2A - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, January 17, 2006 NATION/WORLD Iraqi ballots nearly all validated NEWS IN BRIEF . Results to come in soon after fraud complaints delayed the final vote tally BAGHDAD - Iraq's electoral commission ruled yesterday that more than 99 percent of the ballots from the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections are valid, opening the way for a new government to start coming together. Final election results have been delayed by fraud complaints mainly lodged by the Sunni Arab minor- ity, and groups looking for a political edge in dealing with the Shiite Muslim majority could still make fur- ther protests and hold up the naming of new leaders for two or three months. A U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter crashed north of Baghdad, killing its two pilots. A bombing aimed at a convoy of American police advisers in the capital caused one death, while a car bomb killed five policemen and a 6-year-old in Muq- dadiya, 60 miles north of Baghdad. Iraq's electoral commission announced it was throwing out votes froms227ballot boxes becauseof fraud, a tiny percentage - less than 1 percent - of the total vote that shouldn't affect the overall results. "These boxes will not have an affect on the pre- liminary results that we issued last month," said Adel al-Lami, general director of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. Complaints by Sunni Arab and secular Shiite parties charging voting fraud and other irregulari- ties have delayed announcement of final results, impeding negotiations on forming a new, broad- based coalition government. Hussein Hendawi, an official on the election commission, said uncertified election results should be released in four to five days, which will give the various parties a good idea of how many seats they will get in the new 275-member parliament. No party is expected to be able to govern on its own, requiring the factions to work together in forming a coalition Cabinet. Politicians predict that will take several months, just as it did after last year's election of an interim government. Hendawi said election officials annulled some go I via I Wiwi 94" m"m w MW 09 1 IMMIM ILI RVANNr V LONDON Russia, China say Iran must disarm Russia and China agreed with the United States and its European allies yesterday that Iran must fully suspend its nuclear program, but the countries stopped short of demanding referral to the U.N. Security Council, Britain's Foreign Office said. Iran's ambassador to Moscow praised a Russian proposal to move the Ira- nian uranium enrichment program to its territory. Russian President Vladimir Putin also urged caution in dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue, saying that Tehran might still agree to the Russian offer and warning "it's necessary to work carefully and avoid any sharp, erroneous moves." Britain, France and Germany, backed by Washington, want Iran to be referred to the Security Council, which can impose sanctions. Russia and China have resisted such a move in the past and could stymie efforts against Tehran as veto-wielding members of the U.N. body. The British Foreign Office said all five permanent members of the Security Council - the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China - and Germany had shown "serious concern over Iranian moves to restart uranium enrichment activities" MONROVIA, Liberia First elected female head of state sworn in AP PHOTO Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution In Iraq, delivers a speech to party members on the second day of Eid al-Adha, Jan. 11, in Baghdad ballot boxes because fake ballots were used, while the votes of about 53 boxes were thrown out because too many votes were cast. Iraqis voted at about 6,200 centers across the country Dec. 15, and there were an average of five ballot boxes at each. So 227 ballot boxes would be about two-thirds of one percent of the total vote, which was estimated at about 11 million ballots. Hendawi said the commission studied 58 serious complaints, including 25 from Baghdad, which is Iraq's biggest election district with 59 seats. A total of 1,985 complaints were lodged, but most were considered minor transgressions that would warrant nothing more than a fine. Fewer irregularities occurred than in the vote for an interim parliament last Jan. 30, Hendawi said. The governing United Iraqi Alliance, a religious bloc based in the Shiite Muslim majority, held a strong lead in preliminary results announced after the election. But with an estimated 130 seats, based on those results, it wouldn't have enough to control parliament and will have to form a coali- tion with Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Sunni Arab and secular Shiite parties claimed there was widespread fraud and intimidation of voters in the Dec. 15 election, and they demanded that voting be rerun in some provinces, including Baghdad. They now have two days to appeal the election commission's handling of the complaints. Another two days would be needed to review any new com- plaints and a further day to examine any found to be legitimate, the commission said. Africa's first elected female head of state Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was sworn in yes- terday as war-battered Liberia's new president, promising a "fundamental break" with the West African nation's violent past and pledging to rebuild. With U.S. Navy warships offshore for the first time since the civil war's end two years ago, and first lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condo- leezza Rice on hand in a show of support, the moment was met with thunder- ous applause from thousands of guests. "We know that your vote was a vote for change, a vote for peace, security ... and we have heard you loudly," the 67-year-old Sirleaf said in her inaugu- ral speech. "We recognize this change is not a change for change's sake, but a fundamental break with the past." U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent congratulations, saying Sirleaf had a "historic mandate to lead the nation toward a future of lasting peace and stability:' Founded by freed American slaves in 1847, Liberia was prosperous and peaceful for more than a century, bolstered by abundant timber and diamond wealth. But back-to-back civil wars from 1989 to 2003 brought the country to its knees, killing 200,000 people and displacing half the nation's population of 3 million. KABUL, Afghanistan Suicide bomber on motorcycle kills 20 A suicide bomber drove a motorbike into a crowd at a wrestling match in an Afghan border town yesterday, killing 20 people. It was the third deadly bombing in a little over 24 hours