Paraguay

Britain to hand over security in south Iraq by mid-December BAGHDAD -- Britain's defense secretary, Des Browne, said yesterday that his government intends to hand over security for southern Iraq by mid-December. While he acknowledged that sectarian power struggles and gangsterism continue in oil-rich Basra province, Browne said he has seen evidence that Iraqi security forces are improving in their response to the infighting and violence. Also yesterday, Iraq's foreign minister said the country was holding indirect talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, that soon would lead to the release of several Turkish soldiers captured in recent border clashes with Iraq's northern neighbor.

IT IS a poor little country far away, but the political convulsions in Paraguay are bad news for the hemisphere. Sympathetic help is needed from Paraguay's neighbors -- Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay -- to nurture the fragile democracy and prevent its failure from undermining theirs.The four countries are linked in a customs union -- Mercosur -- that has jump-started their economies. South America has made a wonderful transition from military dictatorship to democracy in recent decades. Paraguay, a land-locked country of some 5 million people kept backward by the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, didn't get the hang of the new system.

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- After a roller-coaster campaign in which Paraguayans sometimes wondered if elections would be held at all, voters cast their ballots peacefully yesterday.Yet polls closed amid the same confusion that had characterized the campaign, with one presidential candidate -- Domingo Laino, a longtime human rights activist -- claiming victory on national television, even as media exit polls gave a lead to his rival, Raul Cubas Grau, a wealthy engineer from the long-ruling Colorado Party.

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Fearing that a general who tried to seize power two years ago could win the presidential election in May, the governing party is maneuvering to bar his candidacy, plunging this country into the worst political crisis of its fledgling democracy.What is at stake in Paraguay -- home of one of Latin America's longest-running military dictatorships, until 1989 -- is the country's first peaceful transition from one civilian government to another.The Colorado Party, which has run Paraguay uninterrupted for the past half-century, has been trying to block the election of Lino Oviedo, a retired general, since his unexpected victory in the party's primary in September.

WHEN Virginians who are backpacking, touring, vacationing, studying or doing business in exotic lands get into trouble with local authorities, they expect to contact the nearest U.S. consulate to look after their rights.Even in the worst of countries, it is usually done. There is a certain desire not to mess with Uncle Sam -- and a principle of international relations called reciprocity.One side does what the other does; everyone feels better protected.So Virginians planning to go farther than New Jersey this summer might take pause from the action of Gov. James S. Gilmore III in spurning requests from the World Court and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright to delay the execution of Angel Francisco Breard.

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Shouting, singing and waving bright-red banners, stalwarts of the long-ruling Colorado Party celebrated what appeared to be the sweeping victory of Raul Cubas Grau, hailed yesterday as Paraguay's "virtual president- elect."Democratic Alliance candidate Domingo Laino, defeated in his third bid to be president, had claimed victory Sunday evening, but a spokesman said yesterday that Laino would concede when the official vote count was announced, probably by today.Three exit polls and partial results yesterday indicated an unexpectedly large win for the Colorados, in power for 51 years.

NUEVA GERMANIA, Paraguay -- It was meant to be an Aryan Utopia in South America, half a century before the Nazis dreamed of propagating a "master race."But the mosquito-ridden jungle proved hardier than the German colonizers. Their dream of a "purification and rebirth of the human race" in this wilderness unspoiled by Jews or Old World decadence collapsed in disease, heat and inbreeding.Today, barely three generations after settlers arrived in 1886, their "New Germany" looks much like any other unpaved, ill-lighted town lost in the Paraguayan backlands -- except for the preponderance of blue eyes, blond hair and families named Fischer, Kuck and Stern.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration moved yesterday to defuse a diplomatic crisis with Paraguay -- and to avoid offending the World Court -- over the fate of a Paraguayan who faces execution tonight for a murder in Virginia.In a lengthy plea to the Supreme Court, the administration sought to keep the dispute out of the court to allow the death sentence of Angel Francisco Breard to proceed, but in a separate personal appeal, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright asked Virginia's governor to delay the execution, citing the safety of Americans abroad.

WE'VE all heard the cliche about some "criminal being released on a legal technicality." On April 14, the U.S. Supreme Court -- on a legal technicality -- allowed an execution to go forward and ignored the World Court's request for a stay.Hours later, Angel Francisco Breard, a Paraguayan citizen, was executed by lethal injection in Virginia.By the terms of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, an "arresting government" must notify a foreign national of the right to talk with their consulate or embassy.

Gen. Andres Rodriguez,73, who ousted Paraguay's dictator in a 1989 coup and steered the country back to democracy, died of cancer Monday in Asuncion, Paraguay.He was dictator Alfredo Stroessner's right-hand man and commander of Paraguay's 3,000-man 1st Army Corps for almost three decades. He rebelled in 1989 and as many as 500 soldiers were killed. He went on to win the presidency in an election three months later and held office until 1993.Mr. Stroessner was sent into exile in Brazil, where he still lives at age 84.Diosdado P. Macapagal,86, the president who introduced the Philippines' first tentative land reform law, died of a heart attack Monday in Manila.

