KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 30--The European Union raised concerns Friday over vote fraud in Afghanistan, where counting is continuing after recent legislative elections, and called on the authorities to take measures to stop it, AFP reported.
Some provinces had seen ballot stuffing, proxy voting and intimidation of voters, the EU election observation mission said in a statement.
“While these phenomena do not appear to be nationwide, they are a cause for concern,“ added the statement, issued less than two weeks after the Sept. 18 parliamentary and provincial council elections.
The body of 120 observers who monitored the war-scarred country’s polls continues to oversee a complicated counting process in 32 centers, scattered throughout the country.
It called on the UN-backed Afghan electoral body to address the problem “in a transparent and effective way in order to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process.“
The EU call came a day after electoral officials revealed that two election workers counting ballots were dismissed for marking blank papers in favor of certain candidates.
One, a female election employee, was caught while allegedly marking ballot papers with an eyeliner pencil for a candidate on Wednesday.
A man was sacked and handed over to police for similar activity in the eastern province of Khost on Thursday.
Some 7,000 people are counting votes after the elections, Afghanistan’s first parliamentary polls in more than 30 years. Thousands of observers, including from international groups, are monitoring the process.
More than half the votes have been counted. Initial results are expected next week, with the final results to be announced after a two-week complaints period.
The EU said in the statement that their mission will continue till the official end of the process expected in late October.

Castro (r) poses with shipwreck survivor and national symbol Elian Gonzalez in Havana. (AFP File Photo)

MIAMI, USA, Sept. 30--Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez considers President Fidel Castro a friend and father but would like to see his Miami relatives again, he told an interviewer for a US television network, Reuters reported.
Gonzalez, now 11, told CBS journalist Bob Simon that Castro attended his elementary school graduation and declared he was proud to have Gonzalez as his friend.
“I also believe I am his friend,“ Gonzalez told Simon in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday on the network’s “60 Minutes“ show.
“Not only (do I think of Castro) as a friend, but also as a father.“
Gonzalez turned 6 shortly after he was found floating on an inner tube off the Florida coast in November 1999.
He had survived a shipwreck that killed his mother and other Cubans who had left the communist-ruled island for the United States.
Cuban exiles in Miami lost a passionate legal battle to let him stay with his great-uncle’s family in Miami, who refused to give him up. Immigration agents finally seized Gonzalez from their home at gunpoint and reunited him with his father, who took him back to Cuba.
Gonzalez, who is considered a hero in Cuba, was interviewed in Spanish with his father at a museum in his hometown of Cardenas, CBS said. The network provided an English translation of his comments and said no Cuban officials or monitors were present at the interview.
Gonzalez said in the interview that his Miami relatives tried to persuade him to stay but that he missed his father and friends back in Cuba.
“They were telling me bad things about (my father),“ he said.
“They were also telling me to tell (my father) that I did not want to go back to Cuba and I always told them that I wanted to.“
He said the worst parts of his Miami stay were the nights. “I would have nightmares and my uncles would talk to me about my mother ... it was better not to remind me of that because that tormented me,“ he said. “I was very little.“
Nonetheless, he said he would like to see his Miami relatives again. “Despite everything they did, the way they did it, ... they are my family,“ he said.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Sept. 30--The European Union will impose sanctions including visa bans and an arms embargo on Uzbekistan for refusing to allow an international probe into the killing of up to 500 people in May, diplomats said on Thursday, Reuters reported.
Tashkent says those killed were mostly “bandits“ or “terrorists“ and numbered 187. Witnesses say about 500 people, mostly civilians, died when troops moved to end a protest in the town of Andizhan at what many saw as an unfair trial of local businessmen.
EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday are due to rubber-stamp a text drafted by EU ambassadors slamming “the excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by the Uzbek security forces“.
“The (EU) Council has decided to impose an embargo on exports to Uzbekistan of arms, military equipment and other equipment that might be used for internal repression,“ ministers will say according to a draft text seen by Reuters. According to the text, the visa bans will apply to “those individuals directly responsible for the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force in Andizhan“.
The United States has also criticized Tashkent over the events, while President Islam Karimov has won backing from Russia and China. The US did not immediately announce any new measures against Uzbekistan.
But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack did note to reporters on Thursday that the US has put on hold about $21 million in aid as it pushes Uzbekistan to hold an inquiry into the killings.
The US has sought to balance its worldwide goal of spreading human rights and democracy with maintaining its military interests in Uzbekistan. It has so far failed to persuade Tashkent to hold the inquiry and has been forced to agree to leave a key air base over its criticism of the Central Asian nation’s human right record.
Other EU measures include cuts to aid programs, and a renewed call on EU states to highlight the need for respect of human rights in all bilateral dealings with Tashkent.
No figures were readily available on EU arms exports to the former Soviet state, whose security forces use largely Russian or Soviet-era equipment.
EU ministers will further express alarm at reports of the detention and harassment of human rights activists, journalists and others who have questioned the official version of events.

