Poll officials scrapped the planned second round of the Afghan presidential election, and declared Hamid Karzai (right on the photo, from aljazeera.net) the elected president.

The day before the Independent Election Commission announcement, Karzai’s sole challenger pulled out of the race.

After demanding key poll officials to quit, Abdullah Abdullah said he did not think it would be a free and fair vote.

Last August, the first round of the vote was marred by mass electoral fraud.

“We declare Hamid Karzai, which [sic] got the majority of votes in the first round and is the only candidate for the second round of the election in Afghanistan in 2009… is the elected president of Afghanistan,” said a spokesman for the Independent Election Commission in a news conference.

He added that the second round was being scrapped in order to save money and to prevent further setbacks that could damage Afghanistan politically and economically.

As he gained more votes in the first round on 20 August, president Karzai had been the favourite to win the run-off.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Kabul earlier on Monday, where he met with Karzai and Abdullah. Ban Ki-moon said Afghanistan’s troubled election had been among “the most difficult the United Nations has ever supported”.

The Pacific island of Palau has welcomed six Chinese Uighur prisoners from the US detention centre at Guantanmo Bay, officials say. (photo, from bbc.co.uk)

They have “arrived to freedom”, said lawyers for three of them early on Sunday.

In June, Palau agreed to take up to a dozen Uighurs. Captured during the US-led war in Afghanistan, they are no longer classified as “enemy combatants”.

China wants them to be returned there, but the US says that due to the risk of mistreatment, it cannot repatriate them.

Beijing has frequently cracked down on Uighur dissidents, accusing them of seeking an independent homeland in the western province of Xinjiang.

Nine other Uighur detainees were resettled, five in Albania in 2006 and four in Bermuda last June.

Temporary home

Three of the six Uighurs released from Guantanamo on Saturday are represented by a law firm that confirmed that they had arrived safely at their new home in the main town of Koror.

“These men want nothing more than to live peaceful, productive lives in a free, democratic nation safe from oppression by the Chinese,” Eric Tirschwell of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel told the Associated Press.

“Thanks to Palau, which has graciously offered them a temporary home, they now have that chance,” he added.

The men have already begun learning English and look forward to become productive members of the community, said Mr Tirschwell.

The men will live in a three-storey building which is a five-minute walk from Koror’s only mosque, one of two on the island.

The President of Palau, Johnson Toribiong, told the BBC that the Uighurs would be given a temporary home for as long as two years.

“Initially, they will be attending a crash course in the English language and of our culture and history for a couple of months. We’ll interview them to find out about their skills, and then try to place them where they’ll be gainfully employed,” he said.

The Muslim population of Palau is mostly composed of migrant workers from Bangladesh. Many of them face being deported due to lapsed work permits.

The island has offered to take six of the seven other Uighurs still being held at Guantanamo. One did not receive an invitation because of concerns about his mental health.

US Supreme Court

Last year, the American defence department decided that the Uighur detainees were not enemy combatants. However they were refused the right to settle in the US.

Palau is a former US trust territory. It’s an archipelago of eight main islands plus more than 250 islets that is best known for diving and tourism and is located some 800km (500 miles) east of the Philippines.

In 1994, Palau became independent but retained close ties with Washington by signing a Compact of Free Association with the US. The tiny nation relies heavily on the US for aid and defence, and does not have diplomatic relations with China.

Before the latest departures from Guantanamo, the US Supreme Court, rejected the government’s position, saying it would hear an appeal by the Uighurs, who have argued that they should be released onto US soil.

Currently, there are 215 detainees remaining at the prison camp. President Barack Obama has pledged to close it by 22 January.

Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s prime minister and leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has announced its decision to boycott the country’s unity cabinet. (photo, from aljazeera.net)

Although Robert Mugabe, the country’s president, has criticised the party of his estranges coalition partner, he said on Saturday that he remains committed to working with Tsvangirai’s MDC despite the boycott.

However the president called on the MDC to honour the power-sharing agreement it entered with Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party last year in a bid to end political violence.