Ana Maria R. Codas, author, activist and former Spanish professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, died Tuesday of complications from pneumonia. She was 86. Born Ana Maria Recalde, in Asuncion, Paraguay, she was an only child raised by her mother after her father died when she was 7 months old. Those difficult early days helped shape her lifelong commitment to people of modest means and a belief in the power of education, said her husband, Enrique Codas. After attending the National University in Paraguay, one of her first jobs was as a teacher and principal in a small school in Villarrica, Paraguay, made out of adobe and wood.

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- A former Roman Catholic Church bishop won a historic victory yesterday in this impoverished country's presidential election, ending the 61-year reign of the world's longest ruling party. With 83 percent of polling stations reporting, Fernando Lugo received 40.7 percent of 1.57 million ballots cast. Running a distant second was former Education Minister Blanca Ovelar, the candidate of the long-ruling Colorado Party, who got 30.8 percent. Former general and ex-Colorado Lino Oviedo garnered 22 percent.

Britain to hand over security in south Iraq by mid-December BAGHDAD -- Britain's defense secretary, Des Browne, said yesterday that his government intends to hand over security for southern Iraq by mid-December. While he acknowledged that sectarian power struggles and gangsterism continue in oil-rich Basra province, Browne said he has seen evidence that Iraqi security forces are improving in their response to the infighting and violence. Also yesterday, Iraq's foreign minister said the country was holding indirect talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, that soon would lead to the release of several Turkish soldiers captured in recent border clashes with Iraq's northern neighbor.

In one of the first cases of its kind, federal prosecutors are seeking the extradition of a foreign national suspected of producing and distributing hundreds of lewd pictures of young girls across the Internet. An outcry arose against him in his home country of Paraguay. Milton Xiscatti-Michel is charged in U.S. District Court in Baltimore with 31 counts of shipping child pornography to the United States by computer. He is accused of having taken the pictures of children ages 6 to 11 after he told their parents he was a scout for a worldwide modeling company.

IT IS a poor little country far away, but the political convulsions in Paraguay are bad news for the hemisphere. Sympathetic help is needed from Paraguay's neighbors -- Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay -- to nurture the fragile democracy and prevent its failure from undermining theirs.The four countries are linked in a customs union -- Mercosur -- that has jump-started their economies. South America has made a wonderful transition from military dictatorship to democracy in recent decades. Paraguay, a land-locked country of some 5 million people kept backward by the 35-year dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, didn't get the hang of the new system.

NUEVA GERMANIA, Paraguay -- It was meant to be an Aryan Utopia in South America, half a century before the Nazis dreamed of propagating a "master race."But the mosquito-ridden jungle proved hardier than the German colonizers. Their dream of a "purification and rebirth of the human race" in this wilderness unspoiled by Jews or Old World decadence collapsed in disease, heat and inbreeding.Today, barely three generations after settlers arrived in 1886, their "New Germany" looks much like any other unpaved, ill-lighted town lost in the Paraguayan backlands -- except for the preponderance of blue eyes, blond hair and families named Fischer, Kuck and Stern.

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Shouting, singing and waving bright-red banners, stalwarts of the long-ruling Colorado Party celebrated what appeared to be the sweeping victory of Raul Cubas Grau, hailed yesterday as Paraguay's "virtual president- elect."Democratic Alliance candidate Domingo Laino, defeated in his third bid to be president, had claimed victory Sunday evening, but a spokesman said yesterday that Laino would concede when the official vote count was announced, probably by today.Three exit polls and partial results yesterday indicated an unexpectedly large win for the Colorados, in power for 51 years.

ASUNCION, Paraguay -- After a roller-coaster campaign in which Paraguayans sometimes wondered if elections would be held at all, voters cast their ballots peacefully yesterday.Yet polls closed amid the same confusion that had characterized the campaign, with one presidential candidate -- Domingo Laino, a longtime human rights activist -- claiming victory on national television, even as media exit polls gave a lead to his rival, Raul Cubas Grau, a wealthy engineer from the long-ruling Colorado Party.

WE'VE all heard the cliche about some "criminal being released on a legal technicality." On April 14, the U.S. Supreme Court -- on a legal technicality -- allowed an execution to go forward and ignored the World Court's request for a stay.Hours later, Angel Francisco Breard, a Paraguayan citizen, was executed by lethal injection in Virginia.By the terms of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, an "arresting government" must notify a foreign national of the right to talk with their consulate or embassy.

WHEN Virginians who are backpacking, touring, vacationing, studying or doing business in exotic lands get into trouble with local authorities, they expect to contact the nearest U.S. consulate to look after their rights.Even in the worst of countries, it is usually done. There is a certain desire not to mess with Uncle Sam -- and a principle of international relations called reciprocity.One side does what the other does; everyone feels better protected.So Virginians planning to go farther than New Jersey this summer might take pause from the action of Gov. James S. Gilmore III in spurning requests from the World Court and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright to delay the execution of Angel Francisco Breard.