in the Taliban's former stronghold province of Kandahar. The assault came shortly after a bomb targeted a truck convoy of Afghan sol- diers in Kandahar city, killing four people and wounding 16. On Sunday, a suicide car bomber in that southern provincial capital killed a senior Canadian diplomat and two Afghan civilians. The attack on the wrestling match in Spinboldak was the bloodiest yet in a string of two dozen suicide bombings the past four months. It is a relatively new tactic for militants here and has stoked fears of an escalating siege of bloody attacks like those in Iraq. BAGHDAD American helicopter crashes, killin two A U.S. military helicopter crashed north of the Iraqi capital yesterday - the third American chopper to go down in 10 days - killing the two crew members. A resident said he saw the smoke trail of a missile before the aircraft plunged to the ground. The military said the AH-64 Apache was conducting a combat air patrol when it went down in an area "known for terrorist activity." Officials said it was too early to determine the cause of the crash, and the names of the dead soldiers were not released. Apaches hold only a pilot and a co-pilot. al NASA points unmanned craft toward Pluto First spacecraft to head to farthest planet sets off on nine-year voyage today CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - An unmanned NASA spacecraft the size of a piano is set to lift off today on a nine-year journey to Pluto, the last unexplored planet in the solar system. Scientists hope to learn more about the icy planet and its large moon, Charon, as well as two other, recently discovered moons in orbit around Pluto. The $700 million New Horizons mission also will study the surround- ing Kuiper Belt, the mysterious zone of the solar system that is believed to hold thousands of comets and other icy objects. It could hold clues to how the planets were formed. "They finally are going! I can't believe it!" said Patricia Tombaugh, 93, widow of Clyde Tombaugh, the Illinois-born astronomer who dis- covered Pluto in 1930. Patricia Tombaugh, her two chil- dren, and the astronomer's younger sister planned to witness the launch of the New Horizons spacecraft at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Sta- tion this afternoon. Pluto is the only planet discov- ered by a U.S. citizen, though some astronomers dispute Pluto's right to be called a planet. It is an oddball icy dwarf unlike the rocky planets of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars and the gaseous planets of Jupiter, Sat- urn, Uranus and Neptune. NASA has sent unmanned space probes to every planet but Pluto. "What we know about Pluto today could fit on the back of a postage stamp," said Colleen Hartman, a dep- uty associate administrator at NASA. "The textbooks will be rewritten after this mission is completed." New Horizons will lift off on an Atlas V rocket and speed away from Earth at 36,000 mph, the fastest spacecraft ever launched. It will reach Earth's moon in about nine hours and arrive in 13 months at Jupiter, where it will use the giant planet's gravity as a slingshot, shaving five year off STUDY ABROAD SE VILLA.,S PAIN "The only place in Europe that merges Roman, Jewish and Moorish culture with a young and exciting University town, a Mediterranean diet and the perfect weather" UW - PLATTEVILLE / SPANISH-AMERICAN INSTITUTE "In 1984 the Spanish-American Institute of Seville, Spain and the Univ. of Wisconsin-Platteville began a relationship that has now lasted for over 21 years and created one of the finest study abroad programs in the world according to The Student's Guide to the Best Study Abroad Programs" * Classes taught in English and Spanish * Homestay with Spanish families * 24 hours staff on call - your safety and wellbeing - our number one concern * Daily culture visits - weekend trips available * Intercambio program * Price - $ 7,895 for WI/MN residents --- $ 8,495 for non-residents "Choose the sun drenched, exciting University town of Sevilla the three billion mile trip. The launch had drawn protests from anti-nuclear activists because the spacecraft will be powered by 24 pounds of plutonium, which will produce energy from natural radio- active decay. NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy have put the probability of an early-launch accident that could release plutonium at 1 in 350. The agencies have brought in 16 mobile field teams that can detect radiation and 33 air samplers and monitors. "Just as we have ambulances at football games, you don't expect to use them, but we have them there if we need them," NASA official Randy Scott said. Mississippi GCf Coast feeling ne lected g GULFPORT, Miss. - Nicki Hender- son has had plenty of reasons to be angry since Hurricane Katrina destroyed her Biloxi home, but it was a simple news item about dislocated dolphins that really made her blood boil. Henderson lost her temper when she logged on to her computer and spotted this headline: "New Orleans Dolphins Find New Home." She knew the dolphins actually came from a hurricane-ravaged marine park in Gulfport, not New Orleans. The headline writer's error rein- forced her belief - shared by many on Mississippi's Gulf Coast - that New Orleans has gotten a dispro- portionate share of the news cover- age and the nation's attention in the aftermath of the storm, now more than four months gone. There is a growing sense the cata- strophic damage along Mississippi's 70- mile stretch of coastline is being treated as a mere footnote to the story in New Orleans, which was ravaged by flooding. Worse, some say the lack attention could hamper the recovery of an area that had experienced an economic renaissance in the past decade thanks to billions of dollars of investment by major casino and hotel companies. "I am terrified the American people are going to forget about us," Henderson said. On Dec. 14, The Sun Herald in Gulfport devoted its entire front page to an editorial, headlined "Mississip- pi's Invisible Coast," that argued the region is fading into a "black hole of media obscurity." Next to the edito- rial was a graphic tallying Katrina's toll on the region: $125 billion in estimated damage, 236 dead, 65,380 houses destroyed. A caption on page 7 of Friday's Daily misspelled the name of LSA senior Jil- lian Steinhauer. A story on the front page of of Friday's Daily (Don't forget victims of quake, relief worker says) said last fall's earthquake in South Asia happened Oct. 6. It struck Oct. 8. Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com. bit £kbigun i1i7g 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com CORRECTIONS JASON Z. 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