BARCELONA, Spain, Nov. 28--Freshly-elected German Chancellor Angela Merkel used her international summit debut at the Euromed gathering of EU and Mediterranean states to call for inter-regional understanding in an interdependent world, AFP reported.
“With this summit the message must go out that we are interdependent in the Mediterranean and Mediterranean rim,“ said Merkel, sworn in less than a week ago and speaking just ahead of potentially testy talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“We have the issues of migration, of combating terrorism. And we will only make progress on those fronts if these countries have economic perspectives and if we can have a cultural dialogue between each other in which it is clear that we have to understand one another,“ Merkel stressed.
Heading the agenda during her bilateral talks with Erdogan on the sidelines of the 35-nation Euro-Mediterranean meeting between the 25-nation EU and its southern neighbors will be Turkey’s hoped-for accession to the European Union.
The conservative Merkel is known to be skeptical about Turkey’s bid to join the bloc, urging that Ankara instead be offered a “privileged partnership“ with the EU rather than full membership.
Turkey finally began EU membership talks on October 4, but only after last-minute bargaining to overcome resistance, notably from Austria.
Merkel’s predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, a social democrat, was a firm supporter of Turkey’s EU hopes, as are most other EU leaders.
In a newspaper interview last week, Merkel made it clear that she would not change her fundamental views on Turkey’s EU application.
“He can count on me as an honest broker, and as a politician who fulfils commitments and at the same time sticks to her convictions,“ she told the mass-market German daily Bild.
Observers say it is unlikely she will want to rock the boat by making any public comment about her views on Turkey so soon after taking office.

Chechen people wait to register to vote for the new Chechen Parliament at a polling station in the village of Tsenturoy in Chechnya, November 27. (AFP Photo)

GROZNY, Russia, Nov. 28--Kremlin-backed candidates swept parliamentary elections in Chechnya, officials announced as expected Monday, after a vote hailed by Moscow as proof that life was returning to normal in the war-torn province but dismissed by observers as a sideshow, AFP reported.
It was the first parliamentary election in Chechnya since Russian troops in 1999 launched their second war in a decade against separatist fighters there, and results from 171 of the 430 polling centers showed the pro-Kremlin United Russia party taking about 60 percent of the vote.
The communists were in second place with around 12 percent of the vote followed by the liberal Union of Right Forces who scored around 10.5 percent, according to the preliminary results announced by Ismail Baikhanov, chairman of the province’s election commission.
Other Russian political parties, including the liberal Yabloko party led by reformer economist Grigory Yavlinsky and the ultranationalist Rodina party, picked up under five percent apiece, and authorities said turnout was above 66 percent of the approximately 600,000 registered voters there.
President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials have talked up the vote for much of the past year, characterizing it as proof that after more than a decade of war life in the province was getting back to normal and was on a democratic track.
Western institutions such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) did not formally send observers to monitor the vote, citing security concerns and the fact that it was only a local election.
But the head of a Council of Europe fact-finding mission who did witness the election in Chechnya said he was “ambivalent“ about the vote itself and said that “real power“ in the province was illegitimate.

YEREVAN, Armenia, Nov. 28--Armenians overwhelmingly backed in a weekend referendum reforms supported by the Council of Europe that would curtail presidential powers, almost complete preliminary results showed Monday, AFP reported.
With results from 99.03 percent of polling stations counted, 93.3 percent of ballots were in favor of the reforms, with only 5.3 percent objecting, the electoral commission announced.
“We can already say that constitutional changes have been passed,“ the commission’s chairman Garegin Azaryan said.
Although few are against the proposed constitutional reforms,
their adoption had been uncertain as the opposition had called for a boycott of the referendum as it views the government as illegitimate.
Three hours before polling stations closed at 8:00 pm on Sunday the central electoral commission said turnout had exceeded 44 percent, more than the participation of a third of voters necessary to validate the poll.
The opposition challenged the turnout figures and an hour before voting ended about 1,000 opposition supporters gathered in the center of the capital Yerevan to demonstrate.
Armenia’s 2.3 million voters were asked to approve or reject the reforms which would also increase the powers of parliament and the government, strengthen judicial independence and allow millions of Diaspora Armenians to obtain citizenship by scrapping a ban on dual citizenship.
The reforms were drafted with the assistance of experts from the Council of Europe, of which Armenia is a member, and the body called on voters to approve them.
The reforms are part of Armenia’s commitments before the council, which could take disciplinary measures against Armenia if the vote fails, as happened two years ago when a similar referendum was declared invalid because of low turnout.
President Robert Kocharian, voting early Sunday at a school in Yerevan, had refused to predict the outcome, though he seemed to suggest that he would not mind if voters rejected the proposed reform.
“Today the people of Armenia face a choice,“ he said.
Kocharian first came to power in 1998 and was reelected in 2003 in a vote that many observers said was marred by fraud.

