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Democrats and Republicans lock horns Tuesday in three off-year elections seen as a referendum on president Barack Obama’s first 12 months in the White House.
   The hottest race is for governor in New Jersey, with Democrat Jon Corzine — the incumbent governor in a heavily Democratic state — fighting desperately to avoid defeat by former Republican prosecutor Chris Christie.
   Latest polls showed them in a statistical dead heat, with some analysts saying Christie was best positioned to poach votes from supporters of an independent third candidate.
   Obama spent political capital to save Corzine’s flagging campaign, including a trip to New Jersey on Sunday.
   Republicans, in fierce opposition to Obama’s handling of the recession and reform of health care, smelled blood.
   ‘A victory for Republicans in deep blue New Jersey would send shock waves through the country that would be felt right up to the doors of the White House,’ Republican blog redstate.com said.
   Republicans seem likely to score a big success in another gubernatorial race in Virginia.
   The swing state was captured by Obama in his election last year, the first time a Democratic presidential contender had managed to do so since 1964.
   But Democratic dreams of making the southern state theirs seemed fanciful for now, with polls forecasting a heavy victory for Republican Bob McDonnell against Democrat Creigh Deeds.
   Perhaps the most intriguing race is a smaller contest in New York state’s 23rd congressional district, where the vice-president, Joseph Biden, stumped on behalf of the Democratic candidate Monday.
   The official Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, withdrew over the weekend after being overwhelmed by a rival bid from Doug Hoffman of the tiny Conservative Party.

The Taliban on Tuesday ridiculed Hamid Karzai as a ‘puppet president’ after he was handed another five-year term in office, accusing Western powers of deciding to cancel Afghanistan’s election run-off.
   ‘The cancellation of the second round of the election showed that decisions on Afghanistan are made in Washington and London, while the announcements are made in Kabul,’ a Taliban statement said.
   ‘What is astonishing is two weeks ago they were arguing that the puppet president Hamid Karzai was involved in electoral fraud... but now he is elected as president based on those same fraudulent votes, Washington and London immediately send their congratulations.’
   In a press conference on Tuesday, Karzai offered an olive branch to his Taliban ‘brothers’ and urged them ‘to come home and embrace their land’.
   The Taliban, whose fighters have strongholds in the south and along the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, were driven out of Kabul in late 2001 by US-led coalition forces, paving the way for Karzai to take power.
   The president has issued a number of similar appeals to the Taliban in the past, offering an amnesty to its fugitive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
   The Taliban, however, condemned the electoral process and carried out scores of attacks in the build-up to the first round and on election day.
   It had also threatened to intensify attacks ahead of the run-off, carrying out a deadly attack on a guesthouse for UN workers in Kabul last week.
   The UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, was among the first world leaders to congratulate Karzai but the Taliban said he could not be considered a legitimate president.
   Meanwhile, Karzai vowed to form an inclusive government after stern warnings from Western supporters he would have to work harder to root out corruption, reports Reuters/Bdnews24.com.
   Afghan election officials on Monday cancelled a needless presidential run-off vote after Karzai’s only rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew citing serious concerns about the election.
   The outcome leaves Washington and other Western supporters to work with a partner whose legitimacy has been questioned, while Karzai himself faces the prospect of having to work with a newly strengthened opposition.
   Afghanistan endured weeks of political uncertainty after the August 20 first round was marred by widespread fraud, a crisis deepened by a resurgent Taliban who had vowed to disrupt the vote.
   Karzai’s return removes at least one obstacle as the president, Barack Obama, weighs whether to send up to 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, where violence this year reached its worst levels since the Taliban were in 2001.
   Faced with stern warnings from Obama, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, and other Western leaders, Karzai vowed to form an inclusive government.
   ‘Our government will be the mirror of Afghanistan so everyone can see themselves in the mirror,’ Karzai said in a nationally televised victory speech.

Rising numbers of civilians are pouring out of Pakistan’s war zone to flee battles between soldiers and Taliban militants but the fate of those left behind is uncertain, humanitarian workers say.
   ‘How much civilians are affected, we don’t know, and for that we need access,’ said Billi Bierling, spokeswoman for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Pakistan.
   Up to 250,000 people have fled the military’s major offensive, now into a third week in South Waziristan on the Afghan border, said Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmad, chief of the state-run agency handling the displaced.
   But no one knows the exact number of displaced people or those left in the conflict zone because foreign aid workers have not been able to enter the areas, the humanitarian workers say.
   ‘We... know that there are still civilians trapped in the areas where fighting’s taking place,’ said Sebastien Brack, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Pakistan.
   Normally about 300,000 people live in the part of South Waziristan which the military is seeking to clear of ‘terrorists’.
   The district is part of a lawless tribal belt where US officials say al-Qaeda and their allies are plotting attacks on the West.

