Decisions were expected later with a crucial December 12 deadline looming, and with the Florida Republican-dominated legislature threatening to step in if the cut-off date is not met.

Lawyers for Vice-President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush were grilled yesterday by Florida Supreme Court justices as they heard the Democratic candidate’s appeal against the rejection of his electoral contest.

At the same time but in different cases, the Bush legal team made final arguments in a challenge by Democratic voters who wants thousands of absentee ballots thrown out, a move that would more than reverse the Texas Governor’s 537-vote lead in the south-eastern state.

Neither side has ruled out further appeals in the Florida cases, any one of which could determine who gets the votes needed to reach the White House.

Gore’s attempt to rescue his presidential bid came under close scrutiny by the state Supreme Court justices, who questioned the validity of his electoral contest and said there was no time for the vote recount he seeks.

The Justices, chastened after a prior ruling was sent back to them by the US Supreme Court, sought from the outset to determine whether they even had the authority to consider the appeal.

Chief Justice Charles Wells pointed out that the US Supreme Court recently questioned the authority of Florida’s highest court to try an electoral contest.

“My reading of that case is that the US Supreme Court has said the state legislature has plenary power, full power, in respect to appointment of presidential electors,” he said.

Bush attorney Barry Richard said that in light of the US Supreme Court ruling, the Florida court would have only limited ability to review the case.

But Gore attorney David Boies disagreed. “I don’t think the US constitution in any way means that the legislature has to sit both as a legislative body and a judicial body just because an election of presidential electors is involved,” he said.

He also said there would be time to conduct the recount of 12,000 disputed votes that the Democrats contend would show Gore clearly won.

A few hundred metres away, lawyers in Bush’s legal team battled lawyers for Democratic voters who want the court to throw out 25,000 absentee votes from the strongly Republican Seminole and Martin counties.

The plaintiffs claim Republicans illegally filled out missing voter registration numbers on applications for absentee ballots.

Meanwhile, a circuit court county judge said he would issue a verdict within 24 hours in one of the two lawsuits seeking to invalidate thousands of absentee ballots that could hand the presidency to Democrat Al Gore.

After hearing closing arguments in a case involving ballots in Martin County, Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis said he expected to get a written decision tomorrow.

Closing arguments in a similar case involving Seminole County were expected to begin shortly after (11.30 pm IST) today and Judge Nikki Clark is expected to follow Lewis’ lead in delivering a verdict swiftly thereafter.

But the plaintiffs argued that the nullification of at least some votes in Martin County was justified. “This was an unlawful vote, an illegal vote and one that needs to be corrected by the court,” lead lawyer Edward Staffman said.

In both Martin and Seminole counties, Democratic activists alleging that Republicans illegally tampered with ballot applications with the collusion of local officials, requiring the invalidation of the votes, the vast majority of which were for Bush.

Lawyers for a group of Florida voters who supported Gore asked a federal judge to throw out overseas absentee ballots that arrived after the November 7 presidential election.

US District Judge Maurice Paul did not immediately rule and gave no indication when he would.

Thousands of absentee ballots were cast in the presidential election by Floridians living overseas, including many sent by military personnel, who have tended to favor Bush over Gore.

Some 2,100 were included in the certified total that gave Bush a 537-vote lead in Florida. Another 1,500 overseas ballots were rejected for various reasons, some because they came in too late.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys said the election day, (November 7) was the deadline for absentee ballots to be received under both state law and the US Constitution. But attorneys for the Bush campaign said the late votes should be allowed under a 1984 consent decree between the state and the federal government that gave overseas voters an additional 10 days — until November 17— to enable their ballots to reach election supervisors.

Attorney Ken Sukhia, an attorney for the Bush campaign, said the federal agreement superseded state law.

WASHINGTON: Lawyers for Al Gore today said they would advise him to withdraw from the litigation if he loses all three cases in Florida court, CBS Radio said. They however, said if he wins any of these, he had a fighting chance of becoming President.

“If the Florida legislature attempts to trump him despite a win in any of the three cases which would give him more votes than Governor George W. Bush, Gore will take up the matter to the US Supreme Court,” they told the radio.

The State Duma lower House pushed through the legislation at the request of President Vladimir Putin in less than three hours, with the most controversial proposal, the anthem, securing 381 votes to 51 against.

Voting against were liberal deputies, who called for a new anthem to break with the excesses of the Stalinist past.

Measures to approve the red, white and blue tricolour and the double-headed eagle coat of arms both secured just over 340 votes in the 450-seat chamber.