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Sept. 30--Authorities in the oil-rich former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan warned opposition groups Thursday against destabilizing “provocations“ ahead of parliamentary elections and signaled they were ready to use force if needed to keep anti-government protests in check, AFP reported.
“We cannot guarantee that some radical forces will not consciously create provocations and confrontations,“ Aliyev said in an interview published in the presidential administration’s official Bakinsky Rabochy newspaper.
The statement came less than a week after riot police broke up a peaceful opposition demonstration, injuring scores of protesters and a handful of journalists on Sunday.
The strategic Caspian Sea nation appeared to be headed for fresh violence as the opposition and the government locked horns. Tension has increased with the approach of parliamentary elections scheduled for Nov. 6.
The opposition’s Azadliq (Freedom) block vowed to press on with a new banned demonstration on Saturday after planned negotiations with the government aimed at finding an agreed venue for protests failed to get off the ground Thursday.
“I don’t see any arguments for the opposition to hold demonstrations,“ Ramiz Mekhtiyev, the powerful head of the presidential administration told AFP, “all the issues that they voice at their protests are openly discussed in Azerbaijan.“
Blaming the opposition for artificially creating a confrontation, Aliyev said the authorities would be ready to counter “illegal“ demonstrations. “What they can do is stage illegal demonstrations in places where that is not allowed, and as a result provoke the reaction of the security forces,“ Aliyev said.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) sought to defuse the situation on Thursday by chairing negotiations between representatives of the Azadliq block and members of the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party.
However the government’s representatives failed to arrive for the talks. “There was a good chance to avoid clashes and violence at the Saturday unsanctioned protest but it was missed by the authorities,“ the OSCE ambassador to Baku, Maurizio Pavesi said.
Meanwhile, the opposition said it would not back down on the rally instead promising to go forward with a new initiative to launch a hunger strike of five opposition Popular Front party members on Friday to protest pre-election violations, the party’s head Ali Kerimli said.

Independent lawmakers Kao Chin Su-mei (l), from Taiwan's Atayal tribe, with fellow native Taiwan citizens hold up placards in protest outside Osaka High Court on Friday , after the court ruled that Koizumi violated the constitution by visiting Yasukuni Shrine, but rejected their demands for compensation for their mental anguish. (Reuters Photo)

