Status Quo Candidate Wins Puerto Rico Election

By Enrique Martel

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - Puerto Rico's protracted election came to a close on Tuesday after nearly two months of recounts and legal disputes with the certification of Anibal Acevedo Vila as the U.S. territory's new governor.

Acevedo Vila, who favors maintaining the island's status as a U.S. territory without the full rights of a state, won the Nov. 2 election by 3,566 votes against former two-term Gov. Pedro Rossello.

"As governor of all Puerto Rico I'll give to this job like I've done all my life. I'll give my body, soul and heart," Acevedo Vila said.

Rossello, who wants Puerto Rico to become the 51st U.S. state, said on Tuesday he would not continue to challenge the results of the Nov. 2 election, but said he still believed that Acevedo Vila's victory was illegitimate.

The close vote triggered a mandatory recount that dragged on for weeks amid legal disputes over mixed-vote ballots on the Caribbean island of 4 million people.

At issue were several thousand "double-split" ballots that bore a mark under party insignia and marks for individual candidates for governor and resident commissioner, the territory's nonvoting representative in the U.S. Congress.

Those ballots eventually were declared legal by the elections committee and the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, and were counted.

Most of the split votes were thought to have been cast by supporters of independence who voted for Acevedo Vila in order to deny a boost to the movement that wants U.S. statehood for Puerto Rico.

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston last week denied a petition by Rossello and the losing New Progressive Party asking the federal appeals court to intervene.

The disputed votes had been separated from the recount after Rossello challenged them in a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of San Juan. In its ruling, the Boston court said that the Puerto Rico Supreme Court -- and not the federal court -- had jurisdiction over elections on the island.

"We will not impugn the elections even though this is an option we have before the courts. We will not do it, not because we agree with the certification but because we don't want to extend the uncertainty and anxiety of the people of Puerto Rico, which has suffered over this irregular and unjust election," said Rossello, whose party did not sign the certification of gubernatorial election results.

Acevedo Vila is to be sworn in on Sunday to a four-year term as governor. He will head a government that for the first time in the island's history will feature a governor who favors the current status with the United States and a resident commissioner who favors U.S. statehood.

Luis Fortuno, a former high-ranking official in the Rossello administration, was elected the new resident commissioner.

The two new political leaders met briefly on Tuesday to lay out a working relationship, but did not discuss the status issue.

"I trust in the patriotic detachment (from partisan politics) of all those who were favored at the ballot boxes," said Acevedo Vila, who heads the Popular Democratic Party.

Generation of Asians Lost in Disaster

By S. SRINIVASAN, Associated Press Writer

CUDDALORE, India - The buzz of grim conversation in the darkened morgue was broken by a man's shriek as the small body was lowered on a bed. "My son, my king!" wailed Venkatesh, hugging the limp shrouded bundle.

Thousands of miles away in Indonesia, farmer Yusya Yusman aimlessly searched the beaches for his two children lost in Sunday's tsunami. "My life is over," he said emotionlessly.

In country after country, children have emerged as the biggest victims of Sunday's quake-born tidal waves — thousands and thousands drowned, battered and washed away by huge walls of water that have decimated an entire generation of Asians.

"The power of this earthquake, and its huge geographical reach, are just staggering," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy. Hundreds of thousands of children who managed to survive in the affected coastal communities now "may be in serious jeopardy," she added.

The U.N. organization estimates at least one-third of the tens of thousands who died were children, and the proportion could be up to half, said UNICEF spokesman Alfred Ironside in New York. He said communities are suffering a double loss: dead children and orphaned boys and girls. "Our major concern is that the kids who survived the tsunami now survive the aftermath. Because children are the most vulnerable to disease and lack of proper nutrition and water."

Children make up at least half of the population in Asia. Many of them work alongside poverty-stricken parents in the fishing or related industries in coastal areas, so they were in harm's way when the tidal waves came. Many children from the more affluent families would also have been on the beaches for a stroll or for Sunday picnics.

In Sri Lanka, which suffered the biggest loss of life in the tsunami, crowds had come to the beaches to watch the sea after word spread that it was producing larger-than-normal waves.

