders said they hoped the settlers from the last Jewish community in Gaza would leave peacefully, but residents made their feelings clear about both the operation and its architect, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
   The premier, who declared only three years ago that Netzarim was as integral a part of Israel as Tel Aviv, has become the settlers’ number one enemy by forcing them out of their homes.
   Some youngsters scrawled graffiti on a water tank declaring: ‘Yigal Amir, where are you?’—a reference to the killer of the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
   Netzarim is arguably the most despised of all 21 Gaza settlements, described as a ‘bone in the throat’ of the Palestinian population who were subjected to endless road closures so settlers could move around with army protection.
   Soldiers who have been protecting the settlers of Netzarim from Palestinians living in nearby Gaza City were invited to a farewell service at the synagogue and could be seen, armed with M-16 rifles, mingling with the residents.
   But Reuven Rosenblatt, who addressed the session, expressed the bitterness felt by many towards the authorities.
   ‘To the soldiers, we say to you that we love you because you are our defenders. But today we tell you that you are executing an illegal order,’ he said in the synagogue as residents wept openly.

US and Afghan government forces have killed more than 100 militants over the past few weeks in aggressive operations aimed at ensuring security for an election next month, the US military said on Monday.
   US forces have in recent months been suffering their worst casualty rate in Afghanistan since arriving in late 2001 to force the Taliban from power.
   ‘ANA and coalition forces continue to aggressively establish enduring security,’ US spokeswoman lieutenant Cindy Moore told a briefing in Kabul, referring to the US-trained Afghan National Army.
   About 65 militants have been killed in 25 clashes in Zabul province in the south over the past week, while about 40 were killed in fighting in Kunar province in the east over the last several weeks, she said.
   The United States heads a 20,000 strong international force in Afghanistan fighting Taliban and al Qaeda militants and hunting for their leaders.
   Another 10,000 NATO-led peacekeepers are also helping with security for the September 18 parliamentary election.
   About 1,000 people, most of them Taliban fighters, have been killed in clashes, ambushes and bomb blasts this year, raising concern about the election, particularly in the most-troubled south and east.
   US forces have suffered 47 deaths in combat in Afghanistan this year, four in a blast in Zabul province on Sunday.
   Despite the violence, Afghan government and US officials say the election, the country’s next big step on a difficult path to stability, will not be disrupted.

Chinese and Russian military forces were Monday preparing a naval blockade and amphibious landing as part of a joint exercise involving nearly 10,000 personnel and a wide range of weaponry, state press said.
   ‘Military vessels, fighter jets and amphibious tanks will start three-day live-ammunition combat practice tomorrow,’ a senior officer of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was quoted by the China Daily as saying.
   The two armies would focus on an offshore blockade involving guided missile destroyers and jet fighters, a joint amphibious landing by air force and marine paratroopers and a forced evacuation, the paper said.
   This was due to take place when the third phase of the eight-day ‘Peace Mission 2005’ exercise begins on Tuesday on east China’s Shandong peninsula, the paper said.
   During the second phase of the exercise, which ends Monday, the two sides engaged in joint command operations and the deployment of troops including paratroopers, press reports said.
   Chinese state press said the exercise was taking place against the backdrop of ‘the fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism’—usually cited by China within the context of its endeavors to control the northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to a Muslim separatist movement.
   But experts say the drills are more likely to be aimed at Taiwan. China considers the island part of its territory and threatens to invade if it formally declares independence.
   ‘With amphibious landings and naval operations involved, I don’t think that the purpose of these exercises is anti-terrorism,’ Arthur Ding, an expert on the PLA at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan, told AFP.

The United States and South Korea on Monday began annual war games that North Korea calls a show of force aimed at making Pyongyang cave in to US demands that it dismantle its nuclear weapons programs.
   The military exercises called Ulchi Focus Lens are computer-simulated drills designed to test US and South Korean readiness and coordination of command posts.
   North Korea regularly calls any joint exercises between the two allies preparations for war on the peninsula.
   With six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs scheduled to resume the week of August 29, the North’s media was even more critical than usual.
   The exercises come ‘at a time when the US war preparations have reached their final phase,’ the official KCNA news agency said on Saturday.

