8 theSun | WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 21 2009

news without borders

Karzai agrees to Afghan election run-off

KABUL: President Hamid Karzai
agreed to face a second round of vot-
ing in Afghanistan’s disputed election
yesterday after a UN-led fraud inquiry
tossed out enough of his votes to trig-
ger a run-off.
The dispute around the Aug 20
vote has stoked tension between
Karzai and the West and complicated
US President Barack Obama’s deci-
sion on whether to send thousands
more American troops to Afghanistan
to fight a resurgent Taliban.
Obama, British Prime Minister Gor-
don Brown and UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon all welcomed Karzai’s
decision to accept the run-off..
“It is now vital that all elements of
Afghan society continue to come to-
gether to advance democracy, peace
and justice,” Obama said.
“We look forward to a second
round of voting, and the completion
of the process to choose the presi-
dent of Afghanistan.”.
The White House said the president
had taken no decision on whether to
wait for the new poll before announc-
ing a new strategy for Afghanistan. A
decision would be taken “in the com-
ing weeks”. The Nov 7 election will
pit Karzai once again against his main
election rival, former foreign minister
Abdullah Abdullah.
After hours of closed-door talks
with Western diplomats, Karzai ap-
peared tense as he welcomed the rul-
ing by the Afghan Independent Elec-
tion Commission (IEC). The ruling cut
his tally to 49.7% from the preliminary
first-round result of 54.6% – below
the 50% needed for an outright win.
“We believe that this decision
of the IEC is legitimate, legal and
constitutional and that it strengthens
the path towards democracy,” said
Karzai, US Senator John Kerry by his
side and UN Afghanistan envoy Kai
Eide standing between them.
The IEC made its ruling after a
separate UN-backed fraud panel in-
validated tens of thousands of votes
for Karzai this week. Karzai had earlier
said the extent of fraud was exagger-
ated and expressed confidence in his
first-round victory.
Abdullah’s camp said they were
prepared for the run-off.
“We had hoped the president
would accept the second round,” said
his spokesman, Fazel Sangcharaki.
Karzai is almost certain to win the
run-off but the level of mass fraud alleged
in the first round will inevitably cast a
shadow over the new vote. – Reuters

the time of the holdup. After Cannon

briefs
Man bitten in private
parts in sex assault
was charged with drug offences last
year, police took his DNA sample, which
was matched in a computer database to
the blood taken from the leech. – dpa

Somali pirates threaten

TAIPEI: A man had to seek medical treat-
ment after his genitals were bitten while
forcing a homeless man to perform oral
sex, a newspaper reported yesterday. The
incident occurred about 3am on Monday
in Daya Park in Taichung County, central
Taiwan, the Apple Daily said.
Hou Chung-hsin, 31, who is homeless,
was drunk when he saw a 60-year-old
man, identified only as Kuo, sleeping
under a pavilion. Hou woke up Kuo and
asked for money. When Kuo refused to
give him money, Hou knocked Kuo to the
ground. Kuo pulled himself up and walked
into a toilet to urinate. Hou followed him
into the toilet, grabbed Kuo’s head and
forced him to perform oral sex on him, the
paper said. Kuo bit Hou’s genitals, drawing
blood and causing Hou to flee for help to a
police station about 50m away. – dpa
Leech a world-first in
robbery conviction
SYDNEY: Blood taken from a leech at
the scene of an armed robbery eight
years ago at an isolated farmhouse
was used to convict a Tasmanian man
in what Australian police said was a
world-first for forensic evidence, news
to kill Chinese sailors
MOGADISHU: Pirates from Somalia who
hijacked a Chinese bulk carrier in the
Indian Ocean threatened yesterday to
execute its 25 Chinese crew members if
any rescue operation was attempted.
The De Xin Hai was carrying about
76,000 tonnes of coal from South Africa
to India when it was seized by gunmen on
Monday some 700 nautical miles east of
the failed Horn of Africa state.
“We tell China not to endanger the
lives of their people with any rescue
operation,” Hassan, an associate of the
gang, told Reuters by phone.
“If they try that we will execute the
whole crew ... we tell them to change
their mind regarding any rescue, other-
wise they will regret it.” – Reuters
Taxi driver runs over, kills
passenger after quarrel
TAIPEI: Police on Tuesday were hunting
for a taxi driver who admitted to run-
ning over and killing a passenger. The
taxi driver quarrelled with the male
passenger early yesterday as he was
driving him to Pateh Road, according
to cable TV channel FTV.
Taliban retake Pakistani
town, blasts hit varsity
DERA ISMAIL KHAN (Pakistan): Taliban
militants attacked Pakistani forces and recap-
tured a strategic town yesterday while two
suicide bomb blasts at an Islamic university
in the capital killed six people and wounded at
least 20, officials said.
The government made an immediate link
between the university attack and an offensive
against the Taliban, with Interior Minister
Rehman Malik saying “all roads are leading
towards South Waziristan”.
Fighting for control of the lawless area is a
major test of the government’s ability to tackle an
increasingly brazen insurgency that has seen a
string of attacks in various parts of the country.
The army on Monday captured the small
town of Kotkai, the birthplace of Pakistani Tali-
ban chief Hakimullah Mehsud on the approach
to an insurgent base in south Waziristan, but
militants struck back yesterday to retake it,
People security officials said.
displaced by Two suicide bomb blasts at the International
the military Islamic University in Islamabad yesterday
operation
– the first since the offensive began – killed six
people, including the bombers, and wounded
at least 20, officials said.
The sprawling university teaches over 12,000
students, nearly half of them female and includ-
ing hundreds of foreigners, focusing on educa-
tion that incorporates Islam in modern times.
“Those who attacked the university have
shown that they are neither friends of Islam
nor of Pakistan,” Malik said.
An intelligence official said jets bombed
Taliban positions in and around Kotkai after
the militant counter-attack.
The town, also the home town of Qari Hus-
sain Mehsud, a senior Taliban commander
known as “the mentor of suicide bombers”, is a
gateway to a militant stronghold at Sararogha.
The army says 90 militants and 13 soldiers
have been killed since the long-awaited offen-
sive began on Saturday.
“In last 24 hours ... 12 terrorists have been
killed during security forces operations,” the
military said in a statement. – Reuters