Thousands of children joined their elders to see the spectacle. The waves brought in fish. The old and the young collected them. Many waited for more fun.

Then the 15 feet-to-20 feet tidal waves hit the tropical island of 19 million people.

"They got caught and could not run to safety. This is the reason why we have so many child victims," said Rienzie Perera, a police spokesman who said reports from affected police stations indicated children made up about half the victims in Sri Lanka.

On Monday, parents wept over the bodies of their children in streets and hospitals across the island, even as some dead children still dangled unclaimed from barbed wire fences.

The scenes of unimagined grief and mourning were repeated across Asia.

"Where are my children?" wept 41-year-old Absah, as she searched for her 11 missing children in Banda Aceh, the Indonesian city closest to Sunday's epicenter. "Where are they? Why did this happen to me? I've lost everything."

On the day disaster struck, Malaysian Rosita Wan recalled watching in horror as her 5-year-old son was gulped by the sea while he swam near the shore at Penang.

"I could only watch helplessly while I heard my son screaming for help. Then he was underwater and I never saw him again," said a sobbing Rosita, 30.

About half of the nearly 400 people who perished in Cuddalore in India's Tamil Nadu state were children, leaving the town stunned.

Under Hindu tradition, children are buried instead of being cremated like adults. For the grim task in Cuddalore, two pits, together about half the size of a basketball court, were dug near a river at the edge of this coconut palm-fringed town.

After one couple laid the body of their daughter in the deep pit, a bulldozer shoveled in sand and the little girl disappeared from view. They then stepped aside for others to bury their children, denied any chance for a service or private mourning.

Most of the children, ages 5-12, were buried as they were found — in their Sunday clothes — without the luxury of a shroud.

Local officials wanted to quickly finish the burial, and the cremation of adult victims, so they could turn their attention to helping those left alive.

"There will be a time for crying, but that will come later. Now the priority is to shelter those who survived," said fisherman Akilan, 28, who lost two nephews when waves struck their house. Akilan uses only one name.

Bodies of young and old lay unclaimed at the town morgue, awaiting identification by relatives. Doctors called them in one by one over a public address system, while vans with wailing sirens brought in newly discovered bodies.

Many emerged from the morgue shaking their heads in silence after failing to identify any of the bodies as that of their loved ones.

Venkatesh, who uses only one name, found his 11-year-old son Suman as his body was lowered on to a gurney.

The 37-year-old man had been in Dubai, where he went three months ago as a construction worker. When his wife called from Cuddalore to tell him their boy was missing, Venkatesh flew home immediately and went straight to the morgue.

There, he found his wife and daughter minutes before Suman's body was brought in.

"I never thought I would only see my son's body," cried Venkatesh, refusing even a sip of water.

Within moments, an identification tag was tied to the boy's hand and his body taken inside.

As one of his relatives pulled him away, Venkatesh kept asking: "How can I go, leaving behind my son?"

Ukraine's Yushchenko Declares Victory

By ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC, Associated Press Writer

KIEV, Ukraine - Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko said Monday that Ukraine will finally be free after declaring himself the winner of the rerun of fraud-filled presidential elections, while supporters of his pro-Russian opponent vowed to challenge the results in court.

The Western-leaning Yushchenko, who was disfigured by dioxin poisoning, thanked orange-clad protesters who spent weeks camped out in the capital's frigid streets for helping secure his electoral victory Sunday. Orange is his campaign color.

"Now, today, the Ukrainian people have won. I congratulate you," he told a jubilant crowd in Kiev's Independence Square, the center of massive protests following the Nov. 21 presidential runoff that was annulled after fraud allegations.

"We have been independent for 14 years but we were not free. Now we can say this is a thing of the past. Now we are facing an independent and free Ukraine."

No election-related violence was reported.

Three exit polls gave the Western-leaning Yushchenko a 15-20 percentage-point lead over Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin-backed candidate. The official vote count gave Yushchenko a narrower but unassailable lead — 52.3 percent to 43.9 percent with ballots from 98.5 percent of precincts counted.