Earlier this month, Tsvangirai announced the boycott, accusing Mugabe of refusing to fully implement the power-sharing agreement.

At the funeral of one of his party’s senate members, Mugabe said the MDC has “one leg in, and one leg out” of the government.

“The requirement is that we indeed continue step-by-step to move together and whatever are the difficulties, become our difficulties together,” he said.

“For one party … to decide ‘We shall not be fully in the process’ … then you begin to wonder whether you went into the agreement with persons who actually appreciated what going into an agreement means.”

‘Dishonest’

State media also reported on Saturday that Mugabe called the MDC leader “dishonest”.

“They can never be true and genuine partners and they have proved to be dishonest,” he said.

“We, however, want to assure you that we will not allow the situation to continue like that.”

In the same time as Mugabe’s comments, negotiators from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) proposed an emergency summit to resolve the crisis.

Sadc is a 15-member bloc that has been involved in a search for a solution to Zimbabwe’s governance problems.

Over the past two days, ministers from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia, support staff from the Sadc secretariat and representatives of Thabo Mbeki, a Sadc mediator and former South African president, have been meeting Zimbabwean officials.

Even though it was not immediately clear how the negotiations progressed, analysts said there were slim chances of a breakthrough because the Zanu-PF and the MDC remain at loggerheads over some aspects of their power-sharing pact.

The MDC says Zanu-PF has blocked the swearing-in of some of its officials.

The power-sharing deal between Zanu-PF and MDC was signed in September last year, following a crisis after disputed elections and political violence.

“I will not participate in the election,” Dr Abdullah told supporters. (photo, from aljazeera.net)

Hamid Karzai’s rival announced his withdrawal from the second round of the Afghan presidential election, arguing that his demands for ensuring a fraud-free election had not been met.

Karzai had rejected Dr Abdullah’s demand that election officials who presided over the first round should be dismissed.

Although the withdrawal was “very unfortunate”, according to Waheed Omar, the president Karzai’s spokesman, the election should go ahead as planned.

“The process has to complete itself, the people of Afghanistan have to be given the right to vote.”

A pull-out would not invalidate the vote’s legitimacy, said the US earlier.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in the United Arab Emirates: “We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination of reasons, one of the candidates decides not to go forward.”

But according to BBC’s Andrew North, in Kabul, Abdullah Abdullah’s withdrawal means this is uncharted territory, and it is unclear what will happen next.

When asked by reporters if he was calling for his supporters to boycott the vote planned for next Saturday, Dr Abdullah said: “I have not made that call”.

BBC’s correspondent says that there has been much speculation that there could be some kind of deal which would possibly see the emergence of a national unity government.

Even though it’s far from a done deal, talks are being held behind the scenes towards such a formation.

Yet Dr Abdullah said his decision had not been made “in exchange for anything from anybody, but only and purely in the interests of the people of Afghanistan and to give the people of Afghanistan a chance to move on.”

Allegations of fraud

The international community is very reluctant for the run-off to take place, wishing for the legal institutions of Afghanistan to come up with measures to bring the electoral process to an end.

A statement from the Afghan Election Commission is also expected.

August’s first round of voting was marred by widespread allegations of fraud after hundreds of thousands of votes were discounted.

Karzai’s share of the vote dropped to 49,67%, less than the crucial 50% plus one vote threshold needed to avoid second round, after an investigation by the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC).

In the end, Dr Abdullah was adjudged to have won about 31% of valid votes cast.

On Sunday, when he gave his decision to pull out of the race to be Afghan leader, emotion was clearly visible in Dr Abdullah’s face.

He announced his decision to his supporters at a meeting in a big tent in Kabul, where Afghanistan’s first post-Taliban government was agreed eight years ago.

Dr Abdullah is a Tajik-Pashtun former eye surgeon. He served as foreign minister in the short-lived government headed by the Northern Alliance, and continued as “foreign minister in exile” throughout the years of Taliban rule, which ended in 2001.

After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, he continued in the role in the government formed by president Karzai. He left it five years later.