Nearly half of people living with HIV/AIDS in India are women, and the number is expected to rise further, health experts said on Monday, because of trafficking of women across South Asia for prostitution.
   India had an estimated 5.134 million people infected with the HIV virus in 2004, roughly the same as South Africa which has the world’s highest number of people with the virus.
   Of these, 49 per cent were found to be women and young girls, N.S. Dharamshaktu, additional project director of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), told an AIDS conference. Earlier estimates put the figure at 40 per cent.
   Trafficking of women from India’s impoverished neighbours, Bangladesh and Nepal, was fuelling the spread of the disease, experts said.
   Dharamshaktu said thousands of people, especially women and children, were fleeing the conflict in Nepal between government forces and Maoist guerrillas trying to topple the monarchy. Many of these women ended up in the brothels of India.
   ‘Nepal has a security problem and the fallout is on India,’ he told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference. ‘Unless we close the trafficking tap at the source ... more and more women will be trafficked.’

The brother of Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga, Anura Bandaranaike, was named foreign minister Monday to replace his assassinated predecessor Lakshman Kadirgamar, an official said.
   Bandaranaike, 56, will head the foreign ministry as well as keep his current post as minister of tourism, an official at the president’s office said. He said a swearing-in ceremony was scheduled for later Monday.
   Bandaranaike has relinquished the post of minister for industry and investment and those two portfolios were given to finance minister Sarath Amunugama, the official said.
   Kadirgamar was assassinated on August 12 by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels. The guerrillas have denied involvement in killing Kadirgamar, who had been a staunch critic of the Tigers.

Maoist rebels blew up a police vehicle in west Nepal on Monday killing four policemen and wounding three, a police officer said.
   The attack took place at Manigram, near the town of Butwal, 300 km west of Kathmandu. ‘It was a big mine. The blast has caused a huge crater on the ground and the vehicle has broken into pieces,’ the officer told Reuters by phone.
   Maoist violence has escalated in the impoverished Himalayan kingdom after King Gyanendra took control of the government nearly seven months ago, saying politicians had failed to tackle the insurgents, fighting to topple the monarchy.
   Two weeks ago, the rebels raided an army base in west Nepal, killing at least 55 soldiers and losing 26 guerrillas in the bloodiest clash between the two sides in the past one year.
   The rebels said they had captured 60 soldiers and a large arms cache after the gunbattle on Aug. 7 and 8. The army said the soldiers were missing and troops were hunting for them.
   Nepal’s leading human rights group, INSEC, said in a statement late on Sunday that 27 soldiers captured after that battle were safe in rebel custody, quoting a local journalist who had met the captives in a remote mountain village in west Nepal.
   It posted photographs on the Web site, www.inseconline.org, of the soldiers, some with bandages, but said nothing about the remaining soldiers.

Reviving the controversy that the Sangh Parivar appeared to have buried, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Sunday said Pakistan founder Mohd Ali Jinnah was secular initially but was later responsible for the Partition.
   Participating at a condolence meeting for veteran Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leader H.V. Seshadri, Vajpayee made an address that was interpreted in different ways in the Sangh Parivar.
   Some saw in it an approval of Bharatiya Janata Party president LK Advani’s controversial remarks in Pakistan, while others saw the opposite.
   Referring to the recent controversy but without taking names, Vajpayee recalled that Seshadri in his book Tragic Story of Partition had written that many people who were nationalists, later on became communal and religious fanatics.
   Vajpayee said Jinnah used to hate religious fanaticism and to illustrate his point read out an anecdote from Seshadri’s book in which he tells Motilal Nehru that he ‘does not believe in the bakwaas (nonsense) of mullahs.’

Hours from a midnight deadline that could plunge Iraq’s fledgling political system into crisis, there was no sign of an end to deadlock on Monday over a new constitution and profound doubt over where that would lead.
   A further extension of the deadline is possible, so is dissolution of parliament and a new election.
   Negotiators from various groups said the Shia Islamist- led ruling coalition, including Kurdish leaders, was working with US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and his team to revise recent drafts into a form that Sunnis and others could accept.
   Key has been Sunni rejection of Shia majority demands for a chance to set up an autonomous Shia region in the oil-rich south at the same time as Kurds insist on retaining provisions on federalism that will guarantee their freedoms in the north.
   Muddying the waters in the past two days has also been what secular Kurds have complained of as US concessions to Islamist Shia that could strengthen the role of Islam in the law.
   ‘In the past two days, negotiations have been among the Kurdish and Shia blocs,’ said Iyad al-Samarrai, a delegate from the Sunni-led Iraqi Islamic Party. ‘We’re expecting a general meeting later today to discuss their proposals.’
   Bahaa al-Araji, a leading Shia Islamist on the drafting committee, accused secular Shias led by the former interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, and Kurdish leaders of a ‘conspiracy’ to sink the present negotiations and force new elections.
   ‘The Shias are preparing an alternative draft which they know they can push through parliament,’ Araji said, raising a prospect that Sunnis said could lead to an effective veto on the document at a referendum currently scheduled for October.
   Samarrai, whose party has been encouraging Sunnis in the troubled insurgent heartlands to go out and register to vote in spite of threats from hardline Sunni Islamist militants, said Sunnis would not necessarily campaign against such a deal.
   If they do, they could defeat the charter by ensuring that two thirds of votes in three of Iraq’s 18 provinces were cast against the constitution.
   ‘We would rather dissolve the National Assembly rather than present a constitution in such a disgraceful way,’ another Sunni delegate, Hussein al-Falluji, said.