The Central Election Commission has 15 days after the election to announce the final results.

Nestor Shufrych, a lawmaker and Yanukovych ally, told reporters the Yanukovych campaign would appeal, but he was not more specific. The campaign can appeal to either the commission or Ukraine's Supreme Court — which Yushchenko did after the Nov. 21 runoff.

Despite the huge presence of foreign observers, both campaigns still complained of some violations. Yanukovych's campaign reported problems in pro-Yushchenko western Ukraine, such as Yushchenko campaign material being found near the voting booths.

Yushchenko's headquarters, meanwhile, complained that the names of Ukrainians who died 15 years ago were included on a voter list in Donetsk.

Results were trickling in slowly from two regions in pro-Yanukovych territory in eastern Ukraine. Commission chairman Yaroslav Davydovych urged election workers to "put political issues aside" and do their jobs.

"The state is waiting for results," he said.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, whose own accession to power on a wave of peaceful protest in November 2003 inspired Ukraine's opposition, congratulated Yushchenko in a Ukrainian-language message delivered over Ukrainian television. Saakashvili, who attended law school in then-Soviet Ukraine, apparently was the first foreign leader to publicly recognize Yushchenko's victory.

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski congratulated Yushchenko on Monday, describing his victory as a "good and important choice" for Ukraine's relations with Europe, Kwasniewski's office said.

Poland's former president, Lech Walesa, told the Polish news agency PAP that Yushchenko's victory meant "Ukraine on its road to freedom and democracy made a small move toward Europe."

International observers praised the vote as calm and orderly and said Ukraine made good progress toward meeting international standards of free and fair elections.

Yushchenko was not taking chances. He called his supporters back out onto the square Monday afternoon to defend his apparent election victory, if necessary, and asked for their help in what he called the main task facing the nation: forming a trustworthy government.

Ukrainians heading to work Monday stopped at Independence Square to see the latest results on a television monitor, cheering and chanting "Yu-shchen-ko! Yu-shchen-ko!" Their cheers were punctuated by blasts from car horns.

Some 12,000 foreign observers watched Sunday's unprecedented third-round vote to help prevent a repeat of the apparent widespread fraud that sparked massive protests after Yanukovych was declared the winner of the Nov. 21 vote.

Commission member Mykola Melnyk insisted: "This repeat vote was fair and honest, especially in comparison with the second round."

Monitors said they had seen far fewer problems this round, in which 77.2 percent of registered voters turned out.

"This is another country," said Stefan Mironjuk, a German election monitor observing the vote in the northern Sumy region. "The atmosphere of intimidation and fear during the first and second rounds was absent. ... It was very, very calm."

Sure of victory, Yushchenko backers appeared to be taking a rest after weeks camped out in the square. About 5,000 had gathered in the square to hear his victory speech, setting off fireworks in celebration.

"Today we began to live! Today, we rose off our knees and showed ourselves and the world that our future can't be dictated to us. We will dictate it," said Olga Drik, 21, who had festooned her purse with ribbons in the Yushchenko campaign's trademark orange.

Earlier, Yushchenko said at his campaign headquarters that Ukraine was beginning "a new political life."

"I am convinced that it is fashionable to be a citizen of Ukraine. It is stylish. It is beautiful. Three or four months ago, few people knew where Ukraine was," he said. "Today, almost the whole world starts its day from thinking about what is happening in Ukraine."

Even before the exit poll results were announced, a glum-looking Yanukovych told reporters that "if there is a defeat, there will be a strong opposition."

He did not concede, and hinted he would challenge the results in the courts.

"We will defend the rights of our voters by all legal means," Yanukovych said.

Yanukovych's headquarters had planned a rally in his hometown Donetsk on Monday, but they canceled it, a move suggesting widespread apathy among his supporters.

Voters had faced a crucial choice. Ukraine, a nation of 48 million people, is caught between the eastward-expanding European Union and NATO, and an increasingly assertive Russia, its former imperial and Soviet-era master.

Yushchenko, a former Central Bank chief and prime minister, wants to bring Ukraine closer to the West and advance economic and political reform. Yanukovych emphasizes tightening the Slavic country's ties with Russia as a means of maintaining stability.

