World digest 04/02/05

Zimbabwe's ruling party secures majority

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- President Robert Mugabe's political party clinched a parliamentary majority Friday, but the opposition said the vote was stolen and urged Zimbabweans to protest the outcome. Mugabe, one of Africa's longest-serving leaders, had hoped Thursday's poll would give a stamp of legitimacy to his increasingly isolated and autocratic regime. But Western diplomats and independent rights groups said it was skewed by Mugabe's long history of violence. Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front won 69 of Parliament's 120 elected seats, according to partial results announced Friday.

Explosion at Lebanese resort injures seven

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- A bomb damaged a shopping center in a Christian area northeast of Beirut Friday, the fourth attack against an anti-Syrian target in two weeks. The blast lightly injured seven people, police said. The explosion was in the resort town of Broummana, 10 miles northeast of the Lebanese capital.

13 arrested in Madrid bombing investigation

MADRID, Spain -- Spanish police arrested 13 people Friday in connection with the train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid last year, and the suspected al-Qaida leader who allegedly inspired the attacks was extradited from Belgium. Youssef Belhadj, a 28-year-old Moroccan who was arrested in Belgium shortly after the bombings, was jailed in Spain on 191 counts of murder, a court official said. The Interior Ministry said six Moroccans, four Syrians, one Egyptian, one Palestinian and one Algerian were arrested in raids in and around Madrid.

Clerics encourage Iraqis to join security forces

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Influential Sunni Muslim clerics who once condemned Iraqi security force members as traitors made a surprise turnaround Friday and encouraged citizens to join the nascent police and army. Still, it wasn't a full-fledged endorsement. The edict, endorsed by a group of 64 Sunni clerics and scholars, instructed enlistees to refrain from helping foreign troops against their own countrymen.

Cholera epidemic threatens Congo region

KINSHASA, Congo -- A cholera epidemic has killed at least four and infected dozens in a camp for displaced people in northeastern Congo, and it threatens to spread across the entire region, U.N. officials said Friday. Doctors from the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, were in the camp in Kafe trying to quell the epidemic.

Quake aid effort shifts from rescue to relief

GUNUNG SITOLI, Indonesia -- The focus of international aid on earthquake-devastated Nias Island shifted Friday from rescue to relief, with one U.N. official saying it was unlikely any more survivors would be found. A total of 455 people were confirmed dead from Monday night's 8.7-magnitude earthquake in Sumatra, said local police. International aid agencies have taken the lead in relief and recovery efforts on a string of islands off Sumatra, diverting supplies stockpiled to assist victims of the December earthquake and tsunami.