Mexico

Former ruling party claims election wins

The party that long ruled Mexico claimed two important electoral victories Monday that would keep the Oaxaca state governorship and take back the northern metropolis of Tijuana that President Vicente Fox’s party has held for 15 years.

If the apparent victories survive opposition legal challenges, they would boost the presidential ambitions of Roberto Madrazo, leader of the Institutional Party, or PRI, ahead of the 2006 race.

The PRI held Mexico’s presidency for 71 years before losing it to Fox in 2000.

By dawn, official figures showed the PRI’s Ulises Ruiz with a lead of 47.2 percent to 44.7 percent over opposition candidate Gabino Cue with almost 90 percent of votes counted in Oaxaca.

Along the U.S. border, flamboyant gambling baron Jorge Hank Rhon of the PRI held an even narrower lead Monday morning in Tijuana. With 89 percent of the vote counted, he led 47.5 percent to 46.4 percent over Jorge Ramos of National Action.

Rome

U.N. food agency begins Darfur airdrops

The United Nations began airdrops of food into Sudan’s conflict-ridden Darfur region, a U.N. agency said Monday, the same day Egypt said it was airlifting medicines and other necessities.

The Rome-based U.N. World Food Program said it had dropped 22 tons of food supplies Sunday to the farming town of Fur Buranga in western Darfur using an Antonov-12 plane.

The agency plans to deliver a total of some 1,400 tons of food in a first round of airdrops to help more than 70,000 people displaced by the 17-month conflict. The agency has said it anticipates the air-supply effort in Darfur will exceed the Berlin airlift of the late 1940s.

Meanwhile, Egypt began airlifting food, medicine and other basics to Darfur.

Tokyo

Bobby Fischer appeals extradition attempts

Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, who was taken into custody by Japanese authorities two weeks ago for traveling with a revoked U.S. passport, has appealed a deportation order to the United States, an adviser said Monday.

The American chess player, wanted by U.S. authorities for playing a 1992 match in the former Yugoslavia in violation of international sanctions, was granted a three-day extension Friday to contest Japan’s decision last week to deport him.

Fischer’s lawyer filed the appeal with immigration authorities at Narita international airport, where Fischer is being held, said John Bosnitch, a Tokyo-based communications consultant advising Fischer.

The deadline for the appeal — addressed to Japan’s justice minister — was midnight Monday, and a decision typically takes two to three weeks, Bosnitch told The Associated Press.