Israelis formally end Sharon’s tenure
The Israeli Cabinet on Tuesday formally ended the five-year tenure of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been comatose since suffering a stroke in January, designating acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as his successor.
The appointment will go into effect at midnight Friday, 100 days after Sharon’s stroke, when the 78-year-old leader will be categorized as permanently incapacitated under Israeli law.
Olmert will serve as acting prime minister until he forms a new government, following the victory of his centrist Kadima party in the March 28 election.
Darmstadt, Germany
European craft enters Venus orbit
A European spacecraft moved into orbit around Venus on Tuesday, successfully completing a critical stage of a mission to explore the hostile climate and atmosphere of Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor.
Officials at the European Space Agency’s control center in Darmstadt cheered, clapped and embraced as a green line indicating a clear signal from the Venus Express appeared on their screens, a sign it had completed the maneuver inserting it into orbit.
A short while later, scientists received the first data from the probe and praised the technical phase of the Venus mission – ESA’s fourth to a celestial body – as a success.
Over the next several weeks, scientists will turn on the seven instruments on the probe and run them through tests. By June, they are expected to begin gathering information on how Venus, while similar to Earth in size and geological makeup, wound up with such a hot, dense atmosphere swathed in clouds of sulfuric acid.
Ramallah, West Bank
Hamas plans rallies for promised funds
Fed up with unmet promises of aid for the cash-starved Palestinian Authority, Hamas is organizing protests across the Arab and Islamic world to pressure governments to send money, a Hamas leader said Tuesday.
Hamas’ refusal to renounce its violent, anti-Israel ideology after its victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January has led Israel, the United States and the European Union to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars from a government they view as terrorist.
Hamas initially boasted that it would make up the shortfall by appealing to the Arab and Muslim world. But Arab states have so far failed to back up their rhetorical solidarity with the Palestinians with money, so Hamas is now pinning its hopes on grass-roots support.
Lima, Peru
Garcia holds edge for runoff election
Former President Alan Garcia, whose 1985-1990 tenure was marked by economic disarray and a bloody insurgency, held a narrow lead Tuesday over a rival in the race to face Ollanta Humala in a presidential runoff vote.
Humala, a fierce nationalist who has courted Peru’s poor majority with pledges to redistribute the country’s wealth, was assured a spot in the second round of voting with 31 percent support, based on 85 percent of votes counted from Sunday’s election.
But the race for second place, and the final spot in the runoff, was tight between Garcia with 24.7 percent and pro-business former Congresswoman Lourdes Flores with 23.6 percent. Other candidates received the remaining votes.
Since no one candidate received at least 50 percent of the vote, a second round election between the top two vote-getters will be held in late May or early June.
National elections director Magdalena Chu said her office would complete vote-counting on Friday but that final official results might not be known for another two weeks after that.