Leader re-elected in landslide

Law-and-order President Alvaro Uribe was re-elected in a landslide Sunday in Colombia’s most peaceful elections in more than a decade, strengthening the U.S. ally’s mandate to crack down on armed groups and drug traffickers.

The Harvard-educated Uribe’s win marks the first time in more than a century that an incumbent Colombian leader has been elected to a second term and bucks a trend of leftist leaders taking office across South America in recent years.

With 96 percent of ballots counted, the conservative Uribe scored a stronger than expected 62 percent of the vote.

Sunday’s vote took place amid relative calm – underscoring one big reason Colombians backed Uribe: He is credited for bringing down crime rates and violence, and overseeing an economic surge.

JERUSALEM

Sharon moved to care facility

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma for nearly five months, was transferred Sunday to a long-term care facility, a sign his medical team does not believe he will awaken.

Sharon arrived late Sunday morning at Tel Aviv’s Sheba Medical Center, a facility more suited to providing him with extended care, said the facility’s director, Dr. Zeev Rotstein.

After several months of treatment, the doctors at Sheba plan to send Sharon home, whether his condition improves or not, Rotstein said.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand

Lake’s change baffles scientists

A lake atop a rumbling volcano on the South Pacific island of Ambae has changed color from blue to bright red, puzzling scientists.

Mount Manaro, one of four active volcanos on the island nation of Vanuatu, has been showing signs of erupting for only the second time in 122 years.

“We are still … trying to understand this change of color in the lake from blue to red,” Geology and Mines Department director Esline Garae said by telephone today from Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila.

She said two scientists on Ambae Island were monitoring Lake Vui as well as seismic activity on the 5,000-foot Mount Manaro.

If the change of color “comes from new activity in the ground or just chemical change in the lake – these are two things I want to know from those guys before I can say anything” about the danger posed by the volcano, she said.

Mount Manaro last erupted in November 2005, forcing half the island’s 10,000 inhabitants to evacuate their villages.