MONDAY, MARCH 27, 2006
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Sergei Chuzavkov/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Members of election commission empty a ballot box at a polling station in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday. The Central Election Commission said the count came from precincts abroad and put Our Ukraine ahead with 36.6 percent, followed by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc with 22.72 percent and pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych's party with 14.2 percent.
Ukrainian vote rocks country
BY MARA D. BELLABY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KIEV, Ukraine — A pro-Russia party won the largest chunk of votes in Ukraine's parliamentary elections Sunday, nationwide exit polls indicated, dealing a stinging rebuke to President Viktor Yushchenko's West-leaning administration.
Polling stations shut after 15 hours, but voters who had waited in long lines and managed to get inside before the official closing time were allowed to cast ballots, choosing from more than 45 parties that sought seats in the 450-member parliament.
Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-
moscow opposition leader who lost to Yushchenko in the 2004 presidential election forced by the Orange Revolution street protests, declared his party the winner on Sunday.
"The Party of the Regions has won a convincing victory," Yanukovych said after three exit polls put his party in a comfortable first place. "We are ready to undertake responsibility for forming the Cabinet and we are calling on everyone to join us."
The polls gave Yanukovych's party anywhere from 27.5 percent to 33 percent, followed by Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc with about 23 percent, and Yushchenko's Our Ukraine
bloc with between 14. percent and 16 percent.
Yushchenko's job was not at stake, but the vote was the first since constitutional reforms trimmed presidential powers and gave broader authority to parliament, including the right to name the prime minister and much of the Cabinet.
There were also indications Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, the flamboyant heroine of the Orange Revolution's protests, might be willing to try to patch over their differences so they could form a governing coalition.
Yushchenko also seemed to hint he might even consider
working with Yanukovych.
The president's party has suffered from disillusionment over a sharp economic slowdown and the infighting among former Orange revolution allies. But Yushchenko insisted voting ended that no matter how his party did, the election was still a victory because it was the most democratic election ever held in Ukraine.
"I feel great. It's the kind of feeling you have before a victory," said Yushchenko, who wore an orange tie and stood beside his Chicago-born wife, Kathy, as he voted at Kiev's Independence Square. "Demonocratic elections always mean victory."
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 5A WORLD
EU imposes ban on many African airlines
BY EDWARD HARRIS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DAKAR, Senegal — The pilot pressed a flask-sized bottle of vodka to his lips and swallowed deeply before piloting his geriatric aircraft down a jungle runway in eastern Congo.
ports, EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot labeled many of the planes "flying coffins."
The Antonov flying valuable tin ore and two passengers out of the war-battered region made the trip safely that day. But many others don't. The European Union banned 92 airlines Wednesday from its airspace, citing safety concerns. Most of the airlines are from Africa, where planes are six times likelier to crash than elsewhere and travelers swap tales of crises averted.
In announcing the ban on virtually all aircraft overseen by civil aviation authorities in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, Swaziland and Congo from landing at European air-
Wednesday's ban and earlier
aviation industry; poverty, conflict and poor governance. With little oversight, safety audits go undone and small problems are left unattended.
In Nigeria late last year, two planes flying domestic routes crashed within seven weeks of each other killing 224 people, including dozens of schoolchildren heading home for Christmas holidays. The causes of those crashes have not been determined, but Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has referred to an intelligence report detailing safety problems involving Nigerian airlines, including planes experiencing landing gear trouble.
In December, Obasanjo blamed corruption for some of the troubles in his country's aviation industry and called in international experts for a safety review.
"We've gone far in one way, but not the other."
A continent-wide trend of economic liberalization may be fu
Princeton Lyman
Former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria
similar orders rankle many Africans. They point out that most of the banned airlines — like Thom's Airways from Congo — no longer operate and never fly to Europe anyway, while Africans have little choice but to use them to hop around the world's poorest continent.
The troubles in African nations are the same stymieing its
The deputy director of the civil aviation in Sierra Leone, which had 13 airlines banned, said his country had not had a safety audit by the main aviation-industry oversight group since the end of the country's brutal 1989-2002 civil war.
eling faster than average passenger growth as former state-owned airlines go private amid new competition — even as poor governments fail to adapt and oversee the growth.
Even many of Africa's larger airlines fly secondhand aircraft purchased from overseas.
"You've got the general problem of poverty and lack of government capacity. In Africa, everyone is encouraged to privatize, but there is a very important role of the state strengthening oversight and regulatory mechanisms as you open up the economy," says Princeton Lyman, a former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, currently a Council on Foreign Affairs fellow. "We've gone far in one way, but not the other."
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