Yushchenko, whose face remains scarred from dioxin poisoning he blamed on Ukrainian authorities, built on the momentum of round-the-clock protests that echoed the spirit of the anti-Communist revolutions that swept other East European countries in 1989-1990.

"Thousands of people that were and are at the square were not only waiting for this victory but they were creating it," he said. "In some time, in a few years, they'll be able to utter these historic words: 'Yes, this is my Ukraine and I am proud that I am from this country.'"

December 25th

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!

I hope that eveyone is doing well.

Stay safe!

Salvation Army Thankful for Gold Donations

By JAN DENNIS, Associated Press Writer

PEORIA, Ill. - Salvation Army officials don't know who has been dropping gold coins into their holiday kettles over the past 20 years, but they hope the mysterious donations continue.

More than 300 gold coins have been collected since the early 1980s, with an average value of about $200 each, said Cliff Marshall, spokesman for the charity in Chicago, where the tradition began.

Chicago bell-ringers have brought in 10 gold coins so far this year. They aren't the only ones.

In Kirksville, Mo., someone donated a gold coin that was minted 20 years before the Civil War, worth nearly $1,000. A $400 South African Krugerrand was dropped in a kettle in Bloomington, Ill., meaning 12 extra families will get a complete Christmas dinner.

But officials still don't know where the coins come from.

The mysterious tradition began in 1982, when someone slipped a gold coin into a kettle in the Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake. The donations have occurred there ever since and have spread across Illinois and about a dozen other states.

The phantom donors almost always conceal the coins, usually folding dollar bills around them. They range from small gold pieces worth about $15 to Krugerrands that can fetch $600 from collectors.

The gold coins have been worth a total of about $60,000. That's just a fraction of the $3.5 million collected by the Salvation Army last year in Chicago alone. But the mystery donors may have more than money on their mind.

Some believe the coin droppers might have been helped by the relief agency in the past. Or they might just like the thrill of seeing the donation play out in the media. One woman called last summer to say her late mother left gold coins in the kettles each year because she liked the buzz it created, Marshall said.

Rich Draeger, spokesman for Salvation Army's Peoria division, said the timing of the donations suggest they might be an inside job. He said gold coins tend to show up when giving starts to lag, indicating it might an attempt by the charity to generate extra publicity.

"It seems to be a benefactor who knows that it's going to mean a lot more than a $300 or $400 coin — it's going to bring attention," Draeger said.

Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a charity watchdog group, doubts the Salvation Army is planting the coins to create publicity.

"They're a heavy-duty Christian group, so that may go against their principals," he said.

Marshall, for one, hopes the mystery is never solved. "It's more fun to speculate than to know for sure," he said.

CANADA BUSY SENDING BACK BUSH-DODGERS

November 16, 2004 | Columbus Dispatch
by Joe Blundo

The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border
into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased
patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The re-election of President Bush
is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be
required to hunt, pray and agree with Bill O'Reilly. Canadian border
farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors,
animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night. "I
went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer
huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage
borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He
asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I
didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my
screenplay, eh?" In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield
erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing
speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. "Not real effective,"
he said. "The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much
they wouldn't give milk." Officials are particularly concerned about
smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo
station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for
themselves. "A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged
conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without
a drop of drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet,
though." When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border,
often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors
have been circulating about the Bush administration establishing
re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to drink domestic beer
and watch NASCAR. In the days since the election, liberals have turned to
sometimes-ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing
as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs.
After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs,
Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the
supposed senior-citizen passengers. "If they can't identify the accordion
player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an
official said. Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal
immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the
good Susan Sarandon movies. "I feel sorry for American liberals, but the
Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How
many art-history majors does one country need?" In an effort to ease
tensions between the United States and Canada, Vice President Dick Cheney
met with the Canadian ambassador and pledged that the administration would
take steps to reassure liberals, a source close to Cheney said. "We're
going to have some Peter, Paul & Mary concerts. And we might put some
endangered species on postage stamps. The president is determined to reach
out."