World Highlights

¤ The President of Zanzibar won re-election yesterday after a violence-plagued poll, but the opposition alleged fraud and promised protests in a growing political crisis on Tanzania's volatile tourist islands. Security forces clashed with opposition supporters throughout the day and aid workers said one person was shot dead during disturbances on the island of Pemba. Police and journalists there could not confirm a report by the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) that as many as five of its members were killed on Pemba, a CUF bastion.

¤ Hundreds of demonstrators blocked a railway connecting the northern Italian town of Turin to the French city of Lyon for a second day yesterday in protest against a planned high-speed rail link. The protests, focused on the environmental impact of the new service, snarled trains throughout the Alpine region, a spokesman for rail company Rete Ferroviaria Italiana said. Demonstrators also barricaded a main road near Turin, which will host the 2006 Winter Olympics.

¤ Dutch police arrested two men after passengers on an international train spotted them with a suspect package yesterday and they locked themselves in a toilet, police and Dutch railways said. Dutch NOS television showed footage of two blind-folded men dressed in what appeared to be traditional Muslim robes being led away by police from the Frankfurt to Amsterdam train. After the alert was raised, the engineer stopped the train a short way from Amsterdam's central station and passengers were evacuated, a railways spokesman said.

¤ Iraqi election officials defied a new upsurge of violence and held a televised lottery to determine the order in which more than 200 parties will appear on ballot papers in December 15 elections. In the run-up to the elections to choose the first full four-year parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein, parties were hoping for a low number in the ballot, which would put their name near the top of the list, or something distinctive that would catch the attention of voters.

¤ US terrorism experts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon have reached a stark conclusion about the war on terrorism: the United States is losing. Despite an early victory over the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the two former Clinton administration officials say President George W. Bush's policies have created a new haven for terrorism in Iraq that escalates the potential for Islamic violence against Europe and the United States.

¤ US President George W. Bush's visit to Brazil this weekend will give a glimpse of the complicated relationship between two giant nations of the American continent who cannot seem to decide if they want to be friends or competitors. Although much banter and bear-hugging can be expected at a barbecue thrown by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, several nagging issues surround them, from free trade to how to deal with leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

¤ Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin rejected a call from opposition parties to give them a chance to defeat his minority government before November 14. "We are here to govern," he told a news conference, saying the government had already decided when the opposition would get a chance to present motions of confidence.

¤ Pakistan appealed for antibiotics and painkillers yesterday as it raised the toll from last month's devastating earthquake to 57,597 killed and nearly 79,000 injured. The updated figures from Pakistan Federal Relief Commission brought the total official toll from the disaster to nearly 59,000 - including 1,309 confirmed deaths and 6,622 injuries on the Indian side of the devastated Kashmir region.