Beijing

China greets newborn as 1.3 billionth citizen

Greeted by national television coverage of his first bath, a boy born Thursday was declared China’s 1.3 billionth citizen to promote the government’s “one child” birth limits.

The 8-pound infant was presented with a certificate of his status after his birth at 12:02 a.m. at Beijing Maternity Hospital.

The Xinhua news agency didn’t say whether the parents had picked a name for the baby, who became the star of a campaign touting what the communist government says are the successes of its decades-old policy limiting most urban couples to one child.

“The family planning policy of the past 30 years has effectively controlled the over-rapid increase of China’s population,” the official China Daily newspaper said.

Pictured above are parents visiting Tiananmen Square with their son Thursday.

Australia

Guantanamo detainee alleges torture in Egypt

An Australian terror suspect detained in Pakistan after the 9-11 attacks alleges he was transferred by U.S. authorities to Egypt, where he says he was tortured with beatings, electric shocks and nearly drowned while being interrogated.

Mamdouh Habib, who is being held prisoner by the United States in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, made the allegations of mistreatment in court papers filed by his lawyers, who are seeking to prevent the U.S. government from sending him back to Egypt.

Habib, a 48-year-old Egyptian-born father of four from Sydney, was arrested near the Afghanistan border three weeks after the 9-11 attacks on the United States. His attorneys alleged that the United States had asked Pakistan to send Habib to Egypt, knowing he was likely to be tortured.

The affidavit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in November and made public Wednesday.

Ukraine

Supreme Court rejects election appeal

Ukraine’s Supreme Court on Thursday rejected losing presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych’s appeal of last month’s repeat election, bringing the former Soviet republic a step closer to resolving its political crisis.

Yanukovych has not exhausted all of his options, however. His campaign has said that his main appeal would be filed with the court only after the Central Election Commission announces the final results of the Dec. 26 vote. Preliminary results of the balloting showed opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko winning by a decisive margin.

The three-judge panel unanimously threw out what Yanukovych’s team had called an “intermediate” appeal, which alleged mass fraud and had asked the court to invalidate voting in all of Ukraine’s 225 electoral districts. The panel said the appeal had no basis.

South Africa

Mandela announces son died of AIDS

Former President Nelson Mandela announced Thursday that his eldest son died of AIDS-related complications, saying the only way to fight the disease’s stigma was to speak openly about it.

Makgatho Mandela, who had been the former president’s only surviving son, was admitted to Linksfield Park Clinic last month. He died Thursday at age 54.

“Let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS and not hide it, because the only way of making it appear to be a normal illness, just like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died because of HIV,” Mandela said at a news conference at his residence.

Mandela said he had been unaware of his son’s illness when he began lobbying for more openness about the pandemic some three years ago.

“I hope that as time goes on, we realize that it is important for us to talk openly about people who die of AIDS,” Mandela said.

West Bank

Abbas suggests peace talks with Israel

Front-running candidate Mahmoud Abbas called Thursday for peace talks with Israel after this weekend’s Palestinian presidential election, a sharp contrast to days of hard-line campaign pronouncements that included his labeling Israel the “Zionist enemy.”

Abbas changed his tone in an unlikely place — the West Bank city of Nablus, a stronghold of militant groups and semiautonomous armed gangs that rule refugee camps and neighborhoods, and carry out bloody attacks on Israelis.

At a news conference, Abbas said that after Sunday’s election he would welcome peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, vilified by many Palestinians because of harsh Israeli measures during the current conflict.

“After the elections, we will start negotiations,” Abbas said. “Ariel Sharon is an elected leader, and we will negotiate with him.”