Although the Pentagon cleared Chinese Muslim in 2004, a number of them are still being held at Guantanamo Bay (photo, from bbc.co.uk).

The US Supreme Court has said it will hear a case about the rights of ethnic Uighurs detained at the prison.

The court’s decision will be about allowing or not federal judges to order the Uighurs’ release into the US when no other country can be found to take them.

In February, an appeal court ruled that federal judges didn’t have that power, arguing that only the executive branch, not the judiciary, could make decisions on immigration.

US President Barack Obama wants to close Guantanamo by early next year.

No going back to China

In the meantime, the Obama administration has been trying to find a place for the remaining Uighur detainees to go.

In 2006, five Uighurs went to Albania.

In June, another four were sent to Bermuda. The Pacific island nation of Palau has said it will take 12 of the remaining 13.

Only one Uighur has not been offered a refuge in another country, his lawyer told the court.

However some of the Uighurs invited to go to Palau have expressed concern about the island being too close to China to be safe, as the country considers them to be separatists.

Expressing fear that they would be tortured or executed, the US has said it will not send the Uighurs back to China, though Beijing demands their handover. China says the detainees are leading an Islamic separatist movement in western China.

The group of 22 Chinese Muslims were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001.

Hamid Karzai did not gain enough valid votes for an outright win, according to a panel probing fraud claims in the Afghan election.

Although preliminary results from August’s first round had placed Karzai comfortably over the 50% plus one vote threshold needed to avoid a run-off, the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) recommended that ballots from 210 polling stations be discounted.

Therefore, Karzai’s vote share has fallen below half and he now faces a run-off against his main rival Abdullah Abdullah.

On Monday, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) published the findings of its long-awaited investigation into poll fraud in Afganistan’s elections.

The panel said it had found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud” at the polling stations, which were across the country.

“Diplomatic sources tell me that the figures clearly show Hamid Karzai is well below the crucial 50 per cent margin,” James Bays, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Kabul, reported.

Fazel Sancharaki, Abdullah’s campaign spokesman, welcomed the ECC’s findings, saying: “This is a step forward.”“I understand that key ambassadors are now meeting with the UN to discuss what is the next step, what is the way forward now that Hamid Karzai hasn’t reached the 50 per cent following this procedure by the Electoral Complaints Commission.”

It was not clear how Mr Karzai would respond to the ECC findings, amid reports of a possible legal challenge.

Initial results released last month had given Karzai nearly 55% of votes, with former foreign minister Abdullah (photo, from bbc.co.uk) on 28%, but allegations of massive fraid prompted the complaints commission’s investigation.

‘Reaction reserved’

However, Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Karzai’s campaign, dismissed claims that the ECC report meant a runoff would be necessary.

Many Afghans have expressed frustration with the almost two-month dealy to the announcement of the country’s election results.“I do not know how any diplomatic source can come out with a result out of what has been said today,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We will keep our reaction reserved for when the final, certified results of the elections are annocuned [by the Independent Election Commission] and that will be legally binding for us.”

Though the Independent Election Commission (IEC), the Afghan electoral body which organised the vote, is still to announce the official results, the ECC’s findings are seen as key to the outcome.

The ECC has already been criticised by Karzai’s camp, and some fear that the Karzai-influenced election commission may refuse to call a run-off, because it would delay the formation of a government.

Omar told Al Jazeera that the Karzai camp was not aware of any dispute between the ECC and IEC.

US policy change

Over the weekend, hundreds of Karzai supporters protested in the south. They called for the IEC to release the result quickly and said they will reject a second round.

Gathering in the main street of the southeastern city of Spin Boldak, they shouted : “We want the result!” and “Karzai is our leader!”

This election deadlock has also complicated a major US review of its policy in fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In order to step up its operations in the country, the US is considering a request by General Stanley McChrystal, the top US and Nato ground commander. to commit an extra 40,000 troops.

Yet Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff to the US president, has suggested that the US may not commit more troops to Afghanistan until a “credible and legitimate” government is in place.