The Palestinians remained pessimistic about the likelihood of relaunching peace talks with Israel despite US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s attempt to clarify earlier remarks about settlements.
   During a visit to Morocco, Hillary told Arab leaders that Washington remained opposed to all Israeli settlement activity after she had praised an Israeli offer to ease construction as ‘unprecedented’ during a visit to Jerusalem.
   Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said Monday he was ‘satisfied’ with Hillary’s clarifications, but the Palestinian Authority insisted on Tuesday it would not relaunch talks without a complete settlement freeze.
   ‘Hillary’s backtracking on her remarks, especially with regard to the partial freeze of settlements, is not sufficient to restart negotiations with Israel,’ PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said.
   ‘The administration must compel Israel to halt all settlements in the Palestinian territories, including natural growth and settlement activity in east Jerusalem.’
   The Palestinian press remained intensely pessimistic that the US president, Barack Obama, would follow through on his demand that Israel halt settlement activity, seen as the main obstacle to relaunching the peace process.
   ‘It’s clear that the Obama administration is too weak to deliver on its promises, and that it has shifted from putting necessary pressure on Israel to pressuring the Palestinians,’ an editorial in the Al-Ayyam daily said.

North Korea announced Tuesday it has produced more plutonium for its atomic weapons programme, a day after threatening to ‘go its own way’ unless Washington agrees to direct talks on the nuclear standoff.
   The isolated communist country had ‘successfully completed reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods by the end of August’ at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
   ‘Noticeable successes have been made in turning the extracted plutonium weapon-grade for the purpose of bolstering up the nuclear deterrent,’ it said.
   The comments indicated growing impatience at Washington’s delay in accepting Pyongyang’s offer of high-level bilateral talks.
   On Monday its foreign ministry pressed the United States to agree to such talks, and said these could lead to a resumption of stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations.
   ‘If the US is not ready to sit at a negotiating table with the North Korea, it will go its own way,’ the ministry added.
   Experts believe the 8,000 spent reactor fuel rods could produce enough plutonium for one or two nuclear bombs, in addition to the North’s current stockpile which could perhaps be used to create six to eight weapons.
   The North quit the six-party talks in April after the United Nations censured its long-range rocket launch, and vowed to restart the nuclear programme which it shut down under a 2007 six-party pact.
   It conducted an atomic weapons test in May, the second since 2006.
   In September the North also said it was in the final stages of an experimental highly enriched uranium programme — a second way to make atomic weapons.
   KCNA in a separate report Tuesday said the North was working hard to expand production of mineral resources including uranium. It said the uranium was intended to fuel a light-water reactor which is to be constructed.
   Seoul officials quoted by Yonhap news agency confirmed Monday that the North has apparently reopened the plutonium reprocessing plant.

The fight against AIDS in developing countries is facing a drastic funding shortfall amid rapidly rising treatment and prevention costs during the global financial crisis, experts said Tuesday.
   But the funding contraction also presents an opportunity to do better with less and save more lives by eliminating waste while improving the efficiency of medical care, said Robert Hecht, co-author of a study published in Health Affairs.
   ‘We are on the verge of a serious crisis,’ said Hecht, managing director of the results for Development Institute in Washington, which specialises in health programmes for low- and middle-income countries.
   ‘The cost of fighting the epidemic for treatment and prevention is rising very rapidly around the world, especially in southeastern Africa.’
   Meanwhile, financial resources available to combat the disease are becoming ‘scarcer and scarcer and more under strain in part because of the global recession and also because of competition for development funds in other area,’ he said.
   By 2031, when the AIDS pandemic will enter its 50th year, developing countries could need up to 35 billion dollars annually to fight the disease — three times the current level — according to the study’s authors.
   They estimated that even with that level of funding, over one million people will be newly infected each year. Some 33 million people worldwide are currently infected with the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.
   But the funding shortfall is also ‘a moment of opportunity,’ Hecht said, ‘because it’s a chance for government officials and external funders to take a hard look at what they have been doing and to find ways to spend the money that is available in a more efficient way to cut down on waste.’

