Police, protesters fight over elections

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Police, protesters

fight over elections

Riot police clashed with dozens of opposition supporters in Ethiopia's capital Tuesday, leaving eight people dead and 43 wounded in renewed protests against disputed elections, the Information Ministry said.

Two leaders of the main opposition party Coalition for Unity and Democracy were also arrested, party officials said.

The clashes came a day after police arrested and revoked the licenses of 30 taxi drivers who took part in demonstrations against the May 15 parliamentary elections, which opposition parties claim were rigged by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's ruling party.

Israeli missile kills

2 Palestinians

An Israeli airstrike Tuesday in the Gaza Strip killed two military leaders of radical Palestinian groups, including a senior member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades whose arrest Israel had demanded for months.

The missile strike targeted a car carrying Hassan Madoun, 32, of al-Aqsa and Fawzi Abu Qara, 37, of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, in Gaza's Jabaliya refugee camp.

Hospital officials said six bystanders were wounded in the attack, which broadened an Israeli offensive against armed Palestinian groups that had focused on the relatively small Islamic Jihad faction.

Eight days of attacks and reprisals have left the cease-fire in tatters and dimmed hopes that Israel's recent withdrawal from Gaza after 38 years might lead to the resumption of a peace process.

Today in the occupied West Bank, meanwhile, Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli soldier during an arrest raid, the Israeli army said.

Zanzibar, Tanzania

Incumbent leader

declared winner

Zanzibar's incumbent president and his party were declared the winners Tuesday of elections marred by violence and allegations of fraud, with officials saying nine people were killed in the latest clashes.

Seif Shariff Hamad of the main opposition Civic United Front said five supporters died on the Zanzibar archipelago's second island, Pemba, on Tuesday. Incumbent President Amani Abeid Karume of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi won 53.2 percent of the vote, while Hamad had 46.1 percent, according to electoral chief Masauni Yussuf Massauni.

The socialist Chama Cha Mapinduzi, or Revolutionary Party, has ruled the "spice islands" for more than 30 years. Islamic radicals could find an opening in this devoutly Muslim region if the latest vote is seen as flawed.

Ottawa

Prime minister

found innocent

Prime Minister Paul Martin was cleared Tuesday of wrongdoing in a kickbacks scandal that has dominated Canadian politics for more than a year, boosting his chances of staying in power in elections next year.

The head of the investigation, Justice John Gomery, found that Liberal Party officials "subverted and betrayed" Canadians' trust in government by channeling millions of taxpayer dollars to advertising firms that illegally kicked back funds to the party. The money was part of an ad campaign to promote national unity in French-speaking Quebec when the province was threatening to secede.

Although Martin, finance minister at the time, signed off on the "Unity Fund," the commission concluded he was not responsible for how the money was mishandled.

Also

Kosovo sex case: A court in Serbia's U.N.-governed Kosovo province sentenced Rashidoon Khan of Pakistan, an official of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, to three years in prison after finding him guilty of sexual abuse of a minor.

Greenpeace to pay: Greenpeace said Tuesday it will pay nearly $7,000 after the environmental group's flagship Rainbow Warrior II hit a coral reef at a world heritage site in the Philippines on Monday.

Compiled from The Associated Press, The Washington Post and Reuters