Facing trial soon on charges he massacred fellow Muslims, Saddam Hussein vowed in a letter published on Sunday to sacrifice himself for the cause of Palestine and Iraq, urged Arabs to follow his path and used language implying he would become a martyr for the Arab cause.
   The letter, published in two Jordanian newspapers, was delivered through the International Committee of the Red Cross to an old friend now living in Jordan.
   Those who made the letter public said the man refused to be identified. It was believed to have been the first letter since Hussein was captured in December 2003 sent to someone other than a family member.
   ‘My soul and my existence is to be sacrificed for our precious Palestine and our beloved, patient and suffering Iraq,’ the letter said.
   Tayseer Homsi, the secretary general of the Jordanian Arab Baath Socialist Party, said the missive had been delivered through the ICRC to an ‘independent Jordanian political figure.’

An influential Republican senator said on Sunday the longer the United States stayed bogged down in Iraq, the more the conflict looked like another Vietnam War.
   ‘What I think the White House does not yet understand and some of my colleagues, is the dam has broken on this (Iraq) policy,’ said Nebraska Senator, Chuck Hagel, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee and possible presidential candidate in 2008.
   A decorated Vietnam War veteran, Hagel also said the war in Iraq had further destabilised the Middle East and the White House needed to find an exit strategy for Iraq.
   The White House rejected Hagel’s remarks and said it was essential the United States complete its mission in Iraq.
   ‘The president knows a free and democratic Iraq will help transform a dangerous region and lay the foundation of peace for our children and grandchildren,’ White House spokesman Trent Duffy said in Crawford, Texas.
   ‘Our policies of the past only allowed the Middle East to become a terrorist breeding ground,’ he said. ‘Quitting now wouldn’t help anyone except terrorist killers, who certainly aren’t quitting their efforts to target innocent people.’

The Cuban president, Fidel Castro, and Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez, two major irritants of the United States, on Sunday made a joint television appearance in which Chavez accused Washington of destroying the world.
   The two Latin American leaders, wearing olive military uniforms and known for their lengthy speeches, talked for five hours and 40 minutes in a special broadcast of Chavez’ weekly radio and television show, ‘Hello Mr president,’ from Cuba’s western Pinar del Rio province.
   The two leaders, in the programme televised in their respective nations, brushed off US charges that their governments exercised a destabilising influence in Latin America.
   ‘US imperialism represents the greatest threat weighing on the world,’ Chavez said, calling the United States the ‘great destabiliser’ and ‘the destroyer of the world.’
   Chavez also touted socialism over capitalism.
   ‘Capitalism privatises health care and education,’ he said. ‘We are building the socialism of the 21st century.’
   The Venezuelan leader travelled to Cuba Saturday to attend the graduation of 1,600 medical students from across Latin America who had studied here for free.
   Taking a sarcastic tone, Castro told Chavez: ‘You already know, we cannot make a student study because that would be destabilising, we cannot invite patients to get medical care because that is destabilising.’
   The pair travelled to the town of Sandino in a jeep with the top down, passing by throngs of people waving Venezuelan and Cuban flags.
   Castro and Chavez sat at a huge desk at the open-air event, which was televised in their respective countries.
   The foreign ministers of both countries were in attendance, as well as Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista former president, Daniel Ortega, and former Salvadoran guerrilla leader Schafik Handal.
   When Castro asked how Salvadorans would react to a US invasion of Venezuela, Handal said: ‘Hundreds of thousands of us must go fight in Venezuela.’