The overriding question is not “how many troops you send, but do you have a credible Afghan partner”, said Emanuel, while speaking on CBS talk show Face The Nation.

Guinea’s military leader has warned on Saturday that Guineans are strongly opposed to international peacekeepers in their country.

Five days before Capt Moussa Dadis Camara’s comments, scores of opposition supporters were shot dead by Guinea’s forces at a pro-democracy rally.

The incident triggered opposition leaders to call for foreign arbitration.

Opposition parties, unions and representatives of the country’s civil society had on Friday called for an international peacekeeping force to be sent to Guinea to protect the people from the armed forces.

“Political leaders are issuing false reports, they have no support in the country,” said Camara. Last December, he seized power in the francophone West African nation, after the death of Lansana Conte, the president, who had been in power since 1984.

“They [opposition leaders] talk about sending an arbitration force … It would be needed between warring parties, but the situation here is calm, people go about their daily business,” Camara told press briefing.

He added that if such a force was “sent, the entire people of Guinea would rebel.”

Presidential elections

On Friday, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said it had named Blaise Compaore, Burkina Faso president, as “facilitator”, in order to ease tensions in Guinea after Monday’s bloodbath.

Soldiers killed demonstrators who gathered near a stadium in Conakry, the capital, to protest against Camara’s expected decision to stand in the presidential elections, due to be held in January.

The security forces said 56 people were killed. But according to a human rights group there were 157 dead and 1,200 injured. The United Nations said there were more than 150 dead.

The European Union’s Lisbon Treaty is back on track, with the Irish voters who approved the 27-nation bloc’s plans for reform.

On Saturday, the electoral office said that 67.1 per cent of voters had said “yes”, reversing the win last year by the “no” campaign. (photo, from aljazeera.net)

In a hard-fought campaign, the government, business leaders and even celebrities had said a second rejection risked isolating Ireland while it relied on the goodwill of the European Central Bank and foreign investors to pull out of one of the worst recessions in Europe.The Irish approval turns the spotlight on Poland and the Czech Republic, the only two countries still to ratify the treaty.“Today the Irish people have spoken with a clear and resounding voice,” Brian Cowen, the Irish prime minister, said.

“It is a good day for Ireland and it is a good day for Europe.”

The Irish had better understood the second time around what benefits the treaty would bring, according to Cowen.

Because the treaty cannot take effect unless all the member states ratify it, EU leaders have pressed the Irish government to call the second referendum.

Yet voter turnout was reported at 58 per cent.

Assurances

The country’s prime minister is also relieved by the result, as he would have been likely to lose his job, had it gone the other way. In parliament, his centre-left coalition has lost its technical majority in parliament and is suffering in opinion polls.

The financial situation played a role in the result, according to Jonah Hull, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Dublin. “The last time the Irish voted last year the economy was good and they feared a threat to their national sovereignty from a European super-state, well this time the country is in deep economic crisis and it appears to have changed its mind.”

And EU partners gave assurances to Dublin before the vote, that its sovereignty on issues like taxation, military neutrality and abortion would not be affected by adopting the treaty of Lisbon.

Ireland was the only EU country constitutionally obliged to put the treaty to a referendum.

Other countries still have to vote

On Saturday, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said he hoped that his country would ratify the EU treaty “very quickly.”

However, it might take more time to Czech Republic. President Vaclav Klaus said Prague’s ratification was “not on the cards” anytime soon, because the Czech constitutional court has asked him not to take any action until it has ruled on the matter.

A slim chance remains that the Lisbon treaty could run into problems, Deaglan de Bredun, a political correspondent with the Irish Times, told Al Jazeera.

“The ‘no’ campaigners hope that the Czech president will delay long enough for David Cameron [Britain's opposition leader who is opposed to the treaty] to get in [as prime minister] as expected, that he will have a referendum and they will defeat the Lisbon treaty. But that is a bit of a long shot,” he said.

“If the treaty is not in force when the election is held, and if we are elected, then we will hold a referendum on it,” said Cameron, who is widely tipped to win a parliamentary election scheduled for next June.