Aung San Suu Kyi

YANGON, Myanmar, Nov. 28--Myanmar’s junta has extended pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest by six months instead of a year as expected, an official said Monday, raising hopes in her party that the Nobel peace laureate could be freed sooner than expected, reported AFP.
A spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD) also said the shorter-than-expected extension appeared to coincide with the military’s timetable for completing talks on a new constitution, set to resume next week.
“She was officially informed on the evening of Sunday, November 27“ of the six-month extension, the government official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official could not explain why the latest extension was for only six months, or provide any details about the make-up of the delegation that delivered the notice.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained since May 2003, with virtually no contact with the outside world. Her house arrest was last extended by 12 months one year ago.
“Hopefully the shortened period means she will be released after six months,“ said NLD spokesman U Lwin, adding that the party had yet to be officially informed of the extension.
He said it meant her freedom could be tied to the junta’s timetable for completing its National Convention, where hand-picked delegates are working on a new constitution.
“It clearly shows that the constitutional National Convention the military authorities will resume on December 5 will run well into 2006 and they don’t want to release her until it’s over and done with,“ he said.
The NLD is boycotting the convention, demanding that the military first release Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.
The convention has been widely dismissed by the international community for its exclusion of opposition voices, although the military sees it as the first step on its self-declared “road map“ to democracy.

Anwar Ibrahim

PENGKALAN PASIR, Malaysia, Nov. 28--Former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim has hit the campaign trail for the first time since his release from jail, this time supporting the Islamic opposition and promising to tackle government corruption and incompetence, AFP reported.
“I declare that tonight will open a new chapter in Malaysia’s political history. Malaysia will be more prosperous, peaceful, corruption-free, with true justice,“ he told a 10,000-strong crowd of riveted spectators on Sunday.
Anwar’s stump speech for the hardline Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS), which faces a critical December 6 by-election in northern Kelantan, the only state it controls, represents a major step back onto Malaysia’s political landscape.
After being freed in September 2004 after six years in jail on corruption and sodomy charges, Anwar’s aides say his goal is simple--to be a thorn in the side of the government led by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s United Malays National Organization (UMNO).
“There’s talk about strong efforts by UMNO to prevent me from coming... But if I’m free, I have a voice,“ the charismatic 58-year-old told the crowd in this rural electorate, drawing shouts of approval.
PAS supporters, who normally respond in a subdued style with shouts of “Allahuakbar“ or “God is great“, clapped exuberantly throughout his speech, a gesture which is normally deemed un-Islamic.
Once considered an Asian political star, in 1998 Anwar was famously sacked, arrested and beaten up by the then-police chief in a saga which made world headlines and overshadows Malaysia to this day.
He is barred from holding political office until 2008 due to the corruption charge, which he says was manufactured to prevent him threatening the dominance of his former mentor Mahathir Mohamad.
But he has said he still has ambitions of returning to power, in league with the opposition People’s Justice Party, or Keadilan, which is led by his wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.
Keadilan and PAS are both members of the “Alternative Front“, an informal opposition alliance against the might of the ruling UMNO-led National Front which controls the national government and every state except Kelantan.

BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS, Nov. 28--Israel’s veteran statesman Shimon Peres is likely to leave his longtime political home of the Labour Party and join Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s new centrist list, Reuters quoted Israeli radios as reporting on Monday.
Israel Radio, quoting senior party sources, said Peres, 82 and a Nobel peace laureate, was leaning toward leaving Labour.
He is expected to make an announcement once he returns later this week from a conference on Mediterranean nations in Barcelona, the radio said.
Sharon, who has redrawn Israel’s political map by quitting his rightist Likud party to leave him freer to make peace moves with the Palestinians, has offered Peres the job of peace envoy if he wins a March 28 national poll, reports said. A Sharon associate has confirmed that leaders of his party, Kadima, have been in touch with Peres about the possibility of him joining its ranks, but that Peres had not yet said whether he would join.
Peres himself told Israeli reporters on Sunday, in remarks broadcast on Army Radio: “The decision for me is very difficult, it is so tied up with historic and other considerations. It will take me another day or two to decide.“
Peres was also quoted as telling confidants “they don’t want me in Labour,“ a party he has represented in one capacity or another for decades.
He was ousted as the party’s leader in a Nov. 9 poll by fiery trade union leader Amir Peretz and had not indicated since then how he would proceed politically.
Michael Bar-Zohar, an Israeli biographer of both Peres and his mentor, Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion, told the radio he thought Peres would bolt Labour, but that the veteran Israeli figure had not yet made up his mind.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Nov. 28--A Tamil Tiger deadline for a political deal in Sri Lanka has eased fears of an immediate return to war in the South Asian nation and leaves room for the new government to maneuver, AFP quoted analysts as saying Monday.
The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on Sunday set a year-end deadline for the new government of President Mahinda Rajapakse to come up with a “reasonable“ political settlement or risk a war for full independence.
Some analysts feared the LTTE would call for an immediate return to war and bring an end to a ceasefire in place since 2002.
But in a symbol that the statement left room for a settlement, the Colombo stock market rose 3.5 percent to 2,275 Monday in early trading, a reverse from sharp declines since Rajapakse came to power 10 days ago under a promise to review the peace process.
The annual speech by LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran is always closely monitored for changes in policy by the separatist group, which has waged an ethnic insurgency that has claimed more than 60,000 lives since 1972.
“Prabhakaran’s message is not as bad as what the market expected,“ a dealer at Ceylinco stock brokers said. “That is why the market is going up.“
Prabhakaran made no direct reference to peace talks offered by the new government, but made it clear he was putting the administration on notice.
“This is our urgent and final appeal,“ Prabhakaran said in a speech broadcast over the rebel Voice of Tigers radio.
“If the new government rejects our urgent appeal, we will, next year... establish self-government in our homeland.“
The brokers read the message as a sign that there would not be an immediate outbreak of hostilities on the island.
Prabhakaran “is also buying time,“ said Chinthaka Ranasinghe, head of research at John Keells Stock Brokers. “We expected it to be worse, but he has given some breathing space (to the government)“.
Political analysts said the tone of the rebel leader’s speech may have been an attempt to avoid an international backlash.

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Nov. 28--Senate polls held in Zimbabwe at the weekend recorded a historically low voter turn-out, election observers said Monday, describing it as a silent protest against President Robert Mugabe’s regime, AFP reported.
The average percentage of voters that bothered to cast their ballots was less than 30 percent, the lowest ever recorded in 25 years, while taking part at all split the main opposition party.
“It’s a very low voter turn-out. We believe this is the lowest turn-out ever polled in Zimbabwe... it’s the lowest ever recorded from 1980,“ Reginald Matchaba-Hove, head of the respected Zimbabwe Elections Support Network.
“This clearly implies a protest vote by Zimbabweans against the status quo,“ added Matchaba-Hove.
But analysts expressed concern the low turn-out effectively helped Mugabe, 81, cement his grip on power on the southern African country he had led since independence from Britain in 1980.
Matchaba-Hove said it “effectively entrenches the over-dominance of one party“.
The ZESN also attributed the dismal turn-out of as low as 16 percent in some parts of the country, to “dwindling interest in the integrity of the ballot, the current economic hardships, the political crisis“.