TOKYO, Sept. 30--Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi violated Japan’s constitution by visiting a Shinto shrine for war dead, a court ruled on Friday, but analysts said the ruling would not stop him from continuing the annual pilgrimages that have angered China and South Korea, Reuters reported.
The court decision came amid rising speculation over whether Koizumi would visit Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine by the end of the year, a move that would damage already chilly ties with Beijing and Seoul.
Judge Masaharu Otani at the Osaka High Court in western Japan said Koizumi’s visits to the shrine were official acts and violated the country’s constitutional separation of religion and state, but rejected the plaintiffs’ claim for damages for mental distress caused by the visits.
Koizumi said he was puzzled by the ruling. “Previous verdicts have said it was not against the constitution,“ he told a parliamentary committee in response to a question about the verdict. “My immediate response is to wonder why it should be against the constitution to pay my respects as a private citizen. I do not visit as prime minister.“
The plaintiffs welcomed the verdict. “Although the claim was rejected, it is a very bold judgment and I believe it is a historic one,“ a representative of the plaintiffs told reporters after the verdict was handed down.
Koizumi has said his visits to the shrine are made as a private citizen, a view backed by the Tokyo High Court in a ruling on a separate case on Thursday.
Legal experts said the Osaka verdict was a moral victory for the plaintiffs, but that the court had no power to stop Koizumi’s pilgrimages.
“The final decision lies with the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court were to rule the visits unconstitutional, even the prime minister would have trouble going against it,“ said Tsukasa Sato, emeritus professor at Kanagawa University. “But I don’t think that will happen.“
Political analyst Harumi Arima said the verdict was likely to have little effect on Koizumi’s decision.
Kyodo news agency said the 188 plaintiffs in Friday’s case were claiming a nominal 10,000 yen ($88) in damages each. Their suit is one of eight filed with district courts around the country. Friday’s ruling is the second to judge the visits unconstitutional and the first to do so in a high court.

Hugo Chavez

BRASILIA, Brazil, Sept. 30--Venezuela’s president raged against the United States on Thursday for refusing to deport a Cuban exile accused of a 1976 airliner bombing, saying Washington was protecting Latin America’s Osama bin Laden, Reuters reported.
President Hugo Chavez was angered when a US immigration judge ruled on Tuesday that Luis Posada Carrilles, a Venezuelan former CIA operative who Havana and Caracas say planned the destruction of a Cuban jet, could be tortured in Venezuela and Cuba and could not be deported to either country.
“It is a cynical, farcical government whose mask slips more each day to show its Dracula’s teeth before a blood-soaked world,“ said Chavez when he arrived in the Brazilian capital for a meeting of South American leaders.
Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 while awaiting retrial after a military court acquitted him of the bombing that killed 73 people over the Caribbean.
The United States has held Posada, 77, since May for being in the country illegally. He denies involvement in the bombing but has admitted working against Cuban President Fidel Castro.
The case helped stoke the animosity between the leftist Chavez and the right-wing Bush administration.
“The United States is protecting the Osama bin Laden of Latin America,“ he said in Brasilia, referring to the al Qaeda leader believed to have masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

VIENNA, Austria, Sept. 30--Arab states were pushing for a denunciation of Israel as a nuclear threat to the Middle East, on the final day Friday of a week-long conference of the watchdog UN atomic agency.
“This year we hope to get a little bit more,“ Egyptian ambassador Ramzy Ezzeldeiin Ramzy told AFP about an Arab drive to have the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discuss “Israeli nuclear capabilities and threat,“ as proposed in a resolution by Oman.
Arab states have in past years dropped this agenda request in order to win Israeli participation in a consensus on a call for nations to work towards a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.
But 15 Arab states plus Palestine said in a letter distributed at the 139-nation IAEA conference in Vienna that they would insist this year on the agenda item since “Israel is developing an advanced nuclear program for military purposes, which has a negative impact on peace and stability in the Middle East region and on efforts to prevent proliferation in the region.“
Diplomats said they expected the traditional compromise to take place Friday, although emotions are running high after the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors last week found Iran guilty of violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Arab states resent the fact that the IAEA is cracking down on Iran for what the United States charges is a covert nuclear weapons program while US ally Israel, believed to be the only nuclear weapons power in the Middle East, avoids such scrutiny.
The IAEA conference was delayed for at least two hours Friday as delegations engaged in intense behind-the-scenes lobbying.
Israel had Wednesday rejected the Arab charges that it is a nuclear threat to peace after Egypt proposed the creation of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East. Israeli atomic energy commission chief Gideon Frank told the IAEA conference that the Arab initiative to name Israel as a nuclear threat was unacceptable as it was “politically and cynically motivated.“
Meanwhile, the United States and China appear to have compromised on a resolution on North Korea by avoiding references to a deal earlier this month in which Pyongyang promised to abandon its nuclear weapons in return for technological aid and security guarantees from the West, diplomats said.