The Lisbon Treaty includes more qualified majority voting in the council of ministers, increased involvement of the European parliament in the legislative process and the creation of a president of the European Council with a term of two and half years.

It would also create the role of “high representative for foreign affairs” which would present a united position on EU policies.

The Washington Times reported that US president Barack Obama, has agreed to abide by a 40-year policy of allowing Israel to keep nuclear weapons without opening them to international inspection.

On Saturday, the US newspaper quoted three unnamed sources as saying Obama had confirmed to Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, that he would maintain the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The decision was reportedly taken last May, when the two met at the White House in Washington DC. (photo, from sanfranciscosentinel.com)

Neither Israel’s embassy in Washington, nor the White House National Security Council would comment on the claim.

Although there is no official accounting of the deal, it was supposedly agreed in 1969 between Richard Nixon, US president at the time, and Golda Meir, the then Israeli prime minister.”It was utterly clear from the context of the speech that he was speaking about North Korea and Iran,” the Israeli leader said.

‘Strategic understandings’

Last week, Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 media company that he was confident that Obama’s recent remarks on a world free of nuclear weapons would not apply to Israel.

“It was utterly clear from the context of the speech that he was speaking about North Korea and Iran,” the Israeli leader said.

“But I want to remind you that in my first meeting with President Obama in Washington I received from him … an itemised list of the strategic understandings that have existed for many years between Israel and the United States on that issue.

“It was not for naught that I requested, and it was not for naught that I received [that document].”

Some documents hint at an agreement between the two nations, however there is no formal record of the understanding, since nor Israeli nor American governments have ever publicly aknowledged it.

The document that comes closest to articulating US policy on the issue is a July 19, 1969 memo from Henry Kissinger, then national security adviser, that has been declassified by the Nixon library in 2007.

That memo says “while we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact”.

At least 58 people have been killed in Guinea, after troops opened fire on an opposition rally, reports say. (photo, from bbc.co.uk)

According to a BBC correspondent, troops fired into protesters as they gathered in a stadium in the capital, Conakry.

The rally gathered about 50,000 people. It was against Capt Moussa Dadis Camara, who seized power in the West African nation in a bloodless coup last year.

Indications that Capt Camara is to reverse a pledge not to run in a presidential vote planned for January, triggered the gathering.

At least two opposition leaders have been arrested, reports say.

According to doctors, at least 58 bodies have been brought to hospital, many with bullet wounds.

A statement strongly condemning the “violent repression” of opposition demonstrators has been issued by France.

The demonstrators have now been dispersed, says BBC’s Alhassan Sillah, but the military is out in force mounting checkpoints on many roads.

He adds that some opposition leaders appear to have been arrested and journalists have been targeted by the security forces.

Clashes

A year ago, hours after the death of president Lansana Conte, who had ruled for more than two decades, Capt Camara (photo, from bbc.co.uk) staged a coup.

Tough the military takeover had some popular support at its beginning, in recent weeks there have been several anti-government protests.

Hints from Capt Camara that he may stand for president in January appear to have sparked the protests.

In Conakry, placards reading “No to Dadis” and “Down with the army in power” were carried by demonstrators who gathered outside the capital’s largest stadium, said the AFP news agency.

But the demonstration had already been banned and the stadium was closed and guarded by large numbers of police.

It was followed by clashes between police and demonstrators. Officers charged the crowds and fired live ammunition.

“This is only the beginning of demonstrations and counter-demonstrations we can expect in the next few months,” Guinea expert Gilles Yabi told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme.

He added that should Capt Camara stand for president, it would be a violation of the tacit agreement between military and civil forces which has kept him in power.

It would also mark a perpetuation of the kind of rule that Guinea has seen for the past decade, and that the military had promised to sweep away.

Eccentric displays of power have characterised Capt Camara’s rule, like forcing members of the elite presidential guard to beg for forgiveness on national TV after they roughed up a veteran officer.

Former aides and officials have been accused of corruption and links to the drugs trade, including the son of former President Lansana Conte, who was shown confessing on TV to smuggling cocaine.