Bahrain

Voters spurn boycott in historic election

Bahrainis voted in the small nation’s first legislative elections in nearly 30 years Thursday, with many spurning a boycott called by Shiite Muslims who said the step toward democracy did not go far enough.

The election marked a milestone for women who are voting and running for national office for the first time in a Gulf Arab state. But early results showed that none of the eight women running won and only one would enter next week’s run-offs, said Information Minister Nabil al-Hamer.

The turnout was 53.2 percent, a slight improvement on the 51 percent recorded in municipal elections in May that all political groups contested.

Voters were electing 40 members of parliament, the first such election in Bahrain since 1973. Among the 177 candidates were eight women.

Venezuela

Chavez: Dissidents trying to provoke coup

Military officers demanding elections are desperately trying to incite a coup while cloaking themselves in the constitution, but they will be defeated, President Hugo Chavez said Thursday.

In his first reaction to the call to rebel by dozens of officers, Chavez dismissed the protest as “a show” and said he had foiled a coup plot linked to a Monday general strike against his government.

“We will continue to defeat them, one after another,” he said.

Venezuela is deadlocked between Chavez, who defended his leftist revolution for Venezuela’s majority poor, and a growing and increasingly frustrated opposition that wants a fast vote to ease social tensions and embarrass Chavez into resigning.

Dissident Air Force Gen. Pedro Pereira said that 40 active officers had joined the protest, including 14 generals. Most, if not all, were involved in a brief April coup.

The military so far has stayed put.

Indonesia

Explosion at mall heightens terror fears

An explosive device blew up at a shopping mall and injured two people Thursday, worsening jitters in Indonesia, while the world moved to isolate a Southeast Asian terror group allied to al-Qaida that is suspected in the deadly Bali bombings.

Australia said 47 nations backed its campaign to get the U.N. Security Council to declare Jemaah Islamiyah a terrorist organization, and Britain banned the group and ordered its bank accounts frozen.

The U.S. State Department added Jemaah Islamiyah to its list of terrorist groups Wednesday, thus freezing its assets, making it a crime to contribute funds and barring members from traveling to the United States.

The actions showed the international community has put Jemaah Islamiyah in its sights since the Oct. 12 Bali bombing, which left more than 180 people dead and 300 injured, mostly foreign tourists.

There was no claim of responsibility for Thursday’s explosion at the shopping mall in Bandung, 125 miles southeast of Jakarta.

Belgium

EU negotiates deal on eastern expansion

The European Union edged close to a final deal Thursday on the entry of 10 new members after the leaders of France and Germany ended a dispute over farm spending that had threatened to delay the EU’s historic expansion into eastern Europe.

Just before the two-day summit opened, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder reached agreement to place a ceiling on farm spending in 2006, two years after the 10 mostly eastern European nations are scheduled to join the EU.

The deal allays German fears that the expansion would bust the EU’s bank once millions of farmers from Poland and the other nations enter the Union. It also set the EU summit on track to wrap up a deal on how to pay for the expansion and bring about the reunification of Europe after decades of Cold War division.

Yemen

Report: Attack similar to USS Cole bombing

The attack on a French oil tanker off Yemen earlier this month was similar to the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and might have been carried out by the same group, Yemen’s prime minister said Thursday.

The United States blames Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida for the suicide attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors on the Cole two years ago while the ship was refueling in the southern port of Aden.

Like the Cole, the tanker Limburg was attacked by a small explosives-laden boat off Yemen’s coast. The Oct. 6 attack killed one Bulgarian crew member.

“There is no doubt that the act was terrorism and people or groups involved in terrorism were behind it,” Prime Minister Abdul-Kader Bajammal said.

Yemen has not set a date for the trial of at least six people arrested in the Cole investigation, and hasn’t directly linked the attack to al-Qaida.

An intelligence official in Washington has said U.S. experts believed the Limburg attack was carried out by operatives with links to al-Qaida.

Mexico

Hurricane Kenna likely to hit Mexican coast

Hurricane Kenna grew Thursday into one of the strongest storms to menace Mexico’s Pacific coast in decades, with forecasters urging emergency action to protect an area that includes major tourist resorts.

The Category 5 hurricane with winds of 160 mph was veering away from a Baja California summit of world leaders. A hurricane watch was posted for a 200-mile area between Cabo Corrientes and the tourist center of Mazatlan, and a tropical storm watch extended another 125 miles southeast from Cabo Corrientes to Manzanillo.

By midday Thursday, Kenna was centered about 270 miles southwest of Cabo Corrientes, the tip of land that juts into the Pacific south of the tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta.

Kenna, which had been moving to the northwest, was headed to the north at 10 mph, but forecasters said it was expected to veer to the northeast and crash into the coast.

The Hurricane Center forecast said some weakening was expected by tonight.