The United States came under pressure on Monday to follow other rich countries and set a 2020 goal for cutting greenhouse gases to rescue chances for a climate deal due next month in Copenhagen.
   The prospective Danish hosts ratcheted up pressure on the United States at a final preparatory meeting in Barcelona, saying it could not come ‘empty-handed’ to Copenhagen.
   Some African countries threatened to walk out of the Barcelona talks, saying rich countries had to deepen their emissions-cutting targets. The head of the UN climate change secretariat said a US number was essential.
   ‘We need a clear target from the United States in Copenhagen,’ Yvo de Boer told a news conference. ‘That is an essential component of the puzzle.’
   The president, Barack Obama, speaking at the White House to reporters, held out hope for ‘an important deal’ in Copenhagen. But he tempered that optimism, saying such a deal might not solve ‘every problem on this issue, but takes an important step forward, and lays the groundwork for further progress in the future.’
   The United States has not yet offered a firm target for reducing emissions by 2020. By contrast, the European Union has promised a cut of at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and several other developed nations have set goals.
   Democrats in the US Senate said they would try to start pushing legislation through a key committee on Tuesday, ignoring a planned boycott by minority Republicans. That legislation calls for a 20 per cent reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions by industry, from 2005 levels.
   Even if the Senate environment and public works committee signs off on the bill in coming weeks, there is no evidence any measure will be approved by the full Senate this year.

Democratic Republic of Congo soldiers have ‘deliberately killed’ more than 500 civilians since March during an offensive targeting rebels in the country’s east, the Human Rights Watch said Monday.
   ‘Human Rights Watch conducted 21 fact-finding missions in North and South Kivu from January to October 2009, and found that Congolese army soldiers had deliberately killed at least 505 civilians from the start of operation Kimia II in March through September,’ it said.
   North and South Kivu are provinces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, while Kimia II is the name of the offensive targeting rebels from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan was re-elected president of the United Arab Emirates for a second five-year term on Tuesday, the official news agency WAM announced.
   The Supreme Federal Council, made up of the rulers of the seven emirates in the UAE, selected Sheikh Khalifa, 61.
   He first rose to the presidency as oil-rich Abu Dhabi’s ruler in 2004 on the death of his father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, who founded the Gulf state in 1971.
   The federal council designates both the president and vice president.
   Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum, who is also the country’s prime minister, defence minister and ruler of Dubai, has served as UAE vice president since 2006.
   An OPEC member which produces 2.2 million barrels of oil per day, the UAE held its first indirect legislative election
   in 2006 to designate
   members of the consultative Federal National Council.

Nearly half of all US children, including an overwhelming majority of black children, will eat meals at some point during their childhood paid for by food stamps, an indicator of poverty, a study showed Monday.
   ‘If you get food stamps, you are by definition in poverty and your household doesn’t have many assets,’ said Mark Rank, a co-author of the study with Thomas Hirschl of Cornell University.
   ‘The fact that half of American children at some time during their childhood find themselves in this position really ought to be a wake-up call to America,’ he said.
   The study found that 49.2 per cent of all American children will at some point live in a home that receives food stamps.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that Iran will reject any dialogue if its outcome is pre-determined by Washington, raising the possibility a mooted nuclear fuel deal may be derailed.
   Khamenei’s comments came as world powers turned up the heat on Iran to accept the UN-brokered nuclear deal, with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, saying Iran was at a ‘pivotal moment’ to show it did not want to be isolated from the international community.
   Iran is engaged in high-profile UN-hosted talks with world powers over how to procure nuclear fuel for a Tehran research reactor.
   But officials here are increasingly opposed to the proposed deal under which Iran would send low-enriched uranium abroad for conversion into fuel for the Tehran reactor. They say they would rather buy the fuel directly.
   On Tuesday, Khamenei, Iran’s all-powerful leader who has the final say in all national issues, raised the possibility the UN-brokered deal may fail.
   ‘We do not want any negotiation, the result of which is pre-determined by the United States,’ Khamenei said in a speech on the eve of Wednesday’s 30th anniversary of the US embassy seizure by radical students.

Wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic made his first court appearance Tuesday since the start of his genocide trial more than a week ago.
   Wearing a black suit, pink shirt and red tie, Karadzic took his place in the accused dock of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, for a procedural hearing that will consider options for continuing the trial in the face of his defiance.
   Karadzic, 64, has refused to leave his jail cell since the trial started on October 26, insisting on more time to review a million pages of prosecution evidence and the statements of hundreds of witnesses.