EASTERN EUROPE

OPPOSITION SUPPORTERS DISMANTLE BARRICADES IN KIEV

Opposition protesters lifted their two-week siege of Ukraine’s Stalin-era Cabinet headquarters yesterday, a day after Parliament adopted electoral laws to ensure a fair ballot in the repeat presidential runoff. The dismantling of three barricades near the building came after opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko urged supporters to focus on campaigning for his December 26 rematch with Kremlin-backed Prime Minister Yanukovich. Many Mr. Yushchenko supporters spent the morning preparing to leave the capital after a night of celebrations. But thousands of others said they will stay in tent camps near Kiev’s main Independence Square.

“This is a sad and happy day at the same time,” said Oleksiy, a protester who gave only his first name. “We endured more than two weeks and now we are leaving, but we are leaving as winners.” Pora, a pro-democracy youth group that played a key role in the street protests, told its student members to return to school. “After fulfillment of our civic duty, we say: ‘It is time for classes,'” said Pora, which means “It’s Time” in Ukrainian. A blockade remained in place near the office of outgoing President Kuchma, but Roman Zvarych, a member of Mr. Yushchenko’s campaign staff, said he believed it would also be removed.

– Associated Press

ALLEGED FRAUD PROTESTED IN ROMANIA

BUCHAREST, Romania – In demonstrations similar to those in neighboring Ukraine, hundreds rallied in downtown Bucharest yesterday to protest alleged fraud in recent presidential elections.

Dancing to hip-hop music and brandishing banners reading, “They can’t steal as much as you can vote!” protesters urged people to vote for Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu, the opposition candidate in this Sunday’s runoff to disputed November 28 elections. Some wore orange clothes and waved orange flags, the official color of the opposition Justice and Truth Alliance – and coincidentally the same hue adopted by the political opposition in Ukraine, where massive street demonstrations pressured authorities into agreeing to rerun a presidential runoff election that was found to have been marred by fraud. Mr. Basescu, head of the centrist Justice and Truth Alliance, will face off with Prime Minister Nastase of the ruling Social Democratic Party. The winner will replace longtime President Iliescu and pursue Romania’s dream of joining the European Union in 2007.

Election officials said Mr. Nastase won about 41% of the ballots and Mr. Basescu won 34% in the November 28 vote, but Mr. Basescu’s supporters say they were cheated out of at least 5% of the vote and accuse the ruling party of busing its supporters around to vote multiple times.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

COURT WEIGHS CHARGES AGAINST ITALIAN PREMIER

MILAN, Italy – A court began deliberations yesterday in Premier Berlusconi’s long-running corruption trial, with the billionaire politician at risk of becoming the first sitting Italian leader to be convicted on criminal charges. The three-judge panel said a verdict could be expected as early as Friday. Prosecutors have asked that Mr. Berlusconi, who is accused of bribing judges, be imprisoned for eight years. Mr. Berlusconi, who has maintained his innocence and says he is the target of leftist prosecutors, was not in court during the brief public session before the judges retired to their chambers. He has made only three appearances since the trial began nearly five years ago. In Rome at a news conference on an unrelated subject, Mr. Berlusconi said he was too busy with official duties to follow the trial, read defense memos, or even meet with lawyers.

– Associated Press

FRENCH JUDGE: ATMs HELP FINANCE TERRORISTS

PARIS – Radical Islamic cells in Europe are using an ingenious way to finance terror networks that’s virtually impossible to trace: withdrawing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month from cash machines with fake credit cards, according to France’s top antiterrorism judge. Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who’s been at the forefront of the war on terror for 20 years, also said the Caucasus has replaced Afghanistan as a key terrorist training ground for Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network and other groups around the world. Mr. Bruguiere said terrorist financing networks were small, scattered around the world, and represent millions of dollars in fund-raising for terrorists. The judge said authorities caught on to the cash-machine scheme two years ago when investigators uncovered one such financing cell operating in France.

Ten suspected Islamic terrorists were withdrawing more than $100,000 dollars a month from cash machines in other European countries, where they were arrested. Judges who specialize in financial crimes are trained only in macrofinancing investigations – large sums involving banks, Mr. Bruguiere said.

– Associated Press

WEST AFRICA

STUDY: DEATHS IN CONGO ESTIMATED AT 3.8M

DAKAR, Senegal – Six years of continuing conflict in Congo have claimed 3.8 million lives, half of them children, with most killed by disease and famine in the still largely cutoff east, according to an International Rescue Committee study that estimates the toll. The group’s last survey, released in April 2003, estimated 3.3 million deaths. For years, the international association has produced the most widely used running estimate of deaths in Congo, Africa’s third-largest nation.

More than 31,000 civilians continue to die each month as a result of the conflict despite peace deals, the group says, citing mortality surveys prepared with the assistance of on-site teams of physicians and epidemiologists. Congo’s death toll remains one-third higher than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa 18 months after major peace deals, the New York-based group said. Most deaths come from easily treatable ailments, it said, citing measles epidemics known to have swept populations in rebel-held areas during the war.

– Associated Press

KUFUOR RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT OF GHANA

ACCRA, Ghana – President Kufuor, whose 2000 election marked the first peaceful transfer of power in the thriving West African democracy of Ghana, won re-election in a race that drew more than eight out of every 10 voters.

Mr. Kufuor, an Oxford-educated lawyer who Ghanaians affectionately call “the Gentle Giant,” received 52.75% of the vote in Tuesday’s election with results from 225 of 230 legislative districts tallied, Election Commission Chairman Kwadwo Afari-Gyan said late yesterday. John Atta Mills, the strongest of three challengers, received 44.32% of the vote, Afari-Gyan said.

While results from five districts were still out, they would not change the outcome, the election chairman said. Turnout among the roughly 10 million eligible voters was a staggering 83.2% in a nation that prides itself on leading the way for a new generation of maturing African democracies. “The thumb has worked,” one online editorial declared after the vote. Posters across Ghana had urged voters to use “the power of the thumb,” stamping ink-doused thumbs to ballot papers to peacefully choose their next leader.

– Associated Press