Taiwan

Court seals ballot boxes; election protests turn violent

Taiwan’s High Court ordered the sealing of all ballot boxes today, one day after President Chen Shui-bian claimed victory in a close race his opponent said was marred by spoiled ballots and a mysterious assassination attempt.

As violent protests erupted around the island, the High Court said it needed to preserve evidence, although no recount was immediately ordered, as challenger Lien Chan demanded. There were 13,000 polling booths around the island.

The court order came after Lien, a former vice president, said more than 330,000 ballots from Saturday’s vote were spoiled and there were too many unanswered questions about the assassination attempt on the president and his running mate, Vice President Annette Lu.

The candidates were slightly wounded by gunfire while campaigning in southern Taiwan.

Chen won Saturday by 30,000 votes, although he lost a referendum on strengthening the island’s military.

Haiti

Prime minister visits cradle of rebellion, praises rebels

Sharing a platform with rebel leaders, Haiti’s interim leader Saturday praised the gunmen who began the uprising that chased Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power and even paid tribute to an assassinated gangster.

About 3,000 people cheered and clapped for Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who held his first rally in his hometown of Gonaives, where Haiti’s independence was declared 200 years ago and the starting point for its recent rebellion.

“I ask you for a moment of silence for all the people who fell fighting against the dictatorship, and especially for Amiot Metayer,” Latortue said as the crowd went wild. Metayer was the leader of the Cannibal Army street gang, and his death sparked the rebellion.

Rebel leaders who still run Haiti’s fourth-largest city sat on a platform alongside Latortue, Organization of American States representative David Lee, recently installed interim Cabinet ministers Bernard Gousse and retired Gen. Herard Abraham, and new Haitian police chief Leon Charles.

New York

Gay weddings continue with 25 new ceremonies

Six ministers of the Unitarian Universalist Church performed marriage ceremonies for 25 same-sex couples Saturday, defying prosecutors who view the practice as illegal.

The weddings, which the ministers consider to be legal unions, thus raising the ire of prosecutors, were held at a New Paltz bed and breakfast.

There were no arrests, and only one person showed up across the street from the inn to protest, said James Fallarino, a spokesman for the ceremony organizers.

The Revs. Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey were scheduled to be arraigned Monday on misdemeanor charges for allegedly solemnizing marriages of same-sex couples who have no civil marriage license.

Although Unitarian ministers have performed gay marriage ceremonies across the country for years, Greenleaf and Sangrey departed from that tradition when they said they view the ceremonies as civil and legal.