The legislation will provide Russia, nine years after it emerged from decades of Communist rule, with an official coat of arms, flag and anthem for the first time.

The rousing 1943 anthem, an “Unbreakable Union”, will replace an arcane 19th-century tune for which no words had been written. That tune, along with the coat of arms and flag, were only temporary stand-ins approved be decree of former President Boris Yeltsin.

Communists had been delighted with Putin’s backing for the “Unbreakable Union” written by Alexander Alexandrov and approved by Stalin while most of European Russia was under Nazi occupation.

Putin, keen to boost Russia’s nationhood, had asked the Duma to resolve the issue quickly and back the old Soviet anthem along with the imperial emblem and the tricolour.

Liberal groups in Parliament, led by the Yabloko Party, immediately said they would challenge the legislation in the Constitutional Court.

Meanwhile, a presidential commission today urged Russian leader Vladimir Putin to pardon convicted US spy Edmond Pope and save him from 20 years in a hard labour camp.

The head of the commission, Anatoly Pristavkin, told reporters that members had recommended that Mr Putin pardon Edmond, though it was unclear when the President would make his decision.

The USA had expressed anger at the court’s sentence, pronounced on Wednesday, but Mr Putin had hinted before the verdict that he might take Edmond’s health into account if asked to decide his fate.

Edmond, convicted of stealing secrets about a Russian high-speed torpedo, is in remission from a rare form of bone cancer. His family and supporters had feared for his life if he was jailed although Russian doctors said he was fit for trial.

Jennifer Bennett, a spokeswoman for US Congressman John Peterson, who has been following the case, said before the commission hearing that Edmond’s wife Cheri was confident.

Two suspects of the October 12 attack on the us navy destroyer, in which 17 persons had died and 39 were injured, had been in contact with members of the east African organisation of bin Laden, according to the television report yesterday.

Jamal al-Badawi, one of the suspects in the attack perpetrated against the ship while it was refuelling in the southern Yemeni port of Aden, allegedly admitted that he was trained at bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan.

Badawi is also said to have fought with the lad en's forces in Bosnia.

Meanwhile, another suspect in the USS Cole attack, Fhad al-Quoso, is said to have informed investigators that he received more than $ 5,000 from a Laden accomplice to finance the bombing.

Quoso was supposed to have made a videotape of the attack for propaganda purposes, according to ABC, but missed his opportunity.

“It looked like the prosecution was not fully prepared for their case. In the testimonies, it appeared that they did not have any coordination,” presidential Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora said in a radio interview.

Zamora was commenting on the opening day of the trial in the Senate yesterday when the prosecution panel, made up of 11 Congressmen, cross-examined former national police chief Roberto Lastimoso.

During the questioning, prosecution witness Mr Lastimoso backed off from his earlier statements that Estrada had told him to go easy on illegal gambling operators, saying that he only made that assumption.

Zamora said Estrada, who watched the proceedings live on television, was “very satisfied with his lawyers” adding that in the coming days the public would see that the defence was really prepared for the case.

He also ridiculed the prosecution’s presentation of a cheque that was allegedly from a hidden bank account of the President, saying that “the proper question to ask is whether that cheque is really relevant to the case (as) defined by the articles of impeachment.”

Meanwhile Philippines prosecutors today vowed to get their acts together after appearing unprepared and uncoordinated during the start of Estrada’s impeachment trial over bribery and corruption charges.

Congressman Antonio Nachura, one of the 11 prosecutors, admitted that the panel suffered from “opening-day jitters” on yesterday.

Zamora said “We are confident that in the next days, the public will see that the team is prepared,” he said. “They have been preparing for the trial and they were very careful in their presentation.”

The move is aimed at embarrassing errant husbands who usually leave their foreign-born wives in the lurch when they want to remarry.

Under malaysia’s strict immigration laws, all foreign women who marry malaysians must be sponsored every year by their husbands, who pay a bond to guarantee their stay until the women obtain citizenship or permanent residence status.

Foreign wives in malaysia have complained that immigration authorities take years to grant them citizenship, even though they have lived in the country for decades and have children.

Mr Michael Chong, who heads the public service and complaints bureau of the Malaysian Chinese association, which is malaysia’s biggest ethnic Chinese political party, said the husbands needed to be taught a lesson for neglecting their wives and children.

‘‘When the husbands want to remarry, they stop sponsoring theirforeign wives, resulting in the non-extension of the latter’s visa,’’ he said.