Most poor countries will miss global targets to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health and reverse the toll of AIDS and other diseases by 2015, the World Health Organisation warned on Monday.
   None of the poorest regions of the developing world is on track to meet the target of reducing by two-thirds the rate of child mortality, now around 11 million deaths each year, in the next decade, according to the United Nations agency.
   HIV/AIDS, which kills three million people worldwide a year is growing gradually in major parts of Asia, according to the WHO report ‘Health and the Millennium Development Goals’.
   Health is at the heart of the UN Millennium Declaration, adopted by 189 heads of state in September 2000, which set out a roadmap of eight goals to be reached by 2015. Using 1990 data as baselines, they aim to reduce poverty and hunger, tackle gaps in health services, education and boost access to clean water.
   ‘The evidence so far suggests that while there has been some progress, too many countries–particularly the poorest–are falling behind in health,’ WHO director-general Lee Jong-wook said in a statement.
   On the positive side, more poor women delivering babies now have a skilled medical person helping them.

Cor blimey! The traditional Cockney London English is becoming tinged with Bangladeshi twang, according to research for a BBC project.
   The working class accent and dialect from the poorer east of the capital, featuring rhyming slang for common words—with for instance ‘believe’ becoming ‘Adam and Eve’—is picking up a Bangladeshi bent among youngsters, researchers told the BBC’s Voices series, which begins Monday.
   The East End of London is home to a sizeable Bangladeshi community.
   England football captain David Beckham is currently perhaps the world’s most popular Cockney, though not the strongest speaker.
   American actor Dick Van Dyke in the 1964 film ‘Mary Poppins’ infamously mangled the accent. Similar phenomena are happening with other urban accents as migrants from south Asia and the Middle East bring their own words and sounds to Britain’s cities, experts said.
   Sue Fox, from the University of London, said a new blend of Cockney and Bangladeshi had emerged. She studied youngsters at a youth club in the East End’s Tower Hamlets district.
   ‘The majority of young people of school age are of Bangladeshi origin and this has had tremendous impact on the dialect spoken in the area,’ she said.
   ‘What I’ve actually found with the young people in Tower Hamlets is that they are using a variety of English which is not traditionally associated with Cockney English.
   ‘It’s a variety that we might say is Bangladeshi-accented. And in turn what I’ve found is that some adolescents of white British origin are also using these features in their speech as well.’
   The nine-month study found that while white male Cockneys have picked up words from their Bangladeshi ‘old china plates’ (mates), teenage white girls are not so keen on the ‘new dicky birds’ (words).
   Words picked up included ‘nang’ meaning good, ‘creps’ for trainers and ‘skets’ for slippers.

The former Polish president, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, on Sunday apologised for the first time for ordering Polish troops to take part in the Moscow-led crackdown on the Prague Spring socialist reform movement in 1968.
   Speaking to Czech state television on the 37th anniversary of the crackdown, Jaruzelski, Polish defence minister at the time, said the invasion of another Warsaw Pact nation was ‘very painful for me’.
   ‘But, in 1968, I was the defence minister implementing a political decision, convinced that there were grounds for that on the basis of the information available to us then.
   ‘Today, and naturally much earlier, I realised this decision had been incorrect, wrong, shameful.’

Two senior Brazilian officials were due to arrive in Britain on Monday to grill police officers and investigators about the fatal shooting of a Brazilian man mistaken for a suicide bomber exactly a month ago.
   Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was killed on July 22 by anti-terror officers as he boarded a subway train in south London, when tensions in the city were high just one day after a failed attempt to repeat the July 7 bombings.
   Brazil sent Wagner Goncalves, from the attorney general’s department, and Marcio Pereira Pinto Garcia, from the department of international judicial cooperation at the ministry of justice, to seek clarification about the reports leaked to ITV television last week.
   The delegation will meet John Yates, deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, members of the Independent Police Complaints Commission –which is probing the killing–and other officials.
   ‘The Brazilian government anticipates receiving clarification regarding a number of matters, including the information released by the press in recent days,’ a statement on its London embassy’s website said.