reports said yesterday.
Peter Cannon pleaded guilty after
the Launceston court was told the
chances of the blood sample not being
his was were one in 100 million. The
crime scene blood sample was stored
after police found no match from the
71-year-old victim or from anyone who
could have been in the house around
EPAPIX
After the passenger got off on Pateh against
Road, the taxi driver allegedly turned Taliban
the taxi around, knocked the passenger militants
down and ran over him. The taxi then wait to get
sped away. The passenger suffered registered
head injuries and died in hospital. The for relief aid.
taxi driver later phoned police, saying
he had run over the passenger, but did
not immediately surrender. – dpa

Haemophiliacs appeal to
US court over HIV-tainted drug
TAIPEI: A group of Taiwanese HIV patients are ap-
pealing against a US court decision barring them
from suing pharmaceutical giant Bayer which they
blame for their plight, their lawyer said yesterday.
The patients, who are haemophiliacs, say they
contracted the deadly virus from blood products
sold here in the 1980s by US-headquartered Cut-
ter, owned by Bayer, according to Michael Baum,
their lead attorney.
The Illinois Federal Court recently ruled that
the Taiwan cases were barred by the statute of
limitations, although the Taiwanese patients had
won a motion to proceed in California in January.
“We have filed notices of appeal,” said Baum,
of Los Angeles-based law firm Baum, Hedlund,
Aristei and Goldman, which has represented
41 Taiwanese haemophiliacs and their relatives
since 2003. At the centre of the dispute is a blood
product called Koate, used in the early 1980s to
make the blood of the haemophilia patients clot
in the event of injury.
Koate was made by the US-headquartered
Cutter, which was bought by Bayer in the 1970s.
Taiwanese health authorities banned the prod-
uct in 1985 after it was found that the product
had not been heat-treated and could be tainted
with HIV.
But by that time, thousands of people had
been affected worldwide, among them at least 53
patients in Taiwan, according to Taiwan’s Depart-
ment of Health. Altogether 36 out of the original
53 local patients have died, a patient said.
Meanwhile, data from an AIDS vaccine trial in
Thailand was presented to scientists yesterday
for the first time, confirming the prototype as only
a partial shield against HIV but still a pioneering
achievement.
Volunteers who received the vaccine had a 31.2%
reduction in the risk of infection by the human im-
munodeficiency virus, Thai and US researchers told
the AIDS Vaccine 2009 conference in Paris.
It marks the first piece of solid good news in the
quest for a vaccine against AIDS, which has claimed
more than 25 million lives since 1981. – AFP