Indian foreign secy to visit Pakistan
Ahead of the possible meeting between the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and the president, Pervez Musharraf, in New York next month, the foreign secretaries of the two countries will meet here next week to review the progress on the composite dialogue process. The two leaders are expected to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next month. Foreign secretary Shyam Saran would undertake a three day visit to Islamabad starting August 31 to hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart Riaz Muhammed Khan as well as foreign minister Khurshid M Kasuri to review the second round of the composite dialogue process.
— PTI

13 killed in Nepal bus accident
At least 13 people were killed and 30 injured when a bus skidded off the road and plunged 400 metres (1,320 feet) into a gorge in far-western Nepal, police said Monday. The accident happened Sunday night at Chokhan village in Baitadi district, 675 kilometres (421 miles) west of Kathmandu. The injured were being treated at a local hospital and 12 were in serious condition, a police official said. The cause of the accident had yet to be determined, the official said. It is not yet known how many passengers were on the bus.
— AFP

2 US embassy staff hurt near Kabul
Two US embassy officials were hurt by a roadside bomb that hit their convoy near the Afghan capital on Sunday, a spokesman said. The blast near Kabul came hours after a bomb attack killed four US soldiers in the restive Zabul province, in the southern part of the country. ‘I can confirm that two American personnel of the US embassy were slightly hurt while on a routine embassy mission,’ Michael Macy, a US embassy spokesman, said. He declined to identify the two and also refused to say if the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ronald Neumann, was in the convoy when the blast occurred.
— Reuters

SMS messages to tip-off KL police
Malaysians will soon be able to use SMS text messages to tip off police in a nationwide crime reporting initiative, reports said Monday. State police chiefs from across Malaysia are to meet next month to discuss implementing the system, which will also include a telephone hotline to report crimes, the Star daily said. The scheme is an expansion of a program introduced in Kuala Lumpur in August last year called Rakan Cop (Police Partner), which police have hailed as a success. Established in response to growing crime, Rakan Cop allows members of the public to SMS or phone in crimes to a police hotline, and there are plans to extend the service with a website and an email service.
— AFP

Iraqi abductors free 11 Pakistanis, three Indians
Kidnappers in Iraq have released 11 Pakistani nationals and three Indians who were abducted earlier this month, the foreign office in Pakistan said Monday. The Pakistanis, who worked with a Kuwaiti firm, went missing while travelling by bus from the southern Iraqi city of Basra to the capital Baghdad on August 13, foreign office spokesman Naeem Khan said. They were currently in Basra and would be transported to Kuwait in the next 24 hours, he said. Three Indians abducted at the same time had also been freed, he said.
— AFP

Folk singer backs anti-war protesters
Joan Baez was against the Vietnam War and she showed it — appearing at marches, once even blocking the entrance of a military induction centre. The folk singer is against the Iraq war, too, and she showed her support Sunday to protesters camping out near Bush’s ranch. Baez took to the stage for about 500 people on an acre lot offered by a landowner who opposes the war, performing such classic peace anthems as ‘Song of Peace,’ ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’ and ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.’
— Reuters

Space shuttle back in Florida
The space shuttle Discovery completed a cross-country ride atop a jumbo jet and returned to Florida on Sunday, nearly two weeks after finishing NASA’s first mission since the 2003 Columbia accident. After spending an extra day at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana because of poor weather, the shuttle landed at the Kennedy Space Centre in central Florida about 10:00am Eastern time (1500 BST).
— Reuters

Iranian journalist ends hunger strike
Dissident journalist Akbar Ganji, Iran’s most prominent political prisoner, has ended a lengthy hunger strike and is in ‘fair’ health, his wife confirmed on Monday. ‘I saw him last night. He has ended his hunger strike. He is fairly well,’ Massoumeh Shafii said in a brief statement. The 46-year-old was sentenced to six years in prison in 2001 after he wrote articles implicating several regime officials in the murders of opposition intellectuals and writers. He began refusing food on June 11 to protest the conditions of his detention and in a bid to secure his unconditional release.
— AFP

Libya to free 131 prisoners
Libya will free 131 political prisoners, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, said Saif al-Islam, son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who heads a foundation dedicated to improving the country’s image. Saif also said late on Saturday that many Libyans who lost businesses and other privately owned assets such as luxury homes during the revolutionary days of the early 1970s would recover their properties or get compensation. Saif said the prisoners would be freed in the next few days.
— AFP

Lula’s approval rating hits new low
A corruption scandal has driven the approval rating the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, below 50 per cent, denting his chances at re-election, poll results showed. Bribery allegations against Lula’s Workers’ Party are largely responsible for a sharp drop in the president’s job-approval rating, IstoE magazine reported on the weekend. The magazine reported on an Ibpoe poll showing that among Brazilians intending to vote in the first round of